Independence

“Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.” --Stephen R. Covey

Day 21 AS

It is great to be independent again -- I drove yesterday for the first time post-op and again today. Yesterday was to the phlebotomist who got it right the first time (yay) and today to my internist.

Climbed on the scale today and... was totally amazed. Since my high weight in April I'm down 89 pounds now -- depending on what you use as my last pre-op weight, I'm down approximately 30 pounds over the last 3 weeks. It's amazing how much you can lose and how quickly when you don't eat much... which is the point after all. Good to see it's succeeding so far.

My internist is making some med adjustments too -- cutting my blood pressure med in half, stopping cholesterol until I start eating "normally" again and cutting out my asthma med (let's see how I do). She thinks my bp is too low now (I never thought I'd hear those words!) and may be contributing to my constant exhaustion and occasional dizziness. Hopefully this will help both!

Another outing this evening -- post op support group. It will be a change of pace -- I'm used to being kicked out of the last hour (reserved solely for post ops) -- this time I'll be staying. It will be interesting to see if the group shares more gory tales (explaining why the pre-ops are excused) or if the facilitator simply wants to leave some time for this group exclusively.

More "outings" planned later in the week. I see my surgeon again tomorrow. Thursday I have my post-op nutrition class -- maybe they'll have some more ideas how to survive this pureed food stage. I'm finding this difficult -- the vegetarian approach with protein powder has made it bearable, but it is still difficult. I was discussing this with my internist today and she suggested I ask if ground meats without pureeing them are OK... I will check that out Thursday.

I see my wonderful endocrinologist Thursday late afternoon. My internist wants me to schedule him monthly, along with her monthly, staggering them by two weeks so I see one or the other every 2 weeks. Makes sense. She warned me there will be lots of blood work ahead as between the two of them and my anticipated weight changes over the next few months we'll be playing with what meds I can reduce vs. cut out altogether while keeping healthy. It is great having an internist now that really wants to be engaged and help me be the healthiest I can be -- she really feels like a partner.

The weather has been crazy today -- right now a fairly gentle rain, but prior to now it's been a non-stop down pour since the wee small hours -- very unusual for October here.