“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.”

-- Sarah Caldwell

Day 37 AS

Some great news from Tuesday's blood work: liver function tests came back normal. Although that's what we expected, it's still a relief. We'll never know why they were high last time, but it does seem a reasonable assumption that the trauma of the surgery was a contributing, if not the only, factor.

Some not so great news from my blood work: my uric acid levels are elevatated (10 vs. normal range top of 7). That means that my foot joint pain is probably not anatomical, but gout flaring up. I guess that's better news than not. My doctor told me this is very common with rapid weight loss, and googling confirmed her statement. I suppose that's one of the reasons my surgeon told me the surgery wouldn't help get rid of my gout -- but she didn't tell me it might make it worse. Oh well... the prednisone should help. I just took my third dose and it doesn't ache as badly, but it certainly still hurts. Next week we'll talk about different treatment if need be. The sad side of this are that I've been taking medication twice a day to keep my uric acid levels lower and I haven't had any wine since May, and it's happening anyway. Kind of a bummer -- pain without any of the pleasure ahead of time to make it worth it.

Lest you think me ungrateful, I am very happy the results aren't reversed. I'll take a normal set of liver function tests any day over lower gout results if I can only have one or the other.

The support group meeting was great this week -- over 40 people there! I had my calendar mixed up, so the plastic surgeons weren't there (they'll be there next time). With that many people there were a lot of interesting discussions. One of the useful tidbits for me was the acknowledgment that my broken thermostat is normal. Even though I've only lost 100 pounds so far, it physically feels more like 200 when it comes to temperature -- I am cold seemingly all the time when I feel good now. The post-op only group theme was "change" with a focus on the psychological changes people may/may not have 2 or more years post-op.