ChristinaS9476

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Oh my, it has been so long…*hang head in shame*.

Let’s see…well, I am officially under 300 lbs!  Weeee!  I am around 272 to 275 right now and I haven’t weighed in forever because I am currently experiencing massive PMS hell and I have noticed in the past I bloat and gain some water weight right before my period which usually results in not losing any and then after my period I drop 10 lbs…so I’m waiting for that to be over to weigh again.

Other than that horrid lady biz situation, I have actually developed a horrible possibly RNY related health issue – KIDNEY STONES!

Ahhhhh!  OMG, seriously I do not wish that kind of pain on my worst enemy…“I wish kidney stones you” will never come out of my mouth.  Holy shit that hurts!  For the ladies, if y’all get back pain while you’re ovulating or before your period, it feels like that but magnified by like, a million.  For the guys, just kick yourself in the balls like twenty times in a row and you might get something similar.

The first time I had one it was around 1:30 am and I had no idea what it was so I was terrified it was my pouch or intestines or something surgery-related, but they did a CT scan at the ER and confirmed it.  Thankfully the stone had already passed.  Since then I have been drinking water like a freak, but I had another episode about a month later where I was home alone and basically just had to suffer.  It felt good to scream, so I did.  I drank a TON of water, walked around my house (for some reason that helps), and then tried to sleep crouched in the fetal position.  I was finally able to sleep without interruption at around 4 am.  Thank goodness it was Sunday and I could sleep in.

Then I had an issue where there was a stone stuck in my urethra – I kept feeling the urge to pee but I couldn’t.  Whether or not this was a good idea I don’t know, but I took a water pill, which makes me pee like a freak, and it shot out.

Since then I am uber-aware of what my body is doing.  Currently I almost expect another kidney stone to happen because I have that dull ache again in my left side but it’s coming on slowly, not suddenly, so I don’t know.
An issue I’m having to deal with because of the stones is that they say people that are prone to kidney stones should eat a low protein diet…welllll, that’s all well and good for a normal person, but what am I supposed to do?

 

If anyone has had issues with kidney stones, please let me know how you manage your protein.

 

So I guess that’s it for my current update!  Hope everyone else is doing good!

 

Well, if I felt normal before, I feel super normal now.  I have gotten down to 312.8 lbs with a stall last week because I am retaining water – that pesky period came back…did you know they are supposed to show up once a month?  Hmph.

At twelve weeks post-op, I can eat almost anything I want, but I think that food monster has been stuffed and gagged because I very rarely get that wild, insatiable need to gorge myself on food anymore.  In fact, I never get it.  Maybe my brain has finally realized that’s not in the cards for me anymore.  Honestly, even though I wish I were losing faster, the death of the food monster is enough of a reason for me to be thankful about this surgery.

Negatives?  I think my hair is falling out, so I’m working really hard to get plenty of protein in every day.  Hopefully I will get that under control before it gets really bad.  I have started taking biotin as well, but I know that if I’m not getting in my protein the biotin isn’t going to do shit.

I am now working out at least five times a week.  I walk on the treadmill and then I do toning exercises, so I’m hoping they help with any flabby skin.  Is it working?  Too soon to tell.  Now that it’s getting warmer out (ever so slowly) I want to start walking outside on our property, which is a lot prettier than looking at my garage.

Other than that, everything is going pretty well.  My clothes are getting bigger on me and if it weren’t for the belt I wear, my old ones would be completely falling off of me now.

The current goal I’m working on is getting under 300. 

Bleh, I’m a boring person…I will be back when I have something substantial to report…

 

Hope everyone is doing good!

I normally don't blog this often, but I just wanted to get on here and announce that I have officially lost 100 lbs!  I got on the scale this morning and I was down to 324 (I started out at 425)!!!!!  Over half of that was lost pre-op, but I'll take it!  

 

WEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

 

 

Almost to the 8-week Post Op mark!!!

Weeee!  A strong sense of normalcy has taken over around here.  All of our holiday vacation time is over and now it’s back to work all the time…five days a week.  Yuck!  But at least it keeps me busy and moving.  

