Surgery went well

JF had his hernia surgery this morning, and he seemed to be back to his normal self within three hours. If he's in any pain, he's not telling us about it. He'll go back to daycare tomorrow if he continues to be (apparently) pain-free today. The hardest part now is keeping him from running, jumping, and climbing all over the place. ("Slow down! You just had surgery!")

By the way, it apparently was an inguinal hernia, rather than a hydrocele. Go figure.

I was also surprised to see that the bandage was on his lower right abdomen instead of on or closer to his genitals, where we saw the initial lopsided bulge in the first place. Not that I'm complaining. If they can repair the hernia from up there, more power to them. I'm sure it's less traumatizing to a little boy this way.

Potty training update: After waking up dry six mornings in a row, JF started waking up wet again. So we've gone back to using night-night diapers. My favorite theory is that he was waking up dry because he was off of dairy for a week. The dry mornings started exactly a week after he started the diet change, and stopped almost a week after he went back to dairy. My husband's theory is that he was drinking fewer fluids during that time.

I've been on the GFCF diet for about a week now, ever since the shopping guide arrived in the mail. I haven't ventured into any specialty stores yet. I've been surviving on the GFCF stuff that I can find at Safeway: Almond milk, potatoes, popcorn, corn chips, salsa, rice cakes, puffed rice cereal, nuts, seeds, meats, fruits, and veggies. It's frustrating how many products contain (or might contain) casein or gluten. Even salsa may be a problem, because it's made with vinegar. Apparently, if it's distilled vinegar, it should be okay, but the ingredient list doesn't always say distilled. I wish I had time to make my own salsa. (Free time? What's that?)

But I really miss things like cheesecake, muffins, brownies, ice cream, cookies, and chocolate. Just writing this list is making me drool. I need to start finding the GFCF versions of these things. I also need to start looking for GFCF versions of non-food items, like soap, sunscreen, and toothpaste.

The GFCF shopping guide is great, from an information perspective. But from a technical writing perspective, it could use some help. If I had any spare time, I'd volunteer to improve it. Here are just a few of my ideas:

• Improve the table of contents, headers, footers, cross-references, and index. If the document is in Microsoft Word or any other word-processing software, these things could all be updated with one command.
• Expand the table of contents to include all headings in the book.
• Expand the index to include everything that is mentioned in the book. For example, there is a section on salad dressing, but no entry in the index for it.
• Expand the index to use multiple-level index entries, especially for items that appear on more than two or three pages. It's tedious to look up all of the entries for applesauce. Adding subentries reduces the amount of time it takes for the readers to find the information they need (and reduces frustration).
• Use a link in the header to pick up an appropriate heading, at the same level throughout the book. Currently, the header seems to reflect a top-level heading at first (such as "Acceptable"), then disappears, and then reflects a lower-level heading (such as "Salad Dressing").
• Use styles for more consistent heading formatting. For example, most of the headings are in bold and centered, but some are left-aligned and not bold. (I think headings look better left-aligned.)
• Use styles for more consistent bullet formatting. For example, some bullets are asterisks and some are actual bullets.
• Sort all lists alphabetically. (Many of the lists in this guide seem to have been alphabetical at one time, but then new things have been added in the middle.)
• Change "NO" to "Avoid" in bulleted lists of items to avoid.
• Divide the book into actual chapters. For example, Chapter 1 could be about the foods that you could find in a generic grocery store. Chapter 2 could be about foods that you could find in specialty stores. Chapter 3 could be about non-food items.
• Add a chapter with suggested menus.
• Use Adobe Acrobat to generate a PDF of this document. Then, on the website, offer a choice: Either order a paper copy to be delivered in the mail, or order the PDF file for immediate delivery by e-mail. With a PDF file, readers can search for words throughout the book.
• Create a table (or database), where each food or ingredient is a row and information about them is in columns. The first three columns could indicate whether the item contains casein, gluten, or soy (always, sometimes, or rarely). Another column could be the type (food or non-food). Other columns could provide additional information. People who log on to the website would need to pay for access to the database, but then they could sort it based on the allergen or allergens that they want to avoid. If you care about only casein, you could sort the casein column. If you care about gluten and soy but not casein, you could sort only those two columns. After sorting, you would have a customized list of what to use and what to avoid. If this table (or database) were regularly updated on the website, then you would need to pay for a subscription, rather than a one-time access fee.

Okay, that was more than just a few suggestions. I got carried away. It just goes to show that I love the type of work that I do.

Which reminds me: I got a raise! It was a 6% increase, more or less. However, money won't keep me at this job. My job satisfaction has been steadily sinking for the past few years, and no amount of money is going to keep me there. After we have sold the Gaithersburg house and moved to Jessup, and after everything has settled down, I'm still planning to look for a new job. I hope I can find something that agrees with my philosophies, but still allows me to support my family.

On Saturday, we refinished the floors in half of the house. Two weekends from now, we'll refinish the floors in the other half. In the meantime, AF plans to paint the upstairs. We still need to consider chimney repairs and painting the outside of the house. It's slow progress, but it's progress.