Wow, last week was a booger!!!  Starting on Monday, I had HUNGER, real hunger....and I felt like nothing I ate satisfied me for long.  Then it hit me......PMS!!    The entire week before my period starts I want to eat a house, and then a house dipped in chocolate, then a house rolled in salt. 

My band would magically open up during PMS and allow me to eat much more food than normal.  I have had a few VSG'rs tell me that the same thing happens with their sleeve.  So, I am sure since my hormones did this to my body with the band, what I experienced last week is the same thing. 

I really kind of freaked when I portioned out 2 oz of meat, and 1/4 cup veggies and I was able to eat all of it...well, almost all of it.  I thik I had a couple of bites left on my plate.  I tried to stick with protein, but I am not going to lie.  My hormones kidnapped the good Melanie, and replaced her with a sugar and salt whore for part of the week.  Bad hormones!!

I ended up raiding the cupboards and getting in to the fried onions (the onions usually put in green bean casseroles), and I bought a few Hershey's chocolate bars.    Yeah.  I guess the good news would be that I did NOT go buy some cookies.  I did NOT get the giant bag of M&M's.  I also avoided purchasing and consuming a huge bag of Cheetos.  Those are usually my PMS necessaties. 

I did briefly get down to 180 , but as soon as I started eating more food and carbs, I saw my weight soar back up to 184.  My period finally showed up yesterday, and today I am at 182 on the scales.  That's still a pound lower than my last check-in...so, not too much damage done. 

I am praying that my restriction is back and that my hunger is gone.  I believe it is, as yesterday, I didn't have any uncontrollable hunger or urges, really.  Keeping my fingers crossed!!  Onward and forward!! 

We had a busy weekend, moving furniture from the boyfriend's house, to my house.  There is still a lot of work to do at his house to get him completely out, but we got a lot accomplished.   

I am heading back to the gym this week.  I am actually looking forward to it!   Hope everyone has a wonderful week!!  Mine should be better than last week!! 

  Ahhhhh, got rid of that annoying JP Drain!!  Yay!!!

Tuesday, I woke up and felt some pretty bad pain in my muscles around the tubing for the drain.  I called the nurse and she asked if there was a bad odor, any kind of puss, etc., and the answer was no.  Knowing that I was coming down on Thursday, she basically just advised to wait it out.  She surmised that my muscles were trying to heal around the tubing and causing pain.  So, I started counting every minute until we drove down to El Paso for my check-up.  

Thursday got here, and I was still in a lot of pain, but I was happy to be going down to El Paso.  I met with the nurse.  My BP was great, and the scale showed that I had lost 10.5 pounds.  

Next step was to meet with the nutritionist.  This was a group meeting with the other two that had surgery the same day that I did.  He went over the foods we would now be allowed to have.  He also went over some of the blood test results before surgery and let anyone know if they were needing to double up on vitamins.  My tests must have been good, as I wasn't required to take any extra vitamins on top of my regimine. I am taking a multi vitamin, B-12 sublingual, Vitamin D, probiotic and 1500 mg of Calcium.  I am supposed to take iron also, but that can cause constipation....already have enough trouble with that right now!!   No thanks!  ha ha

We were released to eat sott foods now.  Here is a list of foods I am allowed to eat now:
Fish
Chicken
Turkey
Cottage Cheese
Yogurt*
Soft Cheese
Soft Cooked Veggies (no high starchy foods, like potatoes)
Soft Fruit, except fruits with seeds, like strawberries
Oatmeal*
Cream of Wheat *
Cold Cereal that has gone a bit mushy
Corn and Peas can only be consumed if blended
Eggs

I will be on this diet for 4 weeks.  After that, I can add beef and some other items.  I will have to be six months out from surgery before getting to eat any kind of seeds, nuts or popcorn.  Noooo!!  Not my popcorn!!  ha ha ha I absolutely love it.  I make it homemade with lots of butter....*sigh* Moving on...

I asked about any kind of alcohol consumption and the nutritionist said to wait until 6 months out.  Okay, no worries.  A long summer ahead with no margaritas, long island iced teas or othe drinks.....It's all worth it.  I don't need those empty calories right now.  The nutritionist told us to stay under 60 grams of carbohydrates and keep our calories between 800-1,000.  These numbers are a tad higher than what I have seen most people on the boards report they were told by their surgeons.  However, I trust Dr. Acosta and will go with it.  If I find that I am not losing well, I can always revisit these numbers with the nutritionist.

