On Baby A's birthday, the c-section surgery went as planned. I walked into the OR around 9:30am and was pushed out around 2 hours later. W was instructed to wait outside while the team was getting me prepared for anesthesia. He then got invited to come in and sat next to me while the team worked on getting Baby A out of me 😂. W was a good DJ and Baby A was born while Taylor Swift's Shake It Off was being played. So...did I feel any pain during this life-changing surgery? No, I didn't. I had a spinal block. I never felt any type of pain during the surgery. Getting the anesthesia injected - however - was the most uncomfortable part of the surgery. There was a lot of pressure. I felt my back being pulled or pushed, or something. It just felt very uncomfortable, not painful, but very uncomfortable. It was also hard to try leaning toward the source of that uncomfortableness. Learning to relax while being uncomfortable was a very hard thing to do. But it was necessary. Once it...
Today (4/26/2013) I started my first week treatment with INH & RPT.
I arrived at Health Department at around 3:30 this afternoon. The nurse at the reception desk could not find my meds so she went to get my nurse. Ryan, my assigned nurse, was very nice and called me to go to him after a few minutes of waiting. Ryan took out a sealed orange envelope and opened it in front of me. While my nurse did his best in explaining how many mgs each pill consisted and went on some side effects that are likely to occur today and tomorrow, I was in my silent shock mode because I had never seen that many pills in one pouch in my life, and they were all for me. There were 10, I think. Six tabs of 150mg INH and one tab for Vitamin B6 for sure, and I think there were three 300mg of RPT. Again, I was just shocked to see that many pills in one little pouch and for one second I just thought back to my time with my ex-work environment where one of my daily tasks involved giving out pills to kids in substance abuse recovery and I thought to myself - even kids who took heroine or smoked pots daily for years were not prescribed with that many pills, and I forgot they were mine until Ryan gestured for me to take them with a bottle of water in his hand. Altogether, there were 1800mg of meds in front of me and a something mg of vitamin B6.
It took me about 2 or 3 minutes to finish taking all of them. I've always hated pills. It's pretty normal for parents to take their kids to see doctors for a cold or "just because the kid caughed while in sleep" in place where I'm from. Before I came to the states, I've visited doctors so many times I can't even count and been prescribed with so many cold medicine (started with powder and then the actual tabs). Given that, I should have been an expert on taking pills. No. I'm not. I hated seeing pills and have puked them out so many times when I was a kid. I had to take the INH pills two at a time (round, smaller than the RPT). Took RPT one by one. The Vitamine B6 pill also went in by itself. Nurse Ryan seemed surprised by my slow intake on pills but kep his cool. Kept telling me to picture them as skittles or lime candy (I don't even know what lime candy is?) At one point one of the RPT tabs didn't go down as smooth as I had hoped, and that's when I had a taste of its' bitterness. Yuck, it was bitter.
I'll try to keep it up with documenting my food diary and my weight as time progresses. It seems forever ago I had been told I have Latent Tuberculosis, yet I am only on the first week of this twelve-weeks-treatment. Hopefully by avoiding certain food and restricting intakes on certain ingredients will help along with the lose weight thing for my other health concern - my recent discovery in being classified as pre-diabetes through my blood work at Madsen Clinic the other day. The blood work was just part of an annual physical. Everything looks good except my gluco-something, my blood sugar level I guess, was at 5.7. Normal range is below 5.6 so I'm just one foot across the normal range. Amanda (my doctor) was not concerned and told me it will go down and requires no medicine if I simply lose some weight and exercise 6 times a week. Right. So I'm on a double diet now. Diet for INH's sake and diet for just a general cause.
I will avoid taking too much of rice (shame on my Asian blood) and have decided I should consume no more than one small cup (a miso soup bowl-size to be exact) of rice every day, instead of having it with all three meals a day with giant ceramic bowls we have at home.
