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10/27/08 -  As of today I am down 46 lbs.  I am losing an average of 4 lbs a week it seems like so far.  I am almost out of the 50 BMI's!!  I still continue to have problems with my eating and plan to talk to the doc on Friday for my six week check up.  A couple of times the last week, I have gone in to lay down in bed in the mornings after my hubby leaves for work.  I have not slept in a bed since last Christmas, except for when we are stuck in hotels.  My fibro really flares when I am laying in a bed and I am not comfortable at all.  Well this last week I have been really wanting to lay down and stretch out and relax.  I have been managing to lay on my left side, but have a lot of fibro pain in my calves and legs, and my arms are constantly numb, another side effect of my fibro.  But, if I try to lay on my back or my right side, I get really sick to my stomach, light headed and feel like I am going to throw up almost within a few minutes of trying that position.  I have never experienced that before.  So I plan to ask the doc about that too, because it is really annoying and I will be stuck in a hotel room come Friday night.

I think my stitches are healing pretty good.  I am not sure if they are considered completely healed yet or not.  They have been itching like crazy and driving me insane.  I am hoping they tell me on Friday that they are, so Friday night I can go in the pool all night long at the hotel.  I am going to take my weights with me, etc. for in the pool, just incase they say I am free to enter the pool.  No shopping will get done Friday night if that is the case lol, cause I will spend every waking moment that is left of the night in the pool!!! LOL  I also just realized, that after over a year of living in this town, that we have a wellness center here.  I saw an ad in the paper this week that they go to the hotel here in town and do water workouts everyday.  But it is only for the month of October, so I am hoping they do it more often than that and I can sign up with them.  I really hate the thought of going to the pool myself just incase I need help or something and it would be great to have motivation, etc. from others. I still cannot dress my lower body, and would have to try and figure out what to do with that.  It makes things a little difficult when there is no one to help and I really want to be doing this.  And I hate the thought of my fat butt going in the evening with my son or hubby and everyone else who stays in the hotel is in the pool. 

10-23-08  I am very shocked!! I am down 42 lbs and 5 1/2 weeks out from surgery.  Tonite I decided out of the blue to take my measurements.  I didnt expect much at all, because I have not noticed anywhere yet that I have lost weight, except for in my ankles and feet.  That disappeared right away after coming home from surgery.  It was so much water weight and so swelled and I was amazed how fast it disappeared.   So, tonite I was curious.  Here are my old measurements and newest measurements as of tonite!!

                                              9/13/08                          10/23/08

Boobage                                               62 in.                              59 1/2 in.
Waist                                                    57 1/2 in.                      55 1/2 in.
Hips                                                      63 3/4 in.                      63 in.
Thigh(RT.)                                           33 in.                              29 3/4 in.
Calf(RT.)                                              20 in.                             17 in.
Neck                                                     18 1/2 in.                      17 1/2 in.
Arm(RT.)                                             18 1/2 in.                      18 in.
Forearm(RT.)                                      15 in.                              13 in.
Wrist(RT.)                                            9 in.                                8 1/2 in.

I cannot believe I have lost inches in all parts of my body!!! I will get a picture taken tomorrow and posted to try and compare to my pre op pictures.  Maybe that will help me to see it coming off better, because I do not see it just looking down at my body. 

10/20/08 - I have been having some issues with food this last week.  When I eat hamburger, cheese, fish, and a few other foods that I have been eating since my surgery, I get really sick to my stomach feeling now.  And if I do not try eating it, it turns my stomach when it is served to me and I do not want anything to do with it.  Because of this, it has been preventing me from eating the 5 times a day that I should be.  I have serious cravings for things that I have never liked before and really odd things that I cannot try yet until after tomorrow.  As of tomorrow, I will be on all regular foods with the exception of what is on my never again list.  I am a bit excited about this since it will be so much easier now to prepare meals for the whole family.  One other thing I am finding I am having problems with is we never know when my hubby will get home from work, so if he is later than normal which happens very often, I am finding that I cannot wait to eat with the family and have to make myself something else to eat.  If I try to wait it out, I just get really sick to my stomach and lightheaded, etc.   So that is something that really sucks, because I would like to eat with my family.   I am hoping this will change some once I get to larger amounts of food and only eating 3 times a day.  Other than that, I am now down 42 lbs as of this week. 

10/13/08 - Things have been going pretty good this last week.  I have been doing some exercising to the best of my ability.  My incisions still are not healed, and can be very bothersome on some days moreso than others. 

