Good news!

“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!” -- Anne Frank

Day 79 AS

I hadn't realized it's been so long since I posted! Apologies to those who've been asking...

I saw my surgeon yesterday and my progress is astounding! I'm down 124 pounds now since my April high. She calculated I've lost 58% of my excess body weight. My blood tests came back great overall -- normal kidney and liver functions, calcium, B12, iron and other vitamins are normal (a concern with this procedure -- looks like my supplements are working!). My cholesterol was good although triglycerides a little high but that's to be expected with rapid weight loss I'm told. My fasting blood sugar's a little high too, but I test every day so knew that already. The surgeon was still amazed it was so close to normal with only one oral med now -- vs. two in the past and massive doses of insulin. I do so hope the insulin days are over... time will tell, but so far so good!

I was having problems with low blood pressure and those are now gone. I have a lot more energy as a result and no more dizzy spells -- woohoo. Still some annoying gout issues in my big toe, but I'm trying a different med now and it's definitely better. Hopefully after the next few months that will get back to normal too.

Thanks to my office neighbor, the headaches that have been plaguing me at work due to the fluorescent lighting may now be at an end -- fingers crossed. She had the great idea of removing the lights above my desk. That helped a ton, but the lights in the hallway still led to a low level headache. To the rescue once again, Robin loaned me a big umbrella that we set up in my line of vision to the hall lighting and voila -- not one headache today for the first time since I returned to work. Go Robin!! This is saying a lot as the stress level generally totally sucks at work right now, so headache free in spite of that is totally awesome.

I went out to lunch for the first time today with another wonderful colleague, Belinda. What a great time we had! The server was concerned that I wasn't enjoying my meal as I still eat so little, but it was delicious -- no worries. I felt quite odd telling her I just don't eat that much -- never something I ever thought I'd say. I drove -- still paranoid that seatbelts won't fit, even though intellectually I'm pretty sure most will now. I've been enjoying the little milestones as different accomodations for my size that I've made have been going away -- Belinda pointed out one I didn't even know was gone now, that being the ability to cross my arms over the steering wheel as I crank into a parking place. In the past my arms would be limited pretty much to the bottom of the steering wheel, likely because I had to sit back so far to fit behind it. I've had to move my seat closer to the wheel a couple of times now!

Catching up on a great past event -- Thanksgiving. Our visit with my dad and his wife was fantastic. It was so great seeing him!! We went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant the night before the holiday. I enjoyed some yummy Pollo de Caldo (their concept of a chicken and vegie soup) for that dinner and a couple of subsequent lunches. John outdid himself with Thanksgiving supper. He brined a fresh free range turkey using Alice Water's famous recipe, originally shared with us by our awesome home-chef friend Carol. He made some traditional stuffing, his now-famous ancho-chili sweet potatoes, perfect gravy and a Splenda-based pumpkin pie. I made some Splenda cranberries and found both of the Splenda dishes surprisingly tasty. I did exceed my half-cup collective limit by a bite or two and paid the price for a short time afterwards, but it was totally worth it. I learned my lesson and kept in line with leftovers. One of my favorite leftover creations of John's was a 1/8 of an Ak-mak cracker with turkey and low-fat jarlsberg melted over the top -- yum yum.

We hosted our first dinner party post-op last week in honor of John's birthday. It was great seeing everyone. I was worried about how I'd deal with 4 courses, but it turned out to be a total non-event. I am still seemingly full all the time so simply passed on appetizers, (in spite of how good they looked), had my normal meal portion of the entree and passed on the cheese course and dessert. I experimented with a Splenda flourless chocolate cake for me and it was a nightmare -- glad John picked up a decadent "real" one for everyone else. I guess I just need to practice modifying recipes a bit more. Fortunately no worries as I wasn't at all interested in dessert as it turned out -- another quite odd feeling for me. John opened some lovely (as I was told) old wines that everyone enjoyed. I'm glad I have no interest at all whatsoever in wine still and hope that continues, given the negative consequences for me after having had this procedure. The only downer of the evening is that it was one of my "bad" days -- I seem to have one a week or so where I just feel generally crappy. Thank God for such terrific friends though. I had to go lay down for a few minutes after the entree and when I got back up all of my lady friends were in the kitchen calmly (and wonderfully!) taking care of clearing the course. I am such a lucky person to be surrounded by so many awesome people.

Speaking of awesome people, John remains the awesomest. I'm so glad I broke that promise to myself to stay away from men for life a couple of months before we met! :) My life would be so sad and empty without him. He finished an incredible exterior holiday light display last week. He received the best ever compliment too for it. A lady had stopped her car in front of our home at dusk. He was rolling the trash cans to the curb and given it's a little odd for someone to do that around here he checked to make sure everything was OK with her. She had a couple of young kids with her and responded that all was well, they were just waiting for Santa to wake up. We have had a very jovial Santa blow up for many years now (some of you may remember the year some hoodlum slashed him and I had to stitch up his wounds. I'm extra glad I did so now!). Sure enough a couple of minutes later the timer switched him on and he lit up and blew up and "woke up." They stop by every night on their way home from day care to see Santa wake up -- how cool is that? :)

I truly hope you are enjoying this holiday season. There's so much to be thankful for. I love the Anne Frank quote at the start of this blog entry. I hope we all find our true potential.