Gastric Bypass Part 2 Week 3

I'm only going to do GB posts by the week now, because things don't really change that much!
Still really, really tired of protein drink mixes and find that they don't sit well on my stomach -- especially the vanilla one. The plain Unjury is still well-tolerated, but running out of it and trying to hoard it until my delivery from Unjury on Monday and my MD appt. on Weds next week when I can pick up whatever flavors from the sample pack delivered on Monday that I like, in addition to the plain.
I'll be making a road trip tomorrow to go to Caid and visit with Miriam for 3 days. I emailed her a list of my food choices, and I'm hoping for a miracle of creativity from her.
My thumbs really hurt, especially the left one. My right hip hurts, and causes me to walk funny. These problems are probably because I'm no longer taking my arthritis med, nor my glucosamine/chondroitin.
My b/p is staying in the 130s/70's range with half my usual dose of b/p med, though.
Bowels continue to be a problem, but I don't think there's much more I can do about it. I'm drinking as much liquid as I can get in, what with the need to drink protein as well. I'm not taking narcotics.
After trying a couple times to drink my kombucha, I've had to face facts: it does not sit well on my tummy.
In case you're wondering:
"does not sit well" = makes me feel queasy, but not really nauseated.
"sick"= makes me feel full-blown nausea, and or causes gagging/retching.
Coffee makes me sick. Kombucha doesn't sit well.
As far as appetite goes, I'm finding certain commercials about Friday's Jack Daniels burgers and appetizers very appealing, as well as friend's reports on Facebook on chicken pot pies, bacon, and other savory type foods. Sweets and desserts are not at all appealing.
As far as hunger goes, I don't have it, and I've begun to differentiate between "appetite" and "hunger". I really suspect that even if I could tolerate a Jack Daniels burger, or a pot pie, that I would not be able to eat more than two or three bites, even though my desire for them might still be present. I actually was unable to finish two little meals during the past week, because I was full. I'm sitting here right now, full from my protein drink that it's taken me 2 hours to finish. I'm supposed to eat lunch, but nothing really sounds good to me, because I'm full. The day begins to creep up on me, even when I start at 8am. It's difficult to get everything that's supposed to be going into my mouth in there within any given 24 hour period.
Physically, I'm feeling good. I get an occasional twinge on my right side, that I obsess about due to the fatty liver diagnosis post surgery. If I lay on my back without elevating my head a bit, my tummy feels stretched. And sometimes if I use my stomach muscles to sit up, I get a mildly tweaky sensation. However, all my little puncture wounds have healed, except for the uppermost one. That one has an internal suture that is poking out just a millimeter, but enough to keep it a little irritated. I no longer feel like I NEED a nap every few hours, and I can do the animal husbandry detail without any problems -- other than, I don't like going into the pasture because I'm afraid Oreo the Goat will butt me. He probably weighs 200 lbs, so that's not a trivial fear.
My skin feels dry all the time, which may have a lot to do with the weather but I suspect it also has to do with me just not being able to keep as hydrated as I have in the past. My feet and hands especially. I'm using a lot of shea butter on them.
My clothes have gotten much looser, and from my weekly weigh-in, I'm guessing I've lost about 20 pounds. I'm beginning to worry a little over when I might have to buy jeans and work slacks, but my tops should be OK for quite some time. And my casual wear/T-shirts will work for even longer. I'll need to figure out what to buy for the wedding trip next month; I'm thinking flowing pants and tunic top in dressier fabric, and some kind of cape-thing in case it gets cooler than I can tolerate, and flats.
Still haven't gotten EDD check, but it could be sitting down at the mailbox island right now for all I know.
And will get final word on jury duty this evening and keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be released to enjoy my last week of recuperation before returning to work next week.

Gastric Bypass Part 2 Day 12

I'm feeling kind of humbled. Here I thought that I was recovering really well, due to my genius in following advice and finding tolerable protein drink mix.
And now, I really can't stand the protein drink mix. It leaves a horrible aftertaste, and it takes me an hour or more to drink it. I've been trying everything: using the plain Unjury mixed in flavored water (meh), in soy milk (meh, and makes me feel sick). The flavored whey mix from Costco is just so tiresome, and the vanilla makes me sick.
For the first time today, I couldn't finish my breakfast mini meal.
And I feel like I'm constipated, and don't know what I can do about it.
Plus, the instructions for jury duty aren't at all clear. It doesn't confirm that my group must serve; it talks about groups 18 through 22, and I'm group 6. Those groups are supposed to show up at 1:30pm. Doesn't say whether the rest of us report or not. I don't really want to drive to Placerville and try to figure out what's going on, but it looks like I'll have to. Not a happy camper.

Gastric Bypass Part 2 Day 10

Danni and I met Brit, her boyfriend Ethan, and her friend Rachel, at this place called Quickly in midtown Sac. It's what they call a Boba Shop. Boba is evidently marble-sized tapioca, which they place into tea and flavor the tea with one of a bajillion flavors, add milk, etc. It is really more milkshake, or slushie, than tea. 

