Month: August 2006

* * * I find it close to impossible to believe that it’s been one year since Katrina. One year? ONE? It seems simultaneously like it’s been at least three years, and also like it just happened yesterday.

* * * I’ve been watching a lot of TV this week. I got caught up on all the episodes of Secret Lives of Women I’ve taped in the last month (the weirdest episode: Fetishes. I just don’t get the whole idea of being turned on by “training” another person who’s dressed up as a horse, but you know. Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.). I also watched the two-hour series premiere of China Beach, which I tape and watch every few years. That part where McMurphy is trying to take off her scrubs and the back of her shirt is glued to her back with dried blood brings me to tears every single time I watch it. So many of the actors and actresses from that show will always be their China Beach characters to me. Dana Delaney will always be McMurphy. Brian Wimmer, Boonie. Jeff Kober (who I’ve seen all over the place in small parts on shows like The Shield, CSI, ER, 24), Dodger. Marg Helgenberger might be Catherine to an awful lot of you, but I still see KC, the hooker with a heart of gold. Ricki Lake, Holly. And what the hell ever happened to Nan Woods (Cherry)? According to Internet Movie Database, the last acting she did was China Beach, and she hasn’t been seen since. MAN I wish they’d put China Beach out on DVD. Although now that I know how to work that whole BitTorrent thing, I wonder if I could find episodes to download? * * * Earlier this week, Fred talked to our insurance lady (we get all our home, life, and car insurance through the same company) about the new house. She’d apparently made a trip out to the new house to look it over, over the weekend, and she told Fred that she thought that the fact that there were no stairs outside one of the doors meant there was going to be a problem with the appraisal. So Fred called the mortgage company and the woman he was dealing with there said the insurance lady was right, that it was a liability issue, and she’d call the appraiser and see what they had to say, so naturally we spent a day and a half worrying about it. Eventually we’d like to put a small deck outside that door – this door, for the record – but we didn’t want to do that quite yet (it’s pretty far down on our list of priorities), and we bitched and moaned about how idiotic this was, that we might be forced to put steps outside that door so that someone coming over to visit (“Can we sign a piece of paper stating that we never ever have anyone over to visit?” I offered.) wouldn’t say “Hey! A door with no steps! Let me see if I can fall out the door and harm myself!”, and then do so. The answer came back from the appraiser that any old set of steps would do, so Fred called the owners Tuesday, and they said they’d have something in place by the end of the day. Last night we went out and drove by the house just because we wanted to see what the drive was like at rush hour (answer: not bad at ALL) and we were wondering if they’d gotten anything in place for the stairs, and we drove by the house to see a set of concrete steps in place. Then we came home and Fred emailed the owners and asked if they were going to be at the house on Saturday, because we’re going to be in the area for Fred’s father’s family’s family reunion, and we thought we’d eat and then leave and go over to the house and walk through it again. “They’re going to refuse to sell the house to us, because I keep harassing them,” Fred said. “Hey, she said they were glad to be selling the house to us because we obviously love it,” I reminded him. “Oh yeah.” We’re now down to less than 30 days ’til closing. Once the appraisal goes off without a hitch (which I expect it to do), I think that’s really the last big hurdle and there’s nothing else that would prevent our buying this house. I can’t WAIT. * * * Last night we got into a discussion about whether or not we really want goats or sheep in the back part of the property. Fred wants them because he doesn’t want to have to cut back there every week. I don’t like the idea of having animals whose sole purpose is to eat grass so we don’t have to cut it; if we were raising animals for meat or milk and they also kept the grass short, that would be another story. Of course, I don’t necessarily want to raise animals for meat or milk, either. “We could just have a 4 1/2 acre garden,” Fred said. “By all means, let’s not start out small and work our way up,” I snarked. “Let’s do something that will completely overwhelm us so that we give up and go running back to the suburbs.” We’re definitely going to have chickens – layers, at least at first, and then possibly later on we’ll raise chickens to eat. Fred doesn’t think he could possibly kill a chicken. I think I’d have no problem – at least that’s what I like to think. When the time actually came, I can’t guarantee it’d be easy. Fred is obsessed – OBSESSED, I tell you – about making it so that the cats will be able to see the chickens. He’s talked about putting up a fence in the back yard that will be privacy fence on two sides, and a chain-link fence on the back. He’s dying to see the cats all lined up, staring at the chickens. He’s also obsessed about bring a goat or sheep into the back yard so he can see the cats react. I keep telling him I expect that after a while of the cats being freaked out, we’d end up looking out back to see Mister Boogers riding on the back of the sheep or goat, bitching the entire while. I suggested last night to Fred that I can see a whole new section of my journal coming into focus. I think it’ll probably be called “Today’s ‘goddamnit’ moment.” As in, “Goddamnit, how did that CHICKEN get on the roof of the HOUSE and how do I get it down?”, or “Goddamnit, what’s that racoon doing trying to get into the chicken coop?”, or “Goddamnit, how’d that fucking sheep get out of the pasture AGAIN?”, and so forth. * * * Okay, I just got back from my appointment with the surgeon. My appointment was at 10:15; I actually saw him around 11:30, but I was okay with that, because I got all Zen within my tiny little brain before I stepped into the office, saying “I have a book, I have a bottle of water, he’s going to be running late, what’ve I got planned for today? NOTHIN’.” And so when he walked in, I was perfectly happy to be sitting there with my book (though I was a little worried, because I was coming to the end of it, and to be in there without anything to read would have been BAD). He checked my incisions, told me they looked good (especially my belly button incision), asked if I was having any pain or nausea (I’m not), and looked to see what the pathology results about my liver said. Basically, the pathology results favor either drug-induced cholestasis (one of the drugs that can cause it is oral contraceptives – which I’m taking) or, less likely, a virus. He told me to follow up with the GI, and I told him I had an appointment on Tuesday. He also said that my gallbladder was sandy and sludgy and inflamed, but that there were no actual gallstones. Eh. Who needs a gallbladder, anyway, right? Then I got his okay to start exercising again (which I’ll be doing as of Monday morning.), but he told me no heavy lifting until six weeks after the date of surgery. Which means Fred will be cleaning out the litter box until then. And my heart, my heart is broken. Because I SO adore cleaning out the litter box, as you can well imagine. Luckily six weeks past my surgery will take us right up to closing on the house, so I’ll be okay to do any heavy lifting that I need to do at the house. Naturally I’ll report back and let y’all know what the GI says on Tuesday. * * * Miz Poo was laying in this bed minding her own business, when Tommy walked across the desk and settled in next to her. Miz Poo sat and fumed for a few long minutes before she got up and stomped off, muttering cat swear words under her breath. “Miz Poo! You going to the vet? You going to the vet, Miz Poo? Because *I* am *not* going to the vet!” “Shut. Up.” No trespassing, you hear me? No trespassing on the median! Or else! “Hellew.” All of today’s uploaded pictures are hither. * * * Previously 2005: Is it just me, or does Eric Schaeffer play an inordinant number of characters named Sam? 2004: My day, in progress. 2003: This entry is comprised of nothing but cat pictures, because I’m clearing off the memory stick to start September fresh, with an empty memory stick. 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: He said “Maybe you’re losing slower than me because you BELIEVE you’ll lose slower than me!” ]]>

