Crohn's Partial Small Bowel Resection

I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease back in May of 2006.  I was able to get married, have 3 kids and live a pretty normal life until about March of 2012.  I landed in the hospital with a small bowel obstruction.  Was in there for about a week and left with some Entocort and took that for about three months.  I never fully recovered from that hospital stay. Extreme fatigue and lots of body aches and joint pain and intestinal pain.  Although, I will say I feel like I am lucky because my Crohns doesn't make me go to the bathroom a lot like most. (Although I think this is due to my diet) Then, on Christmas Day in 2012 I returned back to the hospital for another week stay and was sent home with Entocort and this time my dr decided surgery is probably my best option.  So on March 1, I will be having my first (hopefully only) surgery for Crohns.  I will be having a Small Bowel Resection.  They will be taking out part of my small bowel (the diseased part) and a little bit of the colon.  Also, he is doing the surgery laproscopic using the robot.  I researched and researched this surgery and to be honest...it scared me to death! The stories of how bad the surgery was and how long the recovery is scared me.  But when I met with my surgeon, he made it not seem nearly as bad.  Have the surgery, stay for 2-10 days in the hospital and then go home sore and be back to normal in about 6 weeks.  So, I decided to document the entire process so if anyone is getting ready to have the same surgery I am having can read and kind of know what to expect.  I sure appreciated everyone who put their stories online so I could see!  Today is Tuesday and my surgery is on Friday.  No special diet or anything beforehand.  I don't even have to do the "prep" like when you have a colonoscopy.  Every story I read they had to be on a "liquid diet" before and do the "prep".  So I will be updating as I am in the hospital so I will remember all the pains or anything I experience.  Wish me luck! My plan is to have this surgery my "Re-start" I plan on sticking better to being Primal and hopefully start blogging more recipes and stuff as well;) 

TOTAL PURGE

We did it! Today we did a total purge in our kitchen.  Out with the bad :)  We have not been doing so well eating Primal.  I managed to lose all the baby weight and then some, no problem.  But I feel like TOTAL crap.  I am getting ready to turn 30 in February (YIKES) but I seriously feel 80 years old.  We have to make a change.  Although I felt like we were mostly Primal, with lots of cheats, when we did the purge in our kitchen I was shocked! We filled up a large trash bag full of stuff to throw out.  (And give to my parents, didn't want to waste)  I did not realize we were still hanging onto so much non primal things.  The hot dogs, ketchup, salad dressings, peanut butter, jelly and so much more went out the door today.  We had the kids help us.  My oldest did fine.  He is a meat type of guy, always has been.  He loves salad.  He doesn't even use dressing.  He hates noodles.  He enjoys chips and junk but does not miss it when its gone.  My second, however, is a total junk food junkie.  My family laughs because if there is junk food you know Jack will be there! While the other kids are playing at a party, Jack is by the junk food.  So as we were throwing out the bad stuff he had a panic look on his face.  His first words, but pizza is my favorite! So I promised to come up with a "healthy" pizza recipe for him.  And then of course my youngest has no clue what is going on.  He is only 16 months. 
Me and my husband have been wanting to go fully primal for a while.  We will do really well for a while then fall off and get back on.  This has been going on for about 5 years.  Sad, I know.  I have been primal enough that the weight came off fine but not primal enough to feel good.  I have Crohns and it hasn't been much of a problem until I was hospitalized for a week in March of this year.  Ever since then I just haven't got my energy back.  I get migraines all the time, joint pain, muscle aches, horrible PMS, mood swings, anxiety, tired all the time, acne, laziness and the list goes on.  It has really gotten bad.  I had surgery for my vericose veins on Tuesday and I am on pain killers and that just made all the symptoms I mentioned even worse.  I knew it was time for a change.  I got a random text from my husband today when he was at work that said lets purge the kitchen today.  Start right now.  So that's what initiated the purge.  I decided to start blogging again because I do way better when I am blogging about my journey.  I feel like I have to do well because I am telling people about it and I don't want to have to tell people I failed.  (Even though nobody reads my blog LOL) But, just in case they do! And it's a great way to journal my journey for myself to see myself (hopefully) improving.   So here is an updated picture of me.  Sorry guys, didn't dress up for it.  Actually, this is my lounging around the house all day look ;)

Cutting out the Gluten

I have suspected that my son, who is now three, has a gluten allergy for some time now.  I have been wanting to cut out the gluten to see if his symptoms get better. Everytime I cut it out at home, he would always get fed gluten from someone else.  I don't think my family really understood. So this time, I explained to everyone that he cannot have ANY gluten for 7 days straight because I am trying to see if that is what is causing his red cheeks and his post nasal drip.  This time I think they really understand.  His cheeks have gotten really red here lately.  This past Sunday was his birthday party so of course he had cake and we had burgers and chips. This is what he looked like Monday night.

So we decided to start on Tuesday.  No more gluten.  Tuesday was not that bad. For breakfast he had bacon, eggs and cantelope. For snack he had grapes and raisins. For lunch he had pork loin and cucumbers.   I made some banana carrot muffins (which are Gluten free and taste great! I will post that recipe later) So he got to eat that for snack at the daycare I work at while all the other kids had chips. He didn't seem too upset because the muffins were really good.  And then for dinner he had grilled chicken and some more cucumbers. (This kid is CRAZY about cucumbers!)  And this is what he looked like at the end of the day.

