singles at total wine!

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copied over from my instagram:

finding places locally that carry more than one or two kinds of NA beer is hard. a few weeks ago i made my first pilgrimage to total wine out in metairie and was delighted to see a pretty good selection of many of the beers i’ve been reading about. i bought a couple of six packs but i only ended up liking one of them sadly.

i decided to go back today hoping to see something new, and was pleasantly surprised to find many new beers and a new top shelf offering singles of every beer they sell! i walked out with nine different individual NA beers to try and i’m very excited! (and none of them cost more than $2.79 apiece, which is pretty cheap compared to the online shops that charge $3-$4 a piece plus then you still have to pay shipping.)

i will of course be reporting back about each and everyone of them. 😂 happy mardi gras weekend to me!

athletic brewing – pilot program: maple brown

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copied over from my instagram:


NA beer of the evening. i smell the maple more than i taste it, but this is still a smooth, slightly sweet, medium body brown ale that i enjoyed. goes down easily. would definitely drink again though not sure if i’d prioritize purchasing it again anytime soon, given that there’s still so many yummy NA beers to discover. but i appreciate NA brews for giving me access to this one via an athletic brewing sample pack. (i do still have a couple left, luckily.)

community is everything flower design

3 Month Checkups

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Yesterday I had speech therapy for yet another VitalStim (electrode) session. My therapist has a new student, a young woman who is delightful and makes me laugh while I’m doing my silly vocal exercises. It’s nice to have the third person to lighten things up. They both said they were hearing improvement in the sounds coming out of my throat, so that’s good!

After ST, I went directly to Dr. Ballay the ENT. I think when we set this date for a follow-up he envisioned I would have completed more ST and VitalStim than I have – it took FOREVER for his order for more speech therapy and VitalStim to go through, and then my therapist canceled on me several times over the past month, so I think yesterday’s session was only #6. But Ballay said he could tell a difference between last time he saw me and now, in terms of my voice and breathing, and he asked me a lot of questions. I told him I thought the VitalStim was working but I just needed more of it, and that I thought my swallowing was getting better, slowly. He decided not to scope me and instead we set another follow-up appointment for March 18th, when I should be done with the current ST order which goes through the end of February. THEN he will scope me and we will see where things are with my vocal cords and my swallowing, and if I feel like I want a procedure to fix things or want to just keep waiting to see if it fixes itself. It was a very quick visit.

Today I went back across the river to West Jeff for my 3 month MRI to check for regrowth of the tumor that was removed. As I have already bitched on Facebook, they poked me FOUR times trying to find a vein to put the contrast dye in! And they waited to do it until after the first 20 minutes of no-contrast MRI had already happened. (Every other MRI I’ve ever had, they put the IV in before you get in the tube, and then just press a button when they want to deliver the contrast. I guess they aren’t as high-tech over there at West Jeff as they are at the Touro imaging place or at LSU.) Also, there was no music this time. Just earplugs. And the padding in the head cradle they put you in and tell you not to move was all cracked and dented, so at some point in the time I was in there, the back of my head started hurting where it contacted that padding. And I couldn’t move!!! But I made it through all 30+ minutes without them having to do any of it over again and it didn’t disorient me as much as the last one I remember over at Touro.

The biggest advantage to doing the MRI at West Jeff is that when I was done, I went right upstairs to Dr. Culicchia’s office and he already had the MRI on his computer and he was able to read it for me. No waiting for a radiologist’s report. (That will still come later but I already know what it will say.) Dr. Culicchia said there was NO regrowth at the surgical site, which is excellent news! I’ve been really anxious and sleeping poorly the last week or so anticipating this MRI, so I’m hoping I can rest better now for a while. He also looked at the second tumor, comparing the last two scans to today, and said it appears stable, looked exactly the same, which is also excellent news! He seemed really happy to see me doing so well and he remarked how much better my voice sounded.

I mentioned my eyes to him, that they are better though there is still some slight double vision that gets worse when I’m tired, underslept, etc. And he looked at my eyes and said he’d forgotten I had that deficit, because they didn’t seem as inwardly pointed as they had been before, they looked pretty normal now. (My right eye had noticeably drifted towards my nose post-surgery, so this is great to hear, that it has corrected itself.)

With all of my remaining deficits, he said to keep giving it time. He wants to see me in six months, which would be the end of July, for another MRI and check-up. If things remain good, with no regrowth and no change of the 2nd tumor, and my deficits continue to get better, we’ll probably go to a yearly MRI at that point. Which is pretty much as good as it gets in my position. So all of this was amazingly good news!!!

So no more doctor’s appointments for a while, and only 2x/week speech therapy on Tuesday-Thursday through the end of February. (Well except Mardi Gras, so we’ll probably move that one to LundiGras.) I’m so relieved. Now I just need for my energy to get back to something close to normal. I know, patience.

But all things considered, I am so grateful to be doing so well and to have been afforded the luxury of time to heal by all of you, my amazing community! I will never stop thanking you all for all you’ve done to get me through this. Thank you! I am one lucky woman.

athletic brewing – pilot program: coffee porter

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copied over from my instagram:

this might be my favorite NA beer i’ve had yet! good coffee aroma and more subtle taste, more on the bitter end than sweet, which seems true to a real porter (as opposed to the sweetness of so many stouts). good mouthfeel, good body, not overly carbonated, smooth going down! really hope this becomes a regular release. athletic brewing really knows what they are doing with non alcoholic beer!

i got this from NA brews, who really win the prize in terms of packaging and shipping. each can was really well cushioned, no dents or spills, and it got here really fast!

penn’s best – non alcoholic malt beverage

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copied over from my instagram:

since i first decided to try NA beer, i joined a couple of facebook groups to learn more and see what beers people were drinking. this is where I learned about penn’s best. lots of folks seem to think it was good enough – basic beer to keep in the fridge for when you run out of the good stuff. and it cost only $2.99 for a six pack! so i figured, why not? might as well try it.

sadly, i think it’s pretty awful. too sweet, malty, and thin. and now i’m stuck with five of them! guess the price tag should’ve tipped me off to not have high expectations but so many people in my facebook groups like it that i thought it was worth giving it a shot. but i don’t like bud lite, busch, or PBR, so i guess it makes sense that i don’t like this. cross it off the list!

