Well, to a certain extent, it is the "easy" way out, but isn't the American way to take the easy way out of everything?  Don't we go to the grocery store and buy food there because it's easier than growing our own crops?  Don't we drive a car instead of walking or riding in a horse drawn carriage because it's easier?  Don't we buy clothes instead of sew them?  Do we milk our own cow and churn our own butter and butcher our own meat?  Do we weave our own fabric?  Wash clothes on a rock down by the river?  Chop down our own trees and build our own house?  We don't do many of the things our ancestors did 150 years ago because we have figured out easier and smarter ways to do things.  If dieting and exercising WORKED, we wouldn't have had to come up with an easier way or a smarter way, but since it didn't work for many, many people, it was necessary to come up with a better plan.

With that said, I have not had anyone tell me I've taken the easy way out, and I don't keep my WLS a secret at all.  My whole family, friends, co-workers, and just about anyone that knows me knows.  If they were less than supportive, they kept it from me.  I don't go around telling random strangers about my surgery, but if anyone asks, I tell them.  I feel like it would be doing a disservice to other obese people to say I did it on my own without help from my DS.  I NEVER want someone telling an overweight friend or family member, "Well, this woman that I work with has lost a huge amount of weight by eating protein and low carb.  Why can't you?" 

My two cents.  :)

This was so cool.  Another teacher at my school (and a good friend) down the hall from me came and shared this with me.  It just made my day.  :)  She said a student was looking for my room and saw her and asked if she knew where to find me, and before my friend could answer, the student said, "She's the tall, skinny woman with short hair."  I LOVE this!!!  I'm a tall, skinny woman.  Holy cow!  I have to say that this is soooooo much better than the "heavyset" woman I used to be described as!!   How did this happen??  :)   For all the complications I've had, I do love my DS!

I've gotta say that for the last week since I had to have my drain re-inserted, I've felt like crap.  I've been in a lot of pain and feel a bit like I've been hit by a bus.  I went to work yesterday feeling terrible, but it was the FIRST day of school with the kids, and I just couldn't miss, so I suffered my way through.  (Today we have a hurricane day, so it's good to rest up!)  I've not been able to eat very well with my stent, so I've been relying on protein shakes.  My shoulder and side ache like the devil.  The pain killers they gave me make conk out and constipated.  I've not been a happy camper at all.

Today the silver lining appeared.  At least a little bit.  :)  The stool softeners finally worked (TMI, I know).  Hooray!  They cancelled school for the day, so I get another day to try to heal some more.  AND I got on the scale, and I've lost 170.4 pounds, and that makes me OVERWEIGHT!  I'm overweight!  I'm OVERWEIGHT! 

I started out almost 20 months ago at 5'9" and 376 pounds so a BMI of 55.5 and SMO.  Today, I've grown to 5'9.5" and 205.6 pounds which puts my BMI at 29.9 and just overweight! 

So even though I still feel pretty lousy, there was a little glimpse of something good there.  :)

Well, let's see what I need to say to get you all up to date.  I would have written about everything sooner actually, but I've just been feeling completely lousy.  Sorry.  :(

I got home on the train on Thursday the 6th.  Fortunately, no issues there.  The drain had come out, and it was such a wonderful feeling to actually be free of that little bugger.  Unfortunately, it wasn't to last.  By Sunday, I started feeling "the" pain in shoulder which has meant, in the past, that I was developing an abcess.  I was actually trying to ignore because how in the world could be growing that fast in only three days WHILE I still have the stent in??  It seemed impossible!  Monday the 11th was our first day back to school for teacher planning, and I went in to that.  I got a lot of compliments on my new haircut and such, and there were whole stretches of time that it seemed like my shoulder wasn't hurting.  I was trying to ignore it and what it might mean.  Not smart, I know, but I soooo did not want to believe it could be an abcess again.  By Monday night, however, I wasn't able to ignore it anymore.  My shoulder was throbbing like something was trying to yank it out of its socket, and I was in real agony.  I sent an email to Dr. Gagner, but didn't hear from him until the morning.  I went in school on Tuesday, but felt completely bad, and I was just trying to get through the day.  I had so much to do, and I didn't feel like I could just not go in.  Dr. Gagner was in surgery for most of Tuesday, so I didn't hear back what he wanted me to do next until the evening.  He finally said to go to in to the hospital.  He wanted me to go there for my CT scans, but "I should go in to the hospital where I wanted to be admitted."  DH and I decided that we would drive down to Miami (five hours away) first thing in the morning.  If anyone was going to cut me open, I wanted it to be Dr. Gagner.  Thankfully, he was willing to phone in some pain killers to at least give me a little relief from the shoulder pain. I got the Vicodin around 7:30pm, and took two.  It was the first dent in the pain I'd had for two days.  I'm so glad for that because the next morning we got up around 4 to hit the road by 4:30 to Miami.  At least I'd been able to sleep for a few hours.  I took another pill before we left, and I conked out for most of the car ride too.  My poor DH was on total autodrive.

