So, Friday when I went to the hospital for my daily treatment my doctor said that he wasn't happy with how long it was taking me to get better!
He decided to do a follow up Ultrasound and a surgical consult. The ultrasound went fine and then a surgical resident came to talk to me.
The said they would rather do the surgery now when when everything is planned and somewhat normal rather than wait until my gallstones bother me again and everything is inflamed and infected.
The whole time she is talking I'm thinking, there's no way you are operating on me!
You see I have several things that require surgery, 5 impacted wisdom teeth, ovarian cysts and now these gallstones.
I've always been told that surgery it too risky so to have someone sit down and discuss how my surgery would go was scary.
In the end we decided that if I have no further pain I'm good to go. If the pain comes back or gets worse they want to operate on Tuesday!
In my world that is an absolute nightmare I have a fear of being put under and a fear of getting cut open and parts of my body being removed.
Anyways, through some research I found lots of information on the Internet that says a low fat diet can keep you from having a gallstone attack.
Awesome, so Zane goes to the grocery store and buys me every fruit and vegetable they had in Safeway!
So far the diet has been going pretty well.
I did spend one day feeling sorry for myself. I mean its hard to one week eat whatever you and then the next week you have to cut out everything you enjoy eating.
I tried feeling bad for myself and cried and stuff like that but it just upsets everyone around me, my Mom, my Dad and Zane. They are already stressed out enough so I sucked it up.
Today was a much better day. I met with a natural path practitioner and she was great. An angel really.
She gave me great ideas and recipes that I can follow. She also has some ideas for getting rid of the gallstones completely my eating certain foods.
For example, she said beets are great for gallstones so I've already eaten 3 beets today which is more than I've ever eaten in my whole life. They actually aren't that bad besides the fact that they make everything red my pots and pans and my teeth and hands. Oh well I feel like that is the least of my worries at this point.
I must say though I do feel I lost something. I know its only food but its strange to think that I will never eat ice cream cake again, or enjoy a nice cup of coffee with lots of cream and sugar.
I know those things were just killing me slowly but they felt good going down.
I do feel like this new way of eating will save my life or at least make it more enjoyable!
Think about jellybeans or things you do do like that have not fat. It's hard. I want to applaud you for trying a less invasive approach. Way to go!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for saying that! I am trying my best! it's a lot of work I must say! Its not easy!
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of things you can do with fruit and veggies to make them seem like some of the foods you are missing... for ice cream, peel and freeze some bananas and when you want "ice cream" put them in a blender. They generally don't need extra sweetener but if you can have it and want it add a lil vanilla or honey. Also, have you checked out any raw or vegan cookbooks? Everyday Raw and Eat, Drink and be Vegan are supposed to be pretty good. I also know someone that got a spiralizer thingy and spiralizes her zuccini so it's like spaghetti and tops it with a tomato sauce. You are a STRONG person and I know it must be hard to have to change something like the way you eat so fast but you can do it.
ReplyDeleteOh, and if you try the banana thing, at first they will resist the blending but keep going cutting them up a few at a time, they will turn chunky and 3-4 min later . . . "ice cream" heaven.
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ReplyDeleteI know a young lady who has gallstones and she's had several awful attacks. She also has severe factor V deficiency. Well, she behaves on her diet "some" of the time and hasn't had an attack since maybe a few years ago. Definitely behave yourself for now but don't think your life with cake is over because maybe the gallstones just need to settle down for a while before you have your next piece of birthday cake (lowfat of course).
ReplyDeleteI've had good luck with a new medical discipline called "functional medicine". It could be that all your health problems (not the bleeding of course) are related and could be helped by some basic changes to your diet and taking some supplements. And then maybe you'd be able to eat some fat again! http://drhyman.com/ is a really organized (and self-promoting) proponent of the discipline.
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