ObesityHelp

Dispike a rocky bowel prep day (threw it up, had to do it again), Surgery Day was a pretty good day. Beautiful morning. Good friends and family. Unfortunately I was so zoned out after recovery, I wasn't very good company, couldn't track any conversation and could barely keep my eyes open. I slept for about an hour in the afternoon and felt great. I got myself untangled from all of my stuff (grrr, I have a catheter) and went for a walk. I walked by the nurse's station and kind of freaked her out. She didn't know I wanted to walk around. She made me promise I'd let her know I wanted to walk BEFORE I actually went for a walk. I walked three of the four wings up here and didn't really get too tired. When I was getting in bed, I popped off the bulb from my J-tube. I called the nurse. When she came into the room, she thought I had been trying to take it out! (I think not) I had some more guests and pooped out. When I woke up and had pain I wasn't having before. I really hadn't been using my morpheine pump an I knew they wanted to swtich me to Roxicet, so I called the nurse. I'm not quite sure why, but the pain was the worst I'd had so far and I started to get scared it meant something was wrong so I started crying. The nurse thought the last of my surgery drugs were wearing off which is why I finally needed pain meds. I tolerated to Roxicet ok and they gave me a sedative and I fell back asleep. I've been gotten up twice for vitals, but now at 1am I'm not really feeling like I want to go to sleep, so I thought I'd check in on you fine people. They said my next vital check is at 4am. I'm sipping 20cc of water. They want me to do 20/hour but I'm feeling more thirsty than that. I still have some air bubbles. I burp when I drink anything and my incisions are starting hurt. Things are going as well as can be expected. I'm really pleased how good I feel. Feel free to stop by and visit if you want. I think Wednesday is going to be a very good day. Thank you SO MUCH to all of you for keeping me in your thoughts and a special thanks to my Angels. HUGS to everyone!

I had a 7am pre-op physical with my primary care physician this morning.  I was weighed.  I'm down about 7 pounds so far on the liquid diet.  My vitals are good.  He ordered a cholesterol test and a tetnus shot.  I also asked him to order a bone density test and prescribe some valium because I'm starting to get freaked out about surgery.  Yesterday I had a mental health appointment and got my Lexapro changed to liquid.  Hopefully, I'll be able to pick up the Lexapro and Valium/diazepam after work today.

The liquid diet is ok as long as I keep drinking the CIB.  If I wait too long and start to get hungry, it's like a caged animal has been set lose and no one knows if it has rabies or not.  Yesterday I really started getting nervous.  It's not the procedure, I know that will be ok.  It's the voluntarily walking in there knowing they will knock me out and cut into me.  It just seems so wrong and unnatural.  This is my first surgery.  Hopefully any after will be easier to tolerate.  I only have one week to go.  Six more days of CIB.  One day of clear liquids and bowel prep and I'm there.

I've got some updating to do!  I had my appointment on 7/19 and got a surgery date of 8/15.  It wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared. 

I've kind of been a bit stunned since then and only in the last day or so does it feel like I'm actually doing anything about surgery. 

Yesterday I started doing a modified liquid diet.  I drink Carnation Instant Breakfast (CIB) for meals (10oz skim milk +1 packet) and water the rest of the time.  I'm drinking my water from a 2 ounce plastic cup so I'll get used to drinking in small amounts.  I've discovered that tossing it back like a shot isn't comfortable so I'm sipping it.  I've also discovered that I really have to have a lot of those little shots to get un-thirsty when I've gone too long without drinking.  When I have a clock visable, I try to drink 2oz every 15 minutes which is getting me 8oz an hour.  I did that really well yesterday and had to pee all day!  I don't think I've ever been so hydrated. 

I decided I'll allow myself to eat food for dinner if I must, but otherwise I'll have CIB.  We had a company event last night and I had a chicken sandwich, baked beans and a Coke.  1. It didn't taste that good, 2. I got there two hours late and was so hungry by that point I was really cranky.  It wasn't worth it.  I'm having a quiet night tonight so I plan on sticking to the CIB.

 

I'm having all the same issues everyone has when doing the liquid diet.  I smell foods from other people when I'm at my desk at work, there are people around me discussing snacks - ice cream bars vs. rice krispie bars.  I'm suddenly VERY aware of how much food is discussed.  I'm not really tempted to breakdown and have some because I'm drinking my CIB before I get too hungry, it's just a strange feeling to know I won't.  I must be doing OK because I even watched a show on cakes and didn't get a hankering.  The water and the CIB seem to be doing it, but it doesn't taste as good as somethings smell.

 I figure I'm getting about 600 calories/day total with the CIB and water and not more than 1400/day if I eat supper.  I go to the nutritionist tomorrow and hope I find I've lost some weight, but I'm not betting on it.

 Two weeks to go.  Two weeks from right now and I'll be coming out of surgery.