We got to Miami and they were all set to do a CT scan of me, but it took quite a while because I had to drink some icky stuff, but at least they didn't try to flavor it.  It was actually easier to drink in just its natural icky state.  They did the scan and then sent me back up to Dr. G's office to wait for the results.  By now, I was starting to feel the pain in the shoulder again, but I didn't want to take anything until we knew better what was going to happen.  He came in after they got the results, and Dr. Gagner said that the abcess was back.  He wasn't sure how it got there so fast, but thought that maybe because the other drain had been in so long that when it came out and the bacteria had no place to go, they just went ballistic.  He said he wanted to admit me to the hospital there overnight and have a drain put back in that evening.  If there were no problems, I'd get out in the morning.  I agreed to do this, and I had to go get admitted through the ER.  This was around 4:00 or so in the afternoon.  By 6:00 I was on the way to radiology, and the doctor there was drilling into my side...again.  As much as I hated the old drain, at least it had gotten to where it didn't hurt or really cause me any discomfort very often at all.  I hope I can say the same about the new drain soon.  :(

He found the abcess pretty quickly, and I think by the responses of the people in the room (I couldn't see) it must have started gushing or something truly disgusting and nasty.  He sucked out about 200 mls of gunk, and put the drain in again.  It hurt so much and I was begging for him to give me the good drugs that he'd promised me.  Finally, they gave me something and I was sent up to a room.  I don't remember much, but DH said I was babbling away about not getting my cousins a present for their wedding.  I'm not sure what that was about.  I tend to say weird things when I'm under the influence. :p   Fortunately, they let DH stay in the room with me overnight, but the poor man had to sleep in a chair.  I'm sure he was not comfortable, but I was so out of it that I didn't notice much that was going on.  By the next morning, the good drugs had worn off, and I started feeling the full brunt of the drain placement.  I swear it must be just like what getting by a bus feels liked.  My whole left side of my body just felt like I'd been beaten with big bats.  I don't recommend getting a drain.  It's not a fun time.  Dr. Gagner came in to see me and said things were looking good and I could go.  After a few hours of waiting around and one "on staff" doctor trying to get in on the fun, they finally let me go.  We drove home that afternoon, and reached home Thursday around 10 pm.  Again, I was thankful for the drugs during the ride and dozed off and on the whole way.  Poor DH.  :( 

I thought I would go to school on Friday, but that just wasn't going to happen.  I woke up Friday morning, and even with pretty strong pain killers, it was awful.  DS was home, so he was my babysitter.  I think I mostly slept in a drug induced stupor.  I might have gotten up to use the bathroom, but I'm not sure.   DH did go to work and picked the girls up from my parents'.  By Saturday, I was trying to not use the pain killers as much, and just used some aleeve.  As long as I only moved a very little bit, it was okay.  Sunday was better, but still not great.  I took more aleeve, and tried to not take the Vicodin.  I figured if I was going to go to school today, I'd better not do it on drugs.  :p  I just took one at bedtime to make sure I slept through the night. 

This morning I decided to go in to school, but to be honest, if it had been ANY other day than the first day with students, I would have called in sick.  I probably should have called in sick anyway.  I can be awfully stubborn sometimes.  I made it through the day on just aleeve and only thought a few times that I might drop dead.  Mostly kidding there.  I tried to sit as much as I could and just not make any horrible "I'm in pain" kind of faces. 

I was almost grateful when they cancelled school for tomorrow because of Hurricane Fay.  I normally wouldn't be happy about the disruption, but I really am happy to get the additional day off.  Maybe by Wednesday, I'll feel a lot better.  I sure hope so. 

The hurricane is most likely not much of a threat to us.  It's barely a hurricane, and should hit south of us.  I'm sure we'll get some rain and wind, but we didn't get the shutters out or anything.  I got the water out and found the flashlights, but I think we'll be okay.  Again, I'm so grateful to have another day off.  I need it.  I still feel like crap.  :(