This week I increase my foods from 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup.  I was going to try yesterday, but I was not feeling all that well and when I would eat I would just feel sick to my stomach.  So I plan to try it starting today.  I cant wait until next week when I can start eating all foods.  It will make things so much easier for preparing food for the whole family.  I have struggled with a few foods for instance fish.  I love fish, but it just does not seem to go down very well.  I get really sick to my stomach when I eat it.  So I will lay off it for awhile and try it again at another point. 

So far to this point, I have have lost 38 lbs.  It seems the last week I have had very little weightloss of only 4 lbs.  I am sure that is quite normal, but I have this thing going on in the back of my head that my thyroid may be causing the little weight loss I have had this week. 

I also need to get myself on a schedule.  I am struggling with taking my protein and also all my other meds and vitamins.  I so hate swallowing pills with a passion and it seems I am taking more meds now than I was prior to having surgery.  I was so happy when I was at my 2 week check up that Deb told me I could now take regular vitamins instead of chewables and also take regular tylenol instead of the liquid nasty stuff.  I just have to break my vitamin in half because it is too large to swallow whole.  Because I cant stand to swallow pills, I tried crushing them, and that was even worse because the taste just makes you want to throw up.  I dont understand why I have such a hard time with swallowing pills, they go down just fine, its just that I do not want all the side effects from them, etc. because it seems I always get them.  I have a lot of medicine allergies and I just hate the thought of what the med is going to do to me.  But anyways, I need to set up a schedule somehow to make sure I am taking all this stuff.  Last thing I need is complications from not taking it. 

Other than all that, things are going as good as can be I guess.  I have my next checkup on Oct. 31st. 

10-4-08 - Ever since the other night when I ate meatloaf for dinner and got that sick icky feeling, everytime I ate since then, I would feel the same way before I was done eating.  I figured I would wait until Friday for my two week check up to talk to the doctor about it.   Well, Thursday night, we were eating baked fish for dinner and some baked french fries, and I had a couple of bites and I got that sick icky feeling and ended up bringing what little I had in me back up.  I was scared and did not understand what was going on.  That meatloaf a few days prior really messed me up or soemthing.  In the meantime of getting sick, hubby was remaking me some malt o meal for dinner, something else with a different consistency.  So after I got sick, I ate the malt o meal and felt perfectly fine after eating it.   

Friday morning we had to be up early to head to Bismarck for my 2 week check up.  I again ate malt o meal for breakfast and it went down just fine.  I took a couple of applesauces with me for on the road and ate one right before we arrived to Bismarck.  As soon as I was done eating it, my stomach cramped up really bad and needless to say we had to stop in town for me to go to the bathroom.  I ended up being late for my appointment because of it.  I felt horrible and my stomach just would not seem to calm down.

I got to my appointment and the nurse took my weight and vitals.  I weighed 344.  So I have not lost much weight at all this week.   Only down 4 lbs this week.  Then Deb came in to see me.  We talked about a bunch of things.  My main concern was what was going on all week with my eating.  At that time, she explained to me what a stricture was.  A stricture is where the open to the stomach which he cut and reattached to the stomach could possibly close up or narrow and it would involve outpatient minor surgery where he would have to go in with a tube down my throat and restretch that opening.  There is nothing that I have done or could do to cause it or prevent it, it just happens sometimes.  But at the same time, she told me it was way too soon for that to happen.  But she told me if I continue to have problems like I did throughout the week, to let them know.  She also then told me that I had probably experienced my first dumping on the way to the clinic yesterday or it could have just been nerves.   I am not sure, but it was no fun and really sucked. 

We asked a bunch of other questions and she gave me my prescription for folbee.  She told me to also start taking the Tums for my calcium.  She looked at my incisions and said they looked great and was healing just the way it should be.  She gave me a card for restaurants that will honor it to get reduced pricing or smaller portion meals.  She let me know I had to come back in one month for another checkup and then we were on our way. 

We left and went over to Walmart to pick a few things up we needed and then went to Taco Bell for something to eat.  I did not know where to go or what to eat, so finally decided on Taco Bell.  Figured I could get some refried beans.  So I ordered that.  I about half of them and they went down just fine.  We then headed over to Menards and the pumpkin patch in town.  Before we left town, we had to go pick up our car, which had been sitting in Bismarck since I had surgery because hubby bought another vehicle while I was in the hospital.  I was so so so dreading driving home.  We have only had one vehicle for over a year now and hubby has always done the driving.  Besides that, the only time I have pain with my incisions is when we are in the vehicle and I had been holding a pillow on my stomach to hold everything in place.  So, I got in the car and felt like I was learning how to drive all over again in a place I have never drove before with tons of traffic lol.  It was quite interesting.  I made it out of town and headed as fast as I could for home.  It had already been a long day. 

