Farewell Ye Foul Gall Bladder

I had my gall bladder out this past Tuesday! Yay! I'm actually thrilled with how quickly it went from confirming the diagnosis to actual surgery. People complain about the Canadian Medical system, but as they had to wait until thing settled down prior to doing the surgery, this went about as quick as it could go. And they managed it laparoscopically. This is also good because I did not want to have to be recovering from major surgery with two small children in the house.

It is actually only right now that I realize behind the discomfort of recovering from surgery, I don't have any of those gall bladder pangs any more. Once again, Yay! Now, don't kid yourself, while you might recover from lap. surgery more quickly, it still hurts, and you still need to recover. Your body still feels like it has been beat up quite badly, it hurts to move, sleeping sucks (you can only sleep on your back, and that causes it's own share of back pain), and I can only walk around for 5-10 minutes before I need to sit down again. But hey, today I don't feel the need to fall asleep by noon, and I hope I might even be awake after 8 PM tonight.

Bill took yesterday off, and bless his company, they asked if he could use another day to help me out, and he said yes, so he is home again today. He is so sweet. He's always been hands on around the house, but he's doing awesome filling in on what has normally been Mommy duties - cooking, getting up with crying children in the middle of the night, etc... check out his blog post http://htwavcbh.blogspot.com/ about the experience.

Now what did I find out from my experience with my gall bladder? Well I read a lot about what could I eat and not eat. Here is what I found: I could eat boneless skinless chicken breast, veggie ground round (soy crumbles), and fish  - including water packed tuna which I threw on my salad every day. While the rule of thumb is anything with less than 5 g of fat is okay, that was not always true. I could not eat fat free ham. I could not eat bread. I found I could eat pitas (3 days before my surgery I figured that one out). I also ate routinely: oatmeal, fat free plain yoghurt, any fresh fruit, any vegetable except avocados. At first all bran bars were okay, not at the end. Salad for lunch daily. Tea, iced tea, water, skim milk, wine (yay!), and once in a while coffee. Dinner was usually some form of chicken and potatoes or rice or pasta mixed with some kind of vegetable. I like chicken well enough but Bill is sick of it!

As it has not been worth while for us to go out for dinner (why pay $15 for a grilled piece of chicken on a bed of lettuce) once I am better Bill and I are hoping to maybe take off for a few nights and make up for our anniversary and other date nights that simply haven't happened. We'll see.

Up next: Bill is doing a 3 day book writing challenge this weekend and I need to man handle children I can't even lift. That will be fun. school starts for Duncan next week - Kindergarten!! Eeps! My boy is growing up. In a month the Martin Clan descends on Maple Ridge and we have 6 extra house guests for close to 2 weeks said and done. And the kids starting new day care, and my birthday is in there somewhere... But first I recover. Time for some more HGTV (about all I have the mental capacity for right now).