3.5 Weeks Post Op.

Apr 11, 2015

I'm in a stall...  I'm not worried about it or anything, but I lost 20 lbs and then everything halted.  That's the first bit of info :-)

 

I had my first follow up appointment with the surgeon on Thursday (April 9th).  Some things were explained to me:

1)  The pain I had talked about in the previous post, under my waist where the biggest incision was, is gone now.  I was finally able to sleep on my sides a week ago today (2.5 weeks after surgery).  I slept like a baby!  Oh gosh, I ended up being so tired from not being able to sleep on my sides.  Anyhow, I sleep much better now!  The surgeon told me that it was common for people to feel it.  It's the incision where they take the part of the stomach out that's been cut away.  They have to cut through muscle and everything to be able to get it out then they have to stitch everything back up under the skin.  This is why it was hurting me so much.

 

2)  I had thought before that I wanted to ask him about the size of my liver.  I was curious.  About 10 years ago, my own doctor told me I had an enlarged liver and it was due to fat in it.  Feb. 10th I went on my pre-op diet for 5 weeks and I was pretty strict about it.  I didn't even have to ask the surgeon about it.  It was one of the first things he said to me...  "Your liver was huge."  I was kind of shocked.  After 5 weeks of low carb/low fat intake it was still huge.  He said it was good that I followed the pre-op diet, it would have shrunk because of it.  But wow, that was a bit of a surprise.  He said it won't affect the functionality of the liver.  I asked when I could expect it to shrink more.  He said as I lose weight, it will shrink.  I will follow up with my family doctor when I've lost a substantial amount of weight from now.  When she told me 10 years ago about it, she said it could end up leading to complications further down the road so I want to make sure everything gets cleared up there.

 

3)  According to their scales, I've lost 21 lbs since March 17th (surgery day).  My scales say 20 but meh, it's only 1 lb.

 

4)  I'm eating a bit better.  My stomach doesn't growl like it's possessed as much as it did a few weeks ago.  I'm managing to get more water in.  I find I often push meals back by a half hour because I think I should get more water in.  It's easier for me to wait a half hour to eat than it is to wait an hour after eating just to drink.  Priorities :-)

 

5)  My surgeon told me not worry about calories.  He told me to focus on protein and that I should be getting about 90 grams of it each day.  I've been tracking my meals for about a week now and most days I get about that.  One day I got substantially less than that (about 30 grams) but only got something like 650 calories in too.  I didn't eat much that day.  My dietician said a minimum of 60 grams of protein daily but the surgeon's advice supersedes that.  I haven't seen her since my meeting with him; I'll see her in a week and a half or so.

 

6)  I don't really get hungry since surgery but he said that will probably change.  He said it's a big transition for the body right now but once everything settles down and has had a chance to heal and all, he said the body will find a way back to a more normal state (I'm paraphrasing haha).  He said it will most likely return.  I said at least I wouldn't be able to eat much because most of my stomach is gone.  He said that was "the magic of the sleeve".   Even if it comes back, I feel comfort knowing that I will not be able to hold mass quantities in it like before.

 

7)  No issues with head hunger to report yet :-)

 

8)  About the stall.  He told me not to worry about it, that it was normal.  He said that often when someone has lost a lot of weight before the surgery, a stall can be encountered early on.  I told him that I had lost 95 lbs since Feb. 2013.  He looked surprised, but then he said that would do it.  He told me to keep doing what I was doing and the weight loss will resume when my body's ready.

 

So that's it.  Everything's good.  Everything's healing well.  No nausea or anything.  Although a couple of times I think I ate a little too fast or something and I didn't get sick, but I kind of regurgitated.  It wasn't violent or anything like vomiting, but just kind of a reminder that I have to pay attention.

 

 

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43.6
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Surgery
03/17/2015
Surgery Date
Apr 24, 2009
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