Who knew that GallbladderAttack.com existed? Well it does and they have a list of good and bad foods that I’m going to experiment with.

I’m glad to see “Vinegars of all kinds” and tomatoes on the “good” list since that’s what I’m having for dinner tonight.

Here’s the GOOD list, I’ve bolded the things I’ll actually eat:

Beets

Cucumbers

Green beans – are NOT the same as dried

Okra

Sweet potatoes

Avocados – a good way to get needed fats directly from food

Vinegars all types

Garlic and onions help with liver cleansing but not processed types like flakes or powder. But some people have trouble digesting them so pay attention

Shallots

Tomatoes – ripe

cold water fish- salmon, trout

Lemons (lemon juice in the morning with hot water helps to clean the liver)

Grapes and fresh organic grape juice (what the fuck? That’s what I puked up this afternoon!)

apples, berries, papaya, pears

Omega 3 oils like flax or hemp. Use these with fresh lemon juice or vinegar on your salads. DO NOT COOK flax oil.

Vegetable juices – Beet and cucumber are especially helpful to gallbladder You can add other green vegetables like tender baby greens, swiss chard, dandelion greens, beet greens, celery, carrots — avoid the cabbage family)

Avoid all fruit juices except organic grape juice and organic apple (self-juiced is best).

All the vegetables listed above for juicing are good. Use baby mixed organic greens for salads and avoid the bitter greens for now.

Fiber such as found in fruits and vegetables and guar gum

So that’s the stuff I *CAN* eat. Here’s the stuff I *CAN’T* eat. I’ve bolded stuff I’ll miss:

Eggs (Research showed that eggs caused symptoms in up to 95% of patients. Try substituting flax seed gel in recipes that require eggs for the “glue”. That’s 1 TBSP ground flax seed to 3 TBSP hot water. Let cool and add.)

Pork

Onions

Fowl (turkey, chicken)

Dairy (milk, cheese, cream)

Gluten (wheat, barley, rye, spelt, kamut, etc.)

Corn

Coffee

Oranges, grapefruit

Nuts

Trans fats, Hydrogenated, partially-hydrogenated oils

Margarine

Fried Foods

Saturated fats

(even coconut oil until feeling better)

Red meats (I beg to differ on this one because I had liver for dinner the other night and was totally fine)

Coffee, regular or decaf

Spicy foods

Chocolate

Ice cream

Black tea

Alcohol, beer, wine, liqueur

Fruit juice

Carbonated water

Tap water

Turnips

Cabbage, cauliflower

Colas and all sodas

Oats (for some people)

 Avoid all artificial sweeteners, sugar, preservatives, refined and bleached foods (like white flour)

Avoid smoking if possible as it can exacerbate the symptoms. (I quit smoking 3 weeks before I got sick so I’ve been quit for 4 months.)

Avoid all possible food allergens.

So basically all the good stuff, I can’t have. :o( I refuse to give up diet ginger ale though because it DOES settle my stomach and keeps me from barfing some of the time. Works better than Gravol, that’s for sure.

If anyone has any recipes that involve the stuff I *CAN* have or even just food suggestions along the lines of the “good” list, please, let me know!

Who barfs up grapes? That’s all I’ve eaten today is grapes and water and it all came up about 20 minutes ago. I’m upset about it because until this moment, I considered grapes one of my “safety foods” because I hadn’t barfed them up yet and on days when Blake’s not home, I would have them for breakfast. I figured grapes were a pretty light, bland food, which is what I’m supposed to be eating right now but nope, apparently not. I guess I’m sticking to water, Lipton soup, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, diet ginger ale and crackers, although we’re going to try out that cherry tomato pasta thing Blake makes tonight. It’s a pretty basic, simple recipe so I’m hoping I’ll be able to keep that down.

I’ve been barfing so much that my lips are super chapped due to the acid and they’re kinda weeping clear fluid in a few places. Gross, I know, but it’s the truth. I can only imagine what this is doing to my teeth.

