Wednesday Weigh In

I had my test to see where my gall stones are yesterday. Unfortunately, my follow up appointment with an actual doctor who can go in with a scope and take care of this particular problem isn't until the end of July. Meaning my surgery won't be able to be scheduled until August. I was hoping for at least part of the summer I would get to live, but no. My life is on hold indefinitely. No trips to the beach because what if I have to throw up? No driving myself anywhere because what if I get nauseous on the freeway where I really need to be paying attention? Before all of this happened, my mother-in-law bought my husband and I two day passes to an amusement park. I have to go, someone already spent a sizeable chunk of money on it...but at the same time how can I go? Sometimes walking around makes me want to puke, how can I get on a roller coaster? Or go down a water slide?

The anti-nausea meds are helping. Now that I have been taking them awhile and know the best time of day I am hardly throwing up at all. Even so, I have still lost 2.6 lbs this week (for a total of 17). I'm obviously not feeling myself or able to eat everything in the fridge anymore...and the thought of limiting my diet to what I can get at a stand in an amusement park is scary stuff. We're really trying to figure out how we want to do this. I can't spend the whole summer vacation keeping the family tied to the house because I just might get sick, but the thought of going out somewhere that I don't have a bucket and a change of clothes immediately handy is frightening.

Another Double Edition

I'm sick again. My gall bladder really did a number on me. I thought I just wasn't taking it easy enough last week, but the days wore on and I wasn't feeling any better. I called the doctor and got on some heavy duty anti-nausea medicine, and got an appointment to see him yesterday.

Seems that the only explanation for all of my symptoms is that somehow, even without my gall bladder, I still have gall stones roaming around my body. Making me sick and jaundiced. So I'm down another 3.8 lbs this week for a total of 14.4 lbs lost. I hate how my weigh ins have become less of a way to hold me accountable to my diet and exercise and more of a way to chronicle my illness, but hopefully soon these numbers will stop being so dramatic. My test to see where the gall stones are is in a week, and hopefully my surgery will follow very shortly after that. Looking forward to finally, finally feeling better...for good this time.

Wednesday Weigh In

Not much fanfare today...I really fooled myself into thinking I was completely recovered and overdid it yesterday. Yuck. I am miserably paying the price today.

Down 2.8 lbs for a total of 10.6 lost.

Monday Moments: Tuesday edition

It's hard to imagine that just a week ago I was coming home from the hospital thankful for everything in my life. I tried and tried to hold on to that feeling, but today these kids got to me. The toddler refused a nap even though he was horribly, terribly cranky and in obvious need of one. The nine year old is refusing to sit anywhere but on the arm of the best piece of furniture we own, something sure to ruin it sooner or later. I'm constantly nagging her not to do it, then she'll get up and do something like knock on the window until the dog starts barking...

I called my husband and took a walk through the backyard trying not to completely snap and throw both kids and the dog in a box and ship them to Timbuktu.

While I was out there I discovered what has been living in the shed. I knew something lived there, it is surrounded by holes, there are wear marks on the wood from animals rubbing on it. I have been imagining and dreading what lives in that shed since it has been nice enough to go outside. Was it a snake? A skunk? We were smelling one rather frequently.



Nope, it's this guy. How cute is he? I know they're a nuisance, but I can't help but think how I'd like to name him Simon and carry him around in my pocket. At least I can laugh at my irrational fear of the thing from the shed, even if I can't exactly laugh at the kids today.

First of three

Remember those charity quilts I posted a preview of not too long ago? Well, sadly the benefit occurred while I was still hospitalized. My husband took photos of the completed tops and the bidding was done based on those with the promise of free shipping when I was back on my feet.



I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. But slightly drained at the thought of immediately jumping into quilting the blue one. They have already sold though, and I owe it to the person who bought them to do my best to finish as soon as possible.

Oh, and I'm going to be an aunt again. So I will be making another little bird blanket in the very near future. I'll definitely do something to switch it up in between though. For the record, this is a near perfect rectangle, I just had to take the photo at a weird angle to avoid getting my shadow in it. I need a clothesline I think. I always adore the quilt on the clothesline photos.

Wednesday Weigh In

I hate posting this right now. Not that I haven't lost weight this week, because I have. A lot of weight. Way more than what is healthy or what I have worked for or would recommend anyone else try to lose in a week. I just want to make sure that I am posting here that losing this weight was a terrible, miserable experience. I just want to make sure no one thinks of this as me bragging.

