Months fly by

Greetings my friends!  I will never understand why I let so much time go by without coming in to post something.  Believe me my life has just enough going on where I could share something every few weeks but, I just get caught up in things.  Any way, Last November I ended up having a 2nd intestinal surgery.  Initially it was supposed to be putting me back together and getting rid of the Ostomy.  Did not work out really well, my intestinal disease is too far gone and I ended up losing some more of my large intestine and having the temporary colostomy remade into a permanent one.  Well, I guess I don't have to wonder any more, this is my life.  Recovery has been a very slow process this time, I think that is a big part of the reason I am not getting much done.  I am extremely fatigued all the time.  I often can not even work up the energy to pick up my needle and play with my beads.  Now that is bad.  So obviously, I am not getting much work done.  The worst part is that I can't stand not being active and involved in things so to seemingly watch myself not able to do anything is very frustrating.  I am doing a lot of reading and everything tells me to just be patient because recovery from this surgery at my age takes a long time.  Okay I will try but my patience is growing short.  Then we deal with the eating issues.  I am on a high protein, low residue, low carb, low fiber diet.  I have a long list of things I can not eat.  Some of them are forever, things like my absolute favorite foods such as nuts and seeds.  I cannot have any meat that cannot be cooked to the point of falling apart so I can have a Hamburg because it is already ground up but a steak is too fibrous.  I cannot have any fruit or vegetable that has skin or seeds.  Almost all my fruit and vegetables have to be cooked to mush.  I walk into the store and pick up a tomato and just stare at , maybe smell it and my mouth waters.  Of course I can take that tomato home and blanche it to remove the skin and scoop out the seeds.  But does that make you want a beautiful tomato sandwich?  Nope !  There are many things I can try adding into my diet slowly, one at a time.  Of course the things I love most aren't being accepted well.  I love the oddball stuff.  The Lima Beans and Brussels Sprouts. I love broccoli and I love beans.  Last week I found a recipe using grated cauliflower and I had to try it because I love cauliflower.  Grated...right down to tiny little specks and within half hour of eating the tasty outcome my intestines let me know we cannot have our cauliflower back.  One of the highlights of my day....a smoothie.  My daughter gave me a nutribullet about a year ago.  It does a great job of disintegrating my fruit into pure liquid so every day at some point I make a big, satisfying smoothie.  Lots of fruit, my daily yogurt, some good juice or almond milk.  Sounds great right?  Yeah..it's putting pounds on me.  natural sugar be damned the sugars in the fruit and juice are making me fat. 

This journey is not going to be easy.  The only thing I have on my side is that I am tough.  I will not give in.  Once our winter weather breaks I can do a little more to help myself and sooner or later I will defeat the fatigue, the hunger, the bad mood.  Hope everyone is doing well, I promise to try and come back sooner than 4 months from now.