On Gallbladders and Complications

September 2021 was rough. Maybe not quite as rough as March 2021 when it came to the medical emergency, but still rough. And depending who’s opinion you ask, I sort of almost died in an obnoxious way.

I had my gallbladder surgery on August 25. It had been acting up again for days no matter what I did and did not eat, to the point they almost yoinked it early. But I assured them I could hold out until the 25th. I did not want to miss work before my planned absence. By the time they did get in there though, my gallbladder was so inflamed and angry, what is normally a 30 to 45 minute surgery took 2 hours. But they got it out and sent me home.

I was in pain so I went heavy on the pain meds. Only, I forgot about the stool softeners and they didn’t send me home with a script. So I just didn’t take any. I’m not sure if they reminded me in post op or not, but either way I didn’t even think about it. Until I was so constipated I was in pain. I bought OTC stool softeners and laxatives. They did nothing. I tried a horrible drink made if water and epsom salt which never fails. It failed. I went to the ER and told them everything. They gave me an enema. I pooped. I continued with the stool softeners. I was pretty ok there.

Only I was still in a world of pain. I was at a 10 on the pain scale. But I had been at like a 12 (numbers don’t stop at 10) and I assumed this was normal for having removed a very angry gallbladder. So the pain isn’t why I went back to the ER.

See, I had this cough. I wanted to be sure I hadn’t caught post op pneumonia. So off to the ER I went for X-rays. Only, their concern was a blood clot in my lungs and they threw me into a CT machine.  They scanned my chest and my abdomen.  My lungs were fine.

But there was a huge (huge) pocket of fluid in my abdomen about where my gallbladder used to be (which explains why I looked and felt 10 months pregnant) and my white blood count was double what it should be which meant I was septic. I was quickly given heavy doses of every antibiotic ever and transported to the hospital where I’d had the surgery. (I had gone to a standalone ER that isn’t attached to a hospital because I figured it would be an in and out matter.) They installed a drain so they could get the fluid out and determine what it was. The good news is it was just bile which meant my liver was protesting the ordeal of the angry gallbladder and surgery and was leaking. While this, of course, isn’t ideal, it stopped on its own and the drain did its job of collecting it. I was in the hospital for a few days for observations. Once the output had slowed down enough to indicate it would for sure eventually stop on its own, they sent me home drain and all. Which hurts like a bitch, btw.

But it did eventually stop and the drain came out and here I sit about a month later at work perfectly fine. But it took a lot of time, and a steady stream of pain meds (paired with the stool softeners) to get me here.

In annoying, though not deadly, news, where my belly had more swelling than I realized thanks to the cancer and angry gallbladder, now that both have been dealt with, I’ve gone down a pants size. I’ve also somehow lost hips and ass. So my pants and skirts that fit perfectly are now too big and the clothes that were already a little big after March’s surgery but stayed on thanks to my hips… well… there ain’t damn thing keeping them up. So I need new jeans, shorts, skirts, the works. I’m kinda pissed about it, honestly. I also lost tits and my favorite dresses that were already a little too big… well… I swim in them now. My heart broke over that one. I have replaced them though. I live in that style of dress so I invested in 3 to replace the 2. I don’t want to even talk about the 4 bras that I JUST bought and that fit PERFECTLY 2 months ago being too big now.

Alright. I’m going to try and go back to writing weekly again now that things have calmed down. So hopefully that pans out. Meanwhile this post was written on my phones please excuse lack of proper editing. This app and my phone are struggling to get along. So this post is what it is.

Weighing In

Losing weight while on psyche meds

This isn’t a real blog post.  This is in fact just here to direct you to the page I made where you can mock me in my attempts to lose some waist, gain some health, and shape my groove thing.  You know, the Waggon I’m Draggin’?  The Dragon I’m Waggin’?  My ass.  I also want to be rid of my back rolls.

But all of that is a process. An annoying process! A process made to feel impossible while on all these damn meds! So I’m sharing it with you. One of two possible reasons:

  1. If I can do this despite all my meds and despite massive depression and despite fibromyalgia, so can you.  Or at least find it within yourself to try?
  2. If I just get nowhere despite all my efforts, and you get nowhere despite all your efforts, then we can damn well be nowhere together.  Shan’t we?

