Tag: weight loss surgery

So Close, Yet So Far

I had to pause for blocked stomach after I took this evening’s pills, just like the lunch time. It cleared while I was cooking dinner. I blocked again while eating dinner. I only took 2.3 ounces of chicken but I couldn’t eat the last 0.3 ounces. So close, yet so far.

I was taking tiny bites and chewing each one to oblivion. I guess I was going to fast? I don’t know. I felt like I was doing everything right and being super careful. I am really getting annoyed.

I still need to drink 20 ounces of water and I still need 14 grams of protein. I will definitely hit both goals before the end of the day, but it’s just pissing me off that I still have so much to do. I’ve been stuck waiting for the blocked stomach and the foamies to clear for over half an hour. If I wasn’t stuck like this I would have hit the protein goal by now and would be pausing for an hour before finishing the liquid goal.

I’m really frustrated. Am I regretting my weight loss surgery decision? HELL NO. I don’t care how hard this gets, it’s still better than weighing 450 pounds and feeling like breathing was too much exertion to survive. This is frustrating but it’s 10000000000000 times better than it used to be.

Just so there are no questions about that.

Okay, I need to go get rid of a couple of pounds of saliva. Ugh.

Stomach Ache the Next Generation

Bad reactions to food on Sunday and Monday. Migraine on Tuesday. Bad stomach aches all day on Wednesday. Mostly okay except for a bad lunchtime food reaction on Thursday. What does the shit roulette wheel have for us on Friday?

Another stomach ache. But it feels different today. It’s not an oh I think I might be hungry kind of ache. Today it’s more like a you are disagreeing with something you ate last night kind of ache. Lots of gas, eating doesn’t help at all. I’ve had eight ounces of water, a protein bar, and a little protein snack. Still feeling it pretty much exactly the same as when I woke up.

Shit.

The good news though is that I have watched the season two premier of Yellowjackets. You know that show, the single most fucked up thing on television at this point in time? Yeah, that one. Great freakin’ show that is seriously disturbing while also really funny. No spoilers but the first episode was excellent and the last second reveal at the end… ewwww.

I checked the forecast for the weekend. Guess what’s not going to be out in the morning on either Saturday or Sunday. Go on, guess. You know it… the sun. No sunrise pics for me this week. It’s getting to the point where I might start taking this personally.

If we go to California in the fall, should I think about making a photo book for fun? Not like, oh I took a bunch of pictures so let’s throw the best ones into a book type of thing. More like planning out what I want to see in it and then trying to take pics that make it happen. Something like that. I’m sure I can get that done super cheap through Shutterfly or something. Maybe I can talk Jen into going up to the mountains a lot this summer and I could do something similar there. Just a thought. I like projects sometimes, you know? Like creative projects and stuff. I’m old, leave me alone.

The cats are in the cellar with me but they are avoiding me. I don’t think they like me very much. Sad face.

Unrelated productivity note: I am watching a youtube video of a guy using a folding camera from 1940 with a discontinued film format that expired in 1970. He’s in his home office talking about how he handled the ISO on the expired film and he’s standing in front of a white board that’s hanging on his wall. That’s super cool, of course. The stand out thing though, is that he has a Texas Instruments TI-83 calculator velcro’d onto the white board. Oh my god my nerd brain just exploded with how awesome that is! KaBoom!

Doctor’s Appointment and More Stomach Fun

Nothing much came of the doctors appointment. I have to make a couple of follow ups and I’ll be getting an MRI at some point. I’ve been crazy busy at work so I haven’t had a chance to make any of the calls I need to make.

I got home with a few minutes to spare before punching into work, but as soon as I did things got crazy busy. I tried to sneak in some lunch and I ate too fast and my stomach rebelled in a big way. It took two hours to calm down but I did get through my lunch. Granted, lunch stretched out almost all the way to dinner time but what can you do.

I’m drastically behind on both my water and protein goals right now. I’ll make it for both today, but I’m annoyed with myself, especially after I had such a good start this morning before going to see the doctor.

Change of subject: I need to do car music. We’re running out of days in March and I have to finish Record Every Month. I have three songs in the pipeline but I’ll probably only get to two. I am planning to do another album in a month this spring, but it depends on guitar gear. I’ve mentioned that I am about to come to the end of the Analog Man King of Tone waiting list. The first full month after I get my mitts on one of those suckers I will do an album in a month using it on every guitar track. That’s the plan at least. Will it be April? Will it be May? Kinda hope it will be April, but that seems highly unlikely.

What else… Star Trek Picard was good today. The whole gang is back on the show. All we need now is Tasha. Good stuff. The show has been fantastic this season. I really need it to keep up the good work and stick the landing. On the other side of the Trek/Wars coin, I started re-watching The Bad Batch over the weekend. I’m still not sure why, but I will finish the first season tonight (I think) and the second season is going to end next Wednesday, I think. Am I right about that? There are two episodes left but they will both be released next week? I head that somewhere.

