ObesityHelp

Has it seriously been six weeks already?  Wow, time is flying.  That's fine because I want this weight off, like now!  I'm doing good, I've lost 48 lbs. and not having any problems with anything.  I have gotten sick a few times from not chewing my food well enough.  It's too bad I'm such a slow learner, I hate to barf and after the first time you'd think I would have gotten the message.  So now I eat soooooo SLOW.  Oh and I've noticed that I had all those episodes happen when I was eating out socially.  Ugh.  Other than that I made the mistake of chewing gum one day and I swallowed it.  DUMB ASS!  I freaked, called my surgeon, he told me to go straight to the ER and have my stomach pumped.  I swear my heart stopped beating when he told me that.  Of course, he was kidding but I did get a stern talking to.  I guess I deserved that.  So yeah, no more gum for me!

I just thought I'd do a quick update of my 3 week follow up.  Everything looks great, I've lost 35 lbs. since my consult and 22 of that is since surgery.  I have a feeling I'm going to be a slow loser, not a big surprise there.  I so love being a chick!    My incisions look good.  I don't have to go back for 6 months.  Isn't that wierd?  It seems like all I've done lately is go see my surgeon and now I don't have to for a long ass time.  Anyways...next Monday I "graduate" to Stage 5 foods and I am able to eat everything, which of course means that I should still eat healthy and start eating fruits and veggies.  My surgeon said it's basically trial and error time with food.  He also told me that he didn't do this surgery so that I could never eat certain foods again or enjoy food, just to remember certain things need to be limited.  I was really happy with that, I don't want to become a food nazi.  I still want to be able to have bites of my favorite things (as long as they don't make me sick).

So all is well on the WLS front.  My husband is on leave right now and will be going back to work this week.  I am going to be in complete shock....it will be the kids and I ALL DAY and it's summer.  It's time for me to get creative.  We'll probably spend a lot of time at the pool.  I am ready for things to get back to normal but the first few days are going to hurt!  I've had him home almost a month.

Other than that...I'm such a grouch!  Of course I'm happy about my weight loss and I do feel good physically (just a bit tired) but I feel like a cranky old lady.   I am really trying to be nice, maybe I need to sleep more

I can't believe it was two weeks ago today that I had surgery.  I feel soooo good already.  I get a little bit sleepy in the evenings but other than that, I am feeling more like myself with each day.   Just a couple of days ago I was questioning myself and wondering exactly why I put myself through all of it.  It's amazing what just a few days will do.  Oh and I also got to start eating pureed foods today instead of just liquids, that has helped tremendously!  I was nervous and I even chewed my refried beans, I'm sure I looked like an idiot.  But they were freaking good!  

My incisions are looking great.  The ones that are to the right of my bellybutton (my right) are so tiny, infact I had to look to see where they were after my surgery because I couldn't feel them and I still can't.  The ones on the lower left are still a bit sore, they were much larger so I expect them to be tender for a while.  One of them oozes (eww) but I called my surgeon this morning and the nurse I spoke with said it's normal, just to keep it clean and dry.

I've started my vitamins as well today.  That will take some getting used to and right now I'm only taking two.  I won't be surprised if I'll need more in the future...I'm going to have to really force myself to take these...need some sort of reminder.

Next Monday is my three week check up.  I'm excited to see my progress on the scales at my doc's office (I check mine, just not too often).  After we're done there we're heading to a rented house on the beach for a few days.  I can't wait!  I so need to get out of Louisiana!

It's been a week and one day since my surgery and I'm feeling semi-normal, just tired.  I got my little buddie, my drain, out yesterday.  I'm so glad I saved some of my pain meds to take before hand, it made me a bit loopy so I didn't freak out.  It did however feel like I was having some of my guts pulled out.  YUM.  Anyways, it's gone and I do not miss it!  Now I just have the little steri strips on my incisions and a Spongebob bandaid over my drain incision.