I had plain green Jasmine tea, hot. 

But this counts as "eating out" event #3! And I for sure got my liquids in today. I decided to skip my breakfast mini-meal, because my tummy felt touchy. But I got the protein drink in. And I took my lunch min-meal with me, met Danni at the place she's staying and ate my mini-lunch, and then by the time we arrived at Quickly, the 30 minutes post meal period was up and I had 16 oz of hot tea. I then had an additional 16 oz of hot tea back at Danni's place, where we debated current affairs and listened to stories from her kind-of father-in-law, Jack. Jack is politically diametrically opposed to me, but I really like the guy. He's a hoot. 

My post lunch protein shake took me over 2 hours to drink, mostly because I mixed some almond butter into it and I think that just made it too heavy. Once again, trying to mix up the flavors a bit, and not getting good results.

So I have dinner mini-meal and post dinner protein drink to get through still, but I'm confident that I will. 

I really enjoyed my baby-food veggies and canned chicken dinner last night, and I know the doggies will appreciate the rest of the canned chicken, too, so that's probably going to be a repeat tonight. 

Gastric Bypass Part 2, days 8 and 9

So suddenly, my protein drinks have become very tedious. The vanilla just does not taste good, no matter what I do with it. The chocolate is good, but drinking a chocolate drink twice a day forever is boring. 

So I decided yesterday to add some instant coffee to the vanilla. BAD MISTAKE. I ended up in the toilet for about an hour. I didn't think I'd ever get out of there.

But I recovered, and again, got all the protein drinks in for the day and as much fluid as I could sip. I even packed a "dinner" of cottage cheese, salsa and avocado in a little plastic container and slipped it into my purse for the Shire meeting. So, that's twice now that I've eaten out! I bought baby food veggies and fruits, and froze little individual teaspoon size servings of them, since I'm supposed to be having meals that consist of a variety of foods with each meal. This is really hard when your meals are so tiny!

Today has been ho-hum. Mike is going to March Crown in Tres Pinos, and preparing for that took up most of the day. As always, he hit the road about 3 hours behind schedule. I really wish he'd taken our little gypsy van trailer with the built-in bed and sink, but he didn't. So he's going to be setting up a tent and a slat bed when he gets there, which should be around 8 pm. But at least I can relax now. As soon as I feed the animals and put up the chickens, that is! I'm also going to try to keep a fire going in the woodstove. I was told I'd feel cold after the surgery, and man, do I ever. Very odd for me. I love nothing more than climbing into my mattress-pad-heated bed and reading at bedtime, and I've been wrapping up in a blanket in the house during the day. 

Another thing I've noticed is that my sense of smell seems unusually acute. It's not unpleasant. 

Gastric Bypass Part 2 day 7

Kind of a setback today, and I'm not sure how to interpret it. I actually increased my meals to 2 tablespoons yesterday, and had no problems that I noted.
I had my usual protein shake and kombucha tea shot this morning, no problems. Waited 1/2 hour and had my scrambled egg portion, with a bit of grated cheese and salsa. Around 11:30, I had some intestinal cramping, not unusual for me prior to the surgery and the typical BM that I've experienced since the surgery, but the cramping soon turned into nausea and a lot of saliva, which I spit out onto tissue. Another wave of cramping hit about 15 minutes later, and more nausea, this time with retching which produced nothing. It was hard to stop the retching, which seemed entirely pointless, as nothing was coming back up. And true to the description of such things by others who've gone this route before me, it was not nearly as unpleasant as vomiting. Afterwards, I felt very cold and very tired, and a bit hesitant to continue with the fluids. Around 3:30, I convinced myself that I had damn well better start hydrating and I tried a scoop of the Unjury unflavored protein in 10 oz. of Mio-flavored water. It was OK, not tasty, and it took me 3 hours to get it all in, but I did.
Now it's time to think about my dinner meal and evening protein drink, and I'm not thinking highly of them.

I think this is more related to my bowels than my diet. The past two nights I've taken the pain med: yesterday to help me sleep so that I could get up early and deal with the EDD/disability nonsense and drive down to Sacto if needed to resolve it. The day before, it was to help me sleep so I could wake up and go to an early car repair appt. Well, I think I need to stop using the pain med. I think it's making me constipated, or at best making my bowels sluggish and causing undue cramping, which is causing agitation to my system and then nausea.
As it turned out, I had a lovely night last night sleeping to the sound of rain outside, and a mellow day today after I figured out the online registration process and confirmed with my surgeon's office that they could add their part online, as well, and they were aware of the change. Human Resources called me back and told me that they've been putting out a green sheet in their packets of paperwork for weeks, making people aware of the new process. My supervisor wasn't aware of it, though, and that's not surprising as Home Health tends to be the ugly stepchild of the healthcare system and no one ever remembers we exist when it comes to things like this.

