HOME

I don't know what is better -- having an IV removed, taking a much-needed shower, or just being HOME. Whatever -- I got all three today and they are, each one, special blessings.

Monday morning went fine. We got to the hospital just after 5:30 but the waiting was not as bad as I'd feared. One of the elders from church, Rex, came to visit and he helped make the time pass. I suppose the worst part was after they took me away from Bruce to the holding area -- it seemed like I was there a long time. The folks were quite nice, though -- especially the anesthesiologist. I've been told that it is difficult to intubate me and he looked around, had a few ideas, and seemed confident that he could handle the situation. When they wheeled me to the OR the only folks there were Dr. Williams (the anesthesiologist) and his assistant. As usual, I only remember being there for about ten seconds.

I don't remember where I was when I awakened -- I don't remember awakening at all, actually. At some point I was in my room and Bruce was there and I think there were multiple visitors -- Alex, Merrill (another elder), maybe that's it. All I did was sleep -- the physical therapy people came by to try to get me to do something but I was out like a light. So Monday passed pretty quickly.

Bruce came by at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday and stayed for about an hour. Again -- all I really wanted to do was sleep (and it's mostly what I did for the entire time I was there). I didn't read a thing, didn't watch a single DVD. I usually listened to the baseball game, but I slept on and off while it was playing through my iPhone (I had a strong internet signal). I used my Kindle to check into Facebook, but it was very difficult for me to type on it so I kept that to a minimum (and still made a lot of mistakes). On this day I did my physical therapy. It wasn't too bad. I walked a bit -- my room was just two doors down from the "gym" so they walked me there so I could see where I was going to go the next day.

Bruce came by early on Wednesday, too, and we gave me a sponge bath and I used some dry shampoo. Unsatisfactory, but what are you gonna do? Physical therapy was horrible -- they added some exercises. The worst parts were when they have you on your back and tell you to lift your leg straight up. Twenty times. Hurts like I can't tell you. Then they shove a round pillow underneath your leg to make your knee bend (ouch) and make you lift it again (more ouch). The other exercises were not too bad, but those were awful.

When Bruce would come by in the evening all I really wanted to do was sleep, so I tried to get him to go home. He's been so good and I feel just terrible for taking up so much of his time.

Thursday was get-out-of-jail day. By this time the IV was killing me, so getting that taken out was one of the best things to happen all week. Wednesday night was typical: at midnight someone came in to check my blood pressure, temperature, and oxygenation level. At 3:30 someone came in to draw blood. At 5:00 someone came in to change the dressing on my surgery site. At 6:00 someone came in to make sure I was up. Not exactly a restful evening.

The worst part of the whole experience? I have a huge sore/bruise area on my fanny from bumping up against the part of the hospital bed that bends. The mattress was so thin that lying in that position (on my back) bruised me badly. I still cannot put any pressure on it. Bruce went by Walmart and bought a cheap foam pad and I was able to sleep Wednesday night (well, when they weren't coming to poke or prod me), but I can't sleep on our bed at home if I'm lying on my back. Unexpected and annoying.

Physical therapy on the last day was much better than the day before. The bad exercises were not quite as bad and the therapist was impressed. One of the other patients said, "Why can't I do what she's doing?" and I selfishly felt good about that. It is funny how simply lifting your leg feels impossible. Weird.

The pain (outside of therapy) has not been too terrible. I've just taken two pills a day for the last couple of days and I might wean down to two half-pills tomorrow.

Taking a shower was an interesting adventure. Bruce put on his bathing suit in case he had to get wet with me (he had to wash everything below my knees because I just couldn't reach). He plastic-wrapped and taped my surgical site to keep it dry. Having clean hair feels SO GOOD.

I'm not sure what the next few days are going to hold -- whether Bruce will take off work or Alisha will come over. Apparently there is some conflict there. I am staying out of it. They basically left me all alone in the hospital, so I'm not sure why I can't be all alone here. The only thing I need is for someone to bring me food. I'm not going to do anything foolish. And the home health nurse comes by tomorrow to do whatever she needs to do. I will take my pain meds after I eat and before I exercise. And I'll have my phone with me at all times.

Okay...this is a pretty incomplete list of what happened this week, but I'm hazy about a lot of it. Bruce has been really kind and I feel a little guilty about all the things he's had to do. Actually, I feel a lot guilty. :/

More later...

The Night Before

I am honestly NOT worried about the surgery tomorrow -- I've gone under the knife four times already, so it's not likely I'll be allergic to the anesthesia or anything like that, plus I DO know where I'm headed so from my perspective kicking the bucket on the table would NOT be the worst thing that could happen -- but I do have a few morbid thoughts now and then.