 

So, what’s been going on with me, you ask?  Well, not really a lot.  I have lost a modest amount of weight and I’m trying not to get antsy, but I wanna lose more!  I wanna, I wanna, I wanna!!!  Okay, I’m going to stop throwing a hissy fit…I’m down to 328 – three pounds away from my 100 lb loss!  Eeeep!  I know that’s a huge deal even though the beginning of it was lost pre-op due to a low calorie diet.  Someone told me that because I lost 60 lbs pre-op I didn’t need the surgery…I was like, SCREW YOU BUDDY!  Between you and me and the whole world, I was starting to slip on that diet and I actually gained ten pounds back before I went to Mexico.  I remember having wild and crazy binges pre-op and I’m so glad those are a thing of the past.  I used to have a serious problem with binge eating and it’s really impossible to binge eat anymore, so PROBLEM SOLVED!  Well, for the most part.  Sometimes my wacky head and that food monster comes out and wants to eat a lot, but I must be keeping it in check because I haven’t gotten sick on anything since those first few weeks *RUNS AROUND FRANTICALLY LOOKING FOR WOOD TO KNOCK ON* 
 

Speaking of eating, I am able to eat pretty much anything I want at this point (I have yet to dump, which is surprising), but some things go down better than others.  Chicken is kind of difficult for me, but I can stomach it.  Most beef is really tough to get down.  Some bread is kind of tough…mostly if it’s dry.  Heavy tomato sauce usually requires me to take a Prilosec before I start eating.  Pickles are a little tough which makes me sad because I LOVE me some pickles…my fave?  The Hearty Garlic ones from Claussen.  YUMMY!  My favorite is taking a piece of sliced turkey, a little bit of Miracle Whip, a tad bit of cheese, and wrapping it all around a sliced pickle…OMG…soooo good…but then my stomach is like, “What the…?!  SMACK, SMACK BITCH!”  I have eaten all other ingredients elsewhere without that result, so I know that’s what it is. 

 

As for water intake, I’m still not getting in 64 oz…how do you all do it?  I literally have a glass of water with me at all times and I have yet to reach the total.  I probably get pretty close because I actually go to bed with a glass of ice water every night, and I can tell when I haven’t drank enough because I get a headache and dry-mouth, but I am pretty sure I haven’t been getting in the minimum.  *Sigh*

 

In other news, I’ve talked about bowel movements on here and I’m going to do it again.  I’m not 100% sure if this remedy for constipation really worked or if I’m just attributing it to this because I hadn’t eaten or drank anything else this morning, but it’s worth a shot.  If you’re a coffee drinker, I made a half a pot and when I put my grounds in, I shook about three shakes of salt in it.  I had heard that this would cut down on the bitter taste of coffee because normally I can’t stand black coffee.  I still haven’t drank it black, but that’s beside the point.  I put the salt in and poured myself a cup with a little creamer in it like I always do and sipped on it while I was getting ready for work.  Well, twenty minutes in, all of a sudden I had a massive urge to go to the bathroom, so I went with it and ran in there and proceeded to have a humongous bowel movement – and being so newly post-op, those kind of bowel movements are few and far between.  Well, then I went back to what I was doing and then not five minutes later, I had to go back and proceeded to have another HUGE bowel movement.  Two in thirty minutes?  WTH? 

So the only thing I can think is that it’s because of the added salt in my coffee.  Coffee has been known to move my bowels before, but NOTHING like this.  I had heard awhile back that drinking dissolved Epsom salts in water would cause that, so maybe it’s related.

So if you’re having issues pooping, try coffee with a pinch of salt in the grounds…Holy colon-cleanse!  A word to the wise though, the second bowel movement had some stomach cramping with it, but I can only assume that was because I must have been backed up for awhile and the stool just felt they had found a home, like those Mucinex things. 
 

Anyway, that’s all to report for now.  I’m looking at my clock and noticing that it’s closing time! 

Hope everyone is doing well, living, loving, and losing!
 

 

Well, here I am, almost seven weeks post-op…everything has been going pretty well and I survived the holidays without pigging out (slowly) on all the Christmas goodies!  Yay!  Honestly, I don’t think I even wanted to pig out.  I was having too much fun running around and spending time with my family.
 

I had a few dark days where I felt like I wasn’t losing any weight.  At four weeks post-op, I got on the scale and had only dropped a pound…then later that week, after my five-week mark, I got on the scale and had gained that pound back…so I was extremely discouraged and contemplating serious dramatic action (above and beyond gastric bypass?), but then I literally got on the scale the next morning after my first pee sans clothing and had dropped three pounds…overnight, as if by magic.  Hmm…that was Friday morning…December 21^st.  By Monday I had dropped two more pounds.  Yes, I know I was weighing too much.  I will stop.  Promise.  Actually, it’s driving me crazy, so I have stopped weighing all the time.

