End of Summer Update

Hello Friends,
Well, 2014 has definitely been an odd year and not quite how I had hoped!  By now, I would have been at my goal weight.  My husband and I would have celebrated by going to Hawaii.  I would have gone on a few work trips.  I would have seen more friends and been in touch more.

However, it hasn't quite turned out that way.  Continuing my 2014 of health issues, I had a sigmoid colectomy at the end of August.  I actually thought the day wouldn't come, because I kept having one issue after another leading up to it.  I had 5 horrible weeks of Vertigo and bad thrush from all the antibiotics I had been on.  But, I made it to surgery day.  All went as well as one would have hoped. The surgeon was able to do it laprascopically.  I didn't lose my spleen and I didn't end up with a colostomy bag.  The first 24 hours in the hospital I was miserable.  Sooo much insane gas pain (they fill your abdomen with air).  After that, just mainly it was the incisional pain.  They kicked me out of the hospital 3 days later and I went home.  I was happy to be home but then missed the 24/7 care by the nurses.  My husband quickly got schooled on some things I don't think he ever thought he'd have to do.  Poor guy.  After being home for 2 days, I ended up going back to urgent care because the incision wound opened up.  So, now I had an infection in the site and they would need to clean/care for it.  This included now daily at home visits by the nurse to pack and change the bandage and more antibiotics.  My incision is 6cm deep and these heal at 1cm a month.  What????!!!!  I had only planned on being off of work for 2-3 weeks!  Ohhh heck.  Yep, it could take 4-6 months to heal all of the way!

Well, we are now almost 3 weeks post surgery.  Things are getting better, but very slowly.  Up until this point, I had been sleeping upright in a chair!  Not comfortable at all and awake half the night.  Last night was the first night I was able to get into bed.  Yay!  It was like heaven!  I've been doing more walking around the house. Laps. :)  It's too hot to go outside.  Freaking 100 F!  But, if I do, walking to get the mail is exciting!! :)  I've progressed from liquids and canned foods to some more fresh foods.  The frustrating part of the progression of all of this is the bowels.  They are no where near being "regular".  And, I can't go back to work until they are.  Come on colon!  It will be a very happy day when I have a regular day. :)  You will have thought I had won the lottery!

The nurse comes out now 3 times a week to do the bandage change.  My husband's father is here helping out, so it has been nice to have a dog walker and some company.  I've actually been tracking my food daily.  Ha, go figure!  Well, I mainly started because I needed to make sure I was eating enough calories and protein.  It's been a good way to ease back into WW.  I've had to step on a scale periodically to make sure I'm not retaining fluids, but so far it has been a 10 lb loss since surgery.  I bought a bunch of new clothes right before the surgery (probably stress spending!) and I'm looking forward to wearing them when I go back to work.  I'm actually looking forward to going to the gym too!  What?  Yep, I have major cabin fever!  My husband laughed when I said I would just kill to walk on a treadmill right now!  We always want what we can't have!  And man, I am just craving pizza ..Mexican ....Chinese ....hamburgers ...Subway... oh hell, anything with substance and flavor!  Strangely, I am not craving sweets so much. Well nothing other than my kryptonite of Sprinkles.

This experience is definitely teaching me patience, which is not something I have EVER been good at or enjoy.  I now understand the meaning of one day (or one minute) at a time!  It's so hard to feel 90% good, like your fine but then try to move and have the abdominal pain or go running to the bathroom.  It's also teaching me to sit with feelings, cravings, etc. Because I have no option to binge or "go off plan".  I picture my colon exploding and very bad things happening.  Haha!!  Maybe that's the visual I need to retain for the rest of my life when I want to deviate to not so healthy foods.

Well, that's where we are at the moment.  My big adventure for the weekend is taking a shower. :)  I'm sure soon enough this will all be a distant memory, but for now, it's 3:32pm on a Saturday and time for some cheese and crackers and more bad TV.  Need a daytime Soap or Talk Show update, just ask me!!!!!  

Thank you all for the beautiful flowers, thoughtful cards, and visits!

Cheers!

Jessica