So anyway, it’s up there with all the pages.  I’m linking it to you today, but next time you’ll know where to find it.  I will work towards updating it at least once a week.

The Peanut Butter Diet

OMG ScaleOk.  First of all can we all agree not to make any major dietary changes, especially weird ones, without first consulting your doctor?  I don’t need people doing this, getting sick, and then blaming me.  What I’m about to describe I’m doing in moderation, while also being sure to get in all the essential nutrients and vitamins.  Ok?  Don’t be dumb.  Cookies taste a hell of a lot better than skinny feels.  M’Kay?

That said, my body was telling me something was wrong.  And I mean beyond the 20 pound weight gain over the past couple months.  I’m well aware that I can thank my love of baked breakfast sweets and Danish Butter Cookies.  I know I can thank my inability to eat anything in moderation.

However, for a while now I have not been able to eat much of anything without almost immediately having to emergency poop.  Pop was making it worse.

Now, I cut out pop a week or two ago.  Granted, I was still allowing myself 1 a day when I could get it, but otherwise I’ve been drinking a lot more water.  It use to be all pop no water.  Then some pop, some water.  Then mostly water but some pop.  However I now think I have the ratio to damn near 100% pop. (Damn near because we all know I’ll have my moments.)  I’m trying to rely on coffee for my caffeine needs.  I’m also trying to get myself off caffeine in general.  It seems to make my emergency poop.

Ok so this advice I want you to actually consider following because it is not at all crazy and is very healthy.

My main beef with water is that it is tasteless and boring.  So recently I’ve bought some mint leaves from the store.  I add that into the cold water and it just adds this level of crisp.  You can also shoot in some lemon juice.  How much you ask?  Well, my tap water is actually pretty good and I don’t like too much mint.  So I make mine ahead in an ice tea pitcher and let the mint just sit.  Then I add more and more water as needed.  When it’s at its strongest I add tons of ice to the cup.  At its weakest, I add in more mint.  There really is no wrong answer here.  This is all on your taste preference.

The rest is a crazy fad diet style thing.

Alright.  So I’m about to start an anti-psychotic that will make it near impossible for me to lose weight.  So I decided I needed to do something to give myself a little extra push in the right direction.

I have been, as of late, craving peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like it’s no one’s business.  However, the amount of bread I consume, just to sit on my ass, explains why half my wardrobe doesn’t fit.  The jelly isn’t awesome for me either.  Now, all of this is great in moderation, don’t get me wrong.  But I wasn’t moderating effectively.

However, during a trial and error process, I happened to discover that a tablespoon or 2 of peanut butter kills my heart burn.  It also doesn’t trigger emergency poop, like most everything else does.

I thought it over and realized peanut butter is also a great source of protein, which I need to be pushing.

No, I’m not going to live on just peanut butter at any point.

However, 2 days a week (Monday and Thursday) I am going to put myself on a 24 hour Peanut butter fast.  I’ve officially been through 2 days of it and I can honestly say it works.  I allow myself as much peanut butter as I need in order to not feel hungry, but as I’m not THAT into peanut butter, I don’t over eat it.  I also back it with plenty of water.  So on Monday and Thursday that’s all I consume.  As much peanut butter and water and I want.

The rest of the days I eat whatever I want, with the mindset of not making the peanut butter diet pointless.  On these days I make sure I get enough veggies and other nutrients I miss out on when Monday and Thursday come around.  I also make sure to keep and eye on portion control.  Because if 3 tablespoons of peanut butter can get me from starving to comfortable, then reason says that should hold for other things as well.

Is it working?  Well, I’ve started losing weight.  And when I’m high on peanut butter intake my stools calm down to once or twice a day and are of a decent consistency.

I do need to pick a healthier peanut butter as the one we had on hand has a ton of added sugar, but I’ll get there.

Oh.

I’m also exercising.  4 days a week.  A mix of legs, arms, abs, and basic torso stretching.  You can tell by the way I haven’t been able to walk since Saturday.  At least I have my cane.  I suppose this is the best reason to need it.