One more week of pureed food.

I can’t wait to be able to eat regular food again!!  Haven’t posted in a while.  Just taking it day by day.

I’ve been battling the bronchitis I caught in the hospital with meds and my nebulizer and I seem to be winning.  I’ve mostly stopped coughing and my nose is not running so much.  My biggest problem at the moment is my arthritis.  I can’t take any pain killers except for Tylenol and I don’t have any so last night it hit me that I did have a pain killer I could take: my codeine. 

I have a bit left over so I took some last night.  I still couldn’t sleep from all my aches and pains and then my feet started itching.  So, I went downstairs and took my Irritable Leg med. Went immediately to sleep and slept until 2PM!  Guess I was tired.  It’s late now but I’m going to do the same as last night at 2AM and, hopefully, I will be able to sleep.

My daughter is coming over tomorrow and we’re going shopping.  I’ve un-grown all my bras and have only 3 old ones I saved that now fit so we’re going to get me some new ones.  I don’t figure I’ll wear them all that long so I don’t want to pay a lot of money.  Walmart was too big a mess to find anything that fit.  I’m hoping Target and TJ Maxx are in better shape!!  I don’t want to have to go to the mall.  I don’t have that much money for this. 

I discovered today that I can’t eat tuna.  Well, I can eat it but I don’t get to keep it.  It came right back up, which was a big disappointment.  Tuna is an easy source of protein.

I made some high protein custard ice cream today.  My ice cream maker works quite well, especially if you put it together correctly!  J  The ice cream came out quite tasty!

High Protein Ice Cream

 

1 cup milk

2 eggs

½ cup Splenda

1 cup soy milk

2 scoops vanilla protein powder

Pinch salt

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

 

Heat milk in pan until steamy.  In a medium bowl, beat eggs till lemon colored.  Pour hot milk into eggs, whisking continuously.  Whisk in Splenda and salt.  Pour milk and egg mixture back into pan.  Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, for 2 minutes.

Partially fill large bowl with crushed ice and water.  Pour milk and egg mixture back into medium bowl.  Set medium bowl into larger bowl to cool quickly.

Pour soy milk into shaker bottle.  Add protein powder and shake for 30 seconds.  When milk/egg mixture is cooled to 60 degrees or less, dump ice water and dry bowl.  Pour milk/egg mixture into larger bowl.  Add contents of shaker bottle and vanilla.  Blend until frothy with immersion blender.

Assemble ice cream maker.  Pour mix into maker and run for 10 minutes.  Add chocolate chips at end of freezing.  Ice cream will be soft.  Spoon into sealable bowl and keep in freezer. 

Even my hubby liked this.  It’s very good!!  And full of protein. 

Three Days Post-Op

Thus far, it’s been fairly easy.

Had a bad time yesterday morning about 4:30AM when all the pain meds wore off but morphine is our friend and all was well. 

Codeine is also our friend although it keeps making me take naps.  Although I guess taking naps is really all I’m up to right now.  I’m hoping to be able to live without it by Monday.  Get my head clear and get on with full recovery.

I’ve had an entire protein shake already to day as well as lots of water.  Working on my second shake.  I need three today to meet my protein goal: 60 grams.  I should be able to do it without too much trouble.  I just need to take it slow. One tiny sip at a time. 

I have to crush my regular meds and dissolve them in liquid.  Most of them taste vile so I’m going to have to come up with a better way.  Stronger liquid, prolly. 

Most of the nurses and people in the hospital were great.  Only one guy, Frank, treated me like my questions were just too stupid to answer.  I asked a lot of questions.  I wanted to know exactly what everyone was doing and why.  All meds required a full explanation of what, why and what the side effects were going to be.  Frank thought I should just shut and lie there and let him do whatever he wanted to do.  I was glad when I got to go to my room and leave him behind in recovery. 

Other than that asshole, everyone was quite happy to explain things to me.  They put in lots of effort battling blood clots in the legs.  I was bruising so easily at one point that I turned down any more blood thinners.  They took blood at one point and I bled all over everywhere!  Not big deal but kinda scary to look down and see all the red stuff!!  They wiped me down and bandaged me up and everything was fine.  I also have a fine bruise on my left forearm from something they did in surgery.  No idea what but it left a great, big bruise.  I think I had had enough blood thinners!!

So, I’m napping in my recliner, sipping water and shakes and just generally taking it very easy.  I don’t have anything I need to do so resting will be my activity from now on.  J

The Night Before

Tomorrow morning at 9:30AM I have my surgery.  To say I'm anxious would be a vast understatement.  I'm incredibly anxious.  But, then, I always am before this sort of thing.  I don't expect to sleep tonight.  I'll pack for the hospital, put away my clean laundry (Monday is Laundry Day) and take my shower with anti-bacterial soap per my surgeon's instructions.  That should take a while and then there's always all the TV shows on my DVR. 

My current life ends tomorrow and my next life begins.  I hope I'm a lot healthier in it.  I should be.  The docs tell me that I will go to sleep with Type 2 Diabetes and wake up without it.  I'm looking forward to that: no more painful holes in my fingers to test my blood sugar. 