I’m tired. I’ve had such a stressful week health wise. Between multiple stomach issues and yet another migraine… I need a nap. A long, comfy nap.

Six minutes left until quittin’ time. I’ll make dinner after I finish work, but I will probably be too full from lunch to eat it right away. We’ll see. 16 ounces of liquid left to go. A whopping 37 grams of protein left to go. I’ll make it to both goals, and then some. It’s just going to take some extra time tonight, I think.

Okay. Signing off. I’ll likely post again later. Yesterday was the lowest page view day I’ve had on this page in over four years. I blame the migraines, but I’ll try to write something interesting that will bring the folks by… or not. Probably not.

Better Today… So Far

As expected, after a migraine on Tuesday and a bad gastric bypass stomach on Wednesday, I feel pretty good today. A little warn out but mostly okay. I drank a nice chunk of water while getting in my exercise this morning, and then had a protein bar breakfast afterwards. No issues so far. I overslept a little and I am still tired but I think that’s to be expected.

I have three hours of sick time this morning. I’m going to see my primary care doctor to talk about migraines and see what I need to do to try and get it all under control. I had one on the drive down to Florida just after New Year. I had another one, a minor one, on our last night on that trip. I think I had one in February, but was it two? I had one on the first night of the kids’ spring break. That was March 10th. Then the last one on March 21st. I don’t think this qualifies as chronic, or regular, or whatever the correct medical term for “lots and lots” might be. It’s enough to scare the shit out of me though. I mean, to quote Woody Allen, my brain? That’s my second favorite organ!*

Okay. Time to go start my morning. Shower, shave, dress, go see the doctor, go to work, listen to a lot of Peter Garbriel and Steve Hackett and try to talk myself either into or out of going to see them both in concert in the fall.**

*Quoting Woody Allen bothers me. It was bad enough when he cheated on the mother of his kids with her adopted daughter, but at least they are still together so we can argue that as gross as the relationship is it was apparently something along the lines of real, or if not real then lasting? I don’t know. I can’t get past the child molestation allegations though. I haven’t watched one of this movies since hearing about that, even though there have been a couple that I really wanted to, and some of his early 70’s movies are among my favorites ever (including the movie the above quote comes from). I try not to quote him the way I did back in the 90’s when I couldn’t go a full sentence without dropping something of his. They still slip through now and then when they fit too perfectly to ignore. I feel disgusting every time though, in case you were wondering.

**Peter Garbriel at the TD Garden in Boston on September 14, 2023. Steve Hackett at the Wilbur Theater in Boston on October 12, 2023. Like… how can a 70’s Genesis fanatic say no? Both of them within one month? I’ve seen Steve Hackett once, in one of the last shows I went to before the pandemic, back in September 2019. I’ve never seen Peter Gabriel. I’ve never even investigated the possibility before. I’ll never see Genesis in any of it’s forms as Phil Collins is physically unable now and there’s no way they’ll tour without him. My chance to see all five of them evaporated in 2007 when Gabriel backed out of the proposed Lamb Lies Down on Broadway reunion tour, which really never seemed like something he would have done anyway. Still… I’ve only seen one of the five of them live, and the chance to see two of them within a short space of time just seems like destiny in a weird sort of nerd way.

Emptiness Hurts

It’s weird how often I go through this problem when I am working in the office.

Sometimes when my tiny little redesigned stomach is causing me problems, I fear that there is something wrong and that I am on the brink of big troubles when in fact I’m just hungry. I’ll be dealing with all kinds of stomach pains and gas pains and discomfort and unhappiness, then I’ll have a small bite to eat and I’ll feel better for a little while. Then the pain will come back and I’ll be afraid there is something wrong again until I make myself have some lunch. Then I feel fine for a while. It’s weird.

I used to know what hunger felt like. I mean, don’t we all? It is a sort of human thing, right? My stomach feels funny, rumble rumble, oh I’m hungry. That’s not what this feels like though. This feels more like when you eat something that’s gone bad and it just sits like a rock in your stomach. I would hope that having something to drink would alleviate the symptoms the way having food does, but it just doesn’t work the same way. I tried drinking water today between 10:00am or so and 11:30 and it didn’t help. The pain and discomfort just kept getting worse. I had a small protein bar snack and felt 80% better. By the time I broke for lunch at about 1:15 it was all back again, full force. I had some chicken tenders and some peanuts. Less than five ounces of food combined, but probably 24 grams of protein or so. Now my stomach feels 95% better.