Anyway, the reason I started this post was not to discuss barfing but to tell you all that our A Million Little Pictures pictures have been digitized. You can see Blake’s here and you can see mine here. This Saturday the tour is coming to Toronto for Nuit Blanche and Blake, me and Charlie are going to go see it and our pictures! Obviously I’ve seen Blake’s and my own but I haven’t seen Charlie’s yet and I’m really looking forward to it. Nuit Blanche is an event in Toronto where from 7pm-sunrise the city is filled with art. We’re only going to stick close to the block where A Million Little Pictures is because I can’t go great distances with my walker, but that’s okay, we’ll get to see what we planned on. Before we go see the art, we’re going to go to a restaurant to have dinner but I have no idea what to eat that I’ll be able to keep down. I’m kinda thinking just a regular salad is probably my best bet. Hopefully they’ll have Catalina dressing though because that’s the only kind of salad dressing I like. Maybe I should bring some in a container in my purse just in case? Would that be weird? I already know I barf up french fries, I can’t remember if hamburgers are on the barf list or not (we’re going to a hamburger joint), I just know that last weekend I barfed up poutine and that it was really unpleasant due to it being on the side of the fucking road. It also sucked because poutine is one of my favourite foods and now that I’ve barfed it up, I can’t have it anymore. :(

I’ll figure something out. My theory is that no matter where we eat, there has to be *something* on the menu that I can eat without puking my guts up. I just wish that thing could be fries and gravy. :(

In other news, here’s are a couple of articles on occupying Wall Street:

Article 1 (translated into a bunch of different languages)
Article 2

And with that, I’m off to catch up on the usual places!

So when I was in the hospital, a couple of nasty things happened that I haven’t written about yet. The first is that I have a bedsore on the back of my head (well, had, it’s healed now) and the surrounding area of where the bedsore was, there was a bald spot about 2-3 inches in diameter. That’s on the back right side of my head and I have a matching bald spot on the back left side of my head too. Luckily the rest of my hair covers both spots so you would never know it’s there and the hair is growing back so I’m not worried about it, but there it is all the same.

The second thing is a lot weirder. At the hospital I slept on my back the whole time, with my left chin sort of touching my left shoulder. One morning I woke up with a bump on my left ear and I didn’t have a mirror so I couldn’t see it so I asked Blake to look at it and he said it looked to him like a blister. How I got this blister, I have no idea whatsoever because my ear wasn’t touching anything, at least not for a prolonged period of time, and if it was touching anything, it was touching the extremely soft fabric of my hospital gown, so wtf?

So me being me, I kept touching the blister as Blake and I were talking about it, trying to gauge for myself how big it was, when suddenly my hand was covered in clear fluid. No big deal, I figured, I’ve had blisters pop on me a million times before, so I got a kleenex and wiped up the fluid and then I touched the blister again to make sure all of the fluid was out of it but when my hand came away, the thin skin of the blister was on my finger tip. “Gross!” I thought, and I wiped the skin onto another kleenex and had Blake throw it out for me. Still didn’t think it’d be a big deal, as I said, I’ve had a million blisters pop on me before and when they do, they just form an impermeable scab and that stays there until it heals.

At least that’s the theory.

As predicted, a scab formed but it was a pretty flimsy/crusty one and I couldn’t stop fucking with it. Full disclosure: I’m a picker. It’s not something I’m proud of but I cannot stop playing with my own bodily secretions when they are in places they should not be. But with this scab I barely had to touch it and crusty stuff would come off, it wasn’t even a real scab.

Then when a real scab DID form, it was flimsy, like I said and the first night I fell asleep sitting up so when I woke up in the morning my head was scrunched into the bars of the bed and my ear was touching the plastic. When I raised my head, I felt extreme pain from my ear because the scab had stuck to the bar and when I lifted my head, it ripped it off. Gross, I know.

After that a pretty decent scab formed that I couldn’t fuck with, so I left it alone and then I was discharged. (I didn’t show any of the nurses the scab because I was afraid they’d keep me in the hospital longer if I did.) When we got home, I asked Blake to put a band aid on my ear because if it wasn’t covered I was just going to fuck with it, so he did and I figured that would be the end of that…except it wasn’t.

On the bottom of the band aid when I woke up one morning, there was weepy stuff coming out, not pus, but like, clear fluid. So I took the band aid off and put on this prescription antibiotic ointment the doctor prescribed me earlier this year for my ingrown toenail. Then when Blake woke up, I asked him to put another band aid on it but before he did, I put a pretty thick layer of the ointment on it and we called it a day.

