I love this time of the year.

My son will be flying back to the USA after a semester abroad at the Spanish Naval Acadamy. He is going to the Eagle Bowl,go USNA...Beware the Goat. He had a wonderful experience there and made some life-long friends.

My oldest daughter turned 18 this month and is enjoying the NY State after 9pm driving. Her life continues to be drama city with her boyfriend of two years breaking up- dating again- breaking up- dating again. She is in "love" and her dad and I "just don't get it". It seems that  having great self respect and deserving the best for yourself is just not in. She is a senior top in her class yet still not getting the college applications done. You would think getting to live away from me would be enough of an incentive. We are trying to let her be responsible about it but we may yet have to light a fire under this child to get them finished.

The freshman daughter is doing great. Loves high school, played  JV soccer and right now is in Varsity Indoor Track. She is also involved with BBYO so is traveling all over the Eastern Seaboard on weekends. Luckily there are 8 local kids involved so they are having a great time.

Hubby is back to work full time. He has lost over 30 lbs with walking and eating better. He hated climbing on the scale at the oncology department before treatments. Between the lymphoma, anxiety about finances, his weight his blood pressure was way to high. He is doing super.

I am loving the life guarding working about 15 hours a week. I am swimming and teaching classes for usually 7 1/2 hours a week. I have good new finally at my main part-time job. I had been down sized in November, the two physicians one is my DH offered to pay my salary themselves and yet it took weeks for the hospital to approve it. It absolutely made me nuts, I am working as an EMR facilitator in their office getting paid very little. However the job I do makes my husbands life and stress level much much better this in turn makes my life much easier. So the benefits have far outweighed the money. Also since I was per diem I work 20 hours a week, when I want so I am able to schedule around the life guarding and the kids sport schedules. I can bank hours for vacation and so it has been an ideal work schedule. Still teaching religious school thank goodness the pay is great because Sunday morning and every Wednesday from 4-6 is not convenient.  I am still beading, more for fun and family. I have done pieces for charity events as well. The problem lately is just finding enough hours for reading and beading, I love to do both so do try and get time for each.

Weight is staying stable, I have actually lost inches since starting the life guarding--those extra two hours of intense water aerobics with water weights has certainly sculpted some muscles on me. Still loving the DS!!!

I am so grateful that 7 years ago today I was being wheeled into the OR for Dr Peters to do the DS and give me back my life.

I truly believe in the Trinity of WLS Lifestyle
1)Nutrition-still protein first, then veggies or fruit then if any room left carbs for my major meals. Snacks are mine to enjoy. Take my supplements and minerals and check levels.

2)Exercise- I love to exercise now. I swim 5 mornings a week. In this last year I have increased my lap swimming. Have started two extra water-weight classes I teach in the evenings. Have successfully at age 50 completed my life guarding water exam. Can easily do charity walks.
Have not missed a "Walk from Obesity" since they 2004.

3)Mental Health-I regularly post and read on this site. Led a support group for the local Dr. Peter's DS patients for 3 years. I also have a rich spiritual life and use prayer in my exercise routine. Most importantly I live my life from a state of gratitude.

I still struggle with some of my health issues, especially autoimmune arthritis. This would not change with the DS surgery but my joints are doing so much better at a normal weight. The destruction of my joints by the morbid obesity is gone. I feel I am doing so much better than I had ever imagined before surgery.

As a physician, as an endocrinologist I seperate fact from fiction and the DS is the most effective of the wls long term for  surgical treatment of morbid obesity as evidenced in medical studies at this time.

I look forward to a continued life filled with health!!

I love the DS and truly am grateful to my surgeon Dr Peters and the DS on a daily basis.

As many of you have followed my journey know that I have autoimmune arthritis that is much improved since surgery. Still there but that I am able to treat it for less time with medications when I am in a flare-up. My joints have not deteriorated at the rate they were before surgery. They had talked about knee replacement at age 44. Instead I am working with the same knees and only do injections at longer intervals since being at goal weight.