So Christmas was nice except for the fact that my period decided to come on full force for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after.  This was not fun, but I got through it and now my period is OVER!  Weeeeee!  I am sooo excited.  I haven’t had a heavy period like that in forever.  And even better news, I weight on Monday and was down another six pounds!  So I’ve made it down to 329!  I’m four pounds away from a 100 lb loss total (counting the dieting I was doing six months before the surgery) so I’m pretty happy.  Also, family members say they can see a difference.

That’s not all that matters of course.  I feel so much better than I did pre-op and I feel better than I did the first few weeks post-op.  I can say now that I feel normal again, just unable to eat much.

 

My food tolerance is tons better.  I have been able to eat anything I’ve tried, even though some things just don’t sit too well on my stomach.  Steak or roasts are a couple of those things.  Also, Kay made some chili yesterday and even though it was good and I had no trouble eating it, it didn’t sit well on my stomach.  Blech.

 

Other than that, not much to report!  Hope everyone had a good holiday!

 

I am one day ahead, but I want to write while I’ve got things on my mind….so in no particular order – especially any order that might make sense – here I go!

Vitamins…I have a love/hate relationship with vitamins.  I ordered some Celebrate Iron Supplements over the internet that are 60 mg, that I’ve been taking for a couple days.  I figure they came just in time because my period started earlier this week and I have been bleeding pretty heavily, so I figure it’s only a matter of time before a full-fledged deficiency comes about.  Either way, I was told these tasted good – they’re berry flavored and they do not taste good.  They are tart and they have that same “vomit explosion” that the Flinstone vitamins had.  Ugh.  I’m pretty much sucking it up at this point though…it’s only one chew once a day, and Lord knows I need the iron.  I also stopped taking it with my thyroid pill because I noticed when I got that refilled that you’re not supposed to take it with iron or any other vitamins.  Hopefully that will get both pills to work better.
Here’s the website for where I found the vitamins:  They sell a lot of bariatric surgery products.

http://www.celebratevitamins.com/

 

For calcium, which I do not take with iron, I found some chews that are pretty good and can be purchased at Walmart.  They are pretty tasty and aren’t difficult to digest at all.  So I’m thinking I shouldn’t have any problem there.

B12…ah, the elusive vitamin…to satisfy my need for this one I bought some drops from Amazon and I had read somewhere that if you have a 5000 mcg dosage, you only need to take it once a week.  Well, I have a 2500 mcg dosage, so I assumed I should take it twice a week…I have actually changed my stance on this and started taking B12 every day because thankfully, it’s not one of those vitamins you can have too much of and it really does help with my energy and I believe with my bowel habits, but I’ll get back to those later.

 

Other than that, I’m getting in all my protein and over half of my water intake.  I will probably fall over in a state of shock and float off in 64 oz of water from my own body if I ever actually achieve that amount.  I used to try to get to that goal when I was pre-op and I could never achieve it.  In fact, I didn’t want to.  Every time I did I found myself peeing every five minutes.  But either way, that’s the goal, so I will try to achieve it.

 

As far as my food intake goes, I have been eating pretty much anything.  Yesterday I had a hamburger patty, which I ate half of.  Today I had chicken nuggets, of which I ate five.  Yesterday we went to Applebee’s and had half a serving of Lemon Parmesan Shrimp, which was sooo good.  There was rice with it, but I didn’t eat much of that.  I am trying to cut back on my calories because I only lost a pound last week and I can’t figure out why.  I’m getting in plenty of water, I’m exercising, I’m getting in my protein.  The only thing I can figure is that I’m eating too much…or not enough.  One of those…definitely.  Either way, it’s frustrating me.  I had heard that a lot of people have a stall around this time, but it doesn’t make it less frustrating.  Hopefully it is just a stall and I will start losing again next week or this week…either one.  I did my measurements and lost about an inch around my waist, so I’m not even losing inches. 

 

My step-mom isn’t losing either, btw.  Ugh! 