Well what I didn’t count on was the fact that the ointment would soften the scab so the next time we washed my hair (a few days later) and I took the band aid off, the scab came with it. And so did a solid chunk of my ear. Check it out, I’m like American McGee’s Cheshire Cat:

Obviously it’s pretty much healed now and that’s because we’ve been putting the ointment and band aids on it but that chunk of my ear is gone forever. I wish I knew where the hell that blister even came from which started this whole thing. I also wonder if I still had ESBL (a superbug I contracted at the hospital in Toronto, but that was gone by the time I was discharged from the hospital up here) when I got the blister and that’s why the infection got so nasty. However if that was the case, there’s probably no way I could have gotten rid of the infection with this ointment (it’s fucidin 2% sodium fusidate, if there are any doctors in the house).

Anyway, it’s a mystery. It’s pretty much healed, like I said, so I’m not worried about it at all or anything, it’s just fucked up so I thought I’d share.

I took pictures of my naked body post-being sick, with my guts hanging out and posted them on Live Journal.
Click here if you crave the macabre.

(Please ignore my seriously hideous underbums…I just wasn’t thinking…)

AND THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS NOT REPORTING IT!

Wall Street has been OCCUPIED for 7 days now. Why isn’t this critical news?

The last few days have been…torturous. My gallbladder has been acting up which has made me extremely barfalicious. The list of things I can keep down is significantly smaller than the list of things I can’t and I am really sick of barfing my guts up constantly. My stomach muscles hurt from throwing up.

Yesterday we went to my mom’s art show, which was my longest voyage yet and we got poutine on the way there. I only took a few bites of mine because we got it from Galaxy Diner and I’d forgotten that I don’t like their gravy and I’d also forgotten that I don’t like cheese anymore. My vanilla Coke was delicious though!

Anyway, on the way to the art show, I had to get Blake to pull over to the side of the road so I could throw up. Then when I was finished (I got barf on my shoe :o(), I got him to stop off at the gas station to get me a bottle of water and some chapstick because I didn’t bring any because originally I had full makeup on, including lipstick, so all I’d brought was lipstick. Oh and I got him to buy Kleenex. I used the kleenex to wipe off all of my makeup because honestly you guys, I’m sick. I’m really really sick. And I look sick. And when you put makeup on a person who looks sick, I think they just end up looking garish and I got paranoid that’s how I looked after I barfed, so I used the kleenex and water to get all my makeup off and rinse my mouth and I put chapstick on and we were on the road again.

My mom was pretty happy to see me when we got there and not to be a plug whore but my mom and the other artists involved in the show are really really talented and Xmas is right around the corner. It’s a sunny day, you should be outside doing stuff! So that’s what I suggest, go to my mom’s art show, have a coffee and some country harvest soup and look at all the things they have for sale. You’ll thank me.

So I sat with my mom and her friends for a few hours and one of her friends, Jamie, has the most adorable baby I’ve ever seen so that was pretty entertaining and I took my walker around with my mom to see everything they had for sale, then I hung out some more while drinking ginger ale which my mom’s friend Lisa gave me because she’s like, psychic or something. Then it was time to go.

I had a little bit of a break down when it was time to go because I needed both my mom and Blake to help me down the stairs and nothing much makes you feel more like an invalid than that. :o/

But then we said goodbye and got me in the car and off we went.

The ride home was pretty uneventful except for the fact that about 15 or 20 minutes from home I felt sick but I held it in and when we got home, Blake and I quickly got me out of my “civilian clothes” and back into my hospital gown (we stole two from the hospital, shhhhh don’t tell) and no sooner did I sit down on my living room bed and got the sheet over me and the pillow on my lap ready for my computer did I feel sick again. I keep a bowl on the bed for this express reason so I grabbed it and immediately started barfing my guts up. I don’t even know what came up this time. Can you barf up gallstones? Because what came up was basically ginger ale, bile and a whole bunch of weird stuff that looked like over-cooked hamburger (and I didn’t eat hamburger, over-cooked or otherwise).

