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.

Another YaYa Day

That means a day with my favorite cousins, kids and grand kids. H got to play wildly all afternoon and eat an awful lot of sweets and drink koolaid--poor mommy! I think the ages were 11 down to 7 weeks, the seven week old and the one year old were pretty much out of the fray. There was egg hunting in the forest, big kids riding a golf cart, Reece getting to "drive" Uncle Matt's new orange tractor, with help from Uncle Matt. There was jumping on the trampoline, and for once, Henry is a little kid and had to get out of the way of the big ones in that situation, but he kept going back. My little Tom Sawyer was shoeless all day no matter how brisk and stinging the breeze was. I foresee much sleeping tonight. Daughter took 314 pictures until her battery died. I can't wait to see them, she has a great camera and a lot of talent. AS there always is, there was a groaning board of food, I took a few little bites of things I know are OK for me--too late I saw the deviled eggs, I could have had one of those. Too bad for me.
There was the newly adopted 7 week old and 3 young -pregnant women having second and third children all within a couple of months of each other. Even my son-in-law came for the first time to one of these get-togethers that didn't involve a big white dress. I hope he will come again.

One Week Out

I am feeling so much stronger today even than yesterday, the dietitian said as long as I take my Flintstones the blood will rebuild just fine. I sit here with a slight awareness of one or two stitches on my abdomen, but that is all. Last night was my first full night's sleep since last week. At home i have awakened at 3 or 4 a.m. for a blood draw! I find timing the prescriptions I am still taking, and getting in all the fluids. I may go to a small grocery store today and do a little shopping, I am going to check out the side of the bottle on naked lunch protein, see what the sugar content is, can't have that above #5 on the ingredient list. As of today my weight has ventured down past all the stuff that was pumped into me in my hospital stay.

Surgery

I had the roux en Y this week. I had to stay 2 extra days because of some internal bleeding. I came home after two days of no further blood loss and have had no signs at home. I feel totally normal and my pain is zero.
I had some pain meds in recovery then maybe a dose and a half in my room. Switched to Tylenol, turned out it was children's Tylenol that was my best pain reliever. I had some visually interesting experiences on the dilaudin, not my cup of tea, although I was aware that I was not really seeing what I was seeing. I mean, rarely in real life do charcoal drawings start developing on your wall with an occasional little Disney style but charcoal value bird flutter out. Not threatening, but not something I wanted to do again. I was totally pain free by day two except for the sensation of having had a good ab workout. My last nurse who released me said my lack of pain was from all the exercise I had been doing so all you pre-bariatrics, get goin on some crunches! Now I am trying to get all my "sippin" done, vitamins, one last pill.
I can also tell you that, although right now I feel no sensation of hunger at all, when I stepped foot in this house, my mouth wanted to crunch on something, and that with no hunger. I am going to have to deal with that.

My Brother Bob

Last May Bob called and said he had 2 days left to live. Last night he died in his hand built home in the presence of his wife, Cindy and his son Robert Jr.

Bob was the picture of a grizzled mountain man and he had been recovering and revitalizing the earth on his mountain top in Snowflake AZ
for the past 12 or 13 years. Until about a month ago he could still animatedly discuss the misuse of the land and his efforts to reclaim it. Robby had disappeared years ago and my sister, Kathy used her skills to find him; Robby reunited with his Dad then moved up to the mountain top and helped keep the homestead going. They enjoyed these months together and I am so glad they had them.

Cindy kept Bob going all this time with herbs, nutrients and sheer will. Sunday during the game, Bob had a stroke, slipped into a coma last night and died. Cindy, Robby and Bob's neighbors will honor Bob's wish to be buried on his own land which is legal where they live.

Bob was 60 in September and had cancer caused by Agent Orange. He is survived by his wife, Cindy, his son Robert Jr., his daughter, Brandy, and his four siblings, Linda, Kathy, Rick, and Elaine. He also has grandchildren from Brandy, 2 nieces and a nephew.

added 2 days later: I now know that Brandy got there in time to say goodbye to her dad. His children, his wife, gutsy Cindy, and friends spent several hours yesterday backhoeing the grave and placing Bob in his final resting place, wrapped in his favorite blanket with his bible. I think this ancient ritual may be better than the sanitized somewhat walled off methods we use "down here." Son Robby is going to stay for some time helping keep the homestead going for Cindy until she decides what to do. I don't see their extremely rugged life as a life for one person.

Surgery Cancelled, Last Second

I had on the cute gown, knee hi white socks and some very funny red socks with grippers on top and bottom. If you fall on your face they can't drag you down the hall because your socks would hold you still. We literally sat in the outpatient room for at least 2 hours if not more, surgery was nearly there, the surgeon was in and said things looked good, two previous surgeries needed their gallbladders out so that took a bit longer.

I inquired about the stress test as I had had no information from any of the tests, everything seemed OK, but there was this one thing. Hmmm. get the anesthesiologist. He reads carefully, again things look Ok but for one phrase. He said this should have caused a conference with a cardiologist and that he would rather err on the side of caution and have a cardiologist see me, no surgery for me. He also said that the second day after surgery is the most stressful day for the heart and he wouldn't want to do the surgery and then me have a heart attack in two days. Me neither. I was disappointed, but I also have to be relieved. Safety first. Now I am home. No appointment yet, already been through my last times of having a blizzard, or a pizza or whatever, drinking the diet coke that is to be a no no for at least a year, maybe forever. Anticlimactic, and yet faced with mortality once again. There is a spot on my heart where blood does not flow under stress, does flow as stress is relieved. It is called ischemia something. I googled it, it may be a blockage, it may be the site of a silent heart attack. Kinda scary. My sister reminded me that, although I never smoked I lived with smokers for a long time. Parents, Husband. I have figured 36 years at least in a house with smoke.

When Mom had her knee replacement, she passed whatever heart tests she was given, then two days later after the surgery, she needed a quadruple bypass. A sharp eyed nurse saw her lightly wave her hand over her chest and said "why did you do that?" Very soon, Mom was recovering from knee surgery and bypass surgery. I have seen the two day thing with my own eyes so I don't doubt it.