Holpineville

Still Hungry

It is now day 11 of 14 of the yucko liquid diet.  I think I have lost a good ten pounds, but then again, I won't officially claim the number the scale said when I started, I am having some major PMS bloat, and it really doesn't matter anyway.  To look at me, you couldn't tell, trust me. 

I have tried 25 (yes, I counted) different kinds of ultra-low-carb protein drinks, plus countless variations on some powered ones that I have on hand in big containers.  I can tell you all about what to add, how much ice, and which sugar-free flavored syrups and extracts will make that whey powder most bearable.  Ruby actually likes my chocolate mint variation on Muscle Milk. 

And I can have clear liquids!  Oh, boy, do I get liquids!  I am not a fan of Crystal Light (since when is it cool for grown ups to drink Koolaid?) but suddenly I am chugging it down for variety's sake.  I drink tons of water and buckets of herbal tea, I have explored all the possibilities of sugar free popsicles and jello, and I even tried meat-flavored water (a/k/a broth-- barely tolerable served hot with a bunch of herbs and stuff dumped into it).

This all makes the diet time more bearable, but I still would like to eat food, thank you very much.  I can report that after about day 4, I started to feel less zoned out and fuzzy, but that was about the time something new went wrong in my back, and I can't take any of the good drugs for it, so my zest for living has been tempered by trying to find comfortable positions for sitting, sleeping, and standing. 

I am starting to get a little stressed out.  Right now, it is not so much about the surgery as about everything I wanted to have done before the surgery:  an overdue website content revamp for a volunteer group, a baby shower I'm co-hosting, remarks for an event I have to speak at tonight, the giant pile o' junk in my car for Goodwill, the dirtiness of the car in general, my messy disaster of a bedroom, bills to pay, last-minte grocery store run, blah, blah, blah.  Perhaps it's all a front for some fear of dying or of going through this and having it not work.  It could be: we all know I don't trust Rod to raise these children without me, and I have a lot of knitting left to do. But today, it mostly feels like I need to get cracking on the party favors.

In other, more interesting news, I took Ruby emergency shoe shopping Monday, after she insisted that suddenly none of her shoes are comfortable enough for everyday wear.  It was nice to have her alone for a while, and maybe shoe shopping will be some kind of bonding experience for us one day, but for now, it's torture.  She has weird feet and picky taste.  But she's now the proud owner of some slippers to wear around the house and more importantly, some sneakers for school.  She's most proud that the shoes have soles made from recycled tires.

I took Carl to the ear doctor on Tuesday, because the school nurse believes he's profoundly hearing impaired.  This doctor is a Big Deal in the pediatric ENT world, and he and his team of audiologists tested Carl and checked him over, and then swore on a stack of Bibles that Carl's hearing is in normal range, and filled out the school nurse's form accordingly, thereby confirming my opinion of her skills.   

Both of those late afternoon expeditions resulted in kids going to bed late on Monday and Tuesday.  So on Wednesday, Ruby was worn out and developed some horrible tummy ache at school so that I had to bring her home early.  I think what she really needed was some time off; I think Thanksgiving break can't come fast enough for both kids.

More news as events warrant. 

Ask me in summer, if it was worth it

Don't expect much from me over the next few weeks.  I am on Day 4 of the surgeon-mandated 14-day high-protein liquid diet preceding the surgery I don't really want to talk about. Now, if I had ever been able to adhere to any sort of diet for very long, I wouldn't be wanting the surgery, would I? 

So yeah, it's really, really, hard.  The protein drinks are lousy and my brain is convinced I'm starving even if my stomach isn't complaining too much.  I'm tired, headachey, having hot/cold flashes, and --most important for you-- I am mentally fuzzy.  Writing this is a strain.  It seems my brain wants more than 700 calories a day to function appropriately.  But I am muddling through, thank you very much.

I wish I could say the kids are fine...and I guess they are, overall.  Ruby's teacher is going to help me figure out what kind of specialist we need to evaluate Ruby's wacko reading/spelling/math issues, if she in fact really has some.  Carl flunked the school nurse's hearing screen two days after his teacher coincidentally asked me if I'd ever had his hearing checked, because he ignored her that day.  So, we're going to the ear doctor next week and then to the speech therapist for an evaluation the week after that. 