I was out in the lead and decided to stop in at Dickinson on the way home.  It was definitely over due for me to eat something and I had to pee.  I pulled into McDonalds.  Figured I would pee and just eat my applesauce quick and hubby could get something from McDonalds.  We went in and when I came out from the bathroom hubby asked me what I wanted to eat.  I told him I had no idea.  I decided to try a cheeseburger.  I asked for just ketchup on it and a fork.  Figured ok, I can take it out of the bun and eat it that way.  I took a few bites and it just did not seem to be settling very well.  Soooo much grease ughhh.  Yuck, and to think I used to love them.  Well hubby had ordered chicken tenders and he asked me if I wanted to try that.  I was kind of leary to try the chicken, because if it would not agree with me, I knew I had no bathroom between Dickinson and home and that is a long drive.  Well I decided to take a little piece, sat there scraping the breading off it and ate a tiny piece.  Man did it taste good.  So hubby gave me what was left of his last chicken tender and went and ordered more.  I sat there embarrassed peeling away all the breading and getting as much of the chicken as I could.  It went down just fine.  Then we headed out and finally made it home.  I was so happy to be home.  It was a very long day. 

Since I am feeling so much better today, I am finally going to finish my surgery story since I am sure a lot of you are wondering what happened lol.

As I last wrote, I do not remember much of anything about Monday, the day of surgery.  I have since asked hubby about that day in his words.  He told me that he got to the hospital about 10 minutes to 8am and that is when they took me down to pre op.  My surgery was scheduled for 10:15 am, but it did not feel like I was down in pre op that long at all.  No one ever told my hubby when I went into surgery like they were supposed to.  He sat around until about 12:30 and finally went to ask how I was doing or if I had even made it to surgery yet.  He found out at that time that I had been in surgery.   Shortly after that, Dr. Bruderer came out to talk to him.  So I was in surgery for approximately  2 hours at least, if not longer.  But we dont know.  Then hubby left to go eat lunch and came back and I was in my room.  He said I was completely out of it all day and night, but I apparently acknowledged him by squeezing his hand everytime he would hold my hand.  He said I would wake up about every half and hour, moan some and push my button for my morphine and then I would be out right away again.   I do not recall any of it. 

Tuesday morning, I remember the doctor coming in and talking to me for a few minutes and ask how I was doing and told me that I would be able to start liquids and that I needed to get up in my room on and off throughout the day.  I remember thinking to myself, ya right.  Most of Tuesday was a fade memory for me as well.  Later in the day, I had help to get out of bed and they brought me a recliner to sit in.  I did not leave that recliner to get back into bed again until sometime in the middle of the night Thursday night.  At the time they moved me to the recliner, we found out that I had started my period.  I have not had it for a good 4 to 5 months prior.  OMG, it was horrible.  The cramps, the mess, etc.  I found out that alot of times this surgery will bring your menstrual cycle on, well it sure did.  I was miserable and so embarrassed.  Later in the day, Dr. Bruderer came back in to check on me and see how things were going.  Everything seemed to be going good.  Sometime that afternoon, Jen stopped by my room to see me.  She was in such great spirits!!  She gave me a bunch of words of encouragement and was on her way.  It was so nice to meet her.   I was in a lot of pain with my back, just could not get comfortable at all.  They brought me a heating pad, which I had used continously from that time until I left the hospital.  I remember receiving a few phone calls Tuesday night from family.   I know the tv was on the whole time I was there, but I do not recall actually watching anything.  I was still definitely using my morphine on a regular basis too and remember having a hard time staying awake most of Tuesday.

