Liquids, Losses, & Love...Day 67

If I stay on track...I should officially be at the 2/3 mark of these quarantined days away from the world. The magic timeline is 100 days (contingent on upon hitting many medical milestones and blood counts). This feels reachable, the end is in sight...and with any luck maybe I'll be let loose even a bit sooner!

Health Update:

This hasn't been the most exciting week in the world. I'm prepping for surgery - which has been moved to tomorrow (Friday, January 28th in the afternoon). So I'm on Day 4 of an insanely restricted diet of clear liquids and two protein shakes a day. (Not allowed any fat or sugar so that my liver shrinks and it makes the surgery much easier). When the joy of food and deciding what to eat is taken away from the already limited excitement of days that blend into one another you realize just how central food is to our lives. For 4 days I've drank many Diet Snapples, Vitamin Water Zeros, Premier Proteins, and Manichevitz Vegetarian Broth, capped off with a delicious sugar-free popsicle in the evening. This surgery cannot happen soon enough! Thankful that they couldn't find an anesthesiologist who was available on Monday, so I got bumped up to tomorrow!

So the key details on the health front, aside from my kvetching about not being able to eat are as follows:

• Laparoscopic surgery tomorrow to repair a hernia near my stomach. Should be 3 hours total at the hospital if all goes well. They have plenty of A+ blood should I need a little extra, and I should be cozy on the couch watching Gilmore Girls with my mom by late tomorrow afternoon.

• First week of O-O-Ozempic has been pretty non-eventful. I feel a little strange but hard to tell if that's the medicine or not eating. Thankful for no truly bad side-effects, and fingers crossed this whole Diabetic situation is short-lived.

• Burns have healed! No scarring! My body can figure out how to do some things right :)

• No blood work until tomorrow, but I'm going to guess I'm in the 770's for ANC Count - will report back on how much I can predict my ANC count!

What's entertaining us:

• We are really diving into to this winter wonderland and exploring all the winter activities that are safe, outdoors, and far way from people. We walked straight across Friess Lake, into Glacier Country Park (with our sleds in tow), and did some super fun and safe sledding last Sunday afternoon. Videos and beautiful winter forest shots below. We had the whole sledding hill to ourselves, and had a blast! We walked back through the property of Wally & Bee's Last Stop Resort -- so I could continue my day-dream of buying this lakefront bar and bait shop and turning it into a bed and breakfast. Please contact me if you're interested in becoming my business partner in this effort :)

• TV Series:

  • We started the Righteous Gemstones (love knowing that Ben watched and loved this series). We are on season 1, and find it hilarious!

  • Deeper into Station Eleven - and enjoying it more with each episode

  • Reading André Leon Talley's autobiography - and honoring his incredible contributions to the world of fashion

  • Raj has purchased all the Ram Das books available, and is enjoying reading them each evening before bed.

  • Amy Schneider's epic 40 day winning streak on Jeopardy came to end last night. She couldn't come up with the question to this answer: The only country in the world that ends in the letter H, and the 5th most populist country. The answer was Bangladesh. Can't wait for Amy to return to the tournament of champions this summer! She ends her reign as the 2nd longest consecutive winning contestant of Jeopardy in history!!

What I'm grateful for:

• The chance to get to better, the never ending list of medicine, treatments, solutions, and ideas the doctors have to make me better. Its easy to feel frustrated in a recovery process like this - but then I remember that my brother ran out of new treatments, they ran out of new medicines to give him, and solutions to his ailments - this means I CAN NEVER STOP APPRECIATING how lucky I am for the course of this recovery!

• I spend a lot of time commenting on the number of days I've been in isolation - I spend even more time day-dreaming about how I'll spend my days when this phase of recovery is over - and then I saw this Winnie the Pooh cartoon - and it was an important reminder to honor each day:

• I'm thankful for the LOVE - from all of you, from my parents, and from Raj - some days I wonder how I managed to fall into this much love - and then I stop wondering and just appreciate it.