So I thought I'd post about my surgery since it's still fresh in my mind.  It was last Monday, on June 10.  My procedure was scheduled first for the day.  So I had to be there at 5:30 am.  OUCH.  I am NOT a morning person by any means!  Not to mention that we live 75 miles away from the hospital.  So we had to leave eeaarrllyy.  Somewhere along the way, we screwed up on our time and we realized we were going to be at least 20 minutes late.  My husband is in the Army, so he instantly goes into freak out mode and I was doing the same.  I started making phone calls to the hospital and everyone seemed really at ease about it.  By the time we got there it was 5:50.  Several of us got called back to our rooms about five minutes later.  So, in reality, I wasn't really late.  I guess that's their way of ensuring everybody gets there on time, for dorks like me.

I got into my room, threw my gown on and hopped into bed.  Within 10 minutes my IV was dripping and I had my Heparin shot.  The anesthesiologist had been by and I had met the surgical assistant.  I gave my husband a kiss and started getting wheeled out to the OR.  The anesth. had put some good meds in at that point and I remember saying hello to my surgeon, joking around a bit and sliding on to the table.

And then I was waking up to the sounds of heart monitors and nurses discussing patients.  I must have passed out again because I don't remember being moved to my room.  When I finally woke up, I remember being given some pain meds and told to swallow them down with some grape koolaide.  I was petrified of them, they weren't cut up and I felt like I would hurt myself if I took too big of a drink.

That entire first day I was really out of it.  I would start a sentence and pass out.  I would take a drink out of my little medicine cup and pass out.  It was funny.  I did start walking later that afternoon, the gas pains were starting to crawl up under my rib cage and into my back.

That night I walked, walked, walked and walked.  Between that I tried to sleep but the pain just would not go away.  The next day was a lot of the same thing, walking and sipping.  I was not getting any relief despite all the walking and the nurses were trying to wean me off of my IV pain meds since I would be leaving the next day.  I finally had an emotional breakdown in the hallway at 3:30am.  My nurse saw me and asked if I was okay and truly, I don't remember what I said but it must have been pretty pathetic because she gave me more meds, lol.

Anyways, on Thursday, I was still in quite a bit of pain but I was released that morning.  I got home and between that night and Friday, my body finally got rid of all of that gas and I felt like new woman.

Each day I feel a little bit better and stronger.  I'm relying on CIB shakes for now, waiting for some flavored syrups in the mail to start my other protein shakes.  It seems like all I think about right now is water and protein.  So far I haven't had any issues with people eating around me but I'll admit that yesterday I almost licked a french fry. LMAO.

I got back to the doc in two weeks.  So far I've lost 23 lbs. since my consult, I had lost 13 preop and 10 since surgery.  I'm super bloated right now so I'm sure I've got some water weight issues going on right now. 

Well, I had a rough week last week with this pre-op diet (Atkins).  The surgeon would like me to loose around 20 lbs. before surgery and by his scales it showed a 2 lb. loss yesterday (OUCH).  I was told to get going with the diet because we don't have a lot of time left before surgery (12 days) and I need to loose that weight.  So as of yesterday, I'm back on the ball with my Atkins...then in a week I have to start the liquid diet in preparation for the surgery.

Right now I have a miserable cold.  My family and I have all been so sick since we moved here.  It seems like one of us is sick at all times.  I'm getting really annoyed with it, then my neighbor told me that the people who lived in this house previously were sick a lot too.  I'm starting to wonder if we have a mold issue in this house.  It would not surprise me in the least.  I need to look into doing some testing with that.  I mean, we moved from Alaska where we spent three years and we were rarely sick.  We had the occasional bug but nothing like what we're experiencing here.

I need to start looking into some protein drinks.  I don't want to spend a ton of money on a million different kinds.  I think I'll look online and order a few samples to try.  My dh has one he uses to get buff and it has a lot of sugars in it so I don't think that will work for me.  There is a little tree huggerish nutrition store in town, I might go see what they've got there.  Other than that there's walmart.  I stopped at the Vitamin Shop in Houston last week and they said the only store in LA is in New Orleans, which is like six hours away.  Of course!  LOL.,