Wednesday morning, Dr. Bruderer came in to check on me again.  He checked my incisions and said everything looked good.  He asked me how the fluids were going, told me I needed to get up and walk the halls, etc.  I was a little more coherent at that time.  I remember questioning him about the open procedure and he told me again that because my liver was too large he had to go open on me.  Every morning, they also came in and took my blood sugar levels.  Only because I was "so called" diabetic prior to coming to the hospital.  That morning my blood sugar was high.  The other days it was it in the normal range.  Later that morning, I had 2 cna's come in to give me a shower.  That is the first time that I got an actual look at my stomach and saw the huge incision all the way down my chest and stomach and a bunch of laparoscopic incisions.  It looked horrible and all I was worried about was getting it all wet during my shower.   Needless to say, they could get wet.  I had about 50 pieces of tape all the way down my long incision which made me think I had that many incisions at first lol.   After my shower, I rested for awhile and then they came in to get me to walk.  I was so dreading that.  My back hurt so bad and I was so afraid I would not be able to do it.  Well I managed to go about 50 ft total.  I did that twice Wednesday night. Dr. Bruderer stopped back in later in the afternoon again and at that time I found out I would not be going home on Thursday.  He told me that it would most likely be Saturday when I will get to go home.  That kind of bummed me out, but at the same time, I did not feel like I was ready to go home.  Nichole stopped in to see me on one of her walks around the halls.  She was doing great too!! She seemed to be in great spirits as well.  It was so nice to see her. 

Thursday morning, the same routine took place pretty much.  Dr. Bruderer came by twice to see me.  I had another shower.  During my shower, they decided to take my catheter out.  I was so nervous that I was not going to be able to pee and would relive the nightmares I have always had.  The nurses crossed their fingers and wished me luck.  Needless to say, I was able to go to the bathroom just fine!!!  I was soooo happy!!!  I walked the halls a few times throughout the day and tried to stay awake as much as I could to communicate with my hubby.  Nichole came by again before she left the hospital to see me.  She looked so great.  I felt so bad because all I did was complain.  At one point, Thursday afternoon, the nurses were in my room giving me some kind of medicine in my iv.  I do not remember what it was, but it had to go in very slow and it burned oh so bad.  Well as the medicine was going in, all of a sudden I started feeling really weird.  My whole face went numb on me and I remember pushing the nurse button and next thing I knew, one of the nurses was like hugging me rubbing my head.  Apparently they were trying to talk to me and ask me questions, etc. but I do not recall any of that.  All of a sudden I realized they were asking me questions and could hear them, but my face was still numb.  The nurse continued to rub my head for awhile and it finally went away.  No one has any clue what happened.  When Dr. Bruderer came back to see me that afternoon, he told me I was attacked by aliens and he had no explanation for it.  By Thursday night, I was starting to feel a little better and using my morphine alot less. During the night, I was so uncomfortable, that I decided to climb back into bed.  I managed to get somewhat comfortable and fell asleep. 

Friday morning, I woke up early and called my hubby and told him to get to the hospital before Dr. Bruderer came in because I wanted to beg him to go home.  So hubby showed up really early.  Dr. Bruderer came in and asked how I was doing and I told him I wanted to go home.  He said, ok.  I was like wow, I didnt even have to beg.  But he was very commanding when he said that it was absolutely necessary that there be someone at home to help me with everything and if I had that, I could go.  Hubby asked how long I needed someone and Dr. Bruderer said definitely for the rest of the weekend.  So hubby agreed that he would be there for me.  I was then able to get dressed and had to wait awhile because the staff was so busy.  The nurse came in to go over all of my papers with me and give me my prescriptions for percocets and pepcid.  She then went to pull the JP drain out of my incision site.  OMG, that was the weirdest feeling ever.  She pulled it out real fast, but it seemed like it was never going to end.  It didnt hurt or anything, just felt weird and very hard to decribe.  Very eerie feeling.  I was finally released about 12:30.  The drive home was alright.  I was out for most of it.  We had to make two stops so I could go to the bathroom.  Hubby had to come into the bathroom with me to help me because my back was so bad off.  I had to hold a pillow to my stomach all the way home as every little bump would hurt. 

9-30-08 - I am not sure what happened tonight, but when I ate dinner, which consisted of about 2 oz. of meatloaf, while eating it I got really sick to my stomach.  I actually started my "real" food a day early and had meatloaf last night and also had some earlier today too.  I had absolutely no problems eating it, but before I was even done eating it tonight, I got really sick to my stomach and felt like I was going to throw up.  I do not know if it had too much grease in it, if I was dumping, or what, but I did not like that feeling at all.  It lasted about an hour.  I have not eaten anything since then and will not anymore tonite. 

I also realized that I have burnt my back using the heating pad.  I have been using the heating pad pretty much non stop on my back since I came home from the hospital.  Well my back was itching earlier tonite and I reached around to itch it and popped open a huge blister.  I had no idea I had burnt myself.  It never hurt or anything until I popped it.  So tonite I will be going without the heating pad.  My back feels a whole lot better since taking the muscle relaxer, but it still is not completely healed yet. 