I then met with Dr. Acosta.  He took the drain out! He then went over some more numbers with me.  His numbers show that a person with the sleeve should lose an average of 8-10 pounds a month.  He also said that a Sleever should lose 60% of their excess weight by one year out.  According to his calculations, he thinks that I need to lose 82 pounds.   I weighed in at 187 on his scale.  So, that would put me at 105 pounds.  Okay....I realize that I am only 5' 2", but I have a large bone frame and have been obese most of my adult life and some before being an adult...my bones and muscles are thick and strong from carrying all of that blubber around.  105 pounds would put me at anoerexic looking.  I figured he was going straight off of the BMI charts.  Those charts show that I would have a BMI of 19 if I weighed in at 105. (women's chart)  Uhhhh, that's the low end of the BMI chart, but I don't much stock to it. 

What to do?  I love Dr. Acosta, I trust Dr. Acosta.  I did the onlly thing I COULD do.  I smiled and nodded my head.  What I want to do is get down to MY goal of 150 pounds and then ask Dr. Acosta....do I LOOK LIKE I need to lose 45 more pounds?  Not in a rude way, not at all....just to see his reaction.  Numbers on a paper are one thing, but seeing them applied to all different shapes and sizes is another thing.  He has been doing this for years, so I don't presume that any of this is new to him.  I am thinking that he might be giving me a challenging goal to go for, thefore I might achieve more than even I think that I can.  He doesn't know what my personal goal is.  Truth be known, I AM hoping to get lower than my personal goal, but I set one that I thought would be achievable when I got my LapBand.  Now that I have a Sleeve, I am thinking I can achieve greater weightloss.  Time will tell!!  

So, it was a good appointment.  My doc also said to have one meal a day that IS a protein shake, since I won't be able to consume enough real food and get my protein goals met.  I have my follow-up in August.  Dr. Acosta would like to see my 22 pounds lighter by then.  I think that's doable.  My muscles around the where the port tubing was still hurts quite a bit, but I am sure that will start to feel better in a few days as my body heals itself.

On the way back from El Paso, we stopped in to a Ruby Tuesday's.  I was FINALLY going to get to "test" out my new tiny tummy.  Enrique and I ordered a seafood platter to share.  It had tilapia, salmon and shrimp scampi.  The sides we chose were rice and mashed cauliflower.  Enrique at the rice.  I ate a few bites of the cauliflower...not bad.  I didn't have a scale with me, so I am not sure how much I ate.  I took a bit from all three protein portions, eyeing what I felt like was proababy 1.5 ounces.

The part that made me nervous was wondering how I would now when I was full.  With the band, when the food didn't get stuck, I felt a bit of pressure, or felt that food was starting to stack up in my esophogas, which told me, I probably ate a bite too much, but nonetheless, full.  I would sometimes also get a weird hiccup/burp or a runny nose.  Fill signals are pretty cool things.  But what will tell me that I have eaten enough??  

I ate very small bites, I chewed very well and ate slowly.  I ate what was on my plate and then a feeling of satisfaction washed over me.  I felt like sighing.  Kind of hard to explain....It wasn't full like I felt before WLS, and it wasn't the same lump in my chest the band gave me.  I then decided to stop.  

We got back around 9pm last night, so I didn't have time to go to the store and get things for lunch today.  I just went to a store at lunch and picked up some string cheese and also a pouch of tuna.  The tuna was 4.5 ounces...again, no scale with me, so I tried to judge it by eye.  I ate all of the tuna I portioned out (my guess was 1.5 to 2 ounces) and I ate the string cheese, which was one ounce.  Again, I felt the satisfied feeling wash over me.  HOWEVER, I felt a bit hungry.   I really haven't felt hunger yet...so I was disappointed.  The hunger went away, and of course my body was okay with what I did consume.  So, for dinner, I decided to have something a bit more substantial and weigh it out to know for sure.  I carved up a rotisserie chicken and weighed out 2 ounces and put 1/4 cup broccoli on my plate.  I decided to eat all of the chicken first, then eat my veggies.  I got about halfway through my chicken and felt like the last bite was a bit in my esophogas.  Hmmmmm, so I stopped.  I was good.  So, maybe I DO have about 1 ounce capacity right now, which will probably get larger 3-6 months out like other sleevers.  I will keep a close eye on it and keep track. 