Gastric Bypass Part 2 Day 6

So, for the past 2 days I've driven for about 2 hours, sat around for several hours trying to support my daughter in her own medical journey and waiting for my car to be made safe and sound. Today, since I woke up at what seems the ungodly hour (now, after 2 weeks off from work) of 7am, I took an Extreme Nap this afternoon and didn't even pay attention to what time I woke up, but I'd say around 9:30pm or so and now I'm not tired of course.
I had a meal out for the first time! Mike and I both took our cars in, and walked to the little cafe by the repair shop we go to, and Mike had a big breakfast and I nabbed some of his scrambled eggs and had some tea. I forgot that I wasn't supposed to drink with my meal, of course, but what's done is done. I've done better today at getting in the liquids and protein and meals, but I'm still not getting all the liquids I should be and I've discovered that it's REALLY hard to do that if you're out and about. And my normal life, and job, requires me to be out and about. The plan now is to carry a cooler and protein drink, small containers of meal items, and liquids in my car. A SMALL cooler, mind. So the car has to be vacuumed, because I'm crazy that way and it won't seem safe and secure until the inside is clean.
Yesterday, I didn't count on spending as much time as I ended up spending with my daughter. I started the day well, had my breakfast and followed it with the protein drink after 1/2 hour wait. It was too soon for lunch, but a 45 minute drive down to her house and then hours with MD and paperwork filing and picking up  my grandkid at school and presto -- suddenly it's dinner time, and I didn't have lunch OR afternoon protein. I did manage to drink a lot of Crystal Lite Lemonade, though, which isn't bad stuff. So I tried to cram all of lunch, dinner, protein x 2 into about 4 hours and went to bed feeling very full and knowing that this was not an ideal situation and I need to be more aware of these things.
And finally, a major snafu has occurred with my EDD paperwork. This evidently happened because the EDD switched to an electronic reporting system less than a week before my claim was filed, and this made the forms my employer gave me in their disability leave packet obsolete and now I have to file electronically AND hope that my surgeon's office can do their part of the documentation online as well. It seems like a streamlined process, and will probably take a lot of the hassle out of filing these claims, but it's really unfortunate for me in the timing of my surgery and of course there was no way that I or my surgeon could possibly have known about this at the time of scheduling. My employer, who is a major employer in our region, didn't even know. I know that eventually I will get the disability I'm owed, but it's going to make the rest of my leave very tight. I'm thankful that I made the decision to pay bills in advance by using my tax refund, but that's only going to carry me until the first week of April. And April is going to be a high-stress month anyway, due to our flying to Florida for Mike's friend's wedding and my return to work.

So, tomorrow I can't just sit home and enjoy what is likely the last rainy weather of winter. I've got to register my disability claim online (which I can only do between 6 am and 6 pm for some reason) and then call my MD office and see if they need me to bring the returned forms back to them or they can just use my claim number to update my claim online, as per the EDD's instructions (which also require that they register, but I'm assuming they'll have to do this soon if they haven't already, anyway).

Gastric Bypass Part 2 Day 4

This is a random thoughts day, since nothing new is going on with my diet and not having any problems so far.

I have tried several sips of kombucha tea today, and so far, no dumping syndrome. Now, I DID find that it instigated a BM, but no pain or cramping or nausea or shakes or sweating. So, I don't think that was Dumping Syndrome. I think that was what kombucha tea has always done for me since I started drinking it. It does have sugar in it, but I'm thinking that if I let it ferment for 2 weeks vs. 1 week, it won't have nearly as much. So far, that seems to be working. I also had a tiny piece of sauerkraut, just to taste it since I was bottling it and another batch of kimchi. I smashed the heck out of that little piece, and ate it, and so far no problems. This is making me feel cautiously optimistic. I know yogurt is tolerated, and now it appears that kombucha and perhaps sauerkraut are. Ferments are very important to me, so I'm glad my system seems to be honoring this connection.
My energy level is much better. I feel my old self, actually. My arthritis has not been bothering me much at all; a bit in the thumbs, when I'm trying to screw off jar lids and such. Now, my right hip won't let me sleep on my right side, which started about 2 weeks prior to surgery. I used to sleep on my right side almost exclusively. Now, it's either my left side or my back. But it only bothers me when I lay on it. I can walk fine.     Mike went over the figures for the Emeritus Feast with Bonnie the Exchequer yesterday, and it appears that we made nearly $500 on the Feast and an additional $500+ on the auction. That's after they deducted the cost of food purchased. We were basically way under budget on Costco items, and way over budget on Nugget produce items, but it all evened out. We know now that we don't need to have quite as many courses, and we can keep it to two or three meat main courses. People couldn't eat everything. Even so, Mike only came back with a couple of duck legs and wings and about 3 servings of his pea/sausage (Conciela ala Apicius) featured menu dish. He says people ate multiple servings of that one. He brought back about a gallon of squash, which had been baked and then sauteed with spices. I pureed it. It will make a great soup. And he brought back about a half-gallon of grapes, and a couple cups of sauteed cucumbers, and about a quart of couscous with pork and apricots. The chickens ate all that. There were 80 people at the Feast, so he did a great job of planning with the advice of Anastasia and Gwendwyn, who have cooked many a feast.
About 2 weeks ago, I made another batch of kimchi and sauerkraut, since my son's wife evidently likes kimchi and my other son likes sauerkraut. Since the last batch I made of kraut was a bit on the soft side at 3 weeks, but perfect at 2 weeks, I decided to bottle up the kraut and kimchi today. Last time, I left the kimchi at room temp on my counter for a few days, so I'm doing that again. The kraut is in the back of the fridge.
Petra, who is evidently the autocrat for Golden Rivers tourney, has decided to do a German-style sideboard luncheon and she is using sauerkraut as a side dish. From postings about it, it would seem she's using commercial kraut, and then jazzing it up with juniper berries and caraway and perhaps bacon. I offered to make the kraut for this event, haven't had a response as yet. I could easily do 2 gallons, it would seem, since that is what I've done the last 2 times, using 4 to 5 heads of cabbage. I'm hoping she takes me up on the offer, rather than using pasteurized commercial kraut.
Filled out forms and wrote check for Egg Handler's Permit. We already have 8 dozen eggs since last Saturday. We need to start selling them! I'm going to make the market totes out of feed bags, too. And who knows? Maybe sell kraut or bread, too.

