Coming unglued-literallly

I was sitting in the chair minding my business and I felt something weird itchy feeling. I decided to check my incisions cause why not. Did I tell you the incisions are set up like a baseball diamond with all the bases and a left outfielder who is admittedly not as far out in the field as he should be, I am not the coach so this time we will let it ride.  Home base is having the glue lift up. The incision looks healed. I don't think I have to worry about splitting open and having things get gory..

Today had a lot of first's for me as a post surgical patient or someone recovering from surgery. . A tiny summer squash from the garden had been picked and hubby surprised me with a bowl of boiled summer squash with a hint of butter for breakfast.. Surgeon said I should practice chewing these next 2 weeks so this seemed very fitting way to start.  We did giggle a little that it seemed sneaky cause technically I have to wait a few more days before solid stuff.  I am getting the hang of chewing. I thought I had learned that long ago as a child but there is always opportunity to learn to do things better. Also relearning to drink fluids. Again something I figure I had graduated with the appropriate knowledge when my mother stopped giving me a sippy cup.  Wrong. The thing to learn in this situation is to hold fluid a half hr before meals until a half hr after meals. The rest of the time is sip fluids slowly. So how much is to much?, how much is to little?. I learned the hard way that a couple of gulps is the wrong way.....chest pain is the tip off that I goofed.  Small sips equal not getting enough liquid in a day.  Oh its a dance, or in homage to the Olympics a bit of a balance beam routine. Some some told me sip,1000, sip 2000........ then stop for a bit. So far that seems to work the best.

Egg salad seems to be the best of salads, tuna is a no. Bye bye tuna salad unless its had lots of mayo...but doesnt that defeat the diet aspect of this journey?   I was able to drive myself to Keene, I feel like such a grown up despite my child like food portions and food consistency. Funny thing about abdominal surgery you don't realized the muscles involved until its to late. It actually dawned on me today that I am actually starting to stand up straight.

Today's trip to Keene was to go to the phone store and get the upgrade that was due. Rest of us were also due so it was a volume new phone day. Hubby and I now have the same phone. different covers. I have the girlie pink cover and he has the manly black.  I think this is great because as we get in age hopefully we will each remember something different about the phone so together we can be one knowledgeable person.   The boys went and got lunch at the near by Burger King while I finished the phone business and waiting for my phone to have its contacts etc transferred over. Donated the old phone. The boys brought me a chocolate shake.  So decadent.  The part that struck me funny, not ha, ha, but interesting was the fact the shake was a small and I could only manage half of it. I remember the day, not so long ago where I would order a large enjoy it and still want more.  I do marvel at the change in attitude, behavior toward food and some other things.   I will admit that when I got home I pretty much crashed. Was very happy to sit and veg in the chair the rest of the day.

Til the next time,...

The First Outing

I did not drive myself to my post op appointment as I bet some who know me, would have expected me to do.  Actually in all honesty I felt a little woozy, I think, cause was lack of fluid as there were no pain medication's on board. I decided to hold the pain med this am, to see just how much energy and pain a trip to Keene would offer me.  Plus I thought it good to be clear headed since I was going to be in public.

 The appointment went well. a few more pounds lost, the incisions all healing well. Discussed next appointment. I offered a few tips to the surgeon to tell patients at their informational meeting (have folks visit the pool  and/or do abdominal muscle strengthening exercises (cause I know thanks to my year of exercise and my recent months of sit up motions in the pool) my muscles were strong enough to endure the attack to my muscle fibers surgery brings, frankly without having done that I don't think I would have been able to get out of bed with out a crane or lifting assistance hour 4 of recovery.

I got to spend some time visiting with my friends at work on Team A and with the Live Free Study staff. It was nice to see them,  we all laughed about various things that were happening  in my short tenure as a patient.  Whoops they sent me home with no pain med. Had to call in to see if I should have it.  Yes it was something I should have on hand. :-)

 OK., here is where I need to say that I better start listening to my own advise. I tell patients all the time write your questions down and bring them with you to the appointment so you don't forget to ask them.  Guess what?  You guessed it- I had to call back this afternoon to ask if I was cleared for swimming. Which I am by the way.

 Perhaps the ocean is in my future this week. I feel like I should say LET THE VACATION BEGIN and I will as long as its ok if I still chill out cause as well as I am doing. (Lets take a moment to praise God/Higher power/whatever works for you)

 I got home from the appointment and was happy to do nothing more than surf the net for some information for my sister that  i can't seem to find and watch the Olympics and dine on 6 oz of tomato aspic with out the cabbage/carrot's etc.

Perhaps later when its time to feed again I will try a minute bit of horse radish and I can have the cocktail sauce with out the shrimp experience.  Tomorrow will be dining on Greek yogurt .(doing my happy dance) and I have some sugar free pudding and some orange jello I can make.  I am going to have  trouble when it comes to real food, cause it will be so boring, that I might just continue this diet for infinity.

