It`s a new year..new meh.

*232* <--wasting awayyyyyy awayyyyyy!

    Happy Happy 2016 to you all. I just celebrated my 47th year on the planet yesterday. We went out for Vietnamese Pho and I had cake. It was a good day. 
  I wanted to wait a bit before I posted because I didn't want to post all the negative crap over and over. I was really sick. I am still not well in the gut but I am better. My incisions hurt when I roll over but otherwise they have healed well. I am still not able to eat alot of different foods and that explains the weight loss. It is good to lose the weight. I am happy for it. I am only 21 lbs from my goal. Just a bittersweet way to lose it. I will not get into gross specifics but my gut will not be well for a long time.

    I had some reflection after all of this. My stubborn ass didn't die. I was in the hospital, close to crashing but I didn't. This means something. I have to make more time for myself. I have to make more time for my man. I have to do what I want with nobody making me try to change. I have to open up to new things and I have to let some shit go. I have been holding on to some old friendships that have disintegrated in the hopes that they can be revived. One in particular. It has been a year since she ended our 7 year online friendship. I have given myself permission to let that sister go. I will always love her but I just cant keep being upset that she doesn't love or care about me. She has her reasons. And I now have mine. I have wasted too much with hope for that. I am closing that door. 

  I just put the sweet potatoes in to roast and I am stupidly eating one of my bon bons I made at Christmas. I will pay dearly for that later.

 Our weather has finally become seasonal. We havent had a snow storm yet but it will come. There is the El nino which is giving all of us a weird winter. My hope is we get hardly any snow. We were slammed so bad the past two years that we deserve a snow break. I hope I get my wish. 

One plan is to get me a new laptop very soon. I was able to get Kid #2 one very cheaply for Christmas so I know I can scout me out one too. Enough of this fucked up keyboard!  That is about all I gotta say right now. I see the gastro at the end of this month and I will know more about my gut. If I am quiet, it is because I dont want to sprinkle the negative everywhere.


I hope you all have a good new years and I pray we all have a great 2016.

Ouch!

*i dont care*


    It is a hot and muggy Summer day today (and yesterday). I have been sitting around in front of fans in shorts and tank tops. Hubby is making dinner on the grill. I just cannot do it.

I think the evil diamox has messed up my gut. I have been told by my endo to push the fluids today and I will see him tomorrow morning. I have pain on my right side like when I had my liver troubles. It is a constant nag that has gotten worse over the days. I get sharp pains, nauseated, gassy, and just feel ill. TMI!! I have no trouble with #2 but afterward I feel like I still have to go but I dont. I have a slight appetite. It could be my liver, my gallbladder, or my pancreas, I reckon. Whatever it is, I aint staying in the hospital. I refuse! Okay..if it is serious I will go. But otherwise I want to just make it go away. So yeah..what do I do if I have to start the diamox again if that is what is messing with my gut. There is only one other pill. If that doesnt work.....
Yeah..nothing positive to say.  I will post what happens in the comments. I wish to be happy again.

 The heat is not helping at all.  

Tomato Heaven!

*270*

   I was gifted that small bowl of tomatoes from a friend. She only had one plant but it was growing tomatoes like crazy. Then I contacted a local farm stand and they picked me all these green tomatoes for $10. There are at least 25 of them and there are some really big ones. We had tasty fried green tomatoes last night with our dinner. There were three left overs. I heated them up this afternoon and had them with my noodle lunch. Really tangy and good.
   I slice them on the thick side. Make sure they are not red at all or they will be too mushy to fry. I dip them in an egg wash of egg, milk, and hot sauce. Then I dip them in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, then back in the egg wash, and then I coat them in corn meal. I let them sit for a minute or two before I put them in the hot oil. I cook them until both sides are golden. We do not put anything on them. They are good..as is. Tonight I have two kinds of local corn on the cob to steam. There is Silver Queen and Butter and Sugar corn. I had also picked up some white skinned peaches while I was there. Those are the best. If you can get hold of them, give them a try. They are only in season for a short time before Fall hits.