Gastric Bypass Part 2 day 3

So, I made tuna salad by smushing a small can of water-packed tuna, drained, with about 1/4 cup of plain yogurt mixed with 1 teaspoon of regular mayo and a couple squirts of prepared mustard, and seasoned liberally with dill. I let it sit overnight in the fridge, to allow the flavors to mix.
I blended about 1/2 cup of home-made salsa (tomatoes, green and chili peppers, garlic) until it was a red paste. No seeds or pepper skins to get stuck in the pouch!
I also made a pot of bean soup by mixing one can of refried beans with 2 cups of my duck broth, and about 1/4 cup of salsa. I then put this into a large ice cube tray that makes long, cylindrical cubes to go into water bottles (IKEA product) and froze it. It was amazingly easy to get it out of the tray the next day, by running some warm water over the sides and pushing the cylinders of soup out with the handle of a wooden spoon. I bagged those up and put them back in the freezer.
So, I'm set for meals for awhile, at 1 Tablespoon per meal. For breakfast, I've been having a bit of scrambled egg with a bit of cottage cheese and a plop of the salsa. Lunch is bean soup.

Let's face it: the protein drinks, which are 8 oz of almond milk or buttermilk/ice 50/50 mixed with a scoop of vanilla or chocolate protein powder, or about 10 to 12 oz of duck broth mixed with unflavored protein powder, are the REAL meals. The little meals are just dress rehearsals for life. I think I'm doing well with them. I take at least 15 minutes to eat a tablespoon of food, I've never gotten sick or had dumping syndrome or pain of any kind related to my little meals. OR the protein drinks. Or the other liquids. Knock on wood.

I enjoy eating my little meals with Mike. I've been reading some blogs, and there seems to be this theory that you can't eat meals with your family immediately after a gastric bypass, which puzzles me. I ALWAYS eat my little meals while Mike is eating his - whatever it is and however much it is. It doesn't bother me. It makes me feel good. When Patti and Jeff came over, on post-op day 3, and helped Mike stuff dates I was sitting right there with them, sipping my clear liquids while they all shared a pizza and popped occasional dates into their mouths. Again, that made me feel happy and participatory, and no one thought anything about it at all. Why should I banish myself to a solitary corner and sip miserably on my protein drink or spoon my hilariously small meal?? Why should anyone feel guilty that they are eating differently than I am, in my presence?? Don't make things needlessly difficult.

Some things that I think have made it MUCH easier for me than what appears to be the norm:

• Good quality whey protein powder with 27 grams of protein per serving, from Costco.
• Good quality whey protein powder, unflavored, with 21 grams of protein per serving. I'm using Unjury, which my surgeon stocks and which I can also order online. 
• Gummi adult complete multivitamins, again from Costco. 
• Making my own broth. That was a real winner. Mixed with the unflavored protein powder, it makes a delicious evening sippable comfort food. 
• Having a wonderful employer who provides excellent health insurance, paid time off to supplement my state disability payments, and supportive co-workers and supervisors. It has been FANTASTIC to have the ability to stay home and recover. Afternoon naps FTW. 
• Having a wonderful surgeon, who has made Bariatrics her life's work, and offers support classes and even plastic surgery, and life-long follow up on labs, etc. I'm glad she's younger than me. Honestly, reading some of the blogs, I have to ask "Why did you go to a general surgeon for this??" But I've gotten spoiled, and I should be more understanding. I live in California. Things are more progressive here. 

