November 2017 I was knocked on my ass. I was pretty certain that, although I was a big guy, I was still reasonably healthy… that would be wrong! Little did I know that I had a blood clot in my lung and, if I’d continued to live the way I had been living, I was not going to be around much longer. That’s a pretty sobering thought! I was surrounded by family, blood and chosen. To see the worry on all of those faces made me feel like shit. I was there, on my back, out of my head at one point because I had too much carbon dioxide in my blood… it was not good at all. Once I was released and back to a state of reasonable health, along with oxygen to sleep with and three prescriptions, I swore that, in 12 months, I would be free of those pills. 

Now, along with that was the specter of my weight. I had lost some in the hospital, but once I’d gotten out, I was back to my old ways. I knew what I needed to do, but was too bullheaded to do it. I had an appointment with my primary care physician, who is as nerdy as me, to basically get serious with me about my weight. It did make me stop and think, but I still wanted to do what I wanted to do. Not long before, my wife was diagnosed with Diabetes and her doctor suggested the Ketogenic eating plan. I was aware of this prior to what happened to D, but I was afraid that it was too restrictive, that I couldn’t do it. But then, my wife called me on my BS and Easter Sunday came.

She had cooked a keto Easter meal and a keto dessert… OMG, it was amazing!! I decided then to give keto a real try. I even told D that I needed to treat this like a 12 step program, complete with chips and all of that. She laughed, but the Tuesday morning, I had one piece of 8 waiting for me to celebrate my first day of eating clean. Then one day turned to two and two into four and so on and so on. This woman, after rewarding me for seven days of eating clean, told me to redeem my seven coins – and in return I got a brushed copper D6. I was blown away! As this progressed, I realized that she had gotten a full set of dice for me to earn as I continued to do what I needed to do.

A week in, my left knee that used to regularly bother me had stopped and I was noticeably losing weight. Here it is, about six weeks since I started this, and I am down 27 lbs and, on 5/9 when I went to my pulmonologist, he decided to take me off one of my meds and said he did not need to see me for a year! I have a four-part objective on this mission and objective #1 is cleared! Will I complete all four by Dec. 31? I don’t know… but does it really matter, anyway? I will keep this up and as the objectives are achieved – along with any interesting side missions that come my way – I’ll give you the debrief! Agent, out!!