Down 4.6 lbs.

I am hoping to have more of a challenge in the coming weeks. I can't wait to get back to my aerobics and the mood altering effects they have on me, but I will have to. Physically, I just can't.

Another physical can't...eating fatty foods. Your gall bladder processes those and I no longer have one. The other night we were out late buying my manicure kit and some medicines I needed. It was too late to go home and cook dinner, but what on earth could I eat? I ended up getting something off of the Weight Watchers menu at Applebee's. My husband looked at me funny when banging my head trying to decide between all four entrees they offer. "If that doesn't sound good, why not just go off of the 550 calorie menu?" Well, hubby, there is no saying that 550 calories can't be fattening as all hell, Weight Watchers won't be.

For the record I had the steak and portabellos. The meal is mostly broccoli and steamed potatoes. The portabellos were way meaty, I barely ate them and I'm a mushroom person. Still though, I am thankful that restaurants are trying these days. And I'm sure going to Applebee's and ordering off of the 550 calorie menu is WAY better for you than your average entree, I just can't take the risk right now.

Monday Moments: Tuesday Edition

I spoke too soon. Thursday I went back into the hospital for a nasty infection. Possibly not even related to my surgeries, but because of the surgeries I was in no shape to recover from it without medical intervention. And the doctors agreed because I was admitted for a five day stay this time. Longer than I stayed through two surgeries last time. They got my out of control pain in control, they put me on antibiotics.

Being home after 8 days (minus the 20ish hours I actually spent here between my first release and my second admission) is almost foreign. I am so out of touch with where everything is in my house. I could not get comfortable in my own bed. It was all so strange and crazy. Even looking at me now you would never guess I was unhealthy...

Anyway, I had not a lot to do in the hospital but think and sleep with the occasional walk around the floor. My nails grew (I usually can't stand to let them do that) and it became my mission in life to get a manicure. Being a quilter and general crafter I appreciate my hands on a functional level. Form usually has nothing to do with it, and it had been so long since I painted my nails I actually had to go buy a kit and a buffer. I could have went to the salon I suppose but I am saving some money here for a much needed pampering hair cut.



My out of practice nail job was so horrible I had to focus the camera on my anniversary band so you couldn't really see it. I figure, like my quilts, most people won't notice the little errors. The point is it makes me feel better, and God what a week...I need that.

Special double edition!

I swear this seems like laziness, but I have a really, really good excuse this time. See, last Wednesday when I posted my first ever "weigh in" and said that I hadn't actually worked out that day because I was sick? Well, I was really, really sick. I just didn't know about it yet.

Thursday I felt fine. I did two half hour sets of aerobics with a ten minute break in between where I did some nice, relaxing yoga. I felt awesome and I even convinced my husband to take me out and get me a tuna sandwich from my favorite sub place. The next day when he got home from work I threw it up, almost completely undigested. My husband ran to the pharmacy and talked to someone about my issue. We got instructions to stop all of my antacids I was taking (for what my personal doctor diagnosed as a severe stomach issue) and start taking Mylanta.

Saturday I got sick again, Sunday the whole family went to the beach. I felt okay, I drank mostly water and only ate things I had successfully kept down the night before (leftovers). As the day wore on I felt more and more pain, taking pictures of the kids only from exactly where I was sitting, not following them around the beach as I normally would.

On the way home I asked my husband to pull over the car. I managed to barely hold it together until we got to the house and then up came my breakfast. I drank an Ensure, desperate to get something in me, and confident I could keep it down after drinking two other bottles earlier in the week. Just two short hours later I threw that up too. I sat on the couch, looked at my husband and said, "At what point am I going to the hospital?" We packed up the kids and headed to the ER.

I explained to the doctors that I had barely kept anything down since Wednesday. I was kind of scoffed at and told that they would be checking my blood and urine and expecting to see some really off numbers if I were telling the truth. I didn't see another doctor for two more hours and when I finally did I was told my liver and my pancreas were both messed up, most likely because of my gall bladder. I ended up admitted for four days and having two emergency surgeries.

I definitely don't recommend it as a way to lose weight. But I am down 2.2 pounds this week for a total of 3.2.

And did I mention that my son fell off of the couch on Thursday, giving himself one hell of a black eye? That was nice. Every doctor and nurse at the hospital had to hear the story of why my kid was very obviously bruised up while they were examining me. Yikes...what a weekend.