Like tonight's Yankee game. The Yankees were facing the Mets and R. A. Dickey -- arguably the best pitcher in the Major Leagues this year (and a very outspoken Christian man). And so I'm thinking, "Maybe the last Yankee game that I will ever see and they're probably going to lose."

But -- the Yankees won. So if it IS my last Yankee game, at least we parted on a high note.

I've done every single thing I need to do except go to bed. I'm packed (except for a few things that I'll toss into the suitcase in the a.m.), I took my medicines (I'll be on Coumadin -- a blood thinner -- for two weeks and I had to take my first pill tonight and I took a Celebrex, which really seems to help my pain but MAN are those expensive!!! Fourteen pills for sixty, seventy bucks!), used the antiseptic pads that they gave me to clean my leg (they'll do it again at the hospital, don't worry!). So -- here I sit until we have to go in the morning. Well -- I'll go to bed eventually, but I don't expect to get much sleep.

I'll be back eventually.

More later...

Success Breeds Success

Down 43 pounds this morning -- the lowest point I've hit since going plant strong (I hit this point once before, last summer). Makes me want to keep on the straight and narrow. I was sitting here this morning just CRAVING macaroni and cheese. I had to go to the bank today, so I thought, "I deserve a treat. I'll swing by Wendy's and get two containers for lunch."

We really can talk ourselves into almost anything, can't we? One container of Wendy's mac-and-cheese has 370 calories -- 46% of those calories from FAT. And they're side dishes -- if you want to have it for lunch, like I did, you really need two containers for a whopping 740 calories and 38 grams of fat!!! And that's how I TREAT myself???

Needless to say, after stepping on the scale and seeing how good I'm doing and thinking that weighing less will undoubtedly help my knees and other joints -- I passed. I went to the bank and came right back home. I had one of my fake tuna sandwiches for lunch and now I'm having a pineapple-banana-papaya-mango-strawberry smoothie. And it IS a treat!!! I'm excited to be back on the losing bandwagon again. Maybe I will lose weight, get new knees, and treat myself to a trip to the outlet mall down in south Alabama for a new wardrobe. It could happen!!!

Alisha posted a bunch of pictures of their vacation and here's one of Kael that I really like. He was over here on Saturday explaining to me that the Gulf was "too salty, Nana." Can't argue with that! (Click on the picture to see a larger version.)

I am enjoying reading my book about New York City. Even better, I'm watching the documentary that goes along with the book. I have Amazon Prime (which is worth every penny they charge me for it and then some), so there are a bunch of movies that I can watch for free and this documentary series is one of them. It was on PBS originally and ended just before 9/11, so they did one more episode, I think (I'll know more about it when I get to that point). I've only watched one episode so far, and read the corresponding chapter -- I am VERY smart about New York City up through 1825!!! The next episode/chapter covers the next forty years, hitting the immigrant explosion (especially the influx of Irish) and some of the troubles that entailed. I sure do love New York. If I ever have more money than I know what to do with, I'll spend a few months a year up there. My two favorite things: museums and Central Park. Or Central Park and museums. I do love the park.

My big accomplishments today have been showering (which EXHAUSTS me), stripping the bed and laundering the sheets, and when that's done I'll toss in the towels. I did a few bill paying things and otherwise I've been pretty useless. Dinner tonight is leftovers, so it couldn't be easier for me!

More later...

Fake Sandwiches

I had said I wasn't going to post anything about my weight until I was down 50 pounds, but I'm making an exception. My lowest point ever was when I had lost 43 pounds -- that was last summer, before the wedding. A whole host of factors -- Bruce starting to eat this way (meaning I was cooking more), the stress of getting ready for the wedding, travel, etc., etc., etc. -- contributed to me not only stopping losing weight but gaining some back. Not all of it, of course -- not even a lot of it -- but I was bouncing around in the mid-to-upper 30s for a while. I stepped on the scale this morning and I'm down 42 -- almost the lowest I've ever been.

This is kind of funny because, as you know, I do NOTHING all day. I sit. And then I sit some more. And I sleep. You would think I'd be gaining weight right now, but there you go. My guess is that I haven't had much of an appetite lately and that's just kept the weight moving down. I have had moments when I cheat (Wendy's mac-and-cheese is from the devil), but mostly I don't go out and my house is almost 100% "legal" (I have some foods like little bags of Famous Amos cookies for Kael that are not plant-based, but they don't usually tempt me) so it keeps me on the straight and narrow.

So -- yay. I'm thankful for small favors (and to be honest, this feels BIG, not small!).

