Cereal, meds, back surgery, gains & wins

Jul 27, 2013

I've had a pretty crappy several days. My back hurts - a lot. It's been burning at the lower left of my spine and I just want to throw things. Add in a freaking skin infection (thankfully, it doesn't appear to be bacterial so won't affect my upcoming back surgery) and a nice new anal fissure and I'm just done.

The skin infection - we don't know what it is yet, still waiting on definitive answers, but we think it might be shingles, which would make sense based on all the stress I'm under. They put me on an anti-viral and anti-fungal just to make sure and to kick it out so I'm not dealing with that on top of recovery. It hurts and is itchy and is making me crazy. We might never know for sure, but whatever.

The fun (!) part is that a side effect of both of those meds is weight gain. It's kind of screwing with my head. I was up to 158 at one point, but am back down to around 155 at the moment. That happening just as I'm working through maintenance was NO fun. I'm averaging 1250 calories at the moment, so there's simply no way it's real weight. If it is and I have to stay that low in calories for the rest of my life... yeah. No.

I also added cereal back into my diet two weeks ago. I've dealt with constipation for many years, but it's been worse being on this hydrocodone for the past few months. While fiber usually causes MORE issues than not (bulking) I decided to try to find some combination that would help with the issue. I also really missed cereal. I cut it out of my diet after surgery. I just didn't feel like I could control myself with it. But after entirely too much deliberation, I decided that I could find a good high fiber and low sugar option that wouldn't trigger me. I've found a few with very high fiber (Barbara's, Fiber One, and my favorite, Bran Buds). I add Mootopia milk (low sugar, high protein, no lactose) and it's a great breakfast choice. The Bran Buds, in particular, seems to help a LOT with the bathroom issues and I'm not triggered to go look for the frosted flakes. That's a win!

So, my back surgery is scheduled for 7/31. He uses the approach directly from my back so he won't be going through my abdomen. He also does minimally invasive so the wounds will be small. Total OR time should be less than 3 hours. I'll be in the hospital for just one night, he said he could do it same-day, but left it up to me and I think having two levels fused, I'd be more comfortable staying overnight - at least to get a jump on pain meds at the very least.

I'm doing some last minute stuff over the next few days. I love having my own business, but it's a bit stressful to get clients and employees settled and everyone knowing what to do. I'll likely be pretty much out of touch for a month and half way for another month or two. Ahhhh! Trying to not think too much about it :)

I went to a friend's trunk show today. She does beautiful jewelry design (shout out to Swoon Gems!), I bought a super cute pair of earrings and a bracelet to match. I had a great little NSV moment when I realized that not only did I buy a bracelet "off the shelf" but that I needed a few links taken OUT. See how pretty?

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