Ross Raymond Nunamaker

It was the week of 9/2/24 and I was released from the hospital on 9/4/24, a Wednesday. I was glad to be home. My mom and I first went to the grocery store so I could get food and drinks better suited to my new reality of low sodium, limited liquids, and getting my electrolytes balanced.

It didn’t take me long to realize there was a lot of sodium in lots of the foods I really liked.

My mom and my brother had been to the house while I was in the hospital and they dumped all the alcohol in my house. My mom was terrified that living alone I wouldn’t be able to stop drinking.

I told her multiple times it wouldn’t be an issue. I wasn’t addicted to it. I enjoyed it, but I enjoyed life more. To be honest she wasn’t alone. Every time I’d see my doctor he’d ask how my meetings were going and I’d remind him I didn’t have any, didn’t need any, and it wasn’t a problem.

After being discharged I met with a Kidney doctor, Gastroenterologist, and my Family Practitioner. For each visit I had blood work and a series of tests related to my conditions.

I was told it would take six months to see the effects of the change in diet, so my goal was to have the blood tests trending in the right direction.

I quit drinking and completely over-hauled my eating habits and diet.

The liquid limit and diet were my biggest challenge. I was eating foods that were lower in sodium, but I really didn’t know if I was within the 2000 range which was recommended. 

I ate packaged meals at first because I knew how much was in it. This kept my sodium down, but it also drastically cut calories.

I simply couldn’t eat much more than 1500 calories, and as a result I was losing weight.

I was tired all the time. I’d come home from work and lay down on the sofa, doze off for an hour or so, wake up, eat, and I was back to laying down.

Physically I was weak, my diet was meeting the requirements, better than it had been, but not what you’d consider good.

Six months became a basic window for me to work from. It was September so I had through February to make my changes.

Diet was first and foremost. I planned to monitor my step count and work my way up to 10,000 per day by the end of December. We started wrestling season in early November and I planned on helping the team again. This would get me in the room six days a week after school.

In early December the girls started lifting after school twice a week and when they did I rode the exercise bike. 

I bought a smart watch to be able to track everything I did. I ordered a set of dumbbells with the intent of starting in January. I wanted to layer in the exercise and slowly build up. 

It took longer than I thought. I never started lifting regularly until late March.

I had broad strokes of a plan in place, but not as well documented or defined as I ought to have had it.

By the holiday break I was feeling better physically. My sleep was getting better and I wasn’t as tired during the day. Things were improving gradually. I was being patient and seeing it begin to work.

Lesson learned

Being singularly focused on the top priority and recognizing change doesn’t always occur overnight was the biggest lesson of this period. 

I did need to do a better job. In reality this was the easy phase, because I couldn’t really get worse off than I was when I started unless I relapsed on the drinking.

Question for you

Have you had a situation where the timeline was long, but critical? Were you able to stay focused on it even if you didn’t see immediate results, or did you change course thinking it wasn’t working? How did it work out?

Preview

In my next post I’ll address formalizing and better defining my approach and plan to change my life. I’ll also write about what I learned from the early days to nearly eight months later.