Yesterday Bruce and I made a couple of really good recipes. The first was a mayo substitute: tofu cashew mayonnaise. I was always a Miracle Whip girl; Bruce preferred mayonnaise -- but I can doctor mayo to taste more Miracle-Whippy (and I don't hate mayo anyway -- I just prefer the tangy zip of Miracle Whip ;). To me this tastes like a low-fat mayo. Whips up in just a couple of minutes, too. You can buy Nayonnaise or Veganaise, but they're hard for me to find. Veganaise is very high fat, too -- the first ingredient is canola oil. Anyway -- this was really easy to make in my Vitamix and all the ingredients are easy to get, so there you go. I'm thinking of making a potato salad with this later in the week.

What we used it for yesterday, though, was as an ingredient in "mock tuna salad." I've seen these recipes for mock tuna salad for a long time and always suspected that the only way they could taste like tuna salad was to someone who had not had the real thing in decades. But -- I wanted to give it a try. One of the things that I miss eating is sandwiches. We eat veggie subs and PB&J and I could put hummus in a wrap (although I never do), but I like sitting down with a good ol' sammich. So we made "Mock Tuna Salad" yesterday. The link has three recipes -- we did the one with chickpeas. Mine looks just like hers -- so you can see that it kind of LOOKS like tuna salad (it's the middle picture, which I think looks most "real"). I think if you were wanting tuna salad you might be disappointed, but I was THRILLED. I thought it was really yummy. I topped mine with more relish to give it more of that Miracle Whip taste; Bruce ate it as it came. We both liked it a lot. I had it for lunch and then I had it again for supper. I'm going to have it for lunch again today. I love it. Incidentally, since I am not a raw onion lover and since the scallions Publix sells lately have been HUGE (what's up with that?), I only added one to the recipe and I chopped it super fine. Otherwise, though, I followed the recipe exactly.

Okay -- I'm hungry so I'm going to go HAVE A SANDWICH!!!

More later...

Kick the Dog

I made the no-meatballs yesterday and they held together just fine. I also made the chocolate chunk cherry muffins and they are amazing. I was too tired to make spaghetti sauce, though, so for dinner Bruce took some of the no-meatballs and sauce from a jar and made a no-meatball hoagie. Tonight I'll actually make spaghetti.

The muffins are too good for words. I used a chocolate bar that I roughly chopped, so there are some big, melty chunks of really dark chocolate, which I love. I used whole wheat pastry flour and it's okay -- but the spelt flour is better. It is going to be my go-to flour for whole grain baking.

I've been in a terrible mood lately and I feel awful about it. I'm so ungracious that I'm ashamed. Here are some of the things that have been making me angry (and all of this is on Facebook)...

First, I have a lot of friends who homeschool. Now -- I am not against homeschooling. I wish I had homeschooled Alex and I hope that Alisha homeschools Kael, at least for kindergarten. But some of my homeschool friends seem to think that no one has interesting conversations, no one reads interesting books, no one does ANYTHING interesting unless you are homeschooled. It's very arrogant and off-putting. Lately it's been like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

I am friends with a family -- siblings and the parents. They are all the time writing about something strange and then adding, "I love my family." Like they are the only family in existence that does these quirky things. They are NOT. EVERY family has its little eccentricities. They rub theirs in the faces of their Facebook friends and it's driving me crazy.

I have a pastor friend on Facebook who is a really great guy -- I like him a ton. He posts these things, though, and then leaves the scene. People post all kinds of ridiculous comments and I get sucked in and he never comes back (he would agree with me, but he just leaves me to twist in the wind). It irks me.

Please note: while the homeschoolers and my all-caught-up-in-themselves friends have their own set of issues, the fact that I let it bother me is MY failing. MY sin. I've semi-solved the issue by hiding the friends, except for the youngest child who seems less enamored of the whole my-family-is-so-special-ness than the rest of them. Oh, and the father. He's fine. But out of sight, out of irritation range.

The homeschoolers are a different story. I haven't hidden them because they don't necessarily post this kind of thing a ton -- it's mostly their homeschooling friends. I should ignore them, but I don't. When they write, "Sounds like a typical conversation in a homeschooling family!" I'll comment "Sounds like a typical conversation at my house!" in response. Which I should not do. If they want to think they're superior to everyone because they homeschool, well, it's not my job to bring them down to reality. Even if I want it to be.

I'm hiding my pastor friend. Seems the only way to avoid being sucked in. I'm weak. If he wants to let erroneous doctrine go unchecked on his wall, well, it's his wall. Not mine.

There are times when I should live on a deserted island because I am not fit to be around decent folk. I hate it when I'm like this. I need to pray more when I get this way; it's probably hard to pray and be nasty at the same time.

More later...