Protein powder is expensive. But it's well worth it, and when you think of it as replacing a meal, it is NOT expensive. Don't screw around with anything that has less than 20 grams of WHEY protein per serving. That's when you start losing your mind, adding up all the little bits of protein you're getting in to try to reach the magic 60 - 80 gms per day. I don't have to do that. I just have to remember to have 3 protein powder enhanced liquids per day. Drinking the rest of my target is getting easier every day. Knowing the approximate volume of my favorite tea cup and my soup mug, and my portable drink container is helpful, too. One hot tea sipped, one container sipped, and my protein drinks in -- 60 ounces liquids. I drink water, too. If my pee is light yellow, I don't worry. No need for charts and graphs.
And I got on the scale for the first time this morning, because I don't feel compelled to jump on/off the scale. I had surgery, for the love of the Gods. I trust that I will lose weight if I follow my surgeon's instructions. Perhaps the scale will become more important in a few weeks, but for right now, I'm just happy to be mobile and relatively pain-free.

Gastric Bypass Part 2 Day 1

First, a synopsis of Day 6 of Part 1, since I skipped it: pretty much the same as Day 5. The multivitamin water had to be diluted to 1/3 or 1/4 strength to be palatable, so it's better for me than Mio but there's no way I can drink enough for it to be equal to my daily vitamin needs. The chocolate whey protein powder is FANTASTIC.

Now, on to Day 1 of Phase 2 Gastric Bypass diet: Pureed and soft foods! My surgeon says I'm doing well, and was pleased that I've been able to do the 60-80 grams of protein this past week. She said I can start Phase 2, with 1 tablespoon of soft or pureed food as a "meal" 3 x daily. No drinking for 30 mins before or after. The picture above is of a demitasse spoon and a spice dish with a tablespoon of lowfat small curd cottage cheese, which is the first thing I have eaten for a week. It was delicious.
Next week, I can advance to 2 whole tablespoons per meal! And the week after that, 3 tablespoons -- if I can tolerate it. I'm supposed to take as close to 30 minutes to eat as possible, and I came pretty close today, I think. Mike ate a whole foot long deli sandwich in the time it took me to eat my cottage cheese.
I was so happy when my surgeon said I could progress to this phase. In Star Wars The Old Republic MMO, there is a Party Jawa that you can deploy, who circles you in flight being held aloft by some balloons, with the sound of party favors being tweeted and confetti flying around. THAT'S how happy I was about this, and only wish I could deploy the Jawa IRL.
My surgeon also explained that I can't do a lot because I'm not eating enough to be able to sustain a lot of activity, and was pleased with the activity which I have been doing: walking out to the front lot, scattering scratch grain and loosing the chickens, then gathering eggs. I can also drive if I need to now, so long as I'm not taking narcotic med, which I only take at night and will probably stop taking the end of this week.
I can sit at my computer for a long time, and I should probably knock off the afternoon nap, but I really like afternoon naps and am so happy that I have time off to take them for awhile. I am also VERY glad that I do not have to go to work and try to manage any of this, because it is taking up most of my day. As a bonus, my knees don't hurt and my thumb joints have only twinged a few times -- not constantly, as they do when I'm hauling the bag in/out of my car and up/down stairs all day.
I don't have any idea how much weight I've lost. My PCP on Monday said 8 lbs since they last saw me in late February. My weight today was 286, and that's about where it was when I was doing the low-carb diet back before Christmas. So, I'm calling 286 as a starting weight -- the past week has been recovery and healing as a focus.

Gastric Bypass Part 1 Day 5

Went to see my PCP today and my blood pressure is still high, so he prescribed a lower-dose prescription of Amlodipine, which we agreed I would crush and add to my protein drink every day. I'll have it rechecked in a month.
While at Costco, one of my favorite places in the world, I decided to get the big bag of chocolate-flavored whey protein powder and some almond milk, and I found a vitamin powder that you mix with 16 oz of water, called EcoDrink Complete Multivitamin. I'll try to drink 3 daily, but it does have 50 to 100% of 32 vitamins and minerals. Unfortunately, not Iron. I tried the Children's chewables, and they just taste awful to me. Too strong and chalky. My gummi vitamins are great, but I fear them getting stuck in my pouch opening, even if I chew them to mush -- although I'll probably resume them when I can advance to the pureed diet.
So, I'll probably survive for another week, even though I hope I'll be able to advance my diet on Wednesday when I see the bariatric surgeon. But the chocolate protein drink does not taste strong at all, the liquid vitamins are tolerable and seem safer than gummi's, and I'm making a duck broth from the meaty carcasses left over from the Feast that Mike did, with some carrots, onions, and garlic thrown in. I'm going to strain all that out, obviously, but it will enrich the broth and I can use my Himalayan salt and some pepper to season it, and it won't be as bad as bullion. I made more than enough for a week or two.
Feeling about like I did on Day 3, and unfortunately also had another day where I'm sure I pushed myself too  hard (walking in Costco is a lot of exercise post-op). Keeping an eye on the color of my urine, which was darker when I was in the hospital on IV fluids, so I'm thinking I'm fairly well-hydrated. Whew. This is hard work! I'm so glad I took a month off from work. Maybe next week, with Mike's help, I can get some compost into the raised beds and plant some turnips, kale, onions and beets.

