The girls from Sydney

Well I must say that I have had a wonderful weekend.

I have just cemented my friendship with two wonderful women that I have known for months now but only on email and posts to the Weight Watchers Forums. Kerry and Stacy are two beautiful, intelligent and fun women and I have just had the pleasure of them staying in my house overnight. Yes they flew down from Sydney and stayed the night. It has been a truly fantastic 36 hours.

Kerry is a very knowledgeable lady who can carry an interesting conversation and even had Noel enthralled as he too found her to be very intriguing. Her background is a little different to that of mine and Stacy's as she is not married and has no children (not that that is a bad thing). She has a beautiful nature and was the instigator for this whole trip.

Having a beautiful nature is also a very noticeable aspect of Stacy, who has the ability to draw people towards her and had my kids eating out of the palm of her hand most of the weekend. I found her to be so calm natured - a trait that I am definately jealous of. Stacy, who is a firefighter and like myself spends her working hours surrounded by men so she understands my work woes and she too is very knowledgeable and easy to talk to. One amazing thing about Stacy is the fact she is so motivated when it comes to exercise - it blew me away. She got up this morning after a non WW menu evening that saw points blown out the window by food and copious amounts of alcohol to walk what we calculated to be 2kms.

Both women are absolutely wonderful people and I feel so privileged to meet both of them. This was such a undescribable experience and I will treasure the memories for a long time to come. Now I will have to plan my flight to Sydney for another weekend.

In the meantime we have made a pact - a pact to keep on the straight and narrow from here on in. We are going to relay our point intake, food and exercise completed to each other - Stacy has organized to follow an exercise plan and I believe that we are all going to do our best - I know that I am.

Tomorrow is my visit to the specialist regarding my gallbladder so will sign off now and chat to you all after my appointment. Crossing fingers on good news.

Gallstones!

Well I have found out what is causing me pain, nausea and sadness - Gallstones!

I went off to the doctor this morning convinced that I would find out I had some sort of terminal disease and I would need to work out how to tell the kids I was dying. Noel knows how worried I have been for the last few days since having the ultrasound on my abdomen done and took the day off work also to accompany me to get my results. Needless to say I am relieved!

But what does having gallstones mean? It means a visit to the specialist to discuss my options regarding removal of the gallstones. The most common result according to my doctor is to have my gallbladder removed. Surgery!! That is something I am not jumping over the moon about but I suppose the bottom line is that I need to do whatever it takes to make me healthy and well again, right?

My appointment with the specialist is 12 December - great early Christmas present and then depending on his opinion I suppose I will be taking a trip into hospital to have an operation. I am guessing by my doctor's very strong feeling about what would happen that surgery is going to be the only option. Even Noel seemed to think that he was very sure I would be having my gallbladder removed.

At least now I know what the problem is and it is just a case of wait and see now. Unfortunately I still don't feel much better!