   I ended up at the ED on Thursday evening. I was there for about four hours. I talked to Fred`s friend who is a nurse practitioner. I had sent him off with a paper of my symptoms for her to read and give her opinion. She most definitely thinks I am suffering from pancreatitis. She was thinking that I was in the chronic phase but that since it was getting worse, I needed to be seen. She found out later on from talking to the ADN that night, that those working on me thought it was pancreatitis. Guess what?
Supposedly I am fine. Scans are fine and enzymes of all the organs are fine.  You can push on my upper gut and you can see that it hurts me but everything is fine. He says that the only things that came up were I had a right ovarian cyst and the beginnings of a UTI (which he gave me an antibiotic for) but those would not give me the pain up where it is. He gave me a pill for stomach spasms that is used for people with IBS. It is an awful pill. I took it and within an hour, I was in bed sleeping. It only worked for the 1 hour that I slept and I was back feeling awful again. Oh well. Cant get those four hours back. I see the new gastro on Tuesday. I need to fill out a ton of paperwork too. 
  For a moment in time, I thought I was crazy. But the ED Dr said that there is something wrong, we just do not know what it is. He felt bad. They were ready to admit me but then the results came back. They had to send me home as I came. Still in pain with no answers.

  Yesterday Fred cleaned the entire fridge from top to bottom. It had to be defrosted. I must have spilled some water when I was putting fresh ice cube trays in and it plugged the drainage hole in the freezer. So it had to be shut off and cleaned. It is perfectly perfect now. I went shopping and cooked dinner. This morning, He took down all of my collection of canning jars and vintage bottles to be washed. He will put back up after I am done. I appreciate him so much. My payment is again a big hearty dinner.
 Basically that is it. Boring life in New England. Surprised you havent fallen asleep yet.  I feel like I might after eating my noodle lunch and tomatoes.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I feel like poop

*270*

   It started yesterday. Everything that I eat gives me pain and then I am nauseated all damn day. Even a Edy`s strawberry ice pop (the kind with the strawberries in it) made me want to vomit. I called my regular dr office, left a message. They called right back and said that I am on the list to be called by the new gastro office today. I hope they do not make me wait a long time to be seen. Today would be nice. I will need to take a shower first but I could definitely go today.
I came thisclose to going to the ER last night. I was waiting for the excruciating pain that would signal *your ass really needs to be seen* but it never came. Just an entire day of being uncomfortable and sick. Same as today. I think I will stick with dry toast for the rest of the day.

I cannot figure out why my blogger will not let me put this picture under the text over there so I am just gonna leave it cause at this point, I do not give a fuck. That is one of my first (at home) cucumbers. There are a bunch of little ones growing but this is the first biggun. Isnt she cute? I have a couple in the fridge from the community garden that are way too big. We are kind of neglecting that space. We go and check but not on a regular. I think this is my last year there. I will dig up my strawberry plants from the bed, bring the home to transplant and that will be that. I just do not have reason to drive all the way over there. I want to garden at home instead. Plus the community garden is overrun by bugs that I cannot fight because we cannot use pesticides (glad about that) and there are just TOO many.

  Okay, I am getting off here now. I am going to take an Advil or three and go lay down on the couch.
FUCK!

Joyful, I am!

*264*<------Yes. I am back at it again.

