u/Glittering_Mermaid_7

I had such a good weekend, filled with simple things - just wanted to share.

- Took a little road trip to pick up a couple of books I purchased on Facebook marketplace. Met the nicest older couple, chatted with the wife for over 30 minutes, she showed me their entire home, all her craft projects, and we talked about life in general. She even invited me to come watch the 4th of July fireworks with them that night! (I declined, but was such a nice gesture!) She has more books I'll be buying, so I'll definitely be visiting them again.

- On the way back home from the book pickup, enjoyed seeing hundreds of people lining the street of that small town, waiting for their 4th of July parade to start. Everyone was laughing and talking together, sitting in their lawn chairs on the sidwalks, dressed in red, white and blue, little girls had red, white and blue ribbons and glitter in their hair - it was all so wholesome feeling!

- Went to get groceries and found a lovely little Dwarf Alberta Spruce tree to take home with me from the garden center. I'll pick up some battery-operated lights to put on it soon.

- Did some food prep for the week, so it's easier to grab something quick to eat.

- Did some small household projects, like taking my shower curtain liner down and cleaning it to remove the start of mildew I noticed yesterday. (This is one of those dual-purpose tasks - I soaked it in the tub with a bleach cleaner, so it also cleaned the bottom of the tub!)

- In a few hours, I'll turn in earlier than normal for the night, and just enjoy reading before going to sleep.

All in all, a good weekend!

Well, I made it through the prep.

To make sure I got everything cleaned out, I started yesterday with a dose of the Dulcolax tablets in the evening, which worked as expected around 2am. (It's ok, since I normally wake up around that time anyway.) Had a couple of bathroom trips and went back to bed. One more trip after I got up again around 5am.

Clear liquids all day.
Dulcolax dose at 11am.
First round of Gatorlyte (the Coconut flavor isn't too bad for this!) with Miralax mixed in (32 oz) consumed in 1 hour at 3pm.
Second round of Gatorlyte (another 32 oz) with Miralax consumed in 1 hour at 6pm.

Now passing clear bile fluid, so everything is out. Hoping for just a few more bathroom trips over the next couple hours before heading to bed. Going to take some protective measures overnight, just in case - if you know, you know.

I think the most bothersome thing about the prep was drinking all the liquid, because I've had gastric sleeve surgery, so downing that much liquid is challenging, but I did it.

The bile fluid is no fun either, because that's the thing that makes your backside so painful. I've had bile reflux several times since having my surgery, and when that hits at 2am, it's like acid reflux x1000 - very corrosive to your esophagus. I can only imagine it's the same when it exits from the other end as well.

Colonoscopy early tomorrow morning.

I have 3 different TVs in my home - a Vizio, a Sanyo, and a TCL. All work perfectly fine, at least until about a month or so ago.

All of a sudden, all 3 TVs have the same problem: as soon as I turn them on, using the Roku remote, they either turn right back off immediately, or they get as far as the Roku home screen, the screen loads partially, and then the TV turns off.

The only common denominator here is that all 3 TVs have the same Roku device - the Express.

I realize this is a discontinued Roku model, and I've seen mention of the fact that they were discontinued because they cannot support Roku's new OS. But after the TV is turned on (I can get it to turn on and stay on if I use the button on the TV, not the remote), they work just fine and don't turn themselves off.

Is the problem really the Roku Express device? Not crazy about having to replace all 3, but I'm sure I'll probably have to.

I hope I didn't screw this up. I had peach flavored jello today and yesterday (1/2 cup each day, so not a huge amount). I intentionally avoided any red dyed foods, and thought the peach jello would be safe, since it's not red, like the raspberry flavor jello is.

I just checked the label as I was about to make more for tomorrow, since I'm on clear liquids tomorrow - and there's red dye in it (of course - not sure why I didn't think of this sooner, before I ate it.)

Does anyone know if the small amount I ate yesterday and today will be a problem? My procedure is on Friday, so the full "cleanout" prep is tomorrow. I'm hoping I didn't screw this up, because I'd rather not have to do it again anytime soon.

Doctor's office is already closed for the evening, or I'd call them and ask.

I'm dealing with severe shoulder pain at night, and going through all the normal pre-op things before we take that step. Glad to find this sub for info and support.

Right now, I'm at the stage of having to do all the home exercises, testing, etc before insurance approves for surgery.

Did my first round of exercises yesterday - today, my shoulder is screaming at me - the pain is much worse. Normally, it wouldn't bother me much during the day, only at night. But today, it's pretty bad. I can only assume that might be because I did the exercises. I tried to do the exercises today and couldn't stand the pain - doctor told me not to do any exercises that caused pain, so...

Has anyone found the exercises help avoid surgery, or is it just a "satisfy the insurance requirements" thing?