I’m guessing that by the time the clock strikes 4:00 I am going to be uncomfortable again. This is going to dog me back and forth for the rest of the day. If history has taught me anything, I will be fine tomorrow after a half decent night’s sleep.

The weird thing about this is how often it happens when I am in the office. I don’t know if it’s the traveling to get here, or if it’s the day of the week (office days are Wednesdays), or if it’s some other connection that I haven’t made yet. I don’t know. It’s weird.

I think I am just going to enjoy the brief reprieve while I can and try to get some work done. Here’s hoping I don’t feel like this tomorrow. Fingers crossed, folks.

Week 46 Weigh In

Things are getting weird now.

I posted about my bonus weigh in on Sunday, three days ago. I was down 2.8 pounds after having been up at least a pound each of the previous two Wednesdays. Yeah, I am cheating on my weigh in schedule. Wanna make something of it? I didn’t weigh myself on Monday, but I did on Tuesday and I was down a lot. From Sunday to Tuesday I was down a massive 2.2 pounds. Wow! I didn’t record it on the spreadsheet or on my iPhone. I left it officially unofficial. When I weighed myself this morning for my regular Wednesday weigh in I was up 0.4 pounds since Sunday. That’s half a pound since Sunday, which means I was up 2.6 since yesterday.

Oh boy. I am at 216 even, which matches where I was on March 4th at the 10 month check in, which is also where I was hoping to get back to after last week. What a world, right?

BMI is 26.3 again. Total since surgery is 215.4 again. Total since first check in is at 236 even again.

Yesterday turned out to be a tough day with yet another migraine. I did what I meant to do the last time I had one, which was a week ago last Friday, and made an appointment with my primary care. It was tough to do through the partial blindness and the crushing headache, but I managed. I have an appointment for tomorrow morning. We’ll see how it goes. I expect it to just be a check in that sets up referrals to other doctors, but we’ll see. Let’s hope there is a placebo thing where now that I’ve taken the first baby step toward dealing with this it just goes away. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I had another issue last night as well. I tried to stay up through the headache but I fell asleep on the comfy chair in the living room. After about 45 minutes I got up and went to bed. I slept there for about an hour and then got up and went back to the living room. My head was much better, though still far from all better, and I wanted to spend some time with Jen. We ended up going to bed around 9:30, and I packed it in around 10:00. I woke up about three hours later and couldn’t get back to sleep. The headache was gone and in it’s place was a stomach ache. Shit. I was in and out of sleep until about 5:30 when I finally got up. I drank a water bottle while getting my jogging (yogging) in, and the stomach ache lessened but didn’t go away. I had two protein bars on the drive in to work and that mostly cleared things up. I expect it will come back again as time and digestion do their things.

Yesterday turned into a shitty day. Today is better, but still shaping up to be shitty in it’s own way. Yippee.

At least I still weigh less than I did in my last two weekly check ins. I’ll take that as a win.

Gun Shy: Dietarily Speaking

I mentioned yesterday that taking a couple of vitamin pills before lunch was enough to set my stomach into a spiraling abyss for a couple of hours. Wouldn’t you know it, it happened again this morning. It wasn’t as bad, but it was bad enough. I take four pills in the morning. Three vitamin supplements and one over the counter medication.

Those four pills plus eight ounces of water sent me right into gastric bypass hell. I took in eight ounces of water but probably spit out a pound of saliva. It just kept coming. Foamies like a boss. I tried to get my jogging in place (yogging in place) in while in the midst of it and I had to stop for a while to concentrate on spitting. What the hell? I can see it if it’s a food issue, but pills? Tiny little pills? I took a minute or two in between each pill too but clearly that wasn’t enough.

Once it started calming down a little, I got back to the yogging and was able to finish my exercise goal. I was then able to eat some protein supplements for breakfast without getting sick again. I was definitely gun shy though. I took my sweet time and wasted a ton of time. Enough that I was almost late for work, which is crazy seeing as I was sitting at my work desk for almost all of this.

Here’s hoping I’m through all of this today. I don’t want any issues at lunch time. I don’t want to be distracted from work at all. Wish me and my new stomach luck.

Foamies

The Foamies. I first heard that term from one of the bariatric surgery facebook groups. Sometimes when you eat too fast, or take too big a bite, or don’t chew enough, your food gets caught up trying to get into your newly redesigned stomach. Your body tries to help out by creating a ton of extra saliva. For some of us though, because our stomach is partially blocked, the swallowing reflex temporarily shuts itself off. That means all of that extra saliva sits in your mouth and just stays there. If you force yourself to swallow it your stomach starts to hurt a lot and you cough it all back up. The result is that you’re stuck with a face full of foam. Hence, The Foamies.

