Well, I had my surgery done one month ago today. I finally got a chance to come back to this site. One week after my surgery, my mom fell down a set of very steep steps...and broke her neck in two places and her back. She is finally in a rehabilitation center. They are expecting her to make a full recovery. Things could have ended so very differently so we are thankful for every day with her. I will NEVER get the picture, of her lying at the bottom of the steps, out of my mind though.
I've lost 25 pounds thus far. I feel that I have so much more energy. The diarrhea, that I experienced throughout the ten day pre-surgery phase, continued for quite some time. The protein shakes that I chose were loaded with way too much fiber for my system to handle. After my surgery, they had me switch to regular Carnation Instant Breakfast and that worked much better. I returned to work after two weeks of my surgery. I drive a school bus and have a need to have something in my mouth. Since gum is not allowed anymore, and the Life Savers which I had been sucking on had sugar in them, I switched to sugar free Life Savers. The diarrhea continued. I also had TERRIBLE gas/gas pains. I believed this was due to the drinks I had chosen...Arizona Diet Iced Tea (made with Splenda), G2, ...and other artifically sweetened drinks. I cut those out but the diarrhea continued. I never bothered to read the label on the back of the Life Savers bag, "Excess consumption may have a laxative effect." I stopped the Life Savers, and now I feel SO MUCH better!!