I was told by my nurse at Health Department that a drink on a weekend would be ok if I choose to take the weekly pills on a week day. Well, since I am now taking them on Fridays, I doubt Saturday or Sunday would be the best time to have any drink because "things" are probably still going to be in my system. I am cool without alcohol as in beer or shots or wine. It's just I love cooking and like to marinate things with all kinds of cooking wine so this really sucks for me.
My plan for a double diet is that I will be strict about not having anything that's on the no-list on Thursday-Friday-Saturday. I feel I should try to "cleanse" the body the day before I take meds, of course the day of, and good for the day after the meds as well to avoid any possible chance for food interaction with the drugs. I'll try to steer away from the no-list on Sunday and Monday too. Tuesday and Wednesday will be my "experimental days" where I will maybe add a hint of this or that to test if my medicated body will have some tolerance toward soy or salad dressing such as ranch/italian. Part of this diet will be like my last diet from 3 years ago with South Beach Diet, except I'm skipping stage one and starting right at stage two which means less intake on starches such as rice and noodles instead of eliminating them, which I think will benefit in reducing my gluco-something and my next blood work should show a drop in a1c. That, I think is a more practical plan for me. INH, RPT, and pre-diabetes, I can do this.
Anyways, here's my food intake of the day so far:
4/26
Breakfast-
leftover from last night - marinated pork stew (ground pork, onion, green onion, garlic, five-spice powder, Chinese 紹興cooking wine, soy sauce, water) on small bowl of rice (white rice).
Lunch-
one Fuji apple (truthfully, I woke up at 12:30, so this was more like a snack after lunch).
finished by 1:20pm
Dinner-
Snack after dinner-
one orange, 15 roasted almonds
Took meds at around 3:30pm
Side effects experienced: Yes, shooting pain through my left index finger and palm at about 4:45 while typing this. It came very sudden as I was just in the middle of typing this post. Lasted maybe 10 seconds and then was gone.
weight: 177.6lbs, I measured right after lunch which was probably not the best time for it. Will do so every morning first thing after wake up.
Note: Bad Bad BAD of me for what I had for breakfast - but it was the quickest thing to make in the morning, but then it was the day which I started taking those medicine. Bad for me to have ate those, but good nothing happened so far.
4/27
Breakfast-
Lunch-
one Fuji apple, orange juice 700ml
Dinner-
Exercise: 100 minutes of cycling.
Side effects experienced: "orange pee" (like the color of mango juice..really orange with a hint of red)
weight: 171.0lbs
4/28
Breakfast-
One Fuji apple
Really late lunch (3:40pm)-
Sizzler's 8oz steak + sweet mashed potatoes and salad bar (2 plates)+2 large cups of water
Dinner-
One orange, about 500ml of white grape juice, and 3 Japanese Asakusa snacks (with red beans fillings)
Weight: 171.0
Exercise: 65 minutes of cycling
Side effect: "orange pee," some soreness every once a while around the left side of my body (left arm and left elbow). Not sure if they're just random soreness from my new routine of cycling and walking or because of the pills I took on Friday. Took a 4 hour nap this afternoon - think fatigue has come for me.
Side note: took me some courage (or I shall say ignorance) to try out a cup of Sizzer's signature clam chowder. If I don't experience any unusual side effect due to food interaction (clams being one of the things I should avoid) tomorrow or anytime this coming week, I'm not sure if it's my body having a better tolerance toward seafood or because I didn't see any clam inside that cup (so disappointed!)
4/29
Breakfast-
Lunch-
One Fuji apple from Costco and a cup of flan from Wal-Mart
Dinner-
Salad (carrots, red onions, iceberg lettuce, and red pepper dressing), baked boneless pork chop (2), 1 bowl of white rice, garlic stir-fry of cucumber and Chinese cabbage, and 500ml of lemonade
Snack-
1 Japanese chestnut-filling snack, VitaFusion vitamin C (1)
Weight: 172.4lbs (I blame on my two salad bar plates from Sizzler yesterday =.=)
Exercise: 65 minutes of cycling
Side effects: "orange pee" still exists, but it does seem like it's becoming a bit more clear...like I'm almost beginning to have normal pee...oh man that sounds so weird lol
Side note: I wrote an email to my nurse at Health Dept last night regarding my new health concern with pre-diabetes. I wanted to see how he feels about me continuing with this treatment. Ryan wrote back almost immediately after he saw it (I wrote to him at 2am and my Gmail shows I received his reply at 8:06am, they open at 8am). Like my doctor, Ryan isn't worried. Duh! If the doctor isn't worried, why would a nurse be? Well...just wanted to hear from a second opinion....