Wednesday was a little rougher but still not as bad as I thought it would be.  Breakfast he had two pieces of bacon. Snack he had grapes. Lunch he had applesauce. I served chicken and cucumbers but he refused to eat it.  For daycare snack he had yogurt. All the other kids had those little cracker breadstick things that you dip in cheese. His favorite! He never asked to have one because he knew he couldn't eat it. But when the kids were getting them his lip started quivering and he started crying. He cried for a bit while I held him then he was better and ate his yogurt.  That was the hardest time so far.  He was so upset about that snack but I knew I couldn't cave in. But I wanted to so bad! So for dinner I made a huge veggie tray and they snacked on that while I made some Gluten free pizza. And this is what he looked like that night.

I plan on him eating gluten free for 7 days then on day 8 feed him gluten for breakfast, lunch and dinner and see how he reacts.  Our whole family is cutting out gluten.  Something we need to do anyway! I will continue taking pictures everyday to show the progress!

Disney World...HERE WE COME!!

So we OFFICIALLY booked our Disney vacation! We will be going in the middle of September with another couple and their two boys. So that means we will have 4 adults and 5 kids...all the kids are boys...and the oldest being my oldest son who will be just turning 5.  We cannot wait to go! Now that we have booked it that means it is time to buckle down on this weight loss! I am really really wanting to lose 20 pounds before we go. GULP! Good news is I have 6 months to accomplish this goal. When you break it down it's only 3½ pounds a month. Not too bad.  I feel yucky because we just had my birthday and my son's birthday. So that means lots and lots of cake, and burgers with buns, chips and throw in some soda...I feel awful!  And my poor son. I am pretty sure he has a gluten allergy. His cheeks are bright red. They seen to always turn red when he eats gluten.  So I started yesterday cutting out ALL gluten in his diet. I am going to do it for 7 days and then on the 8th day feed him something with gluten for breakfast, lunch and dinner and see how he reacts. I am also taking pictures everyday as well.  That is for a later post though so I don't want to go into too much detail.  But anywho, back to the feeling awful. I feel like I need to clean my system out or something. I feel fat, bloated, my face lost the glo it had from eating primal, my face feels fuller, I am tired, sluggish and BLAH! I wish there was a quick fix to get back to where I was.  The only thing I can think to do, other than eat primal of course, is to drink lots and lots of water with lemon. There is something refreshing about water and it just seems like it would flush all the bad out, right? On top of drinking lots and lots of water, I am planning to cut out all sugar (fruits) for 21 days because I have been craving sugar and carbs like no other.  From what I read, take it totally out of your diet for 21 days and voila! No more cravings! So here we go! Time to buckle down for good this time so I can wear a swimming suit when we go to Disney!

Pork Chops and Mushrooms

So I decided to go ahead and start today with a recipe!  These were so good! Although, I wish I would have used more mushrooms. This is all we had in the fridge so I made do with what we had.

3 tenderized pork chops
butter
seasoning
mushrooms

Melt butter in a skillet and add seasoned pork chops. I used a seasoning that we get at the butcher shop. Pretty much its salt pepper and garlic salt.  Sear both sides and remove from skillet and add a little more butter then saute your mushrooms.  While you are sauteing your mushrooms throw the pork chops in the oven for 15 min at 350 degrees.  Then I added the mushrooms to the top and baked 5 more min because the mushrooms were done before the pork chops so they got cold. And that is it!

Blogging again

It has been a LONG time! Joel is now 6 months old! I can't believe it! He had is 6 month check up the other day and he is now 19 lbs 12 oz.  He is starting to sit up on his own and he talks up a storm! I think he will be our talker of the family :)  He thinks the brothers are so funny. He loves just watching them be silly and could sit laughing at them for hours.  He started on baby food around 4 months. We totally skipped the cereal. We really didn't see any point for it. I am still nursing him full time. My husband had his Christmas party a few weeks back and the kids were at my parents and my mom couldn't get him to take the bottle I had pumped for him. He just ate his baby food and waited for momma to get there and feed him.  We are trying to get him to take a sippy cup so that maybe we could just put breastmilk in there when needed but he has no clue what to do with it!  He just chews on it.  He has 2 teeth so far and is working on a couple on the top now.
And now about the eating Primal.  Bad...SO BAD!! Ever since Thanksgiving I have been eating awful and I am paying for it! My Crohns has been acting up and I am in pain all the time, tired, joint pain.... The list goes on. Seems like it should be easy to jump back on to eating Primal since I feel so great when I do! I decided to make New Years Day the big kick off.  I got back down to my prepragnancy weight a few months ago but just stopped losing weight.  I am hoping to lose about 25 more pounds by September.  I think we are going to DISNEY! So  that will be my new goal is to get down 25 lbs starting January 1.  I am going to start blogging more too. I seem to stick to it more when I have to write things out.  Makes me feel worse if I cheat.  So January 1st I will be back on to take more pictures...A little nervous about that!!!  I am making the whole family join me on the Primal again. I need to get these kids to start eating healthier again. Poor Jack has been complaining of stomach pains again. I think he is going to be like me with all the digestive/stomach issues so that is why I need to cut his grains out now before it does too much damage!

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