* * *

Snack time! Mister Boogers, Tommy, Spot, and Sugarbutt eat most of the snack, then Miz Poo gets in there for a while, and Spanky comes along and bats cleanup. Hummingbird in the front yard. Keeping an eye out for the other hummingbirds. There are three of them, and they each consider the feeder their own personal property. Sugarbutt, doing what he does best. I don’t see how this could possibly be comfortable. All of today’s uploaded pictures are hither. * * * Previously 2005: John Cusack, however, has become suddenly completely unappealing to me. 2004: No entry. 2003: I see a little silhouetto of a Poo, 2002: Damn him. 2001: Jayzus, I can’t wait ’til I’m Supreme Ruler of the World, and I can run around ordering the death of people who annoy me. 2000: Here we see Miz Poo at the tail end of a Fancypants swish-by. She looks none too pleased.]]>

Fucker, at least they don’t leave me to cool my heels for over an hour without bothering to let me know they’re running late. So he started looking at my blood test results, came upon my bilirubin levels, and all came to a screeching halt as I explained to him what had been happening. “You had the ultrasound, and what were the results?” he asked. “It indicated possible gallstones,” I said, then went on to explain that I was scheduled for an MRCE the next morning. “But… an MRCE isn’t even on the decision tree at this point,” he said, confused. “If you have gallstones, your gallbladder needs to come out.” And he sent his nurse out to get a sheet of paper so he could point to a diagram of my gallbladder and my liver and where stones might and mightn’t be, and toss around sentences like “which could cause pancreatitis, which could be life-threatening”. “So… what’s the next step?” I said. “I need to see a copy of your ultrasound results,” he said. “And then I’d like to take your gallbladder out as soon as possible.” He said, several times, “It’s a good thing you didn’t leave!” And in the end, I had to fill out and sign a form for the other doctor’s office to fax over the ultrasound results, then went and got something to eat because I was STARVING, and then cooled my heels in the waiting room until 5:00 (thank god I had the foresight to bring a book to read), until the other office got the results faxed over, my surgeon reviewed them, and then his nurse scheduled my surgery for first thing the next morning. She handed over an information sheet about the surgery, told me not to eat or drink anything after midnight, told me to be at the hospital at 5:30, and gave me a prescription for perc0set. I met Fred and the spud at a Mexican restaurant for dinner, but I ended up not eating much – guess I wasn’t that hungry – and then Fred and I went home and the spud went to her friend’s house. Wednesday morning I got up bright and early so I could shower and blow-dry my hair before we left. Fred got up a few minutes after I did, and we left the house a few minutes after 5. We actually had to wait a few minutes until they opened the part of the outpatient procedures section where they check you in and take your copay and all that, but I was lucky enough to be the second one there, because while I was back answering the clerk’s questions (she also had weight loss surgery, performed by my surgeon. I wanted to ask her if she thought his bedside manner was lacking a little, but I was afraid she’d be all “No, he was wonderful!” and then tell on me.) ten million people filled up the lobby. I’d been told the night before that my surgery was scheduled to start at 7, but when we were still sitting in the lobby at 6:40, I said to Fred, “I think my surgery’s going to be starting a little late.” Not much more than a few minutes later, I was paged back to the preop area, and in no time flat I was stylin’ in the hospital johnny, the stockings that prevent… blood clots? Maybe?.. and a brand-spankin-new inserted-the-first-time IV. They brought Fred back to keep me company, and then the anesthesiologist came in and asked me all the 10,000 questions the preop nurse had already asked me, and then the nurse-anesthesiologist (who was cuuuuuuute) came in and asked them all over again. When I told the anesthesiologist that I always get very nauseous when coming out from under general anesthesia, he told me they’d put something in the IV to prevent nausea. But when I told the nurse-anesthesiologist the same thing, he told me they’d not only put something in the IV, they’d give me a patch behind my ear. They actually put the patch on before they took me to the operating room. Long before we expected it – I think it was about 7:15 or so – the nurse-anesthesiologist put something in the IV to relax me and they were wheeling me back to the operating room. Next thing I knew, I was coming to as they were wheeling me to recovery. Then I was in and out, and they were talking over me about how low my heart-rate was, and I don’t know if they addressed any questions to me, but I spoke up and said “I’m on Metoprol0l for heart palpitations”, and that seemed to solve the confusion. They asked if I was in pain, and I very much was, so they told me they’d give me a half dose of morphine, but they couldn’t give me too much or my heart rate would drop too low. After a while I woke up enough to see that a patient across the way was coming out from under anesthesia in a pretty violent way, and nurses were surrounding him and telling him to stop trying to pull the oxygen mask off, that it was over and he was okay, and I briefly wished that I had my glasses so I could see exactly what was going on, and then I was asleep again. Some time later they wheeled me into a postop room and the nurse took the inflatable baggy things off my legs, brought me some apple juice, and – at my request – walked me to the bathroom. When they pulled the catheter out in recovery, it immediately made me feel like I had to pee, and guess what? I did! Only a little bit, though, so it was decided that I was going to have to produce more urine than that before they’d let me leave. They brought Fred back, and he showed me the picture they’d taken of my liver, and I was out of it enough that when he said “This is the color your liver should be, and this is the color it actually is”, I thought he was showing me two side-by-side pictures of livers, one mine and one a normal one, and I looked back and forth, confused, because they looked like they were the same color to me. What he was actually showing me was that my liver should have been the healthy pink of my intestines, but it’s a dark gray, and they took two pictures of my liver to show that, and also did a biopsy of my liver (which my GI will be following up on). Go look at my liver, here. You KNOW you wanna see it. So I snoozed and sipped apple juice while Fred watched TV and did some Su Doku puzzles. We actually happened to catch the woman who runs Tigers for Tomorrow on the news, too. What are the chances? Sometime after 1:00 my surgeon stopped by to check on me and to tell me he’d talked to my GI, and that I needed to see him (the surgeon) and the GI late the next week (this week) for follow-up appointments, but if there was any scheduling conflict and I had to choose whether to see the surgeon or the GI, I needed to see the GI. My surgeon had already told Fred that my gray liver could be anything from too much iron to a blocked bile duct to something more serious, like liver disease. He also said that it could be transitory and might go away on its own – but it’ll be up to the GI to figure all that out. A while later, the nurse took me to the bathroom again, where I peed more than I had before, and she announced that I could go home. I got dressed in short order, she filled out the discharge papers, and Fred and I were on our way home. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home so Fred could pick up my perc0set prescription (and he had to come back out to the car to get my social security number before they’d release it to me) along with some canned chicken noodle soup. When we got home he ate lunch and I had a bowl of soup that SUCKED, made some phone calls, and then snoozed on the couch for the better part of the afternoon. I actually slept okay Wednesday night, because I was able to sleep on my right side. I did have to keep waking up to fend off the cats, who apparently wanted nothing more in this world than to tromp all over my stomach. I told Fred he might as well go to work on Thursday, because I was able to move around well enough that there was no reason for him to stay home. He woke me up when he left, kissed me goodbye, and I went back to sleep for a few hours. I was awakened by Sugarbutt, who was trying to climb on my stomach, and I yelled and flung him off me, and didn’t see him again for several hours. Poor Sugarbutt. I got up mid-morning, took a shower, put my nightgown back on and a sweatshirt over that, then spent the rest of the morning reading and snoozing in the recliner in the corner of the bedroom. Thursday was, by far, worse than Wednesday. I was hurting, it hurt to sit too long, it hurt to get up from sitting, I couldn’t lay down for long, and the perc0set was just making me dopey, not really doing anything about the pain. And the worst pain, far and away, was the pain in my right shoulder. I’ve done some looking online, and apparently when they do a liver biopsy, the pain refers to your shoulder for some reason. And it REALLY FUCKING HURT in a way that the perc0set wasn’t touching. The only thing that helped, really, was to whine and moan about it, then take some perc0set to dope me up so I’d fall asleep and not be awake to feel the pain. Friday I was in less pain – in fact, after 3 am Friday, I didn’t take another perc0set until that night – but I was more uncomfortable in my abdominal area. Specifically, I looked like I was 9 months pregnant, and when I showed Fred how bloated I was, his eyes popped out of his head. It was easier to get up and down, and I was able to sleep on my left side as well as my right side, so obviously things were improving. Saturday we got up and left the house early and ended up in Lacon – about half an hour away – to check out their “Trading Days”, which is like a big flea market. We were only there for about an hour, walking around and looking at things. From there we went to Hartselle and wandered through the antique stores – looking for something that would work in an area of the kitchen in the new house – and then we went and had Mexican food for lunch. Which was probably a little too soon for me, since I was supposed to be “working up to” eating solid food again, but that Mexican food was the best stuff I’d eaten in days and it didn’t have an adverse effect on my system, so I didn’t regret it. When we got home Saturday I put my nightgown on, because the waistband of my pants had irritated my belly button (where the biggest laparascopic incision was), and I needed to wander around in something loose and non-irritating. Fred sat on his couch and read, and I sat on my couch and snoozed, and we had a conversation wherein we discussed that the swelling in my stomach had gone down a little, so I only looked like I was 7 1/2 months pregnant instead of 8. Sunday I slept in until almost 9, and when I rolled out of bed, the pain was very noticeably better. I still felt a little light-headed, but I puttered around the house doing a few things, then took a shower and sat in the bedroom and read while Fred vacuumed the entire downstairs for me, then cleared everything out of the downstairs hallway and painted the walls. Later, he filled up the bird feeders at my request, then helped me clean out the bird bath (I did the scrubbing, he did the lifting and dumping), then we had steak and fresh tomatoes for dinner. And my stomach was even a little less swollen, so I looked like I was maybe 7 months pregnant. This morning, I meant to sleep in, but ended up not doing so because the cats were wild and running around. I got up and ended up being so grossed-out by the floor in the master bathroom that I got out the vacuum cleaner (I didn’t do any lifting, don’t worry!) and vacuumed most of the upstairs, then threw in some laundry, called to cancel my physical therapy appointment for tomorrow, took a shower, ran some papers to Fred (for the mortgage application for the new house), dropped a few things off at the post office, and picked up a few groceries. I’m feeling a little tired, and I think there’ll be a nap in my afternoon, but other than that, I feel okay. And the swelling has gone down even more. Today? Today I only look like I’m about six months pregnant. I have a follow-up appointment with my surgeon on Thursday, but when I called (last Wednesday, as soon as I got home from the hospital, mind you) to make an appointment with my GI, I found that neither of the two I’ve seen at that practice is available this week, and the one I saw most recently is going to be off the entire month of September. So I made an appointment with the other one for next Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. It’s probably for the best I couldn’t get in to see the GI ’til next week, since it takes about two weeks for liver biopsy results to come back. As always, when I find out more, I’ll let y’all know. I’m hoping like hell that by the end of the week I’ll be feeling back to normal!

* * * Sugarbutt melted right out of his bed. Melted kitty everywhere! But at least he appears to be happy about it. * * * Previously 2005: No entry. 2004: No entry. 2003: These kids need someone to come organize their lives is what they need. 2002: “What the hell?” I said, amazed. How far could the fucking thing have gone? 2001: Gah. I’ve got that unsettling panic-causing “waiting for the other shoe to drop” feeling, and I don’t know why. 2000: “An E-scort. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of those. I wonder if they’re new.”]]>

* * * Update, 2:25 pm: I’m home, everything went fine. The surgeon took a picture of my liver; there’s apparently something still going on there, because a normal liver is pink. Mine is gray. It could be fairly innocuous (blocked bile duct, too much iron) or something more serious (liver disease). The surgeon took a biopsy of the liver, and I have to follow up with the GI next week. I’m in surprisingly little pain, though that could be because I took two perc0set before I left the hospital. My belly button and to the right of my belly button, and up the right side hurt the most right now. I think I need to change into a nightgown so nothing’s pressing on my belly for now. Thanks, you guys, for your well wishes. I’ll update again when I can! ]]>

Solitude by Edwin McCain being the biggest tear-causing culprit of the day). And none of you bastards nominated me for a Pulitzer for the BEST PICTURE EVER, so HERE YOU GO AGAIN. How can you not die from the cute? Seriously, this fucking PMS is pissing me off. My fucking hormones are pissing me off. If I go off the pill I have my period closer and closer together until I’m on a one-week-off/ three-weeks-on schedule. If I go ON the pill, I’m on a three weeks off/ one week on schedule, but I also have breakthrough bleeding at random, inopportune times. AND MY BOOBS HURT. I knew my hormones were going to go all fucked up and floopy after the surgery but this is FOR THE BIRDS. I’m tempted to make an appointment with the gynecologist and demand she just yank everything out, but I’m sure that’d just make everything worse. FUCKING HORMONES. Maybe I just need to take up some good ol’ heroin. KIDDING.