4/30
Breakfast-
1 glass of 2% milk, VitaFusion vitamin C (1)
Lunch-
700ml of white grape juice, 3 cups pork fried rice (marinated pork with "3 cups sauce," green beans, carrots, peas, corn, basil flakes, and ground white pepper).
3 cups sauce has soy sauce, garlic, and cooking wine.
Dinner-
Anticipating daikon & pork soup (no bouillon, just neck bones, the second to the last cucumber in fridge, cilantro, and daikon (Chinese people call it "white carrot"), with sprinkles of white pepper powder and salt. The neck bones made broth had been slow-cooked for 4 hours it was plenty flavorful :)
Weight: 172.4lbs
Exercise: 65 minutes of cycling
Side effect: None! Orange pee is gone!
Side note: didn't have much for breakfast this morning because I was in a hurry to see my dentist for the annual check-up and a cleaning. Good news! No cavities and I have healthy gum! Dentist only recommended me to get my upper wisdom teeth out soon as one is already fully impacted and the other partially impacted....well...I just couldn't help but to think back on my miserable 1 month recovery from the lower wisdom teeth extraction last February..it was brutal and I doubt hydroco or any substitute of severe pain killer would mix well with INH & RPT. Anyway, as a reward for myself for healthy teeth and healthy gum, and as mentioned before that Tuesday and Wednesday will be my "experimental days," I decided to try something with a bold flavor - something I've been craving. The "3 cups sauce." We'll see how I feel tomorrow since it had two of the things I should have avoided - alcohol and soy sauce. Also, it may appear I'm only eating pork as my meat-choice? Not true, it's just these pork chops and piggy meats have been in the fridge for a while so I want to get rid of them first.
4/30
Lunch-
Daikon & pork noodles soup (daikon, cucumber, pork, cilantro, egg, and noodles)
Dinner-
Daikon & pork soup
Weight: 172.0lbs
Exercise: none
Side effect: I'd say none but been feeling tired since I woke up.
Side note: woke up at 1:20pm but still felt like I didn't have enough sleep, been feeling tired since I got up...weird?
5/1
Brunch-
Daikon pork with Chinese Napa, boiled egg, cilantro, and noodles
Dinner-
Snack: 5 of fried pork skin from a friend...first time trying it and I probably should have said no but I took a few just to try..with some red spice (not chili, but don't know what it was).
Weight: 172.2lbs
Exercise: none
Side effect: some red spots on my left arm this early afternoon, probably from me scratching it because it was super itchy...between the thumb and the wrist, it also looks like goose bumps too.
5/2
Breakfast-
One bowl of cereal with 2% milk.
Lunch-
Dinner-
Weight: 172.2lbs
Exercise: 30 minutes on treadmill (speed '4') and 30 minutes cycling
Side effect: some itching like yesterday. Red spots have disappeared but still have that itchy feeling every once a while. very annoying.
Side note: I WAS going to run a whole hour on the treadmill but man..my legs have not hurt like this for so long and I finally gave up running after 30 minutes and 25 seconds on it...
