Back in the Saddle Again!

Hello All,

Been a L-O-N-G time since my last post. My fingers are crossed that the drama in my life has subsided for a bit and my Crohn's has chosen to be quiet for a while. YEAH!!

For the past few months I've only been able to eat bland things which are squishable with a fork and supplemental shakes (Ensure) My weight seems to have stablized at 118 lbs--down from a steroid induced 148 lbs during the first week in July. I'm slowly reintroducing "real" food, using my intake journal and COM software. Given my malabsorbtion problems, it's looking like my "restricted" calorie level is going to be around 1800-2000 cal./day. My next round of labs will be due in February. I'm anxious to see if they have improved. As a nurse I often work with patient's labs, and for about a year, the patients I cared for had better labs than me. One of my goals is to get rid of a few medications. Right now I'm a walking pharmacy.

Lately I've been catching up on my E-reading and have found several neat blogs. Thanks April, Amy, Mary, Aaron, Jamie,Willie and a ton of others for providing inspiration. Also much appreciation to Nerissa for encouraging me and keeping my spirits up when life really sucked. Aztec Peg offered some help and encouragement as well. I am finding myself (gratefully) among a very diverse, funny, sharp group of folks.

Looking back over my last bout of illness, I've found a few things to be thankful for.
1. Being nauseated through the holidays kills the desire to over-eat.

2. Drinking half a pot of coffee then throwing it back up REALLY squelches the
coffee craving. (Last cup was 10/29/06) Flavored teas ROCK!

3. It's part of God's devine plan to sell toilet tissue in multi-packs. Mega-roll Charmin is my friend.

Those are the ones that come to mind first. I'll save the rest for future posts.

Should any gentle reader have information or input, I would love to hear it. Hope it will be a wonderful New Year for everyone!