Saturday September 30

Weight 115.5 (unchanged), calories 1768. So weird - calories 500 over maintenance and weight unchanged. I'll take it!

DH apparently did really well on the mental tests yesterday. He must have really strained his brain because he was EXHAUSTED afterwards. He was a rather petulant "child" at the final appointment in dermatology and took a nap for a couple of hours when we got home. He was fine last night so we went out to dinner with SIL to a nice place on the water (inside as it was 55 degrees).

Hard to believe that October starts tomorrow! I did find coffee-mate sugar-free pumpkin creamer and am enjoying it in my coffee this morning. My porch and front steps are decorated with pumpkins and mums, so I'm ready! However I hear our weather is going to get warm again this week, so real Fall is still a ways off.

Have a satisfying Saturday!

Good Morning All-

A piece of whole wheat crust pizza and two glasses of Shock Top first earned me a two pound jump to just above mid-range. I've rarely even sipped beer post VSG, and this is the first time I've had 2 ! (The orange slice counted as fruit !)

Back on track today, with routine weekend errands and chores. Hope to fit in a long walk on this last day of September !

Saturday Salutations, mates!

No hiking this weekend due to rain. On deck is studio yoga and probably a gym workout. DD's laundry might count as a work out, too. I don't often help with it -- she started doing her own laundry in 4th grade. I started helping, on occasion, about a year ago to reduce her stress and mine. I don't enter her bedroom but all of this laundry (5 loads or so) is on her bathroom floor. A psychiatric ARNP told me yesterday that teenagers really can't be diagnosed as hoarders because they would pretty much all meet the criteria. She was joking but not joking. Her kids are grown now but she still has old photos of their rooms that prove the point. I found the conversation immensely relieving.

Liz, I often think about you and your DH. Fingers crossed that he is on the study drug and it can stop/slow progression. He is lucky to have you to help navigate. I hope you prioritizing Liz-time activities for retirement -- self care for the caregiver and all that jazz.

Thanks to my oncologist, the plastics dept called me with an offer I couldn't refuse. They have a new guy that was a fellow under a fancy microvascular plastic surgeon at the University of WA that does lymphedema surgery.

I have long wanted to talk to someone about whether my excess skin post WLS is what caused my lymphedema to flare. And if so, maybe skin reduction would help. But I never knew WHO to talk to. That is a strange hybrid of issues that aren't well understood as stand alone items much less combined onto one patient. When I shopped plastics for LBL, neither of the plastic surgeons had experience with a patient like me.

I don't know how much this young-ish guy can tell me. It doesn't help that his first name is Willie. (Apologies to any Willies that might be reading this.) I might do better with his UW mentor whose first name is Charles. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to an appt in a couple of weeks.

Theoretically, the plastics team could provide both arm excess skin removal and lymphedema surgery. But, they are just as likely to tell me that I am a poor candidate for both. Either way, it will be interesting. I went from being "absolutely no more surgeries" to "maybe in a year" to "maybe in Dec" in just about 3 hours.

Have a great day! Shel

Sounds like there is potential for some help with the lymphedema. Wouldn't that be great for you if they can do something?

Shel, your new option(s) with Willie and Charles sound interesting. Nothing explored, nothing gained!

No weight since I'm at my scraping weekend. Food choices have been okay considering the environment and I did get a decent walk in yesterday. Mostly just sitting on my butt otherwise taping pics and papers and such to scrapbook pages.

Enjoy your weekend with your friends!

Enjoy, Paula. It sounds restful, actually. And restful is always a good thing. Reminds me of the yoga pose of feet up the wall. Seems silly until I actually do it, and then ... aaahhh!

Greetings Great Ones

138 today. Undeserved since I ate several pieces of smokey bacon cheddar cheese yesterday. It flew into my grocery cart when I wasn't looking.

Got a new 12 volt battery in the Prius and it seems fine. $300 for a battery replacement which took 12 minutes (I know because the clock in the car was behind by 12 minutes) but its better than a $2300 brake system repair. While waiting at the dealer I walked around the lot and looked at new cars. Better than sitting in the waiting room.

Liz glad the exam went ok. Must really be exhausting for DH and glad he got some sleep. Enjoy the pumpkin coffee - two servings of veggies. Lordy how do you find time to get your porch decorated with all the other stuff you do? I need to get the carpets cleaned before Halloween and thats about the extent of my decorating.

Shel, interesting about the possible combination surgery for the lymphodema and plastics. Hope Willie the Wizard really is one. He must be a secure and confident person to allow himself to be called "Willie". All I can think of is "Free Willie" but I don't think he is an orca. I hope something works out for you. That must be the interesting part of medicine when a patient presents with multiple interrelated issues and you are well equipped to navigate this stuff.

Paula take care and enjoy the scrap book weekend. We have a local non profit business called "Scrap" and they take all kinds of arts and craft supplies as donations and then resell them. Its doing really well.

Hope Ann is out there. Thinking of her DH biopsy.

Our team won last night and actually didn't make too many bloopers. We ate modest portions of taccitos and I had a lovely persian cucumber. More for today.

DH has become fixated on taking things apart and recycling metal. There is a big scrap yard near our studio and if he goes there I am afraid he will come home with other stuff. Everyone needs a hobby.

Diane O, the things I miss most after WLS are pizza and mexican food. Every once in awhile I indulge so its like Devon says - you can't just decide to never eat a piece of the forbidden food ever again or you are doomed to eat it. Beer has no appeal but thats because there is wine.

Well off for more of my caffeinated veggie drink. Diane S

LOL! Picking up pumpkins and mums at the food store and plunking them on the porch hardly qualifies as real "decorating"!

I'm with you and Devon on nothing being truly forbidden. Having stuff once in a while and not a ton of it can be better than thinking you can never have something, then breaking down and overdoing.

And yes, wine is divine. I have it less often and have a smaller amount now than pre-WLS, but I do have it with some good meals. It is a controversial subject with some on OH, so I stay out of those shooting matches. I find this group to be easier to be honest with and not either offend someone or get attacked.