* * * And fucking WordPress with their fucking new version, now all the comments y’all leave come to my mailbox as if they were mailed from bitchypoo @ wordpress.com, which means that GODDAMN GMAIL lumps them all into the same “conversation” and so I can’t file single comments away into my archives without filing them ALL away (I file comments that I intend to answer in the future) and I hate Gmail and their goddamn insistence on lumping emails into “conversations”, it REALLY PISSES ME OFF AND I FIND IT UTTERLY USELESS. And I can’t figure out how to fix it in WordPress. THANKS WORDPRESS! YOU GODDAMN SUCK! (If anyone knows how to fix that, let me know, would you? THANKS.) * * * I pounded down so much low-carb hot cocoa yesterday that my skin is probably going to go from golden yellow (though to be honest I don’t think I’m yellow anymore; certainly not nearly as yellow as I was a few weeks ago) to warm golden brown. PMS, did I mention? It’s like, I NEED something chocolatey-tasting, but anything really chocolatey (3 Musketeers, M&Ms, Snickers) is going to make me sick, so I have to make do. It’s a pale imitation of what I (or rather the PMS monster) really wants, but it takes the edge off the craving at least. * * * As I was chopping the mushrooms to have sauteed mushrooms and onions over hamburger patties for dinner Sunday night, I heard Mister Boogers run through the cat door. I thought nothing of it, since he does it sixty billion times a day, but then I heard him growling, and looked over to see him standing in the hallway, something in his mouth, growling. “Baby,” I said with an edge of annoyance as I didn’t for one minute pause in my mushroom-chopping duties, “he’s got something. And I think it’s dead.” Fred came in from the computer room and had one hell of a time prying Mister Boogers’ jaws apart. As he tried, I could see that it was a bird he – Mister Boogers, that is – had in his mouth, and that not only did he have a bird, he had it by the feet. Fred got Mister Boogers’ jaws apart, and the bird took off flying down the hallway. “I guess it’s not dead,” I said helpfully, still chopping. I listened as what sounded like a herd of elephants went running up the stairs, and then I heard a door slam. I stopped chopping long enough to open the back door wide, then went back to my chopping. Eventually, Fred came down with the bird cradled between his hands and his stomach. “The door’s open,” I pointed out. He went out back and the bird took off. “We chased that thing up the stairs, and Mister Boogers leapt up and caught it in mid-air. I was impressed!” Fred reported. That Boogers is such a little bastard. This morning he brought a cricket into the house and began dismembering it. He yanked off a leg and let it crawl halfway across the kitchen before toying with it again. I didn’t witness this myself; the spud was in the kitchen getting her lunch to take to school when she reported it to me. I told her to get a piece of paper towel and toss the cricket into the toilet and flush it. Better to have it die quickly than be tortured by a Boogery bastard, right? When I went into the bathroom just a few minutes ago, I found that the spud had yanked about a foot of paper towels off the roll to pick the cricket up and carry it into the bathroom. She left a cricket leg in the middle of the kitchen floor. My guess is that unless Tommy or Mister Boogers suddenly desires a mid-day snack, that cricket leg will stay there ’til I vacuum the entire house on Thursday. * * * I have an appointment this afternoon with the doctor who performed my weight loss surgery. It’s my six-month follow-up appointment, which was originally scheduled for a little closer to my actual six-month date – I’m now closer to my seven-month date – but they had to reschedule me. I’m not looking forward to the appointment, only because I’m sure I’ll have to explain what’s going on with my bilirubin/ gall bladder/ whatever and I’m SO FUCKING BORED with the whole freakin’ topic. And I’ll have to inform him that I’m having an MRCP tomorrow, and I can’t fucking remember without looking at the piece of paper where I wrote it down whether it’s called an MRCP or an MRCE. Isn’t an MRCE some kind of test you have to take to get into medical school or law school or something? I’m just tired of the whole fucking thing. I want the issue figured out and solved – it’s been a freakin’ month, now – and whatever steps need to be taken, taken. IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK? On the up side, they scheduled the MRCP in Madison and it’ll take me about five minutes to get there. Hopefully it won’t be too scary or traumatic. Either way, y’all know I’ll be reporting back as to how it went. I don’t expect to hear from the doctor about the results until sometime next week. I’m hoping that the MRCP shows what’s going on so I don’t have to have a liver biopsy. Liver biopsy. Doesn’t the thought just give you the ookies? * * * Tomorrow’s entry is going to be another question-answering entry (at least for part of the entry). If you have a burning question, leave it in the comments! * * * Sugarbutt makes himself at home. “HEY! Turn it DOWN! I’m trying to SLEEP over here!” Spot, looking paranoid. “Let us out! LET US OUT!” All of today’s uploaded pictures are hither. * * * Previously 2005: So, that’s why I won’t be updating this week. 2004: No entry. 2003: And for the rest of the drive I would occasionally call him “Fo’-Thray”. 2002: Surely they can hear the thunder of Tubby approaching from miles away – you’d think they’d hide somewhere he can’t go, like under the shed or on the other side of the fence. 2001: That’s me, an expert at reading between the lines! 2000: It gives her a rakish air.]]>

* * * Liver news: the gastroenterologist called this morning to tell me that… they still don’t know what’s going on. My bilirubin has gone down a tad (it’s currently at 3.7; normal is .1 – 1.2), but it’s still elevated. It’s possible that there’s a stone trapped in a bile duct, and ordinarily they’d send a scope down there to check it out, but with my rearranged insides, they can’t do that. So he’s ordering an MRCP to get a clearer look at what’s going on. If that comes back with everything looking normal, then there’s a liver biopsy in my future. As always, I’ll let y’all know more when I know more. Man, I’m ready to get this done and over with. This has dragged on for far too long as far as I’m concerned!