I arrived at Health Department at around 3:30 this afternoon. The nurse at the reception desk could not find my meds so she went to get my nurse. Ryan, my assigned nurse, was very nice and called me to go to him after a few minutes of waiting. Ryan took out a sealed orange envelope and opened it in front of me. While my nurse did his best in explaining how many mgs each pill consisted and went on some side effects that are likely to occur today and tomorrow, I was in my silent shock mode because I had never seen that many pills in one pouch in my life, and they were all for me. There were 10, I think. Six tabs of 150mg INH and one tab for Vitamin B6 for sure, and I think there were three 300mg of RPT. Again, I was just shocked to see that many pills in one little pouch and for one second I just thought back to my time with my ex-work environment where one of my daily tasks involved giving out pills to kids in substance abuse recovery and I thought to myself - even kids who took heroine or smoked pots daily for years were not prescribed with that many pills, and I forgot they were mine until Ryan gestured for me to take them with a bottle of water in his hand. Altogether, there were 1800mg of meds in front of me and a something mg of vitamin B6.
It took me about 2 or 3 minutes to finish taking all of them. I've always hated pills. It's pretty normal for parents to take their kids to see doctors for a cold or "just because the kid caughed while in sleep" in place where I'm from. Before I came to the states, I've visited doctors so many times I can't even count and been prescribed with so many cold medicine (started with powder and then the actual tabs). Given that, I should have been an expert on taking pills. No. I'm not. I hated seeing pills and have puked them out so many times when I was a kid. I had to take the INH pills two at a time (round, smaller than the RPT). Took RPT one by one. The Vitamine B6 pill also went in by itself. Nurse Ryan seemed surprised by my slow intake on pills but kep his cool. Kept telling me to picture them as skittles or lime candy (I don't even know what lime candy is?) At one point one of the RPT tabs didn't go down as smooth as I had hoped, and that's when I had a taste of its' bitterness. Yuck, it was bitter.
I'll try to keep it up with documenting my food diary and my weight as time progresses. It seems forever ago I had been told I have Latent Tuberculosis, yet I am only on the first week of this twelve-weeks-treatment. Hopefully by avoiding certain food and restricting intakes on certain ingredients will help along with the lose weight thing for my other health concern - my recent discovery in being classified as pre-diabetes through my blood work at Madsen Clinic the other day. The blood work was just part of an annual physical. Everything looks good except my gluco-something, my blood sugar level I guess, was at 5.7. Normal range is below 5.6 so I'm just one foot across the normal range. Amanda (my doctor) was not concerned and told me it will go down and requires no medicine if I simply lose some weight and exercise 6 times a week. Right. So I'm on a double diet now. Diet for INH's sake and diet for just a general cause.
I will avoid taking too much of rice (shame on my Asian blood) and have decided I should consume no more than one small cup (a miso soup bowl-size to be exact) of rice every day, instead of having it with all three meals a day with giant ceramic bowls we have at home.
I was told by my nurse at Health Department that a drink on a weekend would be ok if I choose to take the weekly pills on a week day. Well, since I am now taking them on Fridays, I doubt Saturday or Sunday would be the best time to have any drink because "things" are probably still going to be in my system. I am cool without alcohol as in beer or shots or wine. It's just I love cooking and like to marinate things with all kinds of cooking wine so this really sucks for me.
My plan for a double diet is that I will be strict about not having anything that's on the no-list on Thursday-Friday-Saturday. I feel I should try to "cleanse" the body the day before I take meds, of course the day of, and good for the day after the meds as well to avoid any possible chance for food interaction with the drugs. I'll try to steer away from the no-list on Sunday and Monday too. Tuesday and Wednesday will be my "experimental days" where I will maybe add a hint of this or that to test if my medicated body will have some tolerance toward soy or salad dressing such as ranch/italian. Part of this diet will be like my last diet from 3 years ago with South Beach Diet, except I'm skipping stage one and starting right at stage two which means less intake on starches such as rice and noodles instead of eliminating them, which I think will benefit in reducing my gluco-something and my next blood work should show a drop in a1c. That, I think is a more practical plan for me. INH, RPT, and pre-diabetes, I can do this.
Anyways, here's my food intake of the day so far:
4/26
Breakfast-
leftover from last night - marinated pork stew (ground pork, onion, green onion, garlic, five-spice powder, Chinese 紹興cooking wine, soy sauce, water) on small bowl of rice (white rice).