   I am sorry. It has been a few days. I have been otherwise occupied. But here I am and I will make it a big post.
    I am going to post my weight again because I am back at this mess of losing weight again. I will weigh in every Monday. I had said to everyone that would listen that if I did not have cancer, I was done fucking around. Now is the time to work on this body. I have lost some inches from not being able to eat so I should continue the trend. I want to say this once (unless at another time it becomes resolved) that I am still in pain in my right side like it is my gallbladder. All the time. Every hour of every day. Hurts worse when I eat fats of any kind. My constipation has gotten better since I started drinking the protein drinks. I am not going to take the pill that was prescribed for my constipation. I do not want another prescription. I can drink Milk of Magnesia instead. I am saying this because even though I wont mention it again, you will know it is an ongoing saga of my gut. I am going to tell my GP in April about what my next steps should be since my GP must be the idiot of the group. He actually told me that my pain was probably skeletal or muscular. He wanted to get me off the phone basically. Douche Nozzle. I will try someone else.
  So I started drinking a chocolate whey protein shake every day for breakfast. I drink 16 oz of it with either soy or rice milk. Those are less fattening. Whey protein shakes can be used for weight gain as in for weight lifters or for weight loss as in fatties like me. Oh! I had to put a pair of jeans away!! They are too big for me to wear anymore. Woot! Anyway. The drinking of this everyday is two fold. It will help me lose weight, and my first meal of the day is liquid. It does not hurt me and it has my bowels starting to move better than before. I am going to start walking but I have a ton of yard work to do first. I was raking this morning when I was out with the dogs. Nice yard work weather. Not too warm, not too cold. Just right. After I drop the big kid off at work, I am going to get a couple beds raked. Our town is not picking up leaf bags anymore so i will throw them up in the top yard to decompose.
  I am very happy today. Rainbow has decided to move back here. He is uber unhappy where he is. He was so indecisive about coming to live with us because of the space issue. When I told him that Big kid was moving to California in the Fall, that totally decided for him. He can have her room or the kids can switch, whatever. He will be here in three weeks. In the mean time, I am going to buy one of the Serta roll away beds. Not the crappy ones. One of the nice ones. I used to have to sleep on one at one point in my childhood, so I know they can be comfortable. Short story...both my brother and sister had to come back home to live for a bit because of lost jobs. I had to sleep on a roll away bed because there was not enough room at the time. I think I slept on that bed for a year. It wasn't bad and it was not a bad memory for me at all.  So he will live in the living room until September and then he will get a room upstairs. He will work and save his money so that he can go out on his own. He is kind of kick starting the other kid into working too. So I am Joyful! All my kids are growing and moving on..kinda sorta.
 Easter is in a few days. I have a turkey breast for the protein. The girls are pissed. Makes me think I should go out an buy a small ham too. Make some potato salad and shrimp salad. I do not know.



    Yeah, I am going to work on the losing weight thing again. My food intake is limited because of whatever is wrong with my gut. I just need to lay off any junk food now. Because it is bad for me and it is making my sugars bad. I cannot eat candy, cookies, chips, or any of that good stuff because of my diabetes but also because of my delayed digestion thing. The food sits in there too long and I am fighting blood sugars that I shouldn't have to fight. Meaning, I put in my insulin. It should lower my blood sugar. But it doesn't. Because the Lay`s potato chips are sitting in my colon and consistently raising the sugars again. Boring!! I know....

That is it. That is all that is going on. I have yard work to do and I have spring cleaning to do and I have to start tossing shit that I do not need anymore. Books need to be packed in totes. All this clutter drives me a little bat shit. I love my oldest child to pieces but I cannot wait for her to go. She is the major clutter bug/messy marvin in this house. It will be a relief to not have to pick up after another person every single day.

I will be back on or before Easter probably freaking out over what is for dinner.
Have a nice day!

Some good news for a change

  I called the gastro dr today because Fred made me. I hardly slept last night because my stomach hurt and it was waking me up. Plus a couple other things. So he calls back to see what I had to say and he checked on my blood work that I had done. He said everything came back positive. Meaning my liver, pancreas, and gallbladder are all good. Thank the lord. Now we have to figure out why I am plugged up and in pain.
 He looked and said my procedures were scheduled for March 22. I was like WHAT? He said that will not do. You cannot wait that long. He was going to talk to his schedulers to get me in much earlier. I hope it is sooner then the 11th.
 I told him the pain is the still there every single day, food hurts, laxative is working but not as much as would be beneficial.
He listened and I am confident we will find out what the fuck is going on!

Good news makes you feel good.

My kingdom for a.....

POOP!

   Yes, I said it. I am sick and tired of being constipated. Now I am not completely non-functioning in that area but if you eat THIS much food and only poop THIS much food...there is a problem. That colonoscopy aint coming fast enough. I have gotten shall we say worse..the nausea and feeling like I am gonna barf is more prevalent all day. The pain is still there but has spread to other places in my stomach area. Still have the side pain that is original. That never went away. I realized this afternoon that I need to eat way less. I had a turkey sandwich with a cup of cling peaches for lunch. Not a big sandwich at all. Normal size. And my gut feels like it is gonna explode. Tonight we are going to try out his brother`s meat rub on the chicken. I hope I can eat it cause I bet it will be real good.

