Now: 188 lbs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then: 262

Well, 6 months and 1 week later after surgery, I am officially down 70 lbs!! Pretty crazy to think that I weighed in at 262 just a little over 6 months ago! I am now in Onederland and loving it so much! I wear size L shirts and I am a solid 16 in jeans. At my appointment last week, I told my doctor that I want to lose another 50-60 lbs and he acted shocked. Well I sure didn't go to all this trouble to stop now!! We are having a family reunion this summer and I can't wait to shock the pants off my cousins, aunts, and uncles! But then again....I will hate being a walking spectacle. I will post pictures later this week.

I was going to post a picture at 50 lbs, but I blew right past it before I had time to post a pic!  I am just ecstatic with my life right now. I really couldn't be happier! I was so scared this surgery would not work for me. I think that I had normal fears, but they were very real to me! And the fact that 3 months later, here I am...........52 lbs down! It's a miracle to me. I am just so thankful and grateful to have this second chance at life again. Because I truly was not living anymore. I wanted to crawl into my bed and never come out....I was just SO MISERABLE!  I still have quite a ways to go, but I am now smaller than I was before I got pregnant! I am the size that I was in high school. I still want to lose around 70 more lbs. But I can do this!!

 

Before: 262 lbs on 7/29                                          2 months out: 222 lbs on 9/29

My surgery was scheduled for 8/15/12 at 1:30 pm. I arrived at 11:30, so they could get me ready etc. I was SOO nervous. Once the nurse took me back to get me ready, I made sure she knew how nervous I was. I was really hoping she would give me something to calm my nerves. No such luck.

The plan was to get me ready for surgery, then she was going to let my mom and sister back to stay with me until I actually left for the OR. Well, this took way longer than expected. I gave her a head's up that I was a hard pick, and that she should use my right arm because that is usually where I have the most luck. Because I had nothing to eat or drink since the night before, it was even worse than normal. She tried to start my IV, but she just couldn't make it happen. Two other nurses came in to help out, and FINALLY by the fifth stick, they were able to start my IV. The bad news was that they were not able to get enough blood out of the IV for which my doctor needed. (He needed 2 large vials to extract the plasma. He uses this on my staple line later to promote healing.) So they called anestethia next to try and get blood from me. By this time, I was ICE cold from nerves and all the sticks. Did I mention that I hate needles?? Once the Anethisist came, he numbed my arm and went to town on the sticking me. He had no luck either. They decided that they would just wait til I was asleep in the OR to stick me again. All I could think was THANK GOD!!

So my mom and sister came back and we yacked our heads off for what seemed hours. My surgery time came and went. We finally talked ourselves out, and the eeriness started setting in. I really did feel like a lamb headed to the slaughter. By this time it was 3:30. I have to say that the anticipation is the worst!!

Finally, they came to get me. The lovely anethist gave me some medicine to calm my nerves right away. That really helped tremendously. I don't remember much after that. I vaguely remember waking in the OR, and they were telling me to breathe deep. This caused me to cough hard, which really hurt!! The first words out of my mouth were "my liver, my liver, how was my liver?" They laughed at me, and said that my liver was perfectly normal. The doctor later told me that my liver posed no problem whatsoever. I was pretty happy about that, because that pre-op diet was HARD!!

Next, they took me to PACU where I recovered from the anestethia, and they tried to get my pain under control. Now here's the part that surprised me. The pain was pretty darn horrible!! I was expecting it to be a piece of cake since I have had a C-section before, and handled that pretty well. I guess because I had a hiatal hernia repair as well as the VSG, the pain was pretty intense. They finally got it under control. They then sent me to my room.

Now this is where it gets interesting. It was 8pm by the time I arrived in my room. My nurse for the night was very confident and fairly nice. She seemed to know what she was doing. I had a Q-pain pump, which is filled with a novacaine-like medicine that sends numbing medicine to the surgery site inside my body. They had put this in during surgery, and it wasn't supposed to come out until it ran out which is something like 48 hours later. At 5 AM that morning she comes in and takes it out as well as my catheter. I questioned her on the pain pump, but she was very confident that she was suipposed to take it out so that I could walk. After she took that out, the pain medicine they gave to me was NOT enough. I was in so much pain, I could barely take it. When my doctor came in at 10 am, I told him that the nurse had taken out the pain pump and that I have not been able to stay on top of my pain. He was SOO upset. Turns out, she was not supposed to take it out OR the catheter until I had my leak test. I also found out that she had been letting me have ice chips which were also a no-no until I had the leak test. WTH!! I was so upset, I couldn't help but cry in front of my doctor.

I did get discharged that day, and my doctor made things much better when he prescriped Roxicet, which is an awesome pain killer. Life is worth living again. I am 3 days post-op now, and it is amazing that I haven't been hungry once!! In fact, I can't imagine even trying real food for a long time. My pain gets better every day. It has been a challenge to get enough fluids in, but I just sip, sip, sip as much as I can. Can't wait to see what my future has in store as a sleever!!