18 Month Update

Last week I had my 18 month CT Scan. It came back negative and as always in this case negative is good! Big time yippee! for that. I won't have another CT Scan until the 2 year anniversary. That is the next big milestone.



Operation Garbage Plate Update



I go in for Dilation Procedure XII in a few weeks. Hopefully we can start moving forward again. I did learn an interesting item about the esophagus and dilation procedures. Apparently the section that I am having dilated is more fragile than other parts of the esophagus. This could explain the caution that they are taking with the procedures.

I have been able to expand the items that I can eat at home. I am revisiting some of the early skirmishes of Operation Garbage Plate. There are items that I tried at the beginning of the year that I am retrying now. One item I tried awhile ago was a Wendy's Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. This is arguably the best value priced hamburger on the market. So feeling particularly adventurous one day I decided to give one a try. Amazingly enough I could sort of kinda eat one. (Sorta kinda meaning 20-30 minutes, lots of water and some coughing. :-)) Finally, calories the old fashioned way via fast food. Unfortunately the nearest Wendy's is 20 minutes away so it isn't really convenient. Not wanting to ignore the siren call of the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger I took a page out of Sponge bob and decided to duplicate the Krabby Patty, I mean Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, formula. (Bonus points to any adult that knows who Mr. Krab's nemesis is.)

Next time I was in the vicinity of Wendy's I picked up another one of these culinary masterpieces and took it home to dissect it and see what the secret formula is. Note to all you hamburger right activists out there the burger in question was reassembled and eaten as intended so no hate mail please! What I discovered changed the way I assess food to see if I can eat them. The problem I have had in the past with burgers has been twofold. First is the size. It seems that for the most part the standard size is a quarter pound burger with the third pounder rapidly gaining on it. Those have been out just because of the size and in particular the size of the bun. I have tried a regular McDonald's cheeseburger but the problem with that was no matter how small of a bite I took it would reassemble into a plug in and as the saying goes "What goes down must come up..." You can imagine the rest.

The Wendy's Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger didn't have that problem. There is the whole debris thing but I expected that with the bacon, lettuce and tomato components. I normal try to avoid that stuff. Instead what I found is that those components were what kept the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger from reassembling as a plug. It is just enough that when chewed properly I can swallow in small amounts without plugging my esophagus. The other thing I found is that Wendy uses a 2 ounce thin square patty, thin sliced bacon that is cooked soft, ketchup on the bottom and mayo on the top along with the bacon, lettuce and tomato. This combo works for me and also tastes pretty good. One thing I can say about Wendy is that gal knows her way around a grill!

Now that I have unlocked the secrets of Wendy (Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger that is) I have been able to duplicate it at home. I add a bit more mayo, sometimes I skip the lettuce, the tomato seems to be the key component here, but otherwise I keep true to the original burger masterpiece. My home version comes out pretty good and is actually easier to eat. I have more mayo on it and as is the case with bacon everything tastes better with mayo. The only downside is the prep time but what I have done is create my own patties (I can't seem to be able to buy anything smaller than quarter pound patties) and freeze them. I cook the bacon up in advance and store it in the refrigerator. This way I can put it all together and eat it in about 30 minutes. That is around 400 calories in a half hour and that is ahead of my minimum of 600 per hour.

Whats Up Next

I have another dilation procedure coming up in the next few weeks. I am also off to Roswell Park in the beginning of November. While pursuing the dilation procedures I also want to see what can be done about some other problems with swallowing. One of the problems is what I call the debris issue. I think this is related to the epiglottis not moving the way it should when I swallow. Hopefully they will have some ideas to help move this along. The debris issue is rapidly becoming more important and rather than wait until I am done with the dialation procedures I thought I would pursue that issue at the same time.