I love to exercise now. I teach water aerobics classes two nights a week and swim laps/do water aerobics 5 days a week in addition to those classes. Approximately 7-8hours a week in the water.

I was asked a year ago to consider doing the life guarding class  when it was next offered at my YWCA. They paid for the instruction for me and I would have a part-time job waiting for me when done.

I am so excited to say I passed the water part of the test, at age 50 1/2 years old. This was 2 weeks of 11 hours each week in the pool, plus I was still teaching my 2 classes and swam 2 additional mornings. 15 hours of hard core swimming and exercise for two weeks each. I was able to do all the swimming, rescues, climbing in and out of the pool and my joints were sore from use but no more than the other members of the class.We took the water test and written test on Tuesday and I did great. First Aid was yesterday and I passed that. Next up next week CPR and AED training ( pretty confident I will get that too).

I am just so dang tickled about this!!!!!

Here is my medical take on this subject. And I do have the medical degree to back up these facts.

1/3 of all humans produce methane gas in their farts, these are typically smellier than non-methane farts.

So the reality is if your farts smelled before surgery they are going to smell after surgery.

That said, protein rich diets also increases the nitrogen in the fart complexities and can make it smell worse.

Add into it the lactose intolerance, and increased bloating and flatulence that entails.

So the statistics say that 2/3 rds of DS patients with be non-methane producers.

That leaves 1/3 of us methane producing DS patients.
We have control over some of it--fat content,sugar alcohol, carbs if we are sensitive to them, use of lactaid or non-dairy if lactose deficiency is also there. Not do carbonated drinks that have more CO2 gas in them to add to the intestinal track.

Now there is a way to define whether you are a methane producer, if you ignite your fart methane farts burn with a blue flame, non-methane farts yellow....... however at risk of burning your tush,  your clothing and up into your intestinal track I do not recommend this in the name of science.

For those of you lucky non-methane producers I am happy for you.
However for us 1/3 methane producers we can not alter our genetic intestinal makeup. Whether or not you had the DS you are going to fart- methane or non-methane.

 I am getting a little tired of the continuous blaming of farts on the person and their diet.

I am a DS success and have been living a wonderful DS life for almost 7 years. I had smelly farts just like my father ,also a methane producer I am pretty sure. I do however have gas that is vile even to me at times and this was even before surgery, silent but deadly was certainly my MO for years. When it  is going to happen I try to be as polite as possible- fart only in a restroom, spray afterward. Use a restroom that is not multi-stalls if I can.

That said as a physician I am not going to let farts, a natural body process for all of us, stop me from doing my job, living my life.  Farts happen and I do the up most to decrease their production eating non-dairy, taking probiotics. However  the reality is all of us fart, it is air moving down our intestinal tracks from breathing, talking, swallowing air, and the production of gas by our healthy intestinal bacteria.

Personally I am not comfortable with the prolonged use of antibiotics which Flagyl is. I have seen the emergence of "super-bugs" resistant strains of bacteria that our society has produced through the overuse of antibiotics. Clostriduim difficale is a perfect example of a bacteria that thrives in people who have been on antibiotics and the natural pro-biotic bacteria have been killed in the intestinal track allowing it to take over. The treatment of it is difficult, extremely expensive and debilitating for the person suffering with the infection.

I hate that summer is almost over. I enjoy the warmer days and the later days. It feels good to have that much sunshine.

With work I am now in the office 5 days a week. Working shorter days but more of them. Luckily I am in one office mainly now and I hope I will be staying there. In the past I was at a different physicians office at least 3 days a week and 1 day at my husbands. Now I am at hubbies 5 days a week.

He has been able to enjoy more of the summer with me working there. He is getting home at a better time and this translates into he and the dog going for more adventures. We laugh that the dog was a therapy dog for him during the cancer treatments but it is true. Each day the two of them set out for radiation therapy and my husband said the act of petting the dog on the way over and back home calmed him down.

My son is off in Spain for a semester and I miss him. He sounds great and is having an adventure taking trains around to different cities before starting the exchange program with their military acadamy.