Traveling without a Stomach

Many people ask how difficult it is to travel without a stomach.  It does take more planning than before, but is easily doable.  When flying in particular, I overpack food.  I not only have enough snacks for the anticipated flight time, but have plenty extra for potential delays, especially, if we were to get stranded on the plane with no access to airport food, I want to make sure I am prepared.  I pack protein bars, nuts, cheese, jerky, peanut butter filled pretzels…pack whatever your go to snack is.  The last two times I’ve flown, they have had you take any food out of your carry ons to be scanned separately.  I think the TSA agents, and other passengers, think I’m nuts when I keep pulling out more and more food, but no one has said anything yet.

At home, I often bring home leftovers when we eat out and then warm those up for my lunch the next day.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t work as well while traveling.  I try to order just a sandwich and eat the meat without the bread or just an appetizer or something so there is less waste, but I’ve also tried to get over it and if I throw away food, I throw away food, and not let it bother me.

Smoked trout dip with pita bread and carrots

Another option is what we did one day on Mackinac Island during this trip.  There are so many wonderful places to eat that instead of just doing lunch and dinner, and me doing my normal snacks in between, we spent one day just doing appetizers.  Starting a little after 11am, we went to a restaurant and shared an appetizer, then a couple of hours later, another appetizer, a couple of hours later, another, etc.  We had the last appetizers about 8pm.  I had less of a need for snacks in between and I don’t think we spent any more money than we would have if we had two bigger meals.

In just two days, most of the 10 oz. package of dried strawberries are gone.

One highlight of this trip to Northern Michigan was stopping at the General Store in Good Hart.  It may seem odd, but returning to this little store in this tiny town is something I’ve been looking forward to for a year.  A year ago when we were there, I purchased some dried strawberries.   I like dried fruit, but very seldom have I encountered dried strawberries.  These were wonderful!  And the fantastic thing is I could eat several at a time and they didn’t bother me.  I was eating them like candy.  But unlike actual candy where I can only have one, or maybe two pieces at a time, I can eat several of these at once, and I'm fine, even though cane sugar is the second listed ingredient (behind strawberries.)  If I eat more than one or two pieces of candy, watch out! Dumping is not fun.  But I can eat these dried strawberries by the handful.  Most every time I snack, I make sure to have protein, but once in awhile, it’s nice to eat something just for the pure enjoyment of it.  For a year, I’ve searched close to home and never found dried strawberries.  Thus, the trip to Good Hart, to stock up on dried strawberries, both to enjoy now while on vacation and to take home with us.  The packaging says they’re good till June 2020.  I don’t think they will last that long.

Lenexa UMC 150th Anniversary

Sunday, June 30, Lenexa United Methodist Church celebrated their 150^th Anniversary, being founded in 1869.  This has been my church since 1983 and I have been on staff as Business Administrator since 2004.  As Business Administrator, I am the staff liaison to the Records & History Team who was responsible for planning the celebration weekend, giving me a major role in the planning and carrying out of the celebration.  Everything went really well and everyone seemed to have a great time.  We had many former pastors, descendants of former pastors, former members, and descendants of founding members come for the celebration.

In case the celebration wasn’t enough, I decided to write a book.  Actually, when I started, I didn’t know I was writing book.  I was just trying to put together the previous histories that had been written (all of which were just a few page handout), consolidate and expand them, and add pictures.  None of the previous histories had included pictures.  Next thing I knew, I was writing a book.  Methodism in Old Town Lenexa: The History of Lenexa United Methodist Church 1869-2019 ended up being a 200 page hardbound book with Table of Contents, Glossary, and Index with almost 300 pictures, and included bios of all 70 former pastors.  The previous histories had included very little, if anything, about the former pastors, they had mainly been a list of names and dates served.  I made them come to life.

Me presenting a copy of the book to the mayor.

