Whoa, I got so excited tonight and have to share....I might have an abdominal hernia!!!!  If my tummy weren't so sore (very localized and right where there is a little cord-like lump) I'd be doing handstands.  Gonna cross my fingers and my toes and anything else that will cross that this turns out to be a hernia cause if it is then my insurance would pay for a tummy tuck. 

That isn't as exciting as your upcoming LBL, Melissa, but go****'d be soooooo wonderful!

Anybody else have a hernia (or have had one) that could give me a little info on what this should feel like if it is one?  I don't actually see a bulge and from what I read on the internet it doesn't sound the same.  No bruise I can see either...when this started hurting yesterday I thought maybe I'd poked myself in the belly with something at work for it to be sore like that.  But it is only sore to the touch or when I'm lifting things.  Hmmm...

Anyway, I'm happy to have something to be happy about and wanted to share it with my Dec. sibs. 

Hope the rest of your week is great! 

Molly

Now you asking us if you are being annoying is annoying.   You are so NOT annoying!  We love you here and are d*mned lucky to have you for a cheerleader/b*tt kicker/life coach and all the many other wonderful jobs you do so generously around here for all of us. 

Excellent questions!

1) I self-sabotage a lot less these days.  Years ago I really did it consciously but when it happens now I think it is a lot more subtle.  Maybe for me it falls into the childish category of 'I'll eat worms and die and THEN you'll be sorry!'   

2) Why do we continue?  Laziness?  An unwillingness to change old habits instead of doing the tough emotional work of dealing with whatever problems are causing the sabotage in the first place?

3) Sometimes there is that seratonin rush from the food as a positive feedback but mostly it is just old guilt after that first rush of pleasure.

4) I know who it hurts in my case (and I try to keep this in mind): it hurts future revision patients.  If I fail at this surgery and living with my new tool then maybe my doctor or other surgeons in his practice will not give other revision seekers a chance like I got.  That's a big thing to have to live up to and I really, really try hard to keep it in mind. 

hugs backatcha!!!!

Kerdeeya, what in the world do you mean you don't deserve any kind of support?  You have TOO been supportive of all of us here...just by lurking and reading and letting the rest of us vent when we needed to you were out there for us.  You will never know what it means to me just to know that you all are just a mouse-click away whenever I need to read and connect with you all. 

We are definitely an understanding lot here...being the same surgery month so many of us are experiencing exactly what you described.  Wanting the carbs all the time, wanting to graze all the time, dealing with a depression (mild/moderate or even severe) that makes us want to self-medicate with our old go-to buddy Food.  We're all trying to get back on track and stay that way ourselves and then beating ourselves up when we don't do it either. 

But....

We haven't given up on you and we haven't given up on ourselves either.  I haven't yet read through any of the replies here but wanted to let you know I'm out here and will send prayers and good strong thoughts your way for help in dealing with your struggle.  Unfortunately, none of our surgeons fixed our heads while they were working on our guts so we are all going to have to deal with our food and emotional issues the rest of our lives.  Surgery was no magic cure but it was a wonderful full-time warden just waiting there to work for us when we are ready to make it work again.  You may not get back the control you had during the honeymoon phase but you'll have good days so hang onto those and try to have more good ones than bad ones.  But when the bad ones come, don't beat yourself up so bad over it.  Just keep plugging away.   Effort like that is priceless.

Big hugs for you,

Molly

Honestly Melissa, I am the worst person to answer this b/c I don't get an overfull feeling and have never vomited.  I think my food jsut gets pushed through the stoma without me realizing it, especially if its not dense protein.  I do feel full if i eat dense meat after about 6-8 oz but it does take that much for me.  Best to keep measuring and stop when u have had enough.

Hi Diana!

I have never thougt about adding protein powder to regular cake mixes and probably for a couple reasons..

1) protein powder will dry out most everything.. so you would really have to toy with the wet ingredients until it was right, they would have to be increased somehow.

2) regular cake mixes (even the 50% less sugar ones) still have a lot of carbohydrates and not the right kind of carbs for us and for me personally they drop my blood sugar so I cannot eat them without reprecussions.  So for me personally I don't ingest much of those.  I have tried them on occasion in recipes the lower sugar ones and they are delicious.  I usually pay for it later tho with a blood sugar of 30-40.  My body has been so messed up that way since 18 mos out :(

When I was preop I made the cake with diet sprite for white/yellow cake mixes and diet coke or diet cherry coke/diet dr pepper for the choc cake mixes (no eggs or oil at all) and they were good also.