This morning I managed to get on my bike to try and exercise a little.  I set it up for 10 minutes, but was only able to do 5 minutes because it was bothering my stitches way too much.  It didnt affect my back at all.  So tomorrow, I will try again and just continue to go slow at it until I can work myself up to more. 

9/28/08 - Since coming home from surgery, I have been in a lot of pain.  I have not had any pain with my incision site at all.  Most of the pain has stemmed from the hole in my stomach from the drainage site and my back.  I have not done much of anything.  I have pretty much been stuck to my recliner and can hardly walk.  I believe when I fell in the shower, I pulled just about every muscle in my back you can imagine and that is what is making things so difficult.  Well, yesterday I finally decided to go to the ER because this is getting ridiculous.  They had determined that I have pulled and strained many muscles in my back and they gave me a muscle relaxer.  I was knocked out most of yesterday from taking it.  This morning I feel a little bit better, but still quite a bit of pain yet.  I am hoping these muscles heal soon so I can become as active as I can real soon.

My incisions seem to be healing ok so far.  Like I mentioned, I have not had any pain from them at all.  Wednesday I decided to stop taking my percocets they gave me and went through some bad withdrawls coming off all the pain meds.  That was not fun at all. 

I have been doing ok with eating so far I believe.  Everything seems to be going down ok.  As far as drinking, that has been a different story.  It seems as soon as I take a drink, my stomach gets all gurgly and gassy.  I most definitely have not been drinking 6 cups of liquid a day because I hate the feeling it is giving me.  I am having some issues with my food though.  The issue is, I cant tell when I am hungry and I cant tell if I am full.  About the only way I have been able to tell if I need something to eat is my stomach will start hurting.  But it is nothing like the "hunger pains" I have ever had before prior to surgery.   But then I eat something and the pain goes away.  But I have not had a feeling of being full yet.  I have been eating 1/3 cup of food every time I eat.  It is so little food and sometimes I would like to keep eating, but haven't.  I can't wait until this Tuesday when I can start eating real food.   No more puree stuff.  It is getting old real fast.

With not being able to be active at all since coming home, I have stepped on the scale every single day.  I am losing 2 lbs per day.  As of today, I am 348 lbs.  So I am officially down 26 lbs so far since my original weight.  While I am losing this weight, I have not noticed it anywhere yet on my body, except that my feet and ankles are no longer swollen.  And at the same time, feeling so immobile, I feel like I have gained another 100 lbs.  So, we are not sure if it is just water weight that I am losing right now, since I have no more swelling going on or what.  It is all good that I am not swelling anymore because those were my symptoms of the CHF.  

I have been struggling with taking my meds everyday.  I hate, hate, hate swallowing pills, etc.  I have managed to take my pepcid everyday, but have slacked on taking my multi vitamin and my synthroid.  And I hate the thought of taking this liquid childrens tylenol everytime I have a headache, etc.  It is so gross.  

So other than all that, I have been thinking dearly of Andrea, Nicohle and Jen.  I hope they are doing good and everything is going real good for them.  I plan to message them when I am done here quick to check in with them and let them know I am still alive.  I am so sorry I have not checked in with you guys yet.  But please know you have been being thought of every day!

I am going to try and type this up without sounding to drugged up.  I may end up coming back to this later to finish up, but will try to do as much as I can now.

My experience has turned out to be nothing as easy or normal as I ever thought it would be.  Infact it has been almost a nightmare after  nightmare in a way.  But lets hope the end result will turn out to be the expectations of what the reasons for the surgery were. 

Sunday, the 14th, we left for Bismarck.  I called and talked to Andrea on the way down there and everything was great and fine.  I was a bit nervous but not too bad and the ride was going by pretty quick.  We checked into the hotel and then headed over to Walmart to pick up a few things and went back to the hotel for the rest of the night until we needed to head to the hospital.   We kicked back and relaxed as much as possible.  When I say as much as possible, when drinking mag. citrate and sitting on the pot all night to clean yourself out lol. 

About an hour before having to go to the hospital is when the nightmare started for me.  My husband forgot to pack my shower chair for me and when we were at Walmart earlier, we bought a cheaper $15 stool to use in the shower instead of another $40 shower chair since we have 3 of them at home already and while  I was taking my shower, well I seriously wiped out in the shower.  The stool slid right out from underneath me and I ended up all twisted and turned around and hanging with one arm from the towel rack in the shower.  I was in so much pain.  I managed to get out and dressed and to the hospital just in time.  Nichole and her husband were there in the waiting room and I talked to them real quick before we were escorted to our rooms by a fully armed security guard.  That was kind of odd lol.   We wished eachother luck and off to our rooms we went.