The planning of the celebration and the writing of the book took over two years.  The amazing thing as I look back, and the reason I’m including it here, is that this whole thing culminated just over two years after I had my total gastrectomy.  My gastrectomy was on February 21, 2017.   I returned to work part-time six weeks later in early April.  As I look back, I’m not totally sure when I started compiling all the previous histories and information we had into a consolidated history to create a starting point, but I think it was either just before or just after surgery.  I actually think I may have started at home during recovery before returning to work part-time. You would think I would remember, but I don’t.  I didn’t return to full days until September.  Within a couple of months of doing that, I started working on a first draft of what would become the book, even though I didn’t know it was going to be a real published book at the time.

In retrospect, I’m just amazed that I pulled off this major event that took lots of time and effort on the heals of having major, major, surgery.  Not only can you lead a normal life after total gastrectomy, you can apparently go beyond normal and commit crazy amounts of time to a project.

Two Year Anniversary

Two years ago today is when I had my stomach removed.  The past year has been a good year.  I'm in a good place.

Here's some highlights of the year:

We went to Mackinaw City, Michigan in September.  Mackinaw is my husband's hometown and he has a website devoted to the region mightymac.org.  One of the main purposes of the trip was to walk the Mackinac Bridge on Labor Day.  It is a 5 mile long suspension bridge connecting the upper and lower peninsula.  The entire walk ends up being about 6 miles.  I'm not someone who does much exercising and when I do go for a walk, walking a mile or two is pretty much all I do,  but I did the 6 miles with no difficulty.  I had also walked the bridge in 2011, but I had a stomach then, so it was totally different.  Last year we were there at the time of the bridge walk, but I did not walk; it was too close to surgery.  But this time I thought I could do it and I did. I did make a point of taking snacks and a water bottle with me.

Four days before the walk, we bicycled around Mackinac Island.  It is 8 miles around the perimeter of the island.  Here again, I don't bicycle.  I think the last time I had been on a bike was the last time we bicycled around the island which was four years ago.  There again, when I had a stomach.

I was a little nervous about both of these adventures, but I had no trouble with either of them.  My tag line when I posted the pictures on Facebook was "no stomach, no problem!"

In October, we made a trip to Maine to visit my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.  I had fun shopping at the LL Bean Flagship store in Freeport and the J Crew and Calvin Klein outlets in Kittery.  I might have went overboard on purchases, but on the other hand after losing 85 pounds, I still hadn't really replenished my wardrobe, so I had a good excuse.

Which brings me to my weight.  I have finally stabilized.  After losing 1-2 pounds per week for the first year, from my appointment at MD Anderson in January 2018 to my appointment in January 2019, I only lost 8 pounds.  And I think I lost 6 of those pounds as a pound a month in the first six months and just 2 pounds in the last six months, so I would call that pretty stable.  Because I was overweight going in, I feel really good about my weight at 157.

My follow-up appointment in January was a good appointment.  In general terms, all my blood work came back with good numbers.  My BUN number was a little high which could mean I have some dehydration.  It wasn't significant, just a little. They did suggest more water and/or less caffeine.  As I've mentioned before, iced tea is my go to drink and I don't really want to give it up.  What I've started doing is making two pitchers: one caffeinated and one decaf.  I drink the caffeinated during the day and the decaf in the evening.  I've never felt tea kept me up at night, but having decaf in the evening I figure is a good idea anyway.

My blood pressure was also a little low (99/67), not horrible, but not great.  If you recall, my blood pressure was a little high going into the surgery (ever since I got diagnosed with breast cancer and then CDH1) and I went into aFib after surgery, so they put me on Metoprolol tartrate.  The surgeon's speculation was that I may need to lower the dose, partially because of the weight loss.  I finally got around to calling the cardiologist today and although I'm due to go in March, they can't get me in until June.  But I talked to the nurse and we're going to go ahead and cut the dosage in half and see how I do.

Those two things were both really minor.  I continue to get an excellent report at my surgeon's visits because I am doing great!  I really am doing better than I ever expected and better than many of the people that have this surgery.  Dr. Mansfield said he wanted to see me again in a year, but after that, I would probably "graduate" and not have to come back any more.  That sound great to me!

Happy Two Year Anniversary To Me!