“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.”

“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.” -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Day 6 AS

Yesterday was a red letter day -- not only could I actually get up all by myself, but I could wipe my own ass!! Again, something we truly under-rate until we can't do it!

I finally exceeded 40 oz. of fluid in the 24 hour period and consequently didn't have a dry mouth by the end of the day yesterday. The lower back pain that had been interfering with my sleep left also -- progress -- step by step. I managed to stay awake more than half of the day also. The other milestone -- feet, ankles, toes and calves that look like my very own!! Oh -- and one more -- I finally found something that tasted good -- sugar free orange jello.

Progress continues today -- although the outing to the doctor's office was exhausting I confess. I'm glad we saw her -- there are a couple of things she's concerned about so we can work on fixing those now. The biggest one is my excessive belching and urping -- the latter shouldn't be happening. So she's added another med (thankfully a small enough one to swallow without cutting up) -- reglan. That's seemed to help a lot -- no urping after 2 doses -- she wants me on it a month 4 times/day. The downside of it is that it makes me a little dizzy, so I may not be able to drive next week as I'd hoped -- we'll see. Not happy with my infrequent farts either -- I still have a ton of abdominal gas that just won't come out. So I'll keep on walking and try to wake that darn colon of mine back up. Another issue is skin breakdown around the drain site -- I think it just stayed too wet too long. I'll be trying some OTC hydrocortisone cream on that.

Some good news -- my blood pressure is great! It's usually good -- but rarely great! Not sure what to think about my blood sugar -- I have a call in to my endocrinologist to consult with him. I'd cut my insulin way down -- and I still had a low last night, so didn't take any. Pretty low this morning too, so again passed. I guess when you're taking in almost zero carbs and less than 100 calories a day there's not a big need to worry about it once the surgery shock wears off -- and seemingly it's starting to wear off. I had awful numbers in the hospital -- glad those days are past.

I have survived 6 hours alone this afternoon -- woohoo! John helped set me up nicely before he went to work -- what a wonderful man he is. He's on his way home now and is going to try to find me some more sugar free orange jello. Who could ask for more???