Good morning Jeannie

In answer to your question, NO doctors do not talk to each other.  A phone call by their nurse or whomever to get you passed on is about all they do.  I am having vision problems because my surgeon (world class) and my glaucoma specialist did not talk to each other. 

I am going back to the museum today to finish up the bill cody section.  It will have taken us 8 visits to make it through each section and not minutely as I like to do.  It is just too big and in a city of only 9,000.    I guess its true that when you do not have to build prisons you can build parks and the arts.

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter and bananas

lunch - salad with protein probably chicken

snack - still have grapes

dinner - going out don't know where.

Hello, everyone: I am bringing up the rear tonight. After nine days of painful restless nights, I hope to sleep tonight...it's about that time.

Derek had his company from Britain today, in fact he had to rescue them..they were stranded at the Toronto airport..their contact has border crossing issues. I went to his place next door to say HELLO and took over a side dish of rice and beans (corn, edamme and black beans) and a chocolate-caramel cheesecake. I told him to NOT bring leftovers back. Her BBQ'd chicken for his friend and her two teen daughters...nice girls...one had lovely PINK hair.

Then I headed up to our older son's place in the Falls and spent the afternoon with my two step grand daughters (10 and 14) making sun-catchers with glue and glass globs, glitter paint and pearls and diamonds. The trick now is to have the patience to wait until the white glue turns CLEAR when it dries. We put them all (9 sun catchers and two jars and lids) onto cookie sheets then put them up high on the top of some book shelves to dry where their six cats cannot get into them. Once dry, we can peel the plastic lids away and poke a hole in each sun catcher, and use skinny ribbons, yarn or fishing line to hang them.

I got home in time to say GOODBYE to Derek's friends, make a light supper, check my email to find another children's book to illustrate...the author is ready...egad! and then crocheted another INFINITY SCARF with some soft white yearn and a few rows of multicoloured fuzzy yarn in oranges, golds and turquoises. I did that while watching the OLYMPICS..,.what a joy to watch instead of POLITICS!

Still editing a few letters to be sent to corporations asking for sponsorship for our conference.But I am headed to bed earlier than usual..just plain worn out.

Breakfast: forgot, yup...simply got washed, dressed and headed out w/o my protein drink

Snack: stopped at a farmer's stand and bought PEACHES and ate one right there!

Lunch:  meal supplement bar that I keep in the car

Snack:  none

Dinner:  rice and black beans, corn and edamme but topped with cheese for more protein

Bedtime Snack: better have a protein drink

VERY HOT here...

Morning All,

Nothing much on my agenda today. I need to clean and do laundry...that's all. I'm not surprised that the weight gain issues are psychological. That really goes along with the things we were told, that the surgery was a tool, but we are the ones that have to change. My brain is definitely still making some really poor decisions. I still use food to calm anxiety. I am definitely doing better and keeping 100 pounds off, but the last 50 pounds need for me to use other things to calm anxiety. I think I'm going to make myself a sign...with other things that I can do first, before I reach for food when I am feeling some anxiety. I do have other things, coloring, reading, baths, meditation. I could even make a list that I would check off. 

Food Plan

Breakfast- protein drink

Lunch- chicken soup

Dinner- going out...not sure where

Snacks- apple with cheese slices, nuts

Yesterday afternoon, I got a piece of bad news.  My neurologists is retiring; he has been my doctor since the drunk driver broke my back in two places and cracked my neck vertebrae in the early 90s.  He and his partner both showed up in the ER that early morning and both assured me I was going to be fine but, I found out later, he told my sister that if they could keep me alive through the hours of surgery, I would never walk again.  I've seen this doctor every year since then.  He is also the doctor who called me a few years back and said he was looking at my MRI results and wanted to send me to a colleague, who diagnosed me with MS.  So, he is retiring and a few months ago, my rheumatologists told me that he was retiring. I will be seeing my new rheumatologists next month and my new neurologists in November. Even though I only see these doctors every year or in the case of the rheumatologists every six months, they have been a part of my life for over two decades....damnit.  I retired; why would I not want my doctors to retire. LOL

I am spending the day getting more organization to my organization, and I am proofreading/editing the article that I wrote for one of our local WLS surgeons.  He and I met a few months ago at an MS fundraiser.  When he was introduced to me, I told him that I had had WLS and told him when and he looked a little shocked. He said, wow, you've done amazingly well. Of course, I said, maintaining hasn't been easy.  We continued to talk and he said he would like to know what I was doing and would I come talk to his support group and so I did both. Then, he and I had lunch a few weeks later and he mentioned that all the research pointed toward weight gain relating to mental issues and he said he would love to do research but had no time, so I offered to do it for him...I was somewhat shocked at what I have learned. He is using the article to prepare for a seminar he is giving...I will probably help him put his powerpoint presentation together too.  Originally, I saw this as a collaboration but he has offered little towards the article other than giving me access to his only medical library membership, and since I am putting his presentation together too for the seminar with no contribution from him, this is more like me doing it all. In the beginning, he told me he would pay me for the research so I guess we will go that route. Anyway, I am taking some of the information and will be using it to do some little "for our information" segments.  But, in all the research that I have done, and I have done a lot, I have found nothing that contributes weight gain to a faulty pouch....that sort of shocked me.  

Well, today, DH is working from home. He is working on something that requires no interruptions and when he is in his office at work, he gets interrupted all day long...so, when he does certain conversions or whatever, he does it at home....I have to be quiet. Crap. 

Breakfast: I egg cooked in a dab of olive oil and one toast

Snack: watermelon

Lunch: Potato soup.  

Snack: carrots (my daughter's carrots have produced tons this year so I will be eating them often)

Dinner: Beans, loaded cornbread, fried okra/squash/greentomatoes (I have a little of each and will fry all of it)

Snack: watermelons and I hope we eat it all today. 

Ladies, consider your food today, plan it, and follow the plan.  Get out and enjoy the summer heat because from all I've read, we are going to have a cold and snowy winter. 

Thanks Jeannie. In CA they just passed the euthanasia law. If my friend gets too tired she can decide on that. I think it is a really good law that can help people that are suffering. I can already see Linda's life dwindling, it's like a drip at a time, but within a month or two the loss is big. I'm already brainstorming about things that she can access to keep her brain occupied. I can see her breathing starting to change. She said it is allergies...I don't think so. Her speech is labored now and she is over articulating to be understood. I know that swallowing will be affected before too long...it is difficult to watch and I just can't imagine being in her place.