 I have a plan to make blood orange marmalade tomorrow. I have a huge bag of the oranges that cost me so I am going to do it. A friend wants a couple to give as a gift. No rush but I would like to do it this weekend and get it out of the way. I said I hated making marmalade because of the extra work but it tastes really good. I will do it just because. 
 It is snowing a little bit this afternoon. Supposed to snow more overnight but it is too warm here on the coast so it will be mostly rain. Glad I have no place to go tomorrow.
This post is going no where but to pot..hehehe I got nothing.

Hope you are having a nice Saturday and a great Sunday to come. I am gonna go relax for a bit.

Cheese is the work of the Devil

Picture has no correlation to the topic at hand. I was in no mood to search for anything so I used something I already saved. I like it..it stays!

  I feel like utter shit today. This started over the weekend but I really feel just awful today. Pain in back and front and nauseated. I went out yesterday with Fred to run errands and I had gotten sharp pains where the liver/gallbladder is. Did not last long and it wasn't excruciating but it didn't fucking tickle either.  I just bitch about it because I have gotten to the point that the pain is nagging. Before I could kind of ignore it but not anymore. I am tired of feeling this way and being nauseated on top of it, doesn't help. I still have things I have to do on a daily basis so I must soldier on, Mother fuckers!
  I see the Gastro tomorrow bright and early at 9am. I know that it is going to be awhile until this is all figured out. I know that once he sees me, he will suggest blood work and maybe ANOTHER scan of some sort. Then I have to wait for the results. I am going to tell him that I am sick as a dog and do not want to have to wait for months and months to get some relief.
Part of me knows this is my gallbladder...but what if it isnt? What if it is my liver or my pancreas and whatever is wrong is just been festering all this time? I know, fatalist..I need to stop.
I think I am just tired of being in constant pain.

So collectively wish me luck and hopefully I will get some type of answer tomorrow.

Tummy Troubles

 I am sorry I have not posted sooner but I had a really suck ass kind of day. I woke up early this morning. No coffee, water, or meds. Got in the cold assed Jeep at made it to the hospital at 6:50am for my 7am HIDA scan on my gallbladder. I am not going to go into specifics because I am not in the mood. The first part of the scan, the pump nuclear isotopes into your iv, you lay flat under a big xray machine for an hour as they watch your liver, gallbladder, and small intestine light up like a Christmas tree. That part of my scan showed normal function of the gb. The next part of the test, the anesthesiologist came in and pumped me with this other drug that purposely makes the gb contract. They want to see your contraction ratio. That part of the test was awful. It hurt me in my gut, I felt like I was gonna puke, and I was forehead glistening. The pain lasted about 10 minutes and I had to lay there for another 20 minutes to finish the scan. That test was inconclusive. Isnt that just ducky? Meaning they cannot say it is or isnt my gallbladder.
 The surgeon says that he is not absolutely positive it is my gb. He wants to make sure it is not something else before he starts pulling body parts out of me. It could be another organ. I am thinking liver or pancreas (jesus christ). So he wants me to go to my gastro dr and they are going to figure out what it is. If it IS my gb then he will remove it. He was very nice and I know where he is coming from. How would you feel if they took your gallbladder and then when you get home and get settled..you realize it did not fix the problem? I would be pretty pissed off. Since I hate getting anesthesia and all..I am not jumping the gun.
 I feel like donkey shit. My stomach has hurt all day from the test. I just layed around and did nothing really.
 Oh here is the kicker! My appt with the gastro is in TWO WEEKS! Hahahahahaha
I get to wait a whole two weeks with this shit! Ahahahahahahaha

I had way too many Twizzlers that I will be paying for later but i needed something low fat to chew on. When I get pissed or I need to think, chewing helps as stupid as that sounds. Plus Twizzlers are just faboo.

Birthday celebrating and lots of veggies

  Today is my Father`s birthday. Happy Birthday Dad! If he were alive today, he would be 90. That means he has been gone 30 years. Wow.  My birthday is tomorrow. When I was a kid, there were always two birthday cakes and two dinner celebrations. Nobody got shortchanged because it was considered too much work or too much cake! Never ever too much cake. It has been a long time but there are days when I still miss him or I will dream about him. One day I will see him again.