I got to my room and my hubby asked what time surgery was.  They said I was scheduled for 10:15 am.  Then hubby left to go back to the hotel.  They started getting me prepped right away.  First thing they did was take my vitals and weight and wrote them up on the board in my room.  At the time of check in I weighed 360 lb.  I do not believe that amount for nothing.  I still do not believe it.  I have not been weighed since then.  He then asked me a ton of questions and went over the procedure with me of what would take place, etc.   He then looked over my hands to see if he thought he could get an iv in.  I told him right away that I was a hard poke as advised to do by Judy.  He made one attempt into my left hand and quit at that point.  They then wrapped both of my arms in hot towels and plastic bags and called the in house specialist.  She came in and looked over my hands and arms and made one attempt into my left hand right above my thumb and hit a vein.  Although it worked, it was a very bad spot.  I couldnt move my hand at all because every time I just even flinched my hand, it would set off the buzzer on the iv machine.  I had to deal with that the rest of the night.  After the iv was in, they then placed ace bandages around my feet and legs and these weird boot things to keep the blood pumping through my feet.  I was extremely uncomfortable in bed and was starting to hurt and stiffen up real bad from my fall in the shower.  The nurse then went over a bunch of other things with me, taped up the jewelry on my fingers and then told me that I could rest until it was time for them to come get me. 

Apparently I had fallen asleep for a little while.  Because the rest of the night seemed to fly right by.  I believe they came to get me really really early too, because hubby walked in the door and they walked in the door to come haul me away to pre surgery, so I never even got to talk to the hubby before surgery.  On the way down, I completely lost it.  I started crying uncontrollably.  When we got to the 2nd floor, surgery floor, I remember hubby giving me a kiss and telling me everything would be alright and he walked off in the opposite direction as they pushed me off in the other direction.  I cried and cried.  I was so scared.  I just wanted to talk to my hubby and wanted him to be there.  When I got into the pre surgery waiting area, there were a lot of doctors, etc. roaming around and alot of other patients.  I could hear them all laughing and talking about their procedures and some were excited to have surgeries, etc.  These were all different kinds of surgeries.  I do not think there were any other gastric surgery patients in there at the time.  The anathesiothosgist (sp?), came over and talked to me and calmed me down some and told me it was quite normal to feel scared and asked me if I had any questions.  My only question was about the cathether.   He told me he could not answer that and asked me if I wanted to talk to Dr. Bruderer before surgery.  I told him yes please.   I laid there for a little while and next thing I knew Dr. Bruderer was standing over me and asked me what was going on.  I asked him about the cathether and he told me it was too dangerous to do a super pubic cathether and they were using a regular cathether.  He assured me everything would be just fine.  I do not even remember if I broke down at all then, just next thing I remember is them putting a mask on me and asking me to take a deep breath.

The next thing I remember, and really do not quite remember is being in my room and hubby being there.  I know nothing of being in recovery.  And I barely remember anything of Monday at all.  I remember being told at some point in time that I ended up with OPEN surgery instead of LAPRO, because my liver was too large to get around.  

TOO BE CONTINUED:

Here are my ever so embarrassing pre-op measurements.  Hopefully they shrink in size very quickly.  I never saw myself as being this big, but it has just seriously hit in reality how big I really am, so I am a bit sick to my stomach right now.

Boobage - 62 in.
Waist - 57 1/2 in.
Hips - 63 3/4 in.
Rt. Thigh - 33 in.
Rt. Calf - 20 in.
Neck - 18 1/2 in.
Rt. Upper Arm - 18 1/2 in.
Rt. Forearm - 15 in.
Rt. Wrist - 9 in.

Absolutely disgusting!

I have just finished packing a little while ago.  I am all set to go.  We will be leaving early tomorrow morning to head to Bismarck.  I have been informed that the magnesium citrate I have to drink is disgusting so I am going to mix it with gatorade as recommended by the person who told me it was disgusting lol. 

I have been doing ok with my liquid diet today, although my stomach is growling from being hungry.  I am so glad I only have to go through 2 days of this because it really is sucking so far.  I am actually starting to get a headache and a bit light headed because I am so hungry now :( 

So other than all that, I am pretty much ready to go.  I still need to take my pre op pictures, which I will do later on today.  Hopefully I can get some sleep tonite.  Might need one of those valiums after all.  But we will see what happens.