Thanks for reading

They are having beautiful chef salads and I am having no sugar custard......

that hardly seems fair. I can't believe I want to just sob  because I can't eat a salad. My gosh I had wonderful sugar free cherry jello for breakfast, I even got to have cream of wheat( runny) with1/4 mashed tangerine for lunch. Where do I even come off complaining with that type of dinning experience.

 Do you know how much fun it is to listen to others chew solid food!  Well let me just say its INTERESTING. However, a cross I shall bear in silence cause I have chosen to not eat food.

 Therapy...I am going to need lots and lots of therapy....more therapy then any insurance will ever cover for one person.

I have never before, and I have been married for 32 yrs heard the fork hitting the bowl or all the other ghastly sounds coming from the person sitting next to me.  Go on liquids for a month plus and I assure you it will open up an entire world of observation. 

One last note before I close....beware of the croutons THEY CRUNCH,.

Post-Op meds and blogging...lets see how this goes.

Finally.......

Got the ratio of HMR shake powder, ice, and water to get the perfect replication of a coffee coollata with out the calories, coffee or coollata syrup. LOL  The simple joys in the life of presurgery diet.   I have the say the hamburger cooking earlier and the english muffin being toasted were fabulous smells.......I believe my sense of smell is so much more intense now that I have chosen not to eat food.

  The tip I have for today (thinking maybe I should include one in each post) is take 2 cups of mashed cauliflower set aside, take the 6 oz of water the cauliflower was steamed in, add HMR vanilla shake powder and stir. Then add nutmeg and cinnamon. It ends up being like a rice pudding.

Rib's Yummy

Celery ribs that is. Did you think I meant beef or pork ribs!  

The Call of the Tootsie Roll/Fun with diet products.

I decided a while back after a work out where I was especially short of breath, that it was time to get on the stick and loose some of this weight I have put on over the years. Then my niece announced her wedding date and it hit me that I could be the heaviest person at the wedding. Some folks will be there that I have never met, I don't to embarrass or to feel  embarrassed anyone. 
 The goal is not the number of pounds lost but will be the fact:
             *that I will be able to exercise without being so short of breath. 

             *I wont have to look around the room twice when entering to find out which chair will hold me.

        *Plus so many other reasons I wont bore you with. 

So I decided that my dieting and exercising were not enough. I kept a stable weight for a year. Clearly more needed to be done. So its time for a tool. The tool I chose was Lap Band surgery.  I will spare you all the details of the particulars.  Just to say my stomach will be the size of my thumb and I have to learn to take baby bites, with a baby fork and spoon and chew, chew,chew.

Where does the Tootsie Roll come in you are asking?  Well the week before I had to go on the before surgery shrink my liver, just drink 6 HMR shakes a day diet and oh ya I can have 2 cups of cooked non starch vegetables a day. (There is a one shake a day meal substitute but I refuse to give in to it. LOL)  Whoopee!!!!!!!!  I could not get enough Tootsie Rolls.  It was the weirdest craving I ever had.  It was like I had a Tootsie Roll tape worm.  

The first day I was on shakes I went to make one I was not prepared, I did not have a shaker cup. So I decided to use a folk cause the package said I could if I didn't have a blender. Well as it was fast approaching the time I should be leaving for work so I didn't have time for blender get it dirty and clean it up.  I also decided that I could add coffee to the chocolate  shake cause the recipe said I could.  So I mix it up and take a drink......and the flavor is good but the lumpiness is quite undesirable. So that's my first encounter....... fun with diet products. 

At this moment I am about 2 weeks in and I have discovered that if you want, you can have a lot of fun getting really creative with what you put together for a shake. Chocolate shake mix blended with sugar free cherry jello powder, gives you the flavor of a chocolate covered cherry.  Chicken soup mix with brocoli and seasonings will make a facsimile of brocholi soup.   I also discovered that you have to be wary of an explosion if you put hot coffee in your mug, the HMR vanilla and shake.   If you use the whole package of sugar free jello mix, not much water and quite a bit of ice you get the consistency of cake batter.   Yummy.. You can also if you are doing an experiment that goes wrong....make a HMR vanilla powder the consistency of frosting but I couldn't think of anything I could frost at the time.  To bad they don't have olive flavoring cause I suppose if they did I could have stuffed a celery.  Celery I will not be able to eat post surgery, its threads can get stick above and below the band....this causing an issue.  

My last thought of todays post will be how interesting it is to find out that my favorite raspberry plants are out of reach. Oh I could climb thru the flower bed, poor flowers would be crushed or I could climb the rock wall but just my luck I would slip get scratched up and have to cancel surgery. To much as gone in to coverage at work and planning that I couldnt take the risk. I feel next year they wont be around because hubby has gotten in the habit of mistaking my beloved raspberry plants for his despised black berry bushes.

Til later......