3 Months +

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Hi everyone. I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated so I thought I’d get you caught up.

Tuesday this week made 14 weeks, which is definitely more than 3 months, post-surgery! This is an important milestone. I am doing well overall and managing to work my half-day schedule walking dogs. (I am sometimes still very exhausted by my 4 dog walks and 10-11K steps/day, but I am doing it.)

Eyes: My vision has definitely improved. The double vision is much better than it was even a month ago. I still notice it some days, or some times of day, but it’s not stopping me from doing anything. I think my brain has just adjusted to it being the new normal. The last time I drove at night I was very aware that I had perfectly focused vision and no problems at all, which was wild! It can be hit or miss still and there will probably still be times when I will choose not to drive when my eyes are “acting up.” Also, I still get dry eye, mostly the right one, really badly sometimes, but drops help. At the end of my days or when I’m really tired, I get the dry eye and my right eyelid can still get really droopy. But overall, I’d say there’s been improvement and I’m hopeful that will continue over time. I haven’t seen an eye doctor yet but it will be time to do so soon.

Swallowing: It’s hard to assess, but I think I’ve made some small improvement. I’ve had 5 speech therapy sessions now with the VitalStim electrode treatment. It’s still so weird, every time! But today they had me eat a Clif Bar after I was done w/my exercises, as they like for me to get in as many swallows as I can when I’m hooked up to the device. And I really noticed, with the assist of the device stimulating my throat muscles, that I could swallow more completely, get a bite down with only one good swallow. It was amazing! I’m not there yet without the device, still usually needing 2 swallows to get food down, sometimes more, but the fact that I could feel that when hooked up to the device means the therapy is working. I definitely feel like eating has gotten easier, less laborious. I have 2 more sessions scheduled next week; I’m not sure when my ST order expires. But hopefully I can get in the 8-9 sessions she originally told me it would take before I saw much improvement.

Voice: Last week I had 2 people I hadn’t spoken to in a while tell me, completely unprompted, that they thought my voice was sounding much better. Some days I do feel like it’s starting to sound much more like myself. But sometimes I still feel like I’m talking in falsetto! It’s hit or miss, and definitely dependent on the time of day and how tired I am. Today in speech therapy I did however hit some low notes on some of the vocal exercises that I haven’t been able to hit before, and I can tell my range is getting a little wider and stronger. So I do think ST has been helping. I find myself now doing my vocal exercises while walking dogs – I’m sure others on the street around me think I’m some kind of crazy person! But it definitely helps to “warm up” my vocal cords, doing the exercises.

Next week will be a busy one for me. ST on Tuesday/Thursday. Follow-up appointment with Dr. Ballay the ENT on Tuesday after ST for him to re-assess my vocal cords. And then on Wednesday, I have my 3-month follow-up MRI to check to see if my tumor is growing back. Right after the MRI, which will be at West Jeff, I’ll take it upstairs to Dr. Culicchia to look at it and for a quick 3-month check up. So I guess by the end of next week I’ll have more to report!

Other than all this, I think this week I’ve learned that I really need to be getting more rest. I don’t really take naps anymore because I’ve been so busy in the afternoons, there’s no time. And this week, with the inauguration, I’ve had a couple of late nights with not enough sleep. I have suffered at work the following day both times, barely able to make it through the 4 walks. So I am recommitting to going to bed early and trying my best to get enough rest.

OK, I think that’s all I’ve got for you tonight. (No good pics to share, so here’s me walking dogs.)

wellbeing brewing – intrepid traveler coffee cream brew

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copied over from my instagram:

tonight’s NA beer indulgence was this delicious coffee cream stout from wellbeing brewing. i drank a little bit so i’d know what it tasted like – my kinda stout, exactly as described, creamy, coffee-y, good mouthfeel – but then decided what i really wanted was dessert. so i turned it into an ice cream float, which was really delicious!

this was right before the spoon fell down into the glass, causing an eruption of foam which spilled out all over the place, wasting perfectly good beer and ice cream and making quite a mess! too bad the second one of these from the sample pack had a can defect and leaked in the packaging, making it not drinkable. (they did refund me for it, though.) will have to wait til i can procure a six pack to drink anymore. but i will definitely have this one again!

wellbeing brewing – victory citrus wheat + electrolytes

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copied over from my instagram:

my NA beer tasting from the sample pack from wellbeing brewing continues with this delightful wheat that’s billed as a “sports brew” due to some added electrolytes. but it’s DELICIOUS! light, crisp with a hint of orange. this one doesn’t quite have the mouthfeel that i’m usually looking for in a beer – it’s a bit thin. it’s kind of like if beer was a soda. something about the carbonation i can’t quite put my finger on. i can tell it’s not a real beer, but i don’t care! it hit the spot and scratches the itch that i feel when i want a beer. and it went great with my pasta dinner. i can see how this would be a great choice after a workout or playing sports. might come in handy this summer! 

wellbeing brewing – heavenly body golden wheat

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copied over from my instagram:

i had a second NA beer from my wellbeing brewing dry january sample pack – their golden wheat – and it was just as good as the first one! went down incredibly smooth and tasted like a real wheat beer! and this morning, no icky hangover feeling and my head isn’t throbbing! yay! 

(side note post script: i really love the can artwork from this brewery!)