* * * We had this for dinner last night, and it was FABULOUS. I think I want to have it again next week! * * * If someone was considering WLS, what would you tell them as far as pros/cons? You mention going to restaurants, how much of the meal can you eat? Are there still foods you have to avoid? Any regrets, things you miss from pre-surgery days?? You look fabulous, btw. But you need to start getting some clothes that show off your new figure. You don’t need to hide behind baggy t-shirts anymore! I would tell them that they need to do some extensive research and make sure they know all the potential risks. I’d recommend they spend time on the ObesityHelp.com boards to see what people who are just out of surgery have to say, as long as the long-timers. The pros are pretty obvious – rapid weight loss being foremost among them, as well as a lot of the aches and pains from being overweight going away (I’ve had no pain in my right knee for months). The list of cons can be extensive, from dumping on foods you wouldn’t expect to dump on (I can’t eat rice) to eating too fast and spending half an hour standing over the toilet waiting for food that’s stuck to come back up or go through, to the more serious ones – it’s not at all common, but some people have such an issue with malabsorption that they end up needing a feeding tube. Some people die from complications from the surgery. Spend time on the complications board and regrets board at ObesityHelp and know what the risks are. I can eat more than you’d expect, but a lot less than I could before. It depends on the kind of food, but when we went to Applebee’s a few weeks ago I picked at a side salad and had the insides of a chicken fajita rollup. I also tend to drink with my meals when we go out to eat (which is a no-no, because it washes the food right out of my pouch, letting me eat more), which is probably why I end up eating more when we go out to eat! There are still foods I have to avoid – as I mentioned, I cannot eat rice. If I eat a single bite of it, it makes me gassy and cranky (well, the GAS makes me cranky). If I eat several bites of it, it makes me nauseous and I end up dumping. I can’t really eat too much bread. The whole wheat bread we have at home always goes right through me, though lately I’ve been eating half a weight watchers bagel from time to time and that seems to sit with me pretty well. Any kind of raw vegetable goes right through me, which doesn’t mean I don’t eat salads any more – but it does mean that I generally try to only eat salad when I know I’m going to be near a toilet for the hour and a half afterward. Why do I eat salad when I know I’m not absorbing ANY of it? Because it’s so damn good, and it only makes me go to the bathroom, doesn’t make me feel icky or pukey. Pretty much, I need to avoid processed carbs. I can have a single bite of almost anything, but anything beyond that could make me gassy and bloated and sick. Oh! And I can’t eat sugar-free stuff that has been sweetened with anything ending in -itol. The sugar alcohol makes me feel horrible, and it kind of annoys me that all sugar-free ice cream has malitol, sorbitol, or one of the -itols in it. I miss ice cream! So far, not any big regrets. Like I mentioned in yesterday’s entry, sometimes I wish I could sit down and pound down half a box of Little Debbie snack cakes, but that’s a regret I can live with! I’m currently wearing size XL t-shirts. They’re a little baggy, but right now my stomach pokes out further than my boobs do, so I’m avoiding anything too fitted. * * * I have a simple question.. how do you pronounce “Mireya”. I’ve never heard that name before. “Muh-ray-uh.” Back when Mireya was born, I actually thought my brother made up the name (of course, I also thought my brother made up the word “fart” when I was a kid, so apparently I think he’s a real trend-setter. How cool was it when I went to school and everyone was using that word!), but he informed me at some point in the last year that he saw the name in the closing credits of a movie and told himself that if he ever had a daughter, that would be her name. A quick look on Google shows that it appears to be a mostly Spanish – perhaps Cuban – name. I actually saw someone with “Mireya” on their license plate, which made me email Tracy and ask him where he came up with the name in the first place. * * * Did Spud cut her hair off? How old is the baby now? Do you pronounce your niece’s name Mariah? Ok this is just a statement. DANG when did your nephew get so big? I still say he and the Spud could be brother and sister! 🙂 The spud didn’t cut her hair off – it’s still past her shoulders, but she almost always wears it up. She had a trim a few weeks ago in preparation for her Senior pictures, and had it washed and styled, so I’m anxious to see how the pictures came out. The baby is 16 months now, I believe. He was born in April. See above about how to pronounce Mireya. Liz does pronounce it “Mariah” though! Brian really shot up over the last year, didn’t he? He’s going to be a tall one! And when he and the spud were little, people assumed they were siblings ALL the time. They still do, I think. Like Catie said on one of my Flickr pictures, the Bitchypoo genes are strong – Brian, Jeffrey, and the spud all look like siblings. * * * By the way..how is your SIL doing that had WLS? She’s doing well. She’s a year and a few months out from surgery, and she looks fabulous! She had some complications, but I’m positive she’d say she’d do it all over again. * * * Is there really such a small amount of meat in a lobster, that you are able to eat two of them at a time? I was just kind of surprised when I read that, because I would expect after your surgery that you wouldn’t be able to eat two of anything. There’s a very small amount of meat in a lobster, but I also didn’t eat both lobsters in the space of 10 minutes or anything, either. I think it took about an hour from cracking open the first lobster to finishing the second, because my parents eat at a freakin’ glacial pace and I was trying not to finish eating before they did. * * * That “Shut it down” story has me cracking up! I am at work, so this is a much needed guffaw moment! and I think it is so cool that you just had to re-read I know this much is true! When is Wally Lamb coming out with a new novel???? it better be tomorrow! Wally Lamb, that bastard, doesn’t appear to have any books coming out soon. He’s one of those writers who takes FOREVER to get a book written, apparently. I say we go hold him hostage and make him write us up a novel. We could cut off his feet so he can’t escape! * * * Robyn, have you read Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides ? I haven’t read it yet, but it IS on the bookcase, so I’ll be getting to it one of these years. * * * Am I the only person who thinks it’s extremely funny that that everyone’s favorite bean company is B&M? No, I think that’s HILARIOUS, actually. * * * I really like the furniture you like, but I LOVE the fiesta ware dishes best. I collect fiesta ware myself. My mother actually started giving me Fiesta Ware dishes, ended up giving me a set of four, and then… stopped giving them to me. We can’t really use them to have anyone over for dinner (unless it’s just one person, since there are three of us), so I guess I need to start buying sets of my own! I’ve been thinking about adding the blue dishes to the set of yellow ones we have so far. Another reason we haven’t been using the Fiesta Ware is because the spud was going through a stage where every week she was dropping one or more dishes on the floor – the stone floor – where they would shatter. So we’ve been buying the cheap, lightweight stuff for the time being. * * * What kind of camera did you end up getting? I ended up getting another Sony Cybershot DSC-P200 like the one I had (only in gray instead of red). I couldn’t find a comparable camera in the stores for less than $400, so Fred went on eBay and got me one that was new in the box. I still love the DSC-P200! * * * Robyn, I was in Madison this past week! I ate at Rosie’s, and the flour tortillas were the best I’ve ever had. I have to say, though, I do NOT understand why they serve that nastay butter with the fajitas. The server looked at me like I was crazy when I asked what it was. Is that an Alabama thing? I don’t generally eat fajitas, so I’m not sure what the deal with the nasty butter was. Maybe Fred knows! * * * My right shoulder is higher than my left. I personally think it’s because I carried a heavy book bag on my right shoulder for years and years due to school. Is it the shoulder that you carry things on? Actually, it is! I always carry my purse on my right shoulder, and that’s the higher