For my last meal, I had a quite delicious bacon cheese burger and sweet potato fries.  Yummy!  Maybe I'll be able to have something similar, in a much smaller portion, next July when I can eat real food again.  Between now and then, it's protein shakes and baby food.  Yum, yum.  :-) 

Actually, the shakes are quite good.  I've been living on them for the past 2 weeks.  And I've had nothing else today.  Getting my innards emptied and ready.  The rest of the procedures you really don't want to know about!  Let's just say that magnesium citrate tastes nasty!  And is quite effective, too.  :-P

I've been examining my eating habits to try and pinpoint my mistakes so I won't repeat them after surgery.  I have already drastically changed what I eat to conform with my diabetes.  I gave up sweets years ago.  I think my biggest problem is not eating any one food nor any one type of food, I just eat too much of everything.  Portion size has been my biggest enemy.  Having 90% of my stomach removed should fix that problem;  if it eat too much, I will throw it up. 

I've been doing battle with my stomach since I was in my teens.  I seems like I was always hungry.  I could stay on a diet long enough to lose weight but eventually Hunger would win and I would go back to my old habits.  And regain any lost weight.  Again and again.  This time, I win!!  Sanity prevails. 

SNAFU

Yet another SNAFU on my way to surgery: first my endoscopy was rescheduled without my being adequately notified and Tuesday I discovered that my pre-surgery class has been cancelled as well!  I certainly hope my surgeon is more competent than her staff!!  These are the same people who can’t remember to bill my insurance company for office visits.  I suppose the hospital will be better about that, though.  I’ll bet I get billed for the physician’s portion and have to call them, again, and have them bill my insurance for it. 

 

As for adequate notification of a changed medical procedure, leaving a message on someone’s answering machine is not good enough!

 

Years ago, I was the person in charge of empanelling citizens to read grant proposals and give away Arts money.  If I had to reschedule a panel, my job was to TALK to everyone affected by the change.  Not leave messages on machines!!  I couldn’t consider my job done until I had spoken to everyone.  Spoken to them, personally. 

 

In essence medicine is a service industry.  It is extremely poor customer service to leave a patent standing in a medical facility being told their procedure has been canceled without notifying them, personally of the change.  I understand that things happen.   In this case, my surgeon lost her grandmother, for which she has my sympathies.  Her staff not taking the notification of her patients of the cancellations seriously enough to keep trying until they reached every person is inexcusable.  I received 1 phone call, which went to my machine.  My time is just as valuable to me is anybody else’s is!!  Respect for the people you service is the basis of good work in any profession.  It is doubly important in medicine!  Poor customer service could result in serious consequences.  It is life and death. 

 

I realize that I should have checked my machine.  Believe me, I have been ever since this happened but 1 phone call is not adequate notification.  Had she tried even one more time, I would have been home and gotten the news of the cancellation.  "I left a message" is a cop out. 

Diets and Insanity

I’ve been on my pre-op diet for a week now.  I’m not good at diets (no kidding! I got 100 pounds over weight by being such a good dieter!) so I’ve not been perfect but I think I’m doing OK.  At least, I hope so!  Protein shakes get kinda old very quick!

I had my endoscopy on Thursday.  My surgeon likes to take a look at things before she cut them up.  Seems like a good idea to me!  They found a small esophageal erosion but that won’t cause any problems with my surgery.  Lots of Prilosec in my future, I guess.  My biopsies taken during the procedure just to be extra sure all came back clean so more good news!

Actually, I am a pretty good dieter.  I’ve lost over 50 pounds 6 times that I remember.  The problem with dieting and losing large amounts of weight is that it always comes back and brings a few ‘friends’ with it.  The end result over time of dieting is that you get fatter and fatter until you’re hopelessly obese.  Look at the research.  It happens to everyone who tries to lose the weight this way.  It has nothing to do with will power!!!  We are not bad people because we can’t keep the weight off. 

Neither is WLS ‘cheating’!!  Is chemotherapy ‘cheating’ against cancer?  What a ridiculous question and, yet, losing weight and beating obesity with the help of bariatric surgery is called cheating.  “You should have enough strength of will and character to lose the weight with diet and exercise alone!”  This is usually said by people who have never had a serious weight problem in their lives.  They think their experience losing 10 or 20 pounds qualifies them to opine on the severe problems faced by the morbidly obese. 

We fat people need to stop listening to these ridiculous people!  Do what you need to do for yourself!  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Sure, I could go on another diet.  I did, as a matter of fact.  After I found out I was diabetic in 2009, I lost 40 pounds.  Then, since the first of this year, I’ve lost another 18 pounds.  Without my WLS, I can expect to regain all this weight plus an additional 10 to 20 pounds within the next 2 to 3 years.  I don’t want to weigh over 300 pounds!!!!  

So, I’m not going to be insane about my weight anymore.  I’m making a drastic change to my behavior and am expecting different results.