New Year ..New Tea!

I knew I had gallstones for the last few years. I decided to try to control the gallbladder attacks by eating a fat-free diet and drinking lots of green tea. This worked- until Christmas Eve. A gallstone lodged in my pancreas and I found myself in the local hospital. When I arrived at the hospital the surgeon told me that they would feed me only water for a week and after my pancreas "rested" they would take out my gallbladder. Wait- feed me only water? Yep, for a week I did not eat anything by the mouth, they gave me fluids through the IV. You can only imagine how happy I was this past Friday when they said I could start having liquids by mouth. I kept waiting for some type of menu to arrive with my choices of liquids. No menu ever came, and when the liquids arrived, puree of beef barley, I let the food service person know that I don't eat meat. They seemed confused so I asked if they had vegetable broth and I eventually did get some type of broth but it tasted suspiciously like those chicken bullion cubes my Mom cooked with when I was a child. They also gave me tea. Well, it was Lipton but I was thrilled to get any type of tea at that point. When I was waking up from surgery I heard someone asking if I was the "tea lady"- I usually don't love that endearment because it makes me feel old but it was comforting given the situation. When I was fully awake the recovery nurse who recognized me told me that they really needed some good tea at the hospital. I agreed, I was never hospitalized before and had always just assumed that the food and beverage choices would be aligned for health...and taste. Anyway, I am happy to be home with my family and tea. I guess the upside is the 10 pounds I lost on the week of water.