Lunch-
one Fuji apple (truthfully, I woke up at 12:30, so this was more like a snack after lunch).
finished by 1:20pm
Dinner-
 |
| cucumber chicken stir-fry with "Asian seasoning", two boiled eggs |
one orange, 15 roasted almonds
Took meds at around 3:30pm
Side effects experienced: Yes, shooting pain through my left index finger and palm at about 4:45 while typing this. It came very sudden as I was just in the middle of typing this post. Lasted maybe 10 seconds and then was gone.
weight: 177.6lbs, I measured right after lunch which was probably not the best time for it. Will do so every morning first thing after wake up.
Note: Bad Bad BAD of me for what I had for breakfast - but it was the quickest thing to make in the morning, but then it was the day which I started taking those medicine. Bad for me to have ate those, but good nothing happened so far.
4/27
Breakfast-
 |
| Fried rice w/mixed vegetables (corn, carrots, peas, and green beans), buttery garlic napa |
Lunch-
one Fuji apple, orange juice 700ml
Dinner-
 |
| Seared pork chop(3!), sauteed cauliflower, some leftover buttery garlic napa from lunch, and a handful of baked sweet potato fries! |
Exercise: 100 minutes of cycling.
Side effects experienced: "orange pee" (like the color of mango juice..really orange with a hint of red)
weight: 171.0lbs
4/28
Breakfast-
One Fuji apple
Really late lunch (3:40pm)-
Sizzler's 8oz steak + sweet mashed potatoes and salad bar (2 plates)+2 large cups of water
 |
| The best part of this meal was the 4 fried chicken wings I had! Then the steak...and clam chowder, and then that broccoli. The broccoli had some sweetness to it which was just right :) That "scoop" on top of the smashed sweet potato had cinnamon in it, took me two spoonfuls to figure out it was cinnamon (something I'm supposed to avoid while on INH). Ate a few more of it (the part where wasn't under the buttery cinnamon), I gave the rest to William |
 |
| Look at that evil face! That Country Fried Steak...it looked so yummy! |
Dinner-
One orange, about 500ml of white grape juice, and 3 Japanese Asakusa snacks (with red beans fillings)
 |
| I think I'm not supposed to have this because it might have yeast/or some kind of leavening in it but the nurse did not specific say this was a no-item, but again, he probably didn't even know what this is.....yes....I'm just giving an excuse...I'm very proud I only had 3 as I usually choke down the whole thing. |
Weight: 171.0
Exercise: 65 minutes of cycling
Side effect: "orange pee," some soreness every once a while around the left side of my body (left arm and left elbow). Not sure if they're just random soreness from my new routine of cycling and walking or because of the pills I took on Friday. Took a 4 hour nap this afternoon - think fatigue has come for me.
Side note: took me some courage (or I shall say ignorance) to try out a cup of Sizzer's signature clam chowder. If I don't experience any unusual side effect due to food interaction (clams being one of the things I should avoid) tomorrow or anytime this coming week, I'm not sure if it's my body having a better tolerance toward seafood or because I didn't see any clam inside that cup (so disappointed!)
4/29
Breakfast-
 |
| A bowl of cereal with 2% milk |
Lunch-
One Fuji apple from Costco and a cup of flan from Wal-Mart
Dinner-
Salad (carrots, red onions, iceberg lettuce, and red pepper dressing), baked boneless pork chop (2), 1 bowl of white rice, garlic stir-fry of cucumber and Chinese cabbage, and 500ml of lemonade
 |
| I love this red pepper dressing! Found this at Smith's just next to all the regular salad dressings. This has a very strong flavor yet with no greasiness most salad dressing has. Also is cheese free, tomato free, and has no soy. The only downfall I can find in it is it has apple cider vinegar, but I think having a bit of it won't really punch lines with my INH, I think.. |
Snack-
1 Japanese chestnut-filling snack, VitaFusion vitamin C (1)
Weight: 172.4lbs (I blame on my two salad bar plates from Sizzler yesterday =.=)
Exercise: 65 minutes of cycling
Side effects: "orange pee" still exists, but it does seem like it's becoming a bit more clear...like I'm almost beginning to have normal pee...oh man that sounds so weird lol
Side note: I wrote an email to my nurse at Health Dept last night regarding my new health concern with pre-diabetes. I wanted to see how he feels about me continuing with this treatment. Ryan wrote back almost immediately after he saw it (I wrote to him at 2am and my Gmail shows I received his reply at 8:06am, they open at 8am). Like my doctor, Ryan isn't worried. Duh! If the doctor isn't worried, why would a nurse be? Well...just wanted to hear from a second opinion....
