I Forgot to Tell You

Jennifer Lancaster's newest book, "Pretty in Plaid" arrived today. I intend to sit in coffee shops and hee haw out loud and alone as I have for all three of her other books. There is no silent reading with a Jen Lancaster book.

PS: a few days later, I have read "Pretty in Plaid"' and it was entertaining, but no guffawing, no embarrassing myself by sounding like a crazy woman laughing in public places. It is still enjoyable but don't make it your first Jen Lancaster.

The Hangover

Two days in a row I have gone to the movies. This afternoon, with a bit of hesitation, I went to see "The Hangover". There was a very small crowd but we laughed uproariously. The movie was hilarious from start to finish, and by finish, I mean you must watch the credits as the mystery of the movie is told there. I would classify this as a buddy road-trip movie and if one is easily offended by R-rated language, don't bother.

Gastric Bypass 4 Months Out

I am in my second week of daily swimming and am feeling great, getting a super workout in the pool and today I finally went over 65 to a 66lb weight loss. You touch a loss a few times for a few days before you finally lose that pound and move on. Feb11 was my surgery date and things are super. I did chew gum at a movie yesterday and found out why you are not supposed to, the gas it causes is quite painful and malodorous, yuck. I will stick to sugar free mints now. Right now I am looking for my very detailed binder to see if I have any food changes for month 4. Thank you St. Vincent's for such a wonderful guide, and if you are reading this from any where near Indianapolis, I highly recommend St. Vincent's AND Dr. Inman, the surgeon, very thorough, no non-sense woman who is on a mission.
The Movie
Yesterday afternoon I went to see 'My Life in Ruins" and it is not a must see, it is sweet, predictable, has lovely scenery, some laughs, not big ones, and will be just as enjoyable on the small screen at home. I give it two stars.

short post

I am just a few days over 3 months out from surgery, down 53 1/4 lbs and feeling good. Maybe it is all the protein I am getting, but my hair and nails are actually better right now. Hmmm. mysterious. I have learned to get down the 2 TBL of cher amino a day as well as two scoops of EAS whey protein powder in my morning milk. I am running down through old clothes pretty quickly and some of the baggy ones I wear right now look a little sad. I will have to give them up soon. This is just a tiny report from the world of bariatric surgery.

Surgery Update

I have been to two support meetings, and to my surprise, they are interesting and helpful. I put on a pair of shorts today that button and zip, no elastic, I couldn't fasten them a couple of weeks ago, now they are perfect. I have made it cleanly to a 45lb loss. I am approaching 3 full months since the surgery. I am feeling good, still have all my hair (whew Mom), and I am signing up at the Y tomorrow to get back into my swimming. At the last meeting the leader told us St. Vincents is thinking of making a 25lb limit on lifting for life due to the risk for hernias and the bowel twisting, which is life threatening. My biggest problem is remembering to take all my vitamins, especially the calcium which I find disgusting. Osteoporosis is more disgusting, so I think I'll go get some calcium right now. OK, I just got it ready and I'll eat my squash that contains the calcium as I type. I also haven't taken my B12 or B1 this weekend, so I'll do that, too. Lots of people get the b12 shot once a month. I accept that, at the age of 61, my skin is not going to come close to snapping back, hell it didn't when I was 29 and had twins so what's new? Today also looks like a good day to ride the bike and get into that routine.

Not Necessarily Reading Material

Thought I'd record a weird dream to the best of my memory. I dream in full color. My dream last night seemed to be a continuation of a dream from the night before, but now that I am awake, I am not so sure. Leah and I were on a walking trek through some countryside, quite beautiful with a tiger on a slim rope. The tiger would sleep right next to us at night but did not seem to be threat. Then one night the tiger was leaning on me while we were trying to sleep on the ground and we knew it had become dangerous so Leah cut its throat. We then laid it on a narrow platform and took everything wooden we possibly could out of a nearby and very familiar house and built a funeral pyre for the tiger. It seemed to be a very lengthy process to collect enough wood to cremate the entire tiger which was unusually long. There was a crowd scene that followed that I do not remember very well. This dream was saturated with color and I had not taken anything to help me sleep. I also slept all night, though climbing all over that house in every nook and cranny collecting wood, there were no sticks outside, was exhausting. Much of my view of this dream was aerial.

Bariatric surgery

I thought I would post more about this surgery. Suffice it to say I had an amazingly fast recovery from the surgery itself and went back to work in one month. It took that month to learn how to get down prescriptions, vitamins, milk drink and 3 small (2 ounce) meals per day. At school I have had to really try to get enough water down, one does get very dry mouthed very quickly and that helps the cause. It is time for me to go back to my exercise programs as my walking isn't nearly good enough. The knees still restrict me. Since February 11, I have lost 35 pounds and more importantly, my blood pressure is coming under control. I take my BP twice daily and if it starts to edge up over 130, I take a pill, then it stays down for 5 or 6 days. I am thinking my heart and kidneys are already thanking me for this improvement. Most of the time my blood pressure is well under 120 over 70. My worst days have been days when the blood pressure dropped too low. My doc cut me down on my meds and I cut myself down further.

One of the hardest things has been taking the calcium, it has to be calcium citrate and mine is powder. You don't want to be taking a pill big enough to stop up your exit hole in your stomach! I have found this powder to be rather hard to take. Two days ago I just put 3 scoops in water, stirred it up, kept stirring it and found that the easiest way to deal with it. Then you have to be sure you take it two hours away from your other vitamins. The B vitamins are easy to take and the multi s are Flintstones. I find it funny that my grandson and I now take the same vitamin.

I am giving up on my two most trusty pairs of jeans and found a pair in a box of clothes that fit me better. I think I bought them without trying them on and Levi sizes don't match with Lane Bryant sizes, even these are somewhat baggy in the seat, but at least they won't fall off.

By the way, if you are having trouble finding chewable or powder calcium citrate, don't even bother looking, just order it from amazon.com, they have it and they have cher amino by twin lab which my cousin's daughter recommended. It should be here tomorrow and at a much better price than store price and no standing on your head looking at labels in stores and vitamin sections. And Thiamine? That's B 1, don't forget it, you may never find thiamine unless you remember it is B 1! Then it is easy to find. I just found it very exhausting standing in vitamin sections right after surgery trying to read labels and running out of steam. That may be more because I lost some blood during the surgery and was very sloggy and slow for a while.

Something I have said to everyone in my real world but not here, is that I had almost no pain after surgery and the staff at the hospital said it was my exercise history. I worked out for 3 years with a tough trainer who really got me into good muscle shape in spite of the weight. If I could give anyone advice, it is make sure your abs are in as good a shape as possible and you will not regret it. My "pain" literally felt like a serious ab workout, not the pain I expected. I'm sorry if I am repeating myself from another post.