Salsa and Pill Crushers

I'm a little late in posting this time.  Life is, as always, hectic, but we are approaching day camp season as well as finishing softball and soccer and girl scouts and school, so it's a bit chaotic to say the least.  So, updates.....I'm at a total lost of 71lb as of this morning.  I did get cleared for the next stage which means I got to add cooked veggies, ground meat, lunch meat, beans, and canned fruit to my diet.  My slightly tweaked meatloaf, leftover, with a tiny scoop of cottage cheese?  SOOO good!  And hubby fixed me some chicken with red onion and cheese and a little sugar-free BBQ.  Delicious!  But, I'll tell you what, you never really really know what your food weakness is until you have a very limited selection to choose from and it's not on the list.  I think about it all the time, I just want chips and salsa.  Eventually, i will get there.  It won't look the same as a simple bag of tortillas and some salsa from a jar, but it will be epic.  Protein or chicken chips and homemade salsa (no sugar).  Oh!  you have no idea!

Other than the menu, the other thing of note.  Pain management.  With bariatric surgery, you can't have NSAIDs, at least for the first several months.  So, guess what all of my friends of a similar age or more?  No Motrin.  None.  Zip. Nada.  So, what does one do when you're only 3 weeks post-op and you suddenly find yourself sporting a pinched nerve in your shoulder?  Well, let me tell you.  Heat, ice, showers, stretching, topical creams, massage gun, and tens machine.......do exactly NOTHING.  I endured for almost a week before i took myself over to Patient First.  X-ray showed nothing.  They gave me a muscle relaxer and a steroid.  I called the on-call doctor at my surgeon's office, because of course why would i take care of anything during normal business hours, and was forbidden to take the steroids (possible ulcers) and they said to try the muscle relaxers.  Well, broken up pills......still too big to dissolve in my stomach before heading out of the range of usefulness.  I woke up at midnight with my arm throbbing and jumping around.  I freaked out and took myself over the ER, because surely something is really wrong and they can do something, right?  Yeah....no.  The doctor......who took his sweet time to see me......decided to do an EKG even though I told him, this isn't my heart.  I know heart pain.  I've had heart pain.  I've got the surgical scars to prove it.  But why would he believe the patient?  So, guess who's EKG is perfect?  smh.  Then they did another Xray.  Nothing there, duh.  Told him that too.  He said he'd given me muscle relaxers and a strong pain med and I'd want to follow up with ortho and they could get an MRI if they wanted.  I asked why he couldn't do it........apparently they didn't see a need.  really?  fine.  so, home i go........now with another bottle of the SAME muscle relaxer.  My Genius hubby is like "this is going to be foul, but do it".  He crushed those pills to powder and i knocked it back.  Total game changer.  about two hours later, i noticed that i hadn't even noticed i wasn't in pain anymore.  Went ahead and took another dose that night and I'm happy to report, I'm as good as new and back t the crazy pace again with TWO good arms!

So, leaving you with this......if you're having surgery or considering it........get a pill crusher (just in case!)