 

So, how am I pooping you ask?  Just fine, thank you.  I’m not sure if it was my period or the B12, but I have actually been able to poop without the assistance of a laxative for the last three or four days.  Of course, I haven’t pooped yet today, so my streak might be over.  L

 

As for my mood, I’ve been a little moody lately.  I might attribute this to my period, but I have gone from being elated to being extremely depressed.  Yesterday was a happy day, but it also may have been because I tried a 5-Hour Energy – did you know those are basically full of B12 & B6 along with a little caffeine?  I had no idea…but I was in an exceptional mood yesterday.  Today, not so much.  I’m a little moody, but I’m sure that will change eventually.  Give it a second…it’s like a train.

I have been thinking about getting back on my Welbutrin, but I know I’m going to need to get a new prescription for a non-time-release version of it, which I’m not sure is generic.  I have the “SR” version which is normally “Sustained Release” but I have to take it twice a day.  I don’t know if it will work or not.  Sounds like a job for my doctor to figure out.

Well, that’s pretty much it!  Hope everyone else is doing well and holding their loved ones close this year!  Happy Holidays!

 

 

My stomach is mouthy…and it’s latest beef is that it hates beef…well, really all meat…except fish.  It’s okay with fish.  It’s not even too crazy about eggs.  I tried a hot dog the other day that it didn’t mind too much…but ground beef, chicken that is too dry, anything like that…forget it.  Not having it.  Thankfully I have been eating protein shakes for breakfast and a protein bar for a snack, otherwise, I would not be getting my protein in.  Don’t get me wrong, anytime I sit down to a meal I go for high protein, low carb, low sugar, but my stomach does not like it…unless it’s fish.
I think it might have something to do with just not being completely healed yet.  Here are things my stomach loves:

 

1. Rice pudding – I could eat this all day, every day…unfortunately the only benefit from eating it is how good it makes my stomach feel.
2. Sugar free Popsicles – there’s water in these, right?  Hope so.
3. Low Fat Yogurt – Yoplait anything is da bomb…especially red velvet cake!  Oooh la la!
4. Reduced Sugar Apple Sauce with cinnamon – yum!
5. Sugar free pudding

 

So you see, even though I have been able to eat regular foods for over a week now, my stomach isn’t too crazy about them, so soft foods are still where it’s at for now.

 

I have yet to get sick again like I did in weeks 2 & 3, thank goodness.  It is noticeable how much better my stomach is getting at digesting more complex foods.  I try to be gentle with it.

 

In other news, my incisions are healing very well.  I’ve got one between my ribcage that apparently opened at one point and that’s the one I’m having the most trouble with, but even it’s starting to close up.

Let’s see…vitamins!  Oh, vitamins!  I despise the Flinstones with Iron vitamins I have and they don’t even have enough Iron in them…so I think I’m going to order some chewable special Iron vitamins and kick these to the curb.  Our calcium chews are okay though.  So I think I give myself a C for vitamins.  I really need more iron…especially since my silly lady parts have been wanting to bleed off and on since I got back from Mexico.  I think they’re confused…but either way…

 

As for my personal favorite, bowel habits!  Weeee!  Well, in short, I don’t poop unless I take a laxative in the morning.  Basically it.  This is helpful because I control when I poop, but not helpful because if I skip the laxative (which I’ve done on occasion) I feel overly full for the entire day.  Another downside?  My trips to the bathroom have been accompanied by painful stomach cramps.  Today wasn’t too bad, so maybe they will eventually stop…one can only hope.

 

Other than that, my energy level is staying pretty constant as long as I have half my protein bar for a morning snack.  This is how my food habits have been as of late:

Breakfast: Protein shake with at least 20g of protein

AM Snack: ½ a protein bar – 10g of protein

Lunch: Something high in protein – either grilled chicken, fish, or sometimes ground beef

PM Snack: ½ a protein bar – 10g of protein

Dinner: High protein as well – pretty much the same as lunch.

Sometimes Late Snack: Most likely rice pudding to calm my stomach.

 

If I stick to this, my energy stays up.  If I skip the AM snack like I did today, I am tired like I am now.  Boo.  Oh well, ya’ live, ya’ learn.

 

Hope everyone is having a good day!