Gastric Bypass Part 1 Day 4

Beginning to get really tired of the liquids! But I can do it. I overdid yesterday: cleaned bed linens and made bed in guest room, cleaned kitchen, cleaned pots/pans/bowls that Mike left from his Feast prep, dusted. And as it turned out, the overnight guests decided that they didn't want to stress me out, so they ended up staying at a motel after the Feast!
I keep waking up at 2 or 3 am with a headache. Last night I took a dose of Lortab and that sure did help. I think that might be what I do from now on, despite my resolve not to take a narcotic pain reliever if I'm not having pain. Cause a headache that wakes you up in the middle of the night IS pain. I'm a bit concerned that my oxygen level might be dropping when I sleep, but it's one of those things that I don't really want to know for sure at this point.
So, today has been pretty much the same. Feeling ok, trying to stay hydrated. I might try Patti's Mio ice pop later. And tomorrow is appointment with my PCP for b/p check.

Gastric Bypass Part 1 Day 3

Three days post-op, and feeling MUCH better. Pretty sure I'm going to survive now. Bowels are working fine, since late yesterday. And it was a big psychological boost to get all my protein and water in yesterday!
Patti brought me daffodils from her yard, which are just beautiful and amazingly cheery. Jeff and Patti came over yesterday evening and stuffed dates, and Jeff ate the Kimchi and pronounced it good.
I was able to chew up my two children's vitamins this morning, but they were not tasty. The calcium chew WAS tasty. I even took a wild chance and mixed my protein with buttermilk this morning, as I'm allowed to mix it with skim milk and buttermilk is skim milk (really, it is). It was not as tasty as when I tried it prior to surgery, but I'm sure the extra calcium and good probiotics in it will be helpful, so I'm going to keep doing it.

Mike is finally out the door, about 2 hours late, as usual. I hope his Feast will go ok, and that he and his crew  can catch up. He has a really hard time doing things ahead of time and preparing well. He's using my surgery as an excuse, but in my opinion, he would be running 2 hours late even if I hadn't had surgery. I think if he uses the ovens at the hall, in addition to the smokers he has, he will be able to get the meat cooked. He also has two very experienced cooks helping him, and hopefully they won't be too hard on him.

My job over the next 8 hours is to clean up the kitchen and make a fresh bed in the guest room for some Feast guests that traveled a long distance to attend and would like to not have to drive back tonight late. Yes, it's a bit early for that, but my plan is to do what I can, then take the doggies into the master bedroom and call it a night -- not going to entertain, and I think that will be understandable.

Day Three has been GOOD.