  Today we are going out to celebrate my birthday and our 20th anniversary. Our plans before my gut troubles were to go to a nice steak place and then to Foxwoods. We have not changed those plans. I will eat and be merry. I will avoid any alcohol. I will not eat a large amount of food. If at any time my gut starts to hurt a little more, we will go straight home and to the ER. I am still in the dull pain stage of whatever is going on with me. I have been eating low carb since yesterday and as little fat as I can try to muster. It is really hard to find stuff to eat when you are so limited. I can only drink one cup of coffee because the fat from the cream bothers me. For breakfast/lunch,  I had two hard boiled eggs, a handful of grape tomatoes, and a few grapes. Yummy Yummy...I am soooo full! (side eye).
 I kid but if this will keep the immense pain away that I have heard about, then I am going to do it. I can tell the pain is more and different now. I wish my surgical appointment was sooner rather than on Thursday.
  I am going to get dressed, take one kid out to buy brassieres, and then Hubs and I are going out to have fun. Wish me luck! And hopefully my steak dinner wont kill me. :)

My gut sucks

 

I forgot to mention what has been going on. I have been having right side pain. It is a constant. And I noticed that my digestion has slowed down like it did before. Not fun!
  I called my regular Dr who is also my Endo because I have to be careful with my kidneys because I am a diabetic. At first he thought they were kidney stones but then after poking me, he is leaning toward the pain being from my gallbladder. I have not had any awful, oh god help me pain. Just constantly hurts but gets worse if I am doing stuff or sitting too long. It is different from the stomach issues I had before. I am waiting to get a call to set up an ultrasound to check out my gut, again. I have also noticed that my strong script for prilosec is not working as well as it used it. I have some nights when I have acid reflux coming up. I will have to see my gut Dr in the near future too.
 So yeah. My life is just a never ending circle of clusterfucks and oh shits. Thank GOD I have medical insurance. If I didnt, I would probably be dead already.

I was sitting here feeling like crap and I realized I forgot to take my insulin after I ate that bologna sandwich. I checked my sugar first and it is still in the normal range. That tells me that A. my stomach is sluggish and I cannot take shot until food moves into intestine. And B. My feeling like shit is something different. It is not my diabetes.

I wish I could be normal again.

Vomitrocious! Is that a word?

Don't you wish puke was that magical?

*267*

I have not been complaining about my gut lately because it has been fine and dandy. Until after I got that head cold. Now every single day I feel like crap. It does not matter what I eat or do not eat, I feel nauseated.
 I THOUGHT I was having a Meneire`s attack last week but did I? Or is this what is plaguing my gut coming back to haunt me. Now you could say that maybe it is Meneire`s all along. But that disorder is very specific. You know when it hits you and it is awful! That is why I think it pretty much was. I had the ringing in my ears, dizzy, nauseated, basically the whole shebang!  It is sick! I need to lay off the food for now.
Do not worry. I am not gonna starve myself. I just have to stop eating full meals. Eat a little bit until this passes. I have been drinking that god awful orange crap the whole time. I may have missed a day or two but basically I have been drinking it every week.
 I am having the ablation next week and I do not want to get all wrapped up in the Gastro right now. He will want to do more expensive tests that I cannot afford.
So yeah, I feel like shit AGAIN. I have a new symptom too. Sometimes when I eat, I get sharp pains in the top of my stomach. I wonder if it truly is my gallbladder. The pain IS in my stomach, no doubt about that but it is sharp. Scared me a bit and made me sit up and take notice.


 I feel like puke.

It is almost New year`s eve

I would die to have this poster

*267*

  Ahh! Almost time to pop the bubbly and contemplate a new year. I do not do resolutions. I am too prone to failure in that arena. I will just try my damnedest to do better in 2012 then I did this year. Lose more weight will be one of those things. But I am not going to beat myself up if I do not make it to the gym every week or month..hehehe. I WILL be saving money because I am going on my trip across the country next year. I start saving in January. I will save $32 a week in my savings account (at different bank..separate from house account) and I will have plenty by September. I am not touching it for anything. I was thinking I might try to save an extra $50 a month for a  little extra. Even after the trip is done, I will continue to save that money.

