It was going smashingly well earlier.  I'd wake up in the morning and find myself saying, "Hey! I'm smaller than yesterday." And happily, not a scale in sight to prove otherwise.  I even went to Taco Bell and got a chicken gordita, tossed the bread away of course, doused the filling with hot sauce and it was damn fine.  But last Thursday I began to notice the signs and by the weekend it was back to good ol' liquefied food.  I'm really kind of annoyed, besides the obvious reasons, because I was planning to test out new recipes like a Smoked Salmon Fritatta and a possible savory cheesecake.

I called Dr. Felix's office first thing this morning and the gal told me she'd fax that over to Dr. Chang's office.  However two hours later she calls me back questioning me about my symptoms: How long have you felt this way? Are you throwing up? Did you make yourself throw up?  What the hell was that all about?  Lady, this is my third stricture, I should be giving you lessons on the symptoms.  To be quite honest I haven't thrown up because I've learned how to detect this problem, but I dare not tell them that for her next sentence would have been, "Well it doesn't sound like you're having a stricture."  It's clearly the old doctor's rule: How dare you diagnose what's wrong with you.

But aside from my strictures every two weeks, I'm feeling purty damn good.  My knees don't pop like they used to and my lower back is no longer killing me, and saints be praised, I can get in and out of the bathtub again.  We have one of those deep soaking tubs and you can imagine my grief over the loss of bath time privileges.