one! * * * Why did your parents decide to spell your name Robyn? Are you going to watch Boston Rob & Ambuh on their new reality show (they’re going to Vegas to become pro gamblers, I think)? How do you handle the moving transition for all your cats? Do some of them cope better than others? Fred has always looked really familiar to me– not in the crazy stalker way, but in a hey, you look like that famous guy sort of way. Please ease my mind and tell me what actor he looks like. I’m not sure why they decided to spell my name with a “y” – I think they might have seen it in a baby book and decided it looked pretty. I think I’ve had enough of Rob and Ambuh, but the fact that there’s gambling involved might interest Fred. He’s no fan of Rob, though, so probably not. When we moved from the other house to this one, we brought the cats over, put them all in the bathroom, and closed the door so they couldn’t escape. They were all pretty freaked out, but Fancypants was freaked out the most, as you can see in this entry. When we move to the new house, we’re going to do the same thing (put them all in the bathroom and shut the door), but Mister Boogers, Sugarbutt, and Tom have never been through a house move, so I’m not sure how they’re going to react. I suspect Mister Boogers and Tom will hide for a while, then come out to sniff around, but probably Sugarbutt will hide for a couple of days. Cats are resilient, though. They’ll adapt. I don’t know which actor Fred looks like. Anyone got an opinion on that? * * * Speaking of selling the one you’re in now, have you ever seen the show Sell This House? I haven’t seen Sell This House, but we did watch another show where people were looking to buy a new house, and some professional came and found them some houses to look at. That was a pretty good show – I bet we’d like Sell This House, too! * * * Great house, are you thinking about other animals besides cats? What about those minihorses, or cute little goats. We’re planning on chickens (for eggs at first, but probably we’ll get some to raise and eat later on) (DON’T START WITH ME, yes I have no problem killing a chicken for food. At least in theory. Heh.) and eventually some goats for the back pasture. We did talk about getting a horse, but neither of us love horses enough for that. * * * Why doesn’t Fred go with you when you go to Maine? Because mostly what I do in Maine is go out to eat and shop a lot, and that’s not his sort of thing. He’s going with me next summer (hopefully), though, so I’ll get to show him all the sights there are to see in Maine! * * * I’m seriously considering WLS, although it would be totally out of pocket, since my insurance will not pay for ANY weight loss surgery, regardless of reason. Anyway, I’m most concerned about the vomiting. I absolutely hate, hate, hate throwing up. Is vomiting something that can be avoided if you do the right thing, or does everyone vomit at least sometimes after WLS? I think that 90% of the vomiting I’ve done since surgery could have been prevented by eating slower and chewing more carefully. Also, vomiting after surgery is a lot different than it is before surgery. The food doesn’t go into your stomach and mix with stomach acids, then come up all liquidy, the way it does before surgery. It comes up pretty much like it went down, and it’s not pleasant. The vomiting I’ve done when I’ve dumped has been less vomiting than standing over a toilet gagging up foam. It’s like my body demands that I still go through the motions of vomiting, even though there’s nothing to vomit up. It’s not pleasant, but the vomiting (gagging) part isn’t as bad as actual vomiting is. * * * I can’t believe the Spud’s a senior in high school! Has she started thinking about post-high school plans? Does she want to fly the coop, or stay closer to home after graduation? She’s planning, at this point – though I suppose things could change – to go to a local community college to get her core courses out of the way. After that two years, we’re not sure. She’s said since she was little that she wanted to be a teacher, but now she’s not sure. If she does decide to go into teaching, there’s a college with a teaching curriculum near where we’ll be living, but if she decides on something else, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I just hope she works hard and has a good college experience. I’ve informed her in no uncertain terms that she’s getting a 4-year degree, even if it’s just in Liberal Arts, because a college degree is better than no college degree, earning-wise. * * * I was suprised when you said the Spud’s superintendant said there was no way arrangements could be made. Unless the house isn’t in Madison Co.? That may be the problem. Yeah, it’s in another county, actually. But we’re okay with not being able to move right away, anyway – that gives us a good bit of time to work on the house and get it looking the way we want. * * * As someone that is starting on the journey to having gastric bypass I have a couple of questions.I am struggling with do it/don’t do it.The fear of dying or having complications.I have two small kids and they need me.I know that I haven’t been able to lose the weight myself and with 150lbs to lose..my health is only getting worse.I already have high cholestrol/trygycerides,high blood pressure,edema,pre-diabetes,pain in my legs/back/ankles,and take several medicines.I am only 27. Most people that have had WLS are telling me do it..they wish they would have years ago.I have my first appointment with the surgeon on the 29th.I have my paperwork all done and my doctor is 100% behind me.I hope insurance approves me because she (doctor) thinks it could really change my life. What made you decide to have WLS? What made you decide to do gastric bypass instead of LapBand? I think Carol had a pretty good response to this: Shannon, I just had to reply to your post… sorry if I am hijacking your comments here Robyn. I had GBS almost four years ago. I had every complication they warn you about.. literally. I wont go into all of it on here, but lets just say, if they warn you about it.. I have had it. I would still do it all over again (with the complications if I had to) and recommend it when I speak to people. I do tell everyone to make sure they know the risks, are comfortable with that decision and stand by it for themselves. Don’t do it for someone else, do it for you. My surgeon was on top of everything and when a complication came up, he dealt with it promptly and I came through it ok. As far as what made me, personally, decide to have WLS, I’d have to say that the fact that I’d spent the past several years trying desperately to lose weight, but bouncing up and down and up and down, that made me face the truth that I just wasn’t going to be able to do it without surgery. And if my insurance had covered LapBand surgery, I would have had that done. I have no regrets about having RNY, but I think I would have worried less beforehand if I were going to have LapBand surgery. * * * What about decent internet access at the new place? Sometimes folks “out in the country” have few if any choices! We’ll have high-speed internet. That was one of the first things Fred asked – and if high-speed internet hadn’t been available in the new house, we wouldn’t have even considered it. Gotta have priorities, ya know! * * * Thanks for the link to the Gmap Pedometer–it is awesome! I used it this morning for my walk. I have a question, though. How accurate do you think it is? I was wearing a pedometer, and when I compared the two, I got wildly different readings. The distance and calories burned on Gmap was much higher. I don’t know, actually. I assumed it would be pretty accurate, because when I used it to measure my walking distance at 2 miles, I double-checked it with the odometer in the car, and they matched up. I’m not sure how much I’d trust the calories-burned on Gmaps, though – I think they should just stick to measuring distances and leave calories burned to the professionals. 🙂 * * * It took a month, but the squirrel finally figured out how to get into the squirrel feeder. “What?” Sugarbutt checks out the hummingbird flitting around the feeder. * * * Previously 2005: You know who really just completely repulses me? 2004: The only way it’d be better is if we could call and vote on who’s the most annoying. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: Wouldn’t it have been ironic if I’d made assurances to the spud that we would probably all live for a long, long time, then promptly tripped over the cat, fallen down the stairs, broken my neck, and died? 2000: Man, I’m so unmotivated today (nothing new there). ]]>

My poor baby had a bad, bad morning. Go give him some love.