 

So this week along with making sure I get my protein, vitamins, and liquids in, I started keeping track of what I have been eating.  It’s pretty easy with an app on my phone.  (What did we do before apps?  I can tell you what I did…walked around wondering what in the heck I was eating all the time, that’s what!  Anyway…).  Well, of course the main purpose of this app is to keep track of calories even though I use it mostly to keep track of my proteins.  And before a couple days ago, I was never able to get a whole meal down, so honestly calorie intake has been the furthest thing from my mind.  Well, lately it’s been easier.  It might take me well over an hour, but I have been finishing my meals.  So I noticed yesterday that I was able to get in almost 1400 calories.  So part of me is freaking out because that’s about what I was eating when I was on a regular low-calorie diet before I even thought about having the surgery done.  Somehow I think that’s no way to lose weight…at least not the kind of weight I am expecting to lose post-op. 
Don’t get me wrong, there is no way I could possibly eat like I did pre-op, but it scares me that I’m eating almost like I did pre-op when I was dieting.
Maybe it’s the little monster…I told you about him before.  The one that tastes something yummy and takes over like my dog does when he’s trying to eat the water that comes out of the garden hose.  He just can’t stop himself.  Well, I want to kill (or at least tame) that monster.  It’s going to have to learn to calm it’s crazy.  I’ve already gotten him to pace himself, so I don’t throw up every time I eat now, but now that pesky monster has realized that he can still eat all the yummy things he wants, but he just needs to take his time. 
Okay, I’m not overeating, because when I say I finish my plate, it’s not a “normal” plate.  It’s a much smaller plate…with a much smaller portion, but before I was only able to eat maybe half of that small plate…and now because I take my time, I can finish it…which scares me.

So, does anyone have any ideas how to kill this little monster?

 

 

 

Almost three weeks post-op now!  Cue the streamers!  Yeah, I would do that if I had any energy.  It’s my third day back to work and I am zapped.  I’ve been getting my protein in (by some miracle with the help of a protein shake in the morning and a protein bar for a snack), I have been taking one multi-vitamin with iron (maybe I need two?), B12, and calcium (not at the same time as the iron).  I think I have all my bases covered…what else could it be?  Am I missing something?   I only get about half of the suggested 8 cups of water in a day, but could that interfere with my ability to stay awake during the day?
I get especially tired right after eating something.  It’s like my stomach says, “No, we need all the energy you have to digest this, nighty night!”  And off I go.  I literally just took a thirty-minute nap in my office from eating a protein bar.  How is that right?  Ugh.

 

In other news, I am officially down to 342.  I weighed this morning…and I know I shouldn’t weigh every day, but I can’t help it sometimes.  I felt really fat this morning (hel-lo, you are still fat!) and I think it had something to do with eating everything on my plate last night for dinner.  Kay made this awesome crab casserole and spaghetti squash (if you are noodle lover and you haven’t been eating spaghetti squash, you are missing out!), and I actually ate everything on my plate for the first time since my surgery.  It took me about an hour and a half, but I still did it.  It probably had something to do with my inner hungry monster tasting that casserole and screaming in my head, “THIS IS AWESOME!  EAT MORE!  EAT MORE!”  That monster has been quiet lately, and thankfully it didn’t make me overeat, which is what it used to do, but it made me eat my whole plate.  And I didn’t get sick!  Weee!  I’m pretty excited about that too.

 

I have had experiences puking, but I don’t think it was dumping.  The first time it happened when I was eating a scrambled egg and had one bite too much – basically spit up this thick mucus-like stuff, but then an hour or so later I thought everything was fine and tried a protein shake, which I threw up along with pieces of egg.  YUCK!

My second experience was with spaghetti.  My uncle told me forever ago that he can’t stomach spaghetti at all, and Kay made some with ground turkey and I think the problem was that I wasn’t chewing it enough.  I pretty much have to chew to a very smooth, lump-free consistency before I swallow anything.  Then I made the mistake of drinking some milk later and that came up too!  Ahhh!

The third (and final?  yeah, I wish!) experience was with a chicken sausage I heated up for breakfast.  I cut it into little pieces and stopped when I thought I was full, but apparently I didn’t stop early enough because the last bite came up.

 

I learned three things from these experiences:

1)      Don’t eat again for AWHILE after puking.  It’s not a good idea.

2)      If you feel sick and can’t swallow, just go throw up, you’ll feel better.

3)      Take the time to eat!  If you have to be doing something else while you eat because you get bored like me, than do that!  Talk to someone, play a game on your phone, watch TV, whatever…just EAT SLOWLY!  For the love of not puking!  EEEP! 

 

So yeah, so far since I have remembered these three things, I haven’t puked anymore.  Yay!!!