Gastric Bypass Series Part 1 Days 1 and 2

This is my tummy, which usually isn't quite this round. You can see two of the six small incisions I'm now sporting on my tummy. There are two more above this area, and one on each side. The incisions are very small, and only slightly sore. My tummy is swollen, because a lot went on in there 2 days ago. I had a gastric bypass surgery, and my surgeon also repaired a hiatal hernia and did a biopsy of my liver, which is fatty. She says that the liver problem will likely resolve as I lose weight. I didn't know I had either of those problems when I went in to surgery, but neither surprises me -- excess weight causes both.
My surgery went well otherwise. The staff at my hospital were friendly and supportive. The anesthesiologist put an oxygen mask on me, gave me some medicine in my IV, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in Recovery. As soon as I woke up, I decided to go right back to sleep, because I was feeling nauseated. There was a nurse sitting at a computer right beside me. After several times of waking up/going back to sleep, the nurse happened to notice when I woke up and spoke to me, and I told her I was nauseated, and she gave me medication. That helped, somewhat. Before they transported me to my room, I asked for more medication, because I was fearful the moving and bumping would make me more nauseated. I had gone into surgery at around 10:30am, and I got to my room around 3pm. Vital signs were taken. My RN removed my oxygen, but I was still dozing off/on and an NA put my oxygen back on when she noticed that my oxygen sats dropped into the 80's while I was sleeping. I also had a urinary catheter in place, and IV fluid running into the same IV that they'd placed prior to surgery. They had given me some Ceftin in that IV during surgery and recovery, and now I was getting Tylenol (yes, IV!) and either lactated Ringers or Normal Saline. I also had a Morphine pump with a button that I could push every 6 minutes for a small dose of morpine. I used it a bit for that first night in the hospital. There was pain, but it was mostly in my shoulder area and I think it is from the air they use to poof up your abdomen to do the surgery. It's still there, 2 days later, but not as bothersome. I needed help to get all my tubes and IV lines squared away so that I could walk in the hallway, which I did twice on that first night. I was a little dizzy the first time when I stood up, but it went away quickly, and I didn't walk until it passed. Mike stayed with me until 4:30pm, then he left to make the hour drive back home to feed the animals and lock up the chickens. He came back at 7:30pm and then left again at 9:30pm when we both agreed that the staff was taking good care of me. I pushed my morphine button and went to sleep, woke up briefly around 2am, pushed the button and went back to sleep, woke up when the lab came to get some blood at 5:30am, then dozed off again until 7:30am when my surgeon came in and looked at the incisions and asked how I was doing. She told me that I would likely be going home later that day, and we briefly discussed the hiatal hernia and fatty liver. I dozed off again, and Mike was there. The staff brought in sugar-free sorbet, sugar-free protein drink in fruit flavors, broth and water. My RN wrote on the board in my room that I was to try for 30 mls an hour x 2 hours, then 60mls an hour x 2 hours, then 9 mls an hour x 2 hours, and finally 120mls. I could only comfortably do 60 mls. I can STILL only comfortably do 60 mls today. If I drink more than 2 sips every 10 minutes, it feels very uncomfortable and full and the pain in my shoulders gets worse. They wished that I would pass gas, and I STILL haven't! I do burp frequently. Yesterday was pretty much a blur of drinking, drinking, drinking. I walked again. My daughter Jess came and helped me with the drinking and braided my hair after Mike left to prepare for an event he is cooking for tomorrow. After a couple hours, she went home, and I napped again. I discovered that broth did NOT taste at all good. At about 2pm, the RN came in and said that my surgeon said it was ok for me to go home. I was able to reach Mike by about 4 pm, as he was in the store and his phone didn't work until he got out of the store. Meanwhile, the RN insisted I take a dose of oral Lortab for pain before my trip home, even though I didn't really have that much pain. I was worried it would take up too much room in my new stomach, but she reassured me and it was ok. I took off my hospital gown and put on my jeans and T shirt (jeans were not a good choice, and I'd recommend sweat pants or yoga pants instead). I packed up the hospital stuff: basin, emesis basin, protein drinks and water bottles, Blistex for my lips, little toothpaste tubes. They throw this stuff out, and I figured I could use it for something. When Mike got there at around 5pm, we called for Transport and they put me on a transport chair and whisked me out to the Durango. I didn't get a chance to say good-bye to the staff. It's a busy floor, and they were all off helping other patients.
The drive home was unremarkable. Mike chose the least winding route, which probably helped a lot. I was entirely comfortable. When I got home, I walked a little bit around the house, found a bottle to put my drink in, and mixed up a batch of protein drink. Mike had the kitchen and dining area pretty much filled with stuff for his cooking event, and I figured that was enough excitement for one day and went to bed with my protein drink. Every time I woke up, I went to the bathroom and rinsed my mouth out, then drank two sips of protein drink. At about 2 am, my mouth was really yucky and after I rinsed it I drank 4 sips of water, and my stomach protested immediately. I walked a little, burped, and went back to bed. Mike came in around 7am, and I asked him to fill the vaporizer, as I think that makes it easier to breathe and my mouth doesn't get as yucky. Sure enough, by 9 am I didn't feel nearly as congested and my mouth wasn't so horrible. I got up, checked Facebook briefly and posted that I was alive, made my day's worth of protein drink and another bottle of water, and began sipping. Took a nap between 11:30 and 1pm, then came back to the computer to post this. All in all, I feel like I've been hit by a truck, but it's not necessarily PAIN. The soreness to my belly is entirely tolerable. The worst of it is not being able to drink much. I rinse my mouth a lot, which helps. I think I'll feel much better when I'm able to either pass gas or have a BM. My goal for the rest of the day is to finish my protein drink, check Facebook, and maybe stuff some dates for Mike later if I can tolerate that. Even looking at food is hard, to be truthful. Although yesterday I did have some thoughts about refried beans, which won't happen for weeks. I did try sugar-free Jello in the hospital, and it tasted fine but didn't seem to leave the pouch well, so I'm sticking with protein drink and water for now.

Fermented Tea???

About a month ago, around the same time I was making the kraut and kimchi, I became intrigued with Kombucha Tea. I headed down to the Nugget Market in El Dorado Hills, which is a remarkable supermarket that stocks raw milk and organic foods in addition to conventional food industry stuff. Sure enough, they had raw Kombucha Tea.

At the time, Miach had some GI thing happening and I suspected he needed some good microflora, so I bought 3 bottles of the Kombucha Tea and made him drink one. I also drank one (not bad...) and the third I saved for the live cultures.

In doing some research, it seems that Mother of Vinegar and Kombucha Mother are pretty much the same mix of organisms that form a leathery, rubbery disk that covers the top of your fermenting juice or tea. This blob is called a SCOBY: Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast. The main bacteria is Acetobacter and the yeast is wild yeast from the environment. Now, I have a real admiration for the wild yeast that live in my geographic area. I have a wild yeast sourdough that is absolute gangbusters. It can be in the back of the 'fridge for months, untouched, and yet you can feed it some flour and water and it will snap into action. It raises bread dough almost as quickly as commercial yeast. In traditional San Francisco sourdough, the tartness of the bread is very important. This is NOT that kind of sourdough. This is more the kind of sourdough that people have been making bread out of for thousands of years, and it produces bread that is indistinguishable from bread made with Fleischmann's Yeast or any other commercial yeast. But it's LOCAL yeast! So, I had a lot of hopefulness that I could end up with a very viable and productive Kombucha SCOBY, if I could just get it started out well.