* * * Your burning questions, answered! From my comments: Will there be a house remodeling journal? Good thing Fred got all that practice painting in your current house. What are your plans for the kitties being able to go outdoors? Whatever you come up with I am sure it will be uber perfecto. I am so happy and excited for all of you. You are going to have so much fun! One more thing… you mean they do not have open enrollment at Spud’s school? There probably won’t be a separate house remodeling journal – we’ll just write about it in our journals as we go, though we might designate a “house remodeling” category. We plan to let the cats outdoors, because one of the many things we want to do is put up a privacy fence to fence off a good part of the yard right behind the fence. We’ll probably also put a cat door in the back door (we were talking about using the laundry room as a foster cat room, but decided to use the laundry room to put the litter box in, and to put a cat door in the back door) so they can get in and out during the day. Considering that we’re moving to the country, I shudder to think of what they’ll be bringing inside the house. Field mice, I’m sure, and lots of them! And no, apparently they don’t have open enrollment at her school. I think the superintendent was thrown for a loop when Fred talked to him yesterday, because he acted like he’d just never ever heard of such a thing. * * * Why not turn the room above the garage into your workout room or a young adult room for spud?? Because we’ve been talking, and I think we’re going to wall off part of it and use half for storage and half for a foster cat room. We’ll need to put an air conditioning unit in there, and some kind of heating unit, but I think putting the foster cats up there would be a perfect solution! * * * As for that concrete pad, you could get one of those canvas or vinyl or whatever tent-top things, or hey, how about you put a HOT TUB out there? We’re actually talking about putting a gazebo out there – but I kind of like the idea of a hot tub, too! I’m sure we’ll talk it to death before we ever get close to doing anything! * * * Also – I noticed the way you slipped in that the laundry room may also be the foster cat room in the picture descriptions. You’re going to foster again??? Yes indeed! In fact, once I find out I don’t have some exotic liver disease or they take out my gallbladder or whatever, once that’s all in the past, I’m going to be fostering while we live here, since the boys are over a year old and Fred said it was okay with him. * * * How ever will you keep the kitties in rein in that “yard”??? A privacy fence should do it, although Fred jokingly (I think!) suggested that he could put an electric fence around the entire property and put collars on all the cats. * * * I guess you will be renovating it before you move in? Where are you going to put the workout room?? What will the neighborhood be like for your walking? It’ll mostly be repainting and maybe some sheetrocking on the inside of the house. We do plan to replace the tubs in the bathrooms and stuff like that, but not right away. We just want to get everything painted and looking the way we want it, and then we can work on the other stuff. The workout room is going to be in one side of the garage, I think. Fred’s going to park in the other side of the garage. We thought about putting the workout stuff in the bonus room on the second floor of the garage, but some of that equipment is really heavy and like I mentioned above, we want to build a foster cat room up there and use the rest for storage. The road the house is on is a kind of sleepy country road (although around 5 pm the traffic picks up a bit). I think as long as I walk facing traffic so I know when to step off to the side and wear some kind of reflective gear (god, I just got an image of myself in a reflective vest. I’m going to look like a complete DORK, aren’t I? Better dork than dead, though!), I should be okay. I need to use Gmaps pedometer to map out a route! * * * Just make sure the inspector looks for termites. Lots of wood happening in that old house. Fred already asked; there’s a termite bond on the house. * * * You always eat so well (something I struggle with some days) and I was wondering if you still weigh/measure your foods? Approximately how much are you eating nowadays? Ever since I got back from Maine, I haven’t done much weighing or measuring of food, because I’ve been crazy busy (which is a BAD excuse). I mostly eat the three meals a day, along with the occasional snack. I can eat more than you’d expect, but still way less than I could before the surgery. An example of my eating yesterday would be: Breakfast: Onion and cheese omelet (1 whole egg, three whites), mini container of yogurt (I buy the 40-calorie containers of Dannon Light & Fit), 1/2 peach (without the skin. I hate that fuzz.). Lunch: 4 oz boiled shrimp with homemade cocktail sauce (low-carb ketchup, a bit of horseradish), small salad with a drizzle of ranch dressing, and a melted string cheese. Midafternoon: I piece of ham with rolled up with a slice of 2% sharp cheddar. Dinner: Hamburger patty with mushrooms and onions on top (VERY GOOD), 1/2 a corn on the cob and a couple of slices of tomato. Evening: Mini container of yogurt That’s fairly typical, except for the occasional day when I can tempt Fred into going out for dinner – which has happened too often since I got back from Maine, I’m a bad influence – and lately we’ve kind of been on a Mexican kick. * * * There is only one thing that I wonder about…Where is MY bedroom?? Over the garage, with the foster cats, of course. You could be their caretaker, and I’ll just show up every once in a while to love on them! * * * Oh, and are you guys going to add a pool? We’ve talked about it, but at this point we’re leaning towards “no.” That could change, though! * * * I am wondering how you are feeling emotionally, and psycologically about your weight loss thus far, as opposed to the fears you had in the beginning? Because I’m a worrywart, I worry a lot. Mostly about things like, what if I can’t get to my goal weight? What if I get to my goal weight and keep losing? What if I start looking like Nicole Richie in a drapey skin suit? I mean, don’t get me wrong – I don’t spend all my time worrying. I’m thrilled I’ve lost so much weight, and sometimes I stare at myself in the mirror in amazement. When Fred and I talk about how much I’m currently weighing (as we did last Thursday, which was my most recent weigh-in day), I said “Yeah, it was 288.5. I guess I should be happy I lost three pounds!” and he said “288.5.” and I said “Yeah, I lost three pounds!” and he said again “288.5.” and I sighed and said “Yes! WHAT?” and he rolled his eyes and said “I think you mean 188.5, Bessie.” And I do that ALL the time. It’s like being in the 100s just hasn’t sunk in yet, like it’s not real. I have to say, most of the fears I had right after surgery were of the physical sort – because you always hear about people who have complications due to the surgery and end up dying. God knows I haunted the Complications board at ObesityHelp.com so much I was driving myself crazy and had to stay away for a while. As far as my attachment to food goes, I’m not going to lie – sometimes I wish I could sit down and eat half a box of Little Debbies the way I could before surgery. I miss the sweet, cakey foods sometimes. But when it comes down to it, I know in my mind, if I haven’t accepted it completely emotionally, that the fact that I could be that attached to a kind of food is exactly the reason I needed to have that surgery. It’s a built-in security system. Could I eat half a box of Little