  I had my endoscopy and it was a piece of cake like everyone said. I was not even drowsy afterward. I remember everything except the part when I was knocked out. The Dr said that everything looked good but he found a couple red spots in my stomach and he took some biopsies of the areas. Probably going to check if I have that H. Pylori too. I will find out next week what his final report is. It baffles me. Everything looks good but I still have stomach pain. If I was to have to predict, I think those red spots are healing ulcers (cause he gave me that medicine). That is why he did not say ulcer right away. Who knows. Just do not tell me there is nothing wrong with me at all. I assume if he finds the bacteria in my gut, he will put me on antibiotics to kill it anyhoo. That would be good so the pain does not come back full force. I will let you know when I find out.

  Yesterday I went and bought some snacks, two bottles of Ballatore bubbly, and I made some Coquito (Puerto Rican egg nog). That shit will knock you on your ass, I tell you! The recipe almost fills a 2 liter soda bottle. It has 8 oz of white rum and 3 oz of brandy. Just enough kick to make you notice but not care..and you drink and you get drunk! LOL I want to get my drunk on but I am not stupid. I just had an endo for stomach pain. Drinking a large amount of booze would be stupid on my part. I will drink a small thimble full of it tonite and I will have some champagne at midnight. I will be a good girl otherwise.
If it wasnt for my gut..oh it would be on!
 Oh! This computer is getting ready to shit the bed now too. So I am praying to the computer gods that you let her work for another 2 weeks. I am going to save up a few hundred and get a cheapo laptop. It wont be the greatest but it will keep us online for now. I might go to the pawn shop too. We shall see.

So I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe New Year`s Eve. I will be spending tomorrow taking down all the Christmas decorations.
Oh Joy!

The end of the year and my gut

*266*

New Year`s Eve is this Saturday. I got invited to go out the one of the casinos to see a 70s/80s revue. I am going to decline the offer. I want to be an old lady, drink my champagne (Ballatore), eat some snacks, and play a board game with the kids. None of them have plans either. I could go but I just do not feel well. I called my gastro Dr today to let him know that the pills really are not working. I feel like garbage and I have a headache to boot. For a millisecond, I could think it is high blood pressure..but I have low blood pressure (the low good kind) and it was JUST checked last week. Fred told me when he was dealing with his stomach pains, he had headaches too.
Anyway, I told him the meds didnt work. He said that he will be looking to see what the problem is in a day and a half and we will fix the problem. I asked if I should continue taking the medicine. Yup. Damn horse pills.
 

  I want to say that I do not do New Years Resolutions. But I do try to improve myself from year to year. So if I screw up on those improvements, I do not beat myself up over it cause I didnt keep my promise to myself. 
So I think my ass will stay home with my children and have some laughs. We love to play board games. Especially the word ones. Like Apples to Apples. We bought a new one for Christmas. It is called Would you rather?  

Boring, huh?

And the Gastro says.....

*265*

  I have been back for over two hours but I had some shit to do before I could get any computer time in.
 I went to see the gastro dr this morning..early at 815am. I told him everything that has been going on and he told me that he really doesn't know. It could be an Ulcer. It could be Irritable bowel syndrome. It could be just Acid Reflux or Gerd. It could also be diabetic gastroparesis. I hope to hell it isn't that! That is not a good thing to get. Lord no! You basically have trouble digesting your food. As it gets worse, you end up on a liquid diet and then feeding tubes. That is not the way I want to get myself thin! So we shall pray to whomever you pray to that I do not have that.  He said it can be a combination of the things he mentioned. He wont know until he does a endoscopy. He also gave me a script for some acid reducing pills. I do not remember the name and sure as shit I have never heard of it. Fred has taken many and it isn't any of those.
 When I went up to the receptionist she made a surprised remark and I was like What? The Dr went on the computer and scheduled my endoscopy for December 29th. He is already booked up but he shoved me in there. She says the hospital MIGHT change the date but I will find out sooner then later.
So yeah. I will get the upper half of a roto rooter four days after Christmas. I got a gift after all!

No diet was established for me because he really does not know what is wrong. I am just in pain all the time in my gut and I have other stomach and gastro issues that suck. So that is about it. But I keep a smile on my face and a joke in my soul. I will be okay whatever the outcome.

Now I need to change into some comfy clothes and relax on the couch.
Happy Friday!