What time is it??

Nope, it's not Howdy Doody Time. I'm NOT old enough to have ever seen that show, but I've heard it. OK?

It's time for Pixie to take a break. Oh ya, time for vacation. I'll be gone 2 weeks. Think you'll be able to live without me? Ya, you can do it...you know you can.

TBM and I are going on a cruise. Looking forward to this one as we're going with friends. That should be so much fun traveling with friends. Not only that, there are 39 other people from our park going on this cruise. Should be a good time.

I'm looking forward to the rest. Not that I'm overworked or anything, but my mind needs a break. Not taking the laptop with me as Internet costs more than I can afford. FYI, it's 50 cents a minute I think. They have a 'value package' of 250 minutes for over $100. Ah, no. Less than 30 minutes a day? WTF can I do in 30 minutes? Not only that, I've paid a hefty price for this trip and do I want to spend it doing what I do at home? Ah no.


Will I miss reading the blogs of my favorite people? Hell yes! You know I love you. This will give you one less blog to read so you can have a rest too. How's that?

OK, on to more stuff.

I've decided to be like my friend Marcelle. I've got a problem that came back and I'm just going to will it to heal. I'm going to wrap my mind around the idea that my body is healthy, therefore making it so. I'm going to send all kinds of healing messages to my tum! Here's the scoop.

Several years ago I went to Mexico. I was there 3 days when all of a sudden every time I ate, I threw up. I couldn't eat anything solid or it would lay on my tum and make me feel miserable. I thought I had a bug of course. Got home, it didn't go away. I went to the doc a few months later. We were in FL and I got one that didn't speak English and was rude as hell. Said I had gastroparesis. No tests, no nothing. Just 'you have this'. I didn't know what it was. Didn't know how I got 'it', in fact, I didn't even believe I had it as he didn't even touch me! Asshole. So, went back home to MI and went to my doc there. A man. Again, asshole. I got 'oh it's in your head', oh this and oh that. I felt like grabbing him by the scrotum and asking him if he thought he had pain in his balls or if he did have pain in his balls. Instead, I just posed that question to him. He said of course he'd have pain in his balls. I said OK, so when I puke after eating solid food, it's not in my head. He sent me off for tests which he believed would find nothing at all. I went for a stomach emptying test. At the hospital, they too assumed it was all in my head. I mean really, here's a broad that says she can't eat but is fat as hell? So, after 5 hours and the food was still in my stomach, it was like 'holy shit there's something wrong here!'. You think??? Assholes. I'd had endoscopy's and MRI's and a myriad of other tests so now, finally, the diagnosis of gastroparesis was confirmed. Still, nothing to do about it. They gave me pills. They didn't work and the side effects scared the shit out of me. Funny, even when you don't eat solid food you can still shit. Just a little tidbit for you there.

That lasted for I can't remember how long. Nearly a year though. Then poof, it went away and I could eat again! Wow! I flew home in Dec of 2007. When I got back to FL, it came back. That lasted until about May of 2008. It was fine until this last week. Now it's back. Why? I don't know. How can something like that come and go? I know it's awful. My friend asked me last night if stress could bring it on. Hmmmm dunno, but good question. All the times it did come on were times of great stress really. Right now is particularly stressful. Some I can talk about and some I can't. Money natch. Too many demands on my time, and the list goes on. So, if stress can bring it on, and that's just in my head, then refusing to believe it's back and trying to de-stress should take care of the prob right? Yep, that's what I'm thinking.

For those of you that don't know what gastroparesis is, here's a scaled down version. When you eat food, your stomach contracts to push it from the stomach into the next chute. Can't remember if that's your intestines or bowel...but somewhere out of the tum anyway. Gastroparesis prevents that contracting. Food you eat just lays in your tum and ferments and rots. Eating even just a tiny bit of solid food makes you feel full right up to the top. Food doesn't stay down most of the time. Hours and hours after you eat, your tum will finally revolt and up that food will come. Not pleasant for sure. Just think of eating something and 8 hours later still feeling miserably full. Not a happy full...a sick, nasty full. My tum hurts all the time. Never feel hungry. Feeling hungry is a good thing. I like to feel the grumble of my tum...but maybe that's just because I've been through this. When the gastro is kicking in, there is no nice hunger. Just pain, all the time. Pain when there's no food and pain when there is food.

I can't eat any fruit or veg or fiber. I can't eat any meat and even eggs won't stay down. Only soft or liquid. Before when I had this I never focused on health. I just ate what would stay down. I ate mashed potatoes and tomato soup, pudding and that was pretty much it. I refuse to do that this time. It is, of course going to be gone soon anyway.

I've got protein powder from when I was exercising a lot. I'll have a few of those a day. I had malt o meal for breakfast today. So far, I feel fabulous. That's got protein as I make it with milk and iron and lots of other good things. I'll have yogurt instead of pudding. No mashed taters...nothing in those for me. I'll find ways to stay healthy. I also have some V8...the kind that is fruit and veg? I'll drink that every day too. No reason I can't drink my fruit and veg. Broccoli soup if it's pureed should be fine. I make that WW so that should be great. Cheese in it too so there's some protein. I can do this. I can eat healthy no matter what. My biggest challenge will be to not go off the deep end when this does go away. I will not allow that this time. Both other times it felt so good to eat, I gained about 30 pounds and didn't even care! I care this time. I'm so determined to get to 188 and hold there for a while. I'm nothing if I'm not stubborn!

I'm really sorry this got so long but I had to let you all know what's going on. Also, if any of you have any pureed recipes, I'd sure like to know them.

This cruise is going to be a challenge also. Not a lot of liquid/puree options probably. I'm seeing a lot of ice cream in my future! No, I'll just will this to be gone by then. I do plan on getting exercise in though and I may take my protein powder with me. Still in the thinking phase of that. We leave on Saturday though...so better start thinking harder!

Just remember, no matter what we're handed, it could always be worse.

:-)