Debbies? Sure I could, given enough time and enough liquid to wash it down with. But I’d end up running to the toilet all afternoon. And who the hell wants that? * * * What does the spud think about the WLS. It’s probably easier because she’s older, but I wonder what effects my surgery will have on the kids as they get older. I’m trying to teach them the positive stuff and be simple yet honest about what I went through. I’m also trying to have a positive self image around them. That’s pretty hard at times especially with the extra skin.. blech! She hasn’t had much to say about it, but I don’t think she’s as weirded out by it as she was before I had the surgery. I’m sure she thought that once I had the surgery I wasn’t going to ever be able to eat more than a tablespoon of food at a time (which is a falsity, in case you were wondering), and would never be able to eat anything “good” again (I have the occasional bite of Fred’s ice cream or Friday junk food). I think she’s got a pretty positive self-image. She’s not freaky about her weight, but she knows (from watching us) how to eat right, and she’ll occasionally weigh herself. She’s been right around her current weight for a few years now, and considering the fact that she weighs about 50 pounds less than I did when I was her age, I’d say she’s doing pretty well! * * * Do you like the climate in Alabama better or the climate in Maine better OVERALL? I think if I HAD to choose one, I’d choose Alabama. Because we can wear shorts up until about Thanksgiving down here, whereas in Maine it’s ALREADY getting down into the 40s at night. And it’s only the middle of August! If I were within a couple of hours of the beach, it’d pretty much be perfect. Except for the poisonous snakes and spiders, that is. * * * What was it about your current home that made you decide to buy it, and what is it that makes you want to move out of it? The fact that we’d sold our previous house (in 9 days, no less!) and couldn’t seem to find a house we agreed on made us pretty desperate. Even back then we were talking about getting a smaller house in the country, but every house we looked at, Fred didn’t like. He’d gotten spoiled with the ten-minute drive to work, and the house I liked the most – this one – was, according to Fred, too far from Huntsville. It ended up being the same with pretty much every house that was out in the country that we looked at. Too far out in the country. Too old. Too small. Finally, we just started looking at houses in Madison, and I pretty much went along with whatever Fred decided. We made an offer on a house in the subdivision we’re in now, but someone else made an offer faster (which was okay with me – I didn’t like the house as much as Fred did). We made an offer on a second house (second picture down) in this subdivision, but then Fred found that the windows were rotting around the outside. We made an offer on a THIRD house (third picture down) in this subdivision, but Fred really thought the house was too small (I disagreed), and at the first sign of trouble (see this entry), we pulled out. And then we saw this house for sale, a house that was more than we wanted to spend, was smaller than the house we were selling, and so we walked through it and liked it well enough and I was SO SICK of the stress of looking that I insisted we just make a fucking offer and get it over with. Don’t get me wrong – this is a pretty good house, but I think that if we’d had more time to look instead of feeling like we were going to be homeless if we didn’t find a house pronto, we might have found something a little better for us. As far as what makes us want to move out: the neighbors, the neighbors’ kids (I don’t mind kids, but it annoys the FUCKING SHIT out of me when they tromp across our front lawn three feet from the computer room window), the fact that the neighbor spent an entire summer tromping up and down the property line, sighing and looking annoyed before she spoke to Fred and asked him not to mow over the property line, and… did I mention the neighbors? The neighbors to our left, we like. They’ve got a thousand small boys, but they don’t tromp all over our lawn, and they don’t annoy us. The neighbors to our right, well, I don’t mind telling you, I think they might have bugs up their asses. I won’t miss them at ALL. Other than the neighbors, the fact that our back lawn overlooks an extremely busy road, have only about half an acre (could be less, I don’t remember exactly), and have to drive down a street laden with children with the potential to run out into the street at any moment are other reasons we’re happy to sell. I just hope we’ll be able to get this house sold! * * * When you first started walking, how far & how fast did you start at and, by how much in distance did you increase it & by what increments of time? Right after the surgery, I was walking, about half a mile, I think. After a week or so, I increased it to about 2 miles (there’s a loop that goes out of the neighborhood one way and back in another that comes in a little over 2 miles). Then I think I increased it to 3.something miles (3.2, maybe?) that was basically the 2-mile loop, with a walk into a neighborhood across the street. And then I increased it to 4.17 miles by adding a loop in that neighborhood into some side streets. I will most likely be sticking with 4.17 miles for the time being, because it takes me an hour and 10 minutes to walk, and I think that’s plenty of exercise. I don’t really recall how long the 1/2 mile walk took (possibly about 20 minutes, because I was still moving pretty slow at that point). I’m pretty sure the 2-mile loop was taking me 42ish minutes, and when I first started walking the 4.17 miles, it took me an hour and 20 minutes. Which means I’ve cut 10 minutes off my time! * * * What were your thoughts re: gastric bypass vs. gastric banding as you did research during your decision-making process? Would you consider an alternate procedure now that you’ve been thru the one you ultimately chose? Actually, had my insurance covered it, I would have had lap-band surgery. That’s the one I wanted – it’s a pretty safe surgery, from all I’ve read, because it’s completely reversible, there’s no rearrangement of your insides, and at two years out, the weight loss for lap-band patients is comparable to an RNY patient. If I had to do it over again and this time my insurance would pay for lap-band surgery, I still think that’s the one I’d opt for. Not that I regret having the RNY – the results have been fairly amazing – but things like getting sick and bloated and gassy when I eat rice is something I could live without. * * * Okay – I have more questions to answer, but I’m saving them for tomorrow, because it’s after 1, and I have an appointment to take E’gar in for a long-overdue oil change and tire-rotation and balance. If you have any questions, leave ’em in the comments, and I’ll get to them tomorrow. If you already asked in the comments and I didn’t answer you today, look for your answer for tomorrow. AND if you asked a question and I answered it but I didn’t make sense (always a possibility!) or you need clarification, say so in the comments and I’ll get to that tomorrow. Clear as mud? See you tomorrow! * * * He’s such a WEIRD cat. That’s oatmeal he’s eating. Check out the flying oatmeal. Heh! * * * Previously 2005: No entry. 2004: Oh, by the way? When you tell someone “Don’t worry, I won’t be back to read your journal”? Please. EVERYONE knows that means “I’m going to come back every six seconds to see the reactions to my asshole comment”. 2003: No entry. 2002: CHECK THOSE FEEDBACKS, people! 2001: 16 miles. Yeah, baby! 2000: I swear to god, that cat is half monkey.]]>