Disneybear

Well we made it home! It was a wonderful time and it was so much fun to have most of the family with us! I did O.K. with eating, but had a couple of times where I ate too big a piece of something and was sick for about an hour. It is hard to eat slowly when you are so excited to be someplace. The weather was beautiful and the parks were not that crowded which made the trip really nice. The weather is so cold back here! I am not ready for Winter…. or Fall for that matter!

See More Photos Here!

We arrived safely and have already had a fun filled day! There are 8 of us in total. Mike’s Mom and Dad, His sister Kathy and her partner Karin, his sister Mary Beth, and his brother, Jeff. Unfortunately my sister-in-law, Patricia was not able to make the trip with Jeff. We will really miss her. We went to the Magic Kingdom when we arrived, then headed over for dinner in Morroco at EPCOT. It is so weird to be here with my new stomach! I can barely eat anything, and there is so much food here! I probably will end up losing a ton of weight with all the walking we are doing. I think we are going to Animal Kingdom tomorrow if everyone can get out of bed. This first day is usually very tiring. We are having a great time though! It is wonderful to have almost everyone here!

Well it has been a busy and crazy week. My cellulitis returned and my doctor referred me to a surgeon for possible cyst removal! I get the craziest illnesses. We are gearing up for our Cordeiro family reunion in about a week. It will be such fun to have everyone together. I have been busy with the Fisher family genealogy and have been contacted by three, count em , three distant cousins I never new I had. It really is so much fun making connections. I am down 47 lbs since my operation in June and feeling great!

I recently was contacted by a distant cousin who has filled in some of the missing links in the Fisher genealogy. I decided to publish what I have found out so far so that he can see what I have accomplished. I have a lot more work to do on it, but I did a lot of research in the past. I lost interest when my father passed away, but that is probably all the more reason I should document what I have found out. Take a look!

I haven’t written, because I haven’t been feeling very well lately. It all started with what I though was an ingrown hair on my upper arm. Within a day, the redness it grew to much larger proportions. Over the weekend my lymph nodes in my armpit became swollen, my shoulder went into spasm, and I developed a fever. I was off to the emergency room. They diagnosed it as cellulitis and put my on two antibiotics. If I don’t respond after a few days I have to contact them. It is possible that the bacteria causing it is the deadly MRSA virus, and I will have to take a special antibiotic. It is so weird. I always seem to get the most uncommon of illnesses, just when I was doing so well after my weight loss surgery.

Recently, Mike and my sister-in-law, Mary Beth, were sitting around the table remembering a favorite breakfast toaster pastry. We remembered what they looked like, but could not for the life of us remember what they were called. Well, thanks to the internet, we were able to identify them as Kellogg’s Danish Go-Rounds! I really loved these! They must have had the same ingredients as Pop-Tarts, but the shape was so much fun to eat! I remember eating my way around this “braided rug” to the center! My favorite flavor was frosted strawberry!

Here is the commercial!

Current Weight: 224 lbs Weight Loss This Week: 3 lbs Total Weight Loss So Far: 36 lbs

Current Weight: 227 lbs Weight Loss This Week: 2lbs Total Weight Loss So Far: 33 lbs

The bill to repeal the 1913 law is on its way to Governor Deval Patrick, who will sign it into law.

The bill cleared a final hurdle this afternoon, when the House of Representatives passed the bill on a roll call vote after about 45 minutes of debate. The vote was 118-35, with five members not voting.

The 1913 law prohibits out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage would be considered void in their home state, and it has prevented most same-sex couples from out of state from marrying in Massachusetts. LGBT advocates and their allies in the legislature have argued that the law was passed in 1913 in part to prevent interracial couples from skirting anti-miscegenationlaws in their home states. Full Story

Kudos: Bay Windows

On Sunday, we went to a George Michael concert. Mike’s sister and life-partner were unable to go, so we ended up with their tickets. The show was an hour and a half late as his plane was late, but it was worth the wait. I have always been a fan, especially of his early stuff, and he puts on a great show. I can’t believe that it was 24 years ago that I used his music when I was teaching my aerobics classes for Richard Simmons! Careless Whisper was so great for slow abdominal crunches!

I feel like an ad for the weight loss you see posted on telephone poles! It has been three weeks since my gastric bypass surgery and I seem to be doing well. I am not hungry at all and I am eating small meals throughout the day. I am on the soft food stage and it seems that I can tolerate most foods fairly well as long as I eat slowly and chew them thoroughly. I am finding it hard that I really can only fit in the protein at a meal. I know how important after gastric bypass surgery it is to get in 60 to 70 grams of protein, but protein does get boring after a while. I know that I will fit more in later in the diet, but I have no delay of gratification! I admit that I have tried a few crackers now and then and a bit of toasted tortilla and that really satisfied me. I made sure to chew, chew, chew and they went down fine. My energy seems to come and go but I guess that is normal considering the limited amount of calories that I am consuming. I haven’t been on a scheduled exercise plan yet, but I am increasing my distance while walking whenever I can. I would like to go to the gym this week and get back to the arc trainer. I am interested to see how long I can last. I was up to 45 minutes before the surgery and I think I will have to build up to that again. I am in no pain and my incisions are healing well. I had a meeting with Dr. Lautz’s office for my first post surgical follow up and was given the go ahead to take my medications in pill form as long as they were no bigger than my pinkie fingernail. This was great news as I hated crushing pills and chewing chaulky ones! They also let me switch from chewable Pepcid back to my Prilosec in pill form. Pepcid never really worked for me before surgery with heartburn, but Prilosec always did the trick! I didn’t meet with Dr. Lautz at the appointment, but did see him in the hallway and shook his hand. He asked how I was doing and I told him great!

Current Weight: 231 lbs Weight Loss This Week: 2lbs Total Weight Loss So Far: 29 lbs

Last night was my first in classroom experience at Quincy College. I have been so lucky to have been able to take most of my prerequisites for their nursing program online. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to transfer any more classes in, so I had to take this last course, microbiology, at the college. I haven’t been in a physical classroom since my last attempt at nursing in 1993 so I was a little apprehensive. The class meets Mondays and Wednesdays, with a lab portion on Thursdays. Each class is four hours long, and after last night feels like eight! When I first saw the professor I was relieved to find that he spoke english quite clearly. I have had to drop classes in the past because english was their second language, and they hadn’t quite mastered it yet! Well my joy was short lived, because as soon as we got settled, my english speaking professor began to stt.. stt… stutter! Oh my God! Every other sentence takes forever for him to get out! He is really nice, but the stuttering gets unbearable after about an hour. I am also finding that I have trouble sitting that long. My bad back starts to ache, and I get really uncomfortable. There will only be a midterm and a final, and the professor bases everything on his notes that you can download in class to a zip drive, so it seem ridiculous that I have to sit there when I could be at home reading the book and his notes. I really have adapted to online learning and very much prefer it. Thank God it is only for 5 weeks! Well, I better go stt… stt… study!

Another 4th! They seem to come closer and closer together now. We went to the Walpole Fireworks Spectacular last night. We almost didn’t go due to a strong thunderstorm a few hours before, but it cleared up. Walpole puts on an amazing show and we always have a good time when we link up with our friends, Karen and Ron, who always save us a place with the best viewing. Mike’s Mom and Dad also joined us, so it was even more special. I am coming along after my surgery. I am so sick of protein drinks, but only have to drink them for a few more days. I can’t wait till I am on full solid food, even if it won’t be the amounts I used to eat! I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday

I just haven’t felt like writing much so I thought I would give a video blog update instead!