4/30
Breakfast-
1 glass of 2% milk, VitaFusion vitamin C (1)
Lunch-
700ml of white grape juice, 3 cups pork fried rice (marinated pork with "3 cups sauce," green beans, carrots, peas, corn, basil flakes, and ground white pepper).
3 cups sauce has soy sauce, garlic, and cooking wine.
Dinner-
Anticipating daikon & pork soup (no bouillon, just neck bones, the second to the last cucumber in fridge, cilantro, and daikon (Chinese people call it "white carrot"), with sprinkles of white pepper powder and salt. The neck bones made broth had been slow-cooked for 4 hours it was plenty flavorful :)
Weight: 172.4lbs
Exercise: 65 minutes of cycling
Side effect: None! Orange pee is gone!
Side note: didn't have much for breakfast this morning because I was in a hurry to see my dentist for the annual check-up and a cleaning. Good news! No cavities and I have healthy gum! Dentist only recommended me to get my upper wisdom teeth out soon as one is already fully impacted and the other partially impacted....well...I just couldn't help but to think back on my miserable 1 month recovery from the lower wisdom teeth extraction last February..it was brutal and I doubt hydroco or any substitute of severe pain killer would mix well with INH & RPT. Anyway, as a reward for myself for healthy teeth and healthy gum, and as mentioned before that Tuesday and Wednesday will be my "experimental days," I decided to try something with a bold flavor - something I've been craving. The "3 cups sauce." We'll see how I feel tomorrow since it had two of the things I should have avoided - alcohol and soy sauce. Also, it may appear I'm only eating pork as my meat-choice? Not true, it's just these pork chops and piggy meats have been in the fridge for a while so I want to get rid of them first.
4/30
Lunch-
Daikon & pork noodles soup (daikon, cucumber, pork, cilantro, egg, and noodles)
Dinner-
Daikon & pork soup
Weight: 172.0lbs
Exercise: none
Side effect: I'd say none but been feeling tired since I woke up.
Side note: woke up at 1:20pm but still felt like I didn't have enough sleep, been feeling tired since I got up...weird?
5/1
Brunch-
Dinner-
 |
| 14 of "湯圓" (black sesame paste filling) |
Snack: 5 of fried pork skin from a friend...first time trying it and I probably should have said no but I took a few just to try..with some red spice (not chili, but don't know what it was).
Weight: 172.2lbs
Exercise: none
Side effect: some red spots on my left arm this early afternoon, probably from me scratching it because it was super itchy...between the thumb and the wrist, it also looks like goose bumps too.
5/2
Breakfast-
One bowl of cereal with 2% milk.
Lunch-
 |
Udon with Chinese Napa, and broiled egg in daikon pork broth
(seasoning: cilantro, white pepper powder, and salt), and Gatorade.
|
Dinner-
 |
| Baked sweet potato fries, baked chicken with chopped celery (seasoning: basil, rosemary, "Asian seasoning") on a bed of salad (carrots, iceberg lettuce, and red onions), and about 400ml of lemonade. |
Weight: 172.2lbs
Exercise: 30 minutes on treadmill (speed '4') and 30 minutes cycling
Side effect: some itching like yesterday. Red spots have disappeared but still have that itchy feeling every once a while. very annoying.
Side note: I WAS going to run a whole hour on the treadmill but man..my legs have not hurt like this for so long and I finally gave up running after 30 minutes and 25 seconds on it...
Comments
Post a Comment