Day 3 – Saturday March 24th, 2012

Its the weekend and now the real test begins. I instantly felt the pressure of cheating on my diet when I woke up. Saturday mornings are meant for breakfast with the family. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage are so yummy, but I need to take a step back and keep my eyes on the prize. I was tempted to break out the eggs and make a cheesy egg scramble but I didn’t. Settled on the normal Greek yogurt and a small amount of grapes after the cleanse drink. Afterwards I boiled some eggs for later and drank a Spark. It was easier to be good after I got something in me.

Tonight will be the real test, when I am off to a poker game where I know PIZZA will be. I shudder at the thought. Beer will also be there, and I intend on having a couple, but I don’t want to ruin what I have going. I will update later with how the rest of the day goes…

“Hoping to look down and see this a few times tonight.”

Before heading out to run some errands, I ate three HB eggs and a yogurt. I kinda forced the last egg and yogurt down. Finished it up with my arsenal of pills and headed out. At this point in the day I am starting to realize that this blog nonsense is just like having another job. I actually asked Brooke if I should quit doing this today. I need to update it when I have thoughts or it will get stale I’d imagine, if it hasn’t already.After some errands I put the girl to bed, and ate some lunch. Ham sammich, 1 slice american cheese, on whole wheat bread with two carrots. Need to drink more water today. For a snack, I had almond butter with celery, a piece of string cheese, and a yogurt. Off to play poker soon, dinner is going to be rough tonight. Must stay strong.

20 or so hours later….

OK, where to begin. I arrived at the poker game in St. Charles with two buddies and was able to catch up with some old friends for an hour or so before the tournament started. My wife Brooke was staying at her mom’s house with C-Rose while I played, just in case anything happened. I never really go out so this was a once in a great while type gathering, so what could go wrong?

I was starving after a short while of being there. A beer made its way into my hand and before it was half gone, it was filled up for me again. I had two in total, and was able to stop there. Not too shabby, if I don’t say so myself.  When the pizza came, I stayed outside on the deck with a couple of buddies, deliberately avoiding them. I could smell them from the deck though. After ten minutes or so, I decided I needed to eat and pizza was gonna be the victim.  I had two small squares of thin crust sausage and pepperoni and I instantly craved MORE.  Two more squares of cheese pizza later and I was really feeling bad about myself. I ended up downing one more slice for five slices total. I felt guilty but whatever. I had no choice. Pizza – 1, Pete – 0.

The tournament started and I was winning from the jump. My chip stack kept growing and growing, and every time I seemed to look down at my cards I was holding face cards. The stack kept getting bigger and bigger.  Around 11pm we were taking a short break so the smokers could smoke and stretch. I walked outside and heard my phone ringing, and when I looked down in was Brooke. I knew right away what was happening. She told me she was going to the hospital with contractions, but when she asked the doctor if I should come right away, he told me to wait and see the prognosis.  I didn’t feel comfortable with that, so I left the poker tournament and my stack of chips. It was an easy decision.

After dropping off my friends I hurried to the hospital and arrived around 12:30pm.  Her sister Lori was there (thank you!!!) and Brooke was hooked up to an IV. She was having contractions, but the doctor didn’t think she was going into labor.  By 1:45am, they gave her a shot to stop the contractions, but informed us she would need to be evaluated for TWO MORE HOURS. Around 2:15 I found a spot in the waiting room to curl up and rest, and at 3:45 a nurse woke me up to tell me it was time to go home. We were back in bed after 4am at home, and I took the Herbal Cleanse pills then.

What a night.

We don’t really know why all this started in the first place, but of course, Brooke thinks its my fault. She says it all started with the hot giardiniera. 😉

I ended up finishing in 5th place in the tournament, even though I wasn’t there to play for the final two hours. If I had made it to fourth place, I would have won some money. Oh well.