Blake did some Googling this morning after I barfed up a pancake and basically I should be on the BRATY diet which really sucks because I don’t like half of what’s on it. The BRATY diet is: bananas (ew), rice (double ew), applesauce (meh), toast (blah) and yogurt (I can only stomach ONE brand of yogurt, which Blake is in Barrie getting right now, along with diet ginger ale if such a thing exists). I think I’m going to attempt spaghatta nadle for dinner with full knowledge that I’ll probably barf it up but with high hopes that I won’t. (I barfed it up last time, but that’s not to say I’ll barf it up every time.) About an hour ago I had Sunny’s Famous Barf-Proof Soup which I’m assuming is going to become a staple if I want to get healthy enough to have my surgery. Here’s the recipe:

Sunny’s Famous Barf-Proof Soup

You will need:
- one small onion
- either cubed, frozen carrots or baby carrots cut up (about a handful)
- half of a chicken breast
- olive oil
- Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup

Here’s what you do:

- Get a pot. Put as much water in the pot as the Lipton soup recipe calls for but DON’T PUT THE LIPTON SOUP IN YET OR SPACE YETIS WILL COME DOWN FROM PLANET ZENON AND EAT YOUR BRAIN!
- Dice your small onion and put it in the water.
- Dice your carrots and put them in the water. (Or put your frozen carrots in, whatever.)
- Cut your chicken breast into small pieces and fry them in the olive oil. When they’re done, add them to the water.
- NOW ADD THE LIPTON SOUP MIX TO THE WATER AND PREPARE IT AS INSTRUCTED ON THE PACKAGE, BUT STIR IT A LITTLE MORE OFTEN THAN YOU WOULD OTHERWISE.

When it’s done, put it in a bowl, add crackers if that’s your thing and enjoy.

If you e-mail me to say that you barfed this up, I will simply put my fingers in my ears, close my eyes and shout “lalalalalalalalala!” until Blake puts your e-mail in the garbage because it is IMPOSSIBLE to barf anything this bland up. The beauty of it though is that it gives you NUTRIENTS *and* replaces the salt you lose when you barf other things up. So yeah, there ya have it.

Okay back to me now. Blake’s in Barrie getting Madison new bras and jeans and me yogurt and diet ginger ale. I hope he hurries up because my stomach hurts and I would really like one of those ginger ales but for now I’ll settle for a 100 calorie “baby Coke” because that’s what we have. I know it’s the ginger that makes you not barfy, but Coke helps too because Coke is love. I hate that Coke Zero tastes like gross chemicals to me now because regular Coke is so bad for your teeth. :o/ I guess the acid in Coke Zero is bad for your teeth too, but according to my dentist it’s nowhere near as bad as the sugar in Coke. Whatever…barfing ain’t that great for my teeth either.

Right now my guts are in pain from barfing and this is apparently what’s called a “gallbladder attack” and it fucking sucks. On October 4th I see the surgeon and she’ll tell me when I can have my surgery to get rid of that motherfucker. Her name is Dr. Hannerhan and she’s like, a super ninja surgeon badass out of hell. And she has nice glasses too. I feel very safe in her capable hands.

I forget if I’ve explained the surgery yet but basically what happened was, when they cut me open at St. Mike’s and made my cheese pizza wound, they created a hernia that made my guts spill out of where they’re supposed to be. That’s why I currently look like a pregnant guppy. Dr. Hannerhan is going to go in there with Ginsu knives and put everything back in its place, except for my gallbladder, which she’s going to put in a little metal bowl and dispose of (no, they won’t let me keep it, I asked – though they may let me keep the stones). Then I’m going to wake up in a world of fucking pain and they’re going to keep me in the hospital for a few days to keep an eye on me and regulate my pain meds. I’m on a LOT of pain meds right now and they barely cut the pain, which means I’ll be on more than this after surgery.  Since she’s a plastic surgeon, she’s also going to get rid of the excess skin I’ll have once my guts are put back together. She said that when she was done with me, I’d have a flat stomach so SCORE! Go on the “almost dying diet” and you’ll come out of it 40 lbs lighter and with a flat stomach!

So that’s been my last few days. Right now my hydromorph and Tylenol 3 are kicking in, which means it’s time for me to have a nap. Gooooodnight nurse!