Greetings From Texas

Greetings from Austin Texas. I am here on a short business trip and thought I would do a quick update on my most recent test results.

If you remember, the lab test were to try to figure out why I could get so tired to fast. I could be doing fine and then all the sudden be so tired that I could not stay awake. It would happen while at home, in the morning, while driving, or sitting in meetings. It didn’t matter when or where, I would go from being fine to almost snoring in a matter of seconds. That does cause a problem while driving or at work. So I had a battery of test done to try to figure it out. 

All of my test result came back fine. All were low side, which I expected, but all were in the “normal” range. One test I was worried about was the one for diabetes it came back fine. They have decided to continue to test me twice a year for it since my father developed diabetes late in life.

So what about the problem I am have experienced with getting tired at the drop of a hat. Well that is where the poor decisions come into play. Being stomachless has it’s challenges. The first thing that they tell you is that you need to eat 5-6 small meals a day. In theory that may seem like an easy thing to do, but during the hustle and bustle of the day you forget.

My days go fast. I sometimes blink and four hours are gone. I could be running from meeting to meeting, from production, to estimating, to planning or to sales. Or even worse running from plant to plant which is an hour and a half away. Sometimes, many times, I don’t take the time to eat. I figured I would catch up later. Therein lies the problem.

Without a stomach I have no place to store extra food to draw on during the day. If I miss a meal, I just missed it. I can’t eat more later to make up for it or eat more to build my energy up. It is just gone. What the doctors feel is happening is that I am not taking in enough protein during the days leading up to the loss of energy episodes. It is my bodies way of reminding me that it needs more fuel to keep going and I should have eaten more the day before. It is just hard when the hustle and bustle of life steps in. Take this trip for instance. Yesterday was a full day of travel and meetings. I was able to eat twice. During my stomach days I would have been just fine. We will just have to see what the next day or so brings.

As much as a person without a stomach tries, they will no longer be “normal”. Normal folks can eat once, twice or three times a day and be just fine. I have to eat or think about eating constantly in order to function and there are many days I do not do that.

I just want to be normal again and I won’t be. I even pushed my doctor on that and asked what I could do to be more normal and her response was that I am not normal and will never again be normal.  “Normal people do not have their stomach removed” was her response.

So I have to accept that I will always be the exception to the “normal” rule. In other words, as my friends have been saying for year, “there is something off with Roger, we just can’t put our finger on it yet.”

Hey I think I found it.

Have a great weekend.

If you all want me to settle down,
Slow up and stop all my running 'round,
Do everything like you want me to,
There's one thing that I will say to you,
I'm not like everybody else,
I'm not like everybody else

(I’m not like everybody else   The Kinks)