The glory of food!

Left photo taken by Rebecca Dufek

Right and Bottom photo taken by Jeanette De Grand

Ahh. I only have time for one short post this evening as I am WAY overdue for bed according to the new schedule. My hospital stay following the day of my surgery was actually only 3 days and get this....the only reason I was in a day longer was to give one more day to check my progress and to arrange a procedure I had to have which I will explain later (an outpatient surgery). Had I not stayed overnight Wednesday I would have beat my record for shortening my hospital time (I always have a goal of how many days before I get out).

With all my other surgeries I was incredbly ill actually projectile vomiting red jello on my husband's shoes after the first surgery in 2007 when that was all I could eat. I learned to incorporate and tolerate orange sherbet pretty well so that is typically the first food item I have or strawberry ice cream. This time was an incredible hotel vacation and I was able to eat EVERY meal as soon as they got me into a regular room and sitting up. I bounced back after the pain in ICU with amazing strength!
LOL In the picture here I am actually reading the menu and picking out a good assortment for lunch before I left the hospital last thursday. How funny eh! I never really got to enjoy the luxury of the food OHSU has to offer before and it rocks! When I told my friend in London I had french toast for my first breakfast, stunned he referred to my hospital as "swanky" which yeah I gotta confess it is pretty sweet and I am very fortunate!

I think an awesome veggie omlet is under the black cover here and I had cream of wheat on the second morning because with not being sick I did not want to get too carried away and keep my weight at least sort of in check. LOL The first day my sister ordered me a slice of cheesecake for lunch AND dinner! This is be the first time post surgery I will need to loose weight instead of gain it.

Check out the beautiful flowers my love and sister gave me on the window sill. The gerbera daisy plant with a matching pink gerbera daisy balloon my sister gave me at my celebration of life party the day before surgery. Then the day after surgery when I was moved out of ICU my sweet husband sent me the cute pretty in pink teapot with special Equadorian roses.

I was pretty spoiled and LOVED it! My entire window sill was lined with flowers cards - many beatufiul ones made by my mother, balloons, and even a fish bowl some visitors from New York brought me! Thank you so much for the warmth you all enveloped me with! I am still enjoying them in my parent's home!

Recovery is going very well for me and is actually like a REAL relaxing vacation which normally I have a very hard time doing. HAHA! You ask my husband and when we go on vacation it is actually more work! I like to pack in as much as possible and being a person of high physical activity, we are going to do something strenuous and sweat!
I am on restriction from doing that however and for now cannot be hiking, running, working out at the gym or operating at high stress. My mom has not too enthused that I am pushing the envelope this evening and wanted to get on the computer at 10 pm because I had not blogged yet. After dinner and celebrating my dad's birthday, I chose to watch TV for the first time to see the episode of "American Chopper" on "Deadliest Catch".

Seriously it has been very nice to have orders to settle down and just rest, take nice walks, relax, take naps, take a bath, read, and I am hoping to start on my puzzle tomorrow. So I am going to enjoy this moment while I have it. Night all! I will make a priority to do some posting tomorrow. :)