I sometimes get The Foamies just by taking vitamin pills. I end up standing over the toilet, or the sink, or a trash barrel, or whatever, just spitting out all of that crap. I just spit, and spit, and spit. Eventually it stops and you can move on with your life. Today I had two lunchtime plans. First, we have a big pile of chicken breasts that are going to go bad soon. I wanted to cook them in the air fryer and then store them in the fridge to have as leftovers for the next couple of days. I snuck upstairs and put them into the air fryer and set a timer for the first half of the cooking time with the intention of flipping them over and then putting them back in for the second half of the cook time.

The flip time coincided with when I needed to take my two afternoon calcium citrate pills. When the timer went off I grabbed my water bottle and my pill caddie for the day and went upstairs to the kitchen. I took the first of the two pills with a gulp of water and then went to the cookin’. When the chicken breasts were flipped over I gulped the second pill and went to work cooking my lunch in the toaster oven. It was a little piece of Purdue frozen chicken patty and some french fries, cooked in the toaster oven on the air fryer setting.

Two seconds after gulping the second calcium pill it hit me. Pain in my stomach and lots of saliva. Shit. The Foamies were hitting me. The toaster oven was supposed to run for 15 minutes and the air fryer was going to finish a couple of minutes before then. While I waited, I spit a ton of foamie into the trash barrel and the sink. It was very unpleasant and thankfully no one was in the kitchen with me. The air fryer finished and I cut open a chicken breast to make sure it was done. It was. I wrapped it all up and put it into the fridge. Project #1, complete. I spit up some more and then the timer for the toaster oven went off. I took out my lunch and measured everything so I could track it on my food spreadsheet. The Foamies persisted for another minute or two but it ended right on time and I started eating lunch.

I ate the chicken patty without incident. I was halfway through my 2.5 ounces of french fries when it hit me again. The Foamies Part Two: Electric Foamie-Boogaloo. Shit. It was a little before 2:00pm. It didn’t stop for an hour. It just kicked my ass. It wiped the floor with my digestive system. It was awful. I would work for a few seconds, cough up some crap for a few seconds, wash/rinse/repeat. Come on, stomach. Cut the shit!

I did eventually finish my lunch. Just a few minutes ago, in fact. The fries were really good. Nice and crispy. I just wish I could have had them while they were still sort of warm. I can understand when it hits me because of a mistake I make while eating. I don’t get why it hits me when I am taking something tiny like a calcium pill. I had a mild case of it this morning due to my morning vitamins too. What the hell? Should I be switching all of my vitamin pills to chewables? I was in my mid teens before I was able to swallow a pill without crushing it up first. I considered it a failure at being a grown up. Now that I may be faced with something like that shame again? I just don’t wanna! I’m almost 52 years old. I should be able to swallow a god damned pill!

The Foamies. The struggle is real, friends. The struggle is real.

Tough Pill to Swallow

I just had an interesting discussion with the cats about unusual behavior.

I took my calcium pills between 12:35 and 12:50. I took a pause between the two pills because sometimes calcium pills screw up my stomach. The first pill went fine. The second… well… the second blew things up in a huge way. I spent a solid 10 minutes leaning over the toilet hacking and spitting and foaming up like an insane person. The whole time I’m gagging up a single, tiny, little pill, Lily is sitting in the doorway watching me.

I told her that my behavior was not normal for a human. It is just something that happens to me. Mom and the kids are never going to exhibit symptoms like this. That’s when Lily jumped into the tub. I told her that behavior was also unusual for a cat, and that we’re both behaving strangely. Right on queue, Robin walked into the room and wouldn’t you know it, she jumped into the tub too.

See kitties? We’re learning so much about abnormal psychology right now. We could practically teach a college level course on it. Fascinating!

Bonus Weigh In

The last time I wrote about stepping on the scale I said I was going to do this, but I was 90% kidding… and then I did it. I guess 10% serious was enough.

The last time I weighed myself and lost weight was the monthly check in on March 4th. I was down to 216 pounds even. The next two Wednesday weigh ins I was up. First one pound, then 1.4 pounds. I was not bothered by that. It was expected and not a big deal. The thing I was kidding about was that I would step on the scale every day and when (if?) I ever went below 216 I would mark it on my spreadsheet. Ha ha ha, right?

I think I weighed myself on Thursday. I don’t think I did it on Friday. I honestly can’t remember if I did it yesterday, Saturday, or not. This morning I did it and I was down to 215.6. Heh heh. The spreadsheet and the Health app on my iPhone have been updated. I’m down 2.8 since Wednesday, which probably means the scale was inaccurate somehow. I don’t care. My BMI is 26.2, my weight loss since surgery is 215.8 which means I have lost more weight since May 4, 2022 than I actually weigh, and my total since the first weigh in is 236.4.

And all was right with the world.