For my personal records, I weighed in at 183 this morning!  Okay, that was my week.  Hope everyone has a great weekend!! 

So this coming Tuesday will be two weeks since I got sleeved.    I seem to be doing okay.  I am down 9 lbs, weighing in at 185, and I am able to tolerate all creamy soups, protein shakes and drinks okay.  I am even taking my vitamins now.  I did run in to a bit of a hiccup last week.

I was to go back to work, but work from home last week.  I was just very tired on Monday, so I let my boss know that I needed an extra day.  Tuesday, I did work from home.  After work, I felt a burst of energy and decided it would be a good time to clean out my closet.  I did that, cooked some egg drop soup and then I felt exhausted and sore.  That night my drain started to leak.  I called my doc's office and the nurse said that it was pretty common, not to worry.  As you walk more and more, the tubing is moved and leakage can occur.  It's been leaking ever since.    

I was also very weak after Tuesday and had some pain in my abs, so I ended up taking the rest of the week as sick leave.  I rested on Wednesday, Thursday was a pretty restful day, but I still felt like crap.  Friday, I felt really good again.  Enrique and I went thrift store shopping and did a few things...and I really stayed pretty pain free and energetic enough throughout.  It was a good day.  The weather today is UGLY.  50 mph winds, which I hate, so we aren't planning on doing too much today.  

I am supposed to start back to work on Monday...I will be okay, just hate taking my leaky drain to work.  ha ha ha  Thursday will be another sick day as I get to go back to El Paso for my follow up with, Dr. Acosta!  Yay!!  I will get to have my drain removed, finally!! I should be released to soft foods after that, which will be nice.  I am so excited to find what restriction with a sleeve feels like.  

From everything I have read on the VSG Board, I know that restriction is very tight in the beginning and loosens up about 3 months to 6 monhs down the road.  Some people can't even eat one scrambled egg...maybe half of one.  Hmmmmm, I had some trouble with eggs when my band was tight, so maybe that isn't the best judge.  All I know, is I am hoping for a very positive and much better experience with my sleeve!!    Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and great upcoming week.  I will update after seeing Dr. Acosta.  

P.S.  I want to give a shout out to my sleeve sister, AnnMarie!  She was sleeved this last week and had a few complications, but she is doing well now!!  She is so brave.  We are on our way, baby!!

 Wow! I really appreciate all of the well wishes before and after my surgery!  Thank you!

So, I had surgery on Tuesday, April 3rd.  We had to be at the hospital at 6:30am.  Everyone at Del Sol hospital really is amazingly nice.  Dr. Acosta came in and talked to me.  He said he was shocked that my insurance approved this revision, but was so glad I would be getting off the 20 pound loss/gain roller coaster for good.  

I was wheeled in to surgery shortly after that, but I don't remember anything past the cocktail given to ease my nerves.  The next thing I remember is waking up in my hospital room.  Enrique was there and smiling.  He told me that Dr. Acosta let him know that the surgery went better than expected, as he had less scar tissue to deal with than he thought he would have.  That made me happy.  I pretty much slept the next few hours, I was extremely groggy and out of it.  

That day of surgery, you aren't allowed any type of liquid, so your mouth is really dry.  Once I got up to walk a bit, I felt pretty nauseous and had some dry heaves.  I was given a swab to hydrate my mouth a bit, lemon flavored....that also gave me dry heaves.  I was very afraid at that point that my new stomach was going to reject everything. 

Since I had a private room, Enrique was able to stay in my room, and he did.  He was a huge help and comfort.  He helped me to get up and walk or pee every couple of hours.  The next morning I was wheeled to X-ray to do my leak test.  All looked good,so I was happy, and released to a clear liquid diet.  I was happy to sip water, but the broth had no appeal to me.  My doc wanted to keep me one extra night since I am 5 hours away.  We were disappointed to hear that, but what can you do? 

Enrique continued to take care of me, and I continued to do better.  My bp was very high a lot of the time, but it did come down.  I advanced to full liquids and was able to tolerate protein shakes just fine.  I still didn't find that I wanted any of the creamed soups served to me.  

So, I battled some painful constipation afterwards, tried a few different laxatives....finally got some relief last night. Yay! I am down about 7 pounds from surgery....so, here we go! Looking forward to the rest of the ride!