The directions for making your own Kombucha SCOBY were to mix 1 part Kombucha Tea with 3 parts sweetened tea; put it into a large non-reactive (glass, ceramic or food-grade plastic) container with a large surface to volume area (not a wine bottle, but a canister or bucket) and stir it like crazy getting plenty of air into it, then covering it with a thin, medium-weave fabric to keep out bugs but let in air and yeast. I took it a step further, and figuring since Mother of Vinegar and Kombuch mother were virtually the same thing, I dug around in my cabinet and found my bottle of Bragg's Natural Apple Cider Vinegar with The Mother. Sure enough, a SCOBY had formed on the top. I had to pour the whole bottle into a glass pint measuring cup to get the SCOBY out, because it had a narrow neck. I tore off about half of it, and put the rest and the vinegar back into the bottle. I used a large glass storage canister from IKEA as my fermentation vessel, cleaning it with soap and water first. Then I put the 16 oz bottle of commercial raw Kombucha tea from Nugget into the canister, threw the vinegar SCOBY in there, and brewed up a half-gallon of strong black tea, which I cooled to room temperature and added quite a bit of sugar. Probaby 1/2 to 3/4 cup. It tasted sweet. I added that to my canister, covered it with muslin and tied string around the neck of the canister to keep it in place, tucked it into a dark corner of my counter and tried not to bother it for a few days.

Sure enough, presto, after about 2 weeks a SCOBY had formed on the top of it and I had a sweet/sour kombucha tea. I poured this out of the canister, leaving about a cup or 2 with the SCOBY, and refrigerated it. Then I made another half-gallon of tea, this time sweetening it with honey, and did it again. That tea was much less full-bodied when fermented, so the next time I went back to sugar. Most recently, in preparation for an upcoming surgical event that will limit my ability to tolerate sweets, I fermented the tea for 2 full weeks and have a very tart, only slightly sweet tea now that I'm going to attempt to take after the surgery in very small amounts to see if I can tolerate it.

TMI ALERT!!!!! DO NOT READ IF YOU CAN'T TOLERATE TALK OF BODILY FUNCTIONS.
I'm a gassy person. It's really aggravating and occasionally embarassing. Obviously, one tries to be polite and discrete, but there are times when things are just totally beyond one's ability to stop them, and this situation had gotten worse and worse over the past few years. I'd noticed that when I follow a low-carb diet, it takes care of the problem about 75% of the time, which is going to be the subject of a post-surgical blog post, I'm sure. Well, Kombucha Tea seems to take care of the problem, too, but for it to work most effectively I've found that I need to drink it with most meals. If I do that, no intestinal gas. I don't have to drink much; maybe 2 or 3 ounces. A 16 oz bottle can last me 2 days in the car in winter (it isn't fermenting much in a cold car).
YOU CAN START READING AGAIN, GENTLE ONES.

Other claims that I can't verify (yet) that are attributed to Kombucha Tea:

Due to the composition and metabolic by-products of this microcultured, living food -- which I do not want to go into, as it is beyond my pay grade and kind of boring unless you're a biologist -- Kombucha helps balance your acid/base profile, makes assimilation of B vitamins much better, makes GERD symptoms much better, helps you sleep, improves your skin and hair tone, helps you to digest food, regulates your elimination (both kinds)  and energizes you. Many people who have tried it quickly become proponents of it, and I am certainly one of them. I'm not entirely sure what the Kombucha is doing, but whatever it is, I feel much better when I drink it and my inclination now whenever I have a slight dyspepsia or other digestive problem is to swig some Kombucha tea. I recently had to stop my arthritis medication, which is NOT FUN, but on days that I have somehow missed the Kombucha tea, my arthritis is much worse and on days when I drink it the arthritis pain seems to be tolerable. This is a relatively new observation, and it could be dependant on several other factors like barometric pressure and ambient air temperature, so I'm not quite convinced the Kombucha is a good arthritis reliever yet.

The Final Fermented Cabbages

So here we have them, the Kimchi (3 and 3/4 jars) and the Kraut (5 and 4/5 jar, plus one jar of kraut juice). The Kimchi continues to be a delight, with complex flavors. The saltiness has subsided, and the pepper heat is just about perfect for my taste, which is kind of in the low middle range. The Kraut is very tart with a very kraut-y aroma, and it's the consistency that I remember from my childhood although I think it would have been a better consistency had I refrigerated it a week ago. The juniper berries were a wild card for me, as I've never eaten them before, only attempted to make ale with them. They don't taste the way I expected, which was more like a pine tree. They taste peppery.

I'm leaving the Kimchi out at room temp for a day or so, and watching for bubbles. Hopefully, I'll get a few, then I'll refrigerate it. The Kraut is going straight into the fridge, because it's texture is already soft.

As you can see, these are colorful ferments. They're really lovely.

Right after I poured the rest of the kraut juice down the sink (where it will hopefully survive in our septic tank) I realized I should have given it to the chickens. Darn. So I did take out the Kimchi brine for them, and they drank it. The microflora in those liquids is good for chickens, too!