Also, as I was helping Carl get dressed today (yes, he still wants help pretty often, the big lazy goober), I noticed an enormous, and I mean truly gigantic to the point that I had a hard time looking at it, hard lump on his shin.  Now, it is probably just a bruise.  But naturally I am envisioning some kind fast-growing cancer, or perhaps a chipped bone.  And my friend mentioned the possibility of a blood clot breaking off and giving him an embolism.  Did I mention, he had a bloody nose this morning, too?  But he was acting fine, so I sent him to school anyway.  No, really I don't worry much.

Carl has been promoted to working with the moveable alphabet at school, which involves spelling.  He insists he can't read, even if he can pull letters out of a box and make a word to match a picture. Ruby is, despite all her difficulties, more interested in reading these days, and she's learning some Christmas carols on the piano.  This weekend, Ruby and Rod are spending 12-13 hours doing Girl Scout stuff, and I will be hungry and taking Carl to a birthday party. 

You do know when you get a special mailer telling you your health insurance premiums will be lower next year and that there will be more "free money!"  from the sponsoring employer, that it means your out of pocket co-pays, deductible, and yearly maximum are going to more than double, right?  So now I have to do a whole lot of research and number crunching to figure out which of two really expensive options is going to work best for us next year, and then we'll roll the dice and see if I was right. Health insurance reform can't come soon enough for me.

What else? The weather is lovely.  Rod is fine. I am hungry.

I am Moderately Fond of Democracy

I was going to say "I love democracy!"  but then both of the candidates that I really care about ended up in run-offs.  So there are five more weeks of hard work and tension to go. 

I got up early yesterday to be a poll worker.  Yes, one of those perky people handing out cards that you try to avoid eye contact with and slip by on your way into the voting place.

By now, you probably know that I hate talking to strangers, and I also have a very difficult time waking up in the morning.  So it was a little surprising that I enjoyed myself, talking to the precinct election judge and the other corner-standers, including one of my candidate's opponents, and seeing everyone coming in. Later, I spent several hours at the election day bake sale at our kids' school, chatting with the people who live nearby about the school and the elections. Last night, I stayed late at the returns-watching party for my friend, where we all learned once again that when voter turn out is less than 20%, a couple hundred votes makes a huge difference, even in a very big city.  

One side benefit to my minor political activity in these local races is that the kids are both very interested in elections, politics, and candidates.  I like that they are seeing people they know run for office and being involved in campaigns.  On the other hand, explaining How the World Works to innocent children is not easy.  I do miss my high school civics teacher, jaded and burnt-out as the poor guy was. 

Halloween was good, from what I can now recall, four days later.  Ruby made a fab Statue of Liberty.  Carl was Skippy Jon Jones at his school's storybook dress up day parade, and then a bat on Halloween proper.  Rod was Dracula in white tie, and I was me...too tired to get a costume together.  We went to the school fall carnival on Saturday afternoon, and to a friend's party Saturday night. Sunday involved another (very loud, says Rod, who sacrificed himself and went) birthday party, and ended with Horrible Tired Crabby Kids Falling Apart Night.  Nights like that, I wonder if Carl will make it to adulthood alive and unincarcerated.  But he was all better the next day; yay! for sleep.

I keep waiting for a break in the busy, but it's not happening.  This week's special events: Ruby is taking a sewing class, Carl has a birthday party to attend, and I have meetings every night.  This weekend, there's a statewide Montessori conference at school that I need to help with, it's the 22nd anniversary of When Rod Met Andrea, I need to do some election campaigning, there's another birthday party, and a friend's art event I promised to drag my kids to. 

Also, it's my last weekend to eat in my usual fashion ever.  On Monday, I start a horrid-sounding regimen of protein drinks and nothing else for two weeks.  After that, comes the much-anticipated, carefully considered, and long-prepared for gastric bypass surgery, and food will never be quite the same. Yes, I am rather freaked out about the whole thing, and I don't really want to discuss it all here.  But I do need to think hard about what to have for dinner Sunday night...suggestions?