 

Even though I think I was born to be independently wealthy and not work, I enjoy being back on a routine.  I have been remembering my vitamins, I set a timer on my phone to go off every five minutes to remind me to sip some water (which has been very helpful), I have been walking during the day, so I feel like I’m slowly getting back to normal.

 

Actually, I am also pooping, which I am pretty excited about because after my post-surgery diarrhea, I was backed up for a bit.  I never let it get so bad that I felt it before taking a laxative, but I have had a bowel movement every day for the past two days!  It feels weird being excited about that, but I have always had issues with chronic constipation (like since birth) and that is one thing I was worrying about.

 

Let’s see…what else…my clothes are feeling a lot looser on me.  I am still not down any sizes, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be out of size 28 pants until I’m under 300.  I carry most of my weight in my caboose, and the last time I got to 300, I was still in 28s and 26s were still tight.  I can wear anything from a 1X to a 4X top.  My boobs are versatile that way…and of course, they shrink first.  How is that fair? 

 

Oh well, I guess that’s how it works…but that’s pretty much all that’s been going on with me up to now!  Stay tuned!

 

Okay, I’m so sorry it took me this long to get on here and let you all know everything went well.  I feel especially bad because I know what kind of stuff went through my morbid head whenever someone didn’t come back after having their surgery.  RIP!

And here I did the same thing!  Eep!  I’m so sorry you guys!

 

Truth be told, everything went great!

So I’m going to go day by day and tell you exactly what happened for me.

 

Just a reminder, I went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and my surgeon was Dr. Alejandro Lopez.  Our hotel was the Casa Magna Marriott and our hospital was San Javier in Nuevo Vallarta.  (FYI:  There is a San Javier in Puerto Vallarta, but it’s a little bitty clinic about the size of a CVS that gave me a tight sphincter reaction).

 

We got into town on Tuesday, so we had a couple days before surgery to enjoy ourselves, which turns out was a great idea.  The hotel was BEE-U-TIFUL!  We were coming from Louisville, KY where the weather was somewhere between “Brrrr!!!” and “Holy shit, it’s cold!”  Needless to say, when we got to Puerto Vallarta, we were very happy to see the 88 degree weather.  So the hotel was so beautiful, that I wasn’t even nervous about our surgery.

 

But alas, the 15^th reared its ugly head and my step-mom and I were whisked off to San Javier in Nuevo Vallarta by the patient coordinator, Karen.  Karen was new but nice and easy to understand.  Her English was pretty good.

As soon as we got there, each patient (my step-mom, myself, and another woman) filled out some paper work and got a remote control for our televisions (the important things first!).  Then we waited.  Jacci, the other patient, went first, so she went on back.  Then after a little more waiting, they told me that because they were taking my gall bladder out they wanted to do my surgery first.  Well, that was just fine with me because I am my own worst enemy when it comes to worrying, so I would rather go first and get it over with.  So they brought a wheel chair and whisked me to what would be my room for the next three days (It was room 209, if anyone gets that one after me, it’s a pretty good one!). 

Well, I thought they were going to be quick about doing the surgery, but first the nurses put in an IV (I’m a hard stick, but they finally got one in, bless their hearts).  All the nurses so far spoke decent English.  The language gap wasn’t a huge deal, and I don’t speak a lick of Spanish.

They drew a bunch of blood for all the tests, which was just a basic blood panel workup where they tested our blood sugar, cholesterol, etc.  And then they did an EKG, did vitals, BP, oxygen, etc.  I must have been really nervous because everyone kept telling me to relax.  My favorite part was the psychological evaluation.  It went something like this:
Nurse: Do you feel alone?
Me: Well, I am alone…
Nurse: No, but do you feel sad?
Me: No, not really.
Nurse: Okay.

Psych Eval: DONE!

 

Well, I had a good couple hours to wait in my room, then they took me downstairs, had me move from my nice comfy bed to an uncomfortable gurney looking thing where I waited a little longer, getting more and more nervous.  There were several people around me just speaking Spanish.  Then a woman with bright eye makeup on came up and told me she was the anesthesiologist.  I found out later her name was Iris and she is part of Dr. Lopez’s team.  She was very charismatic and for some reason put me at ease.
As they wheeled me to the operating room and made me move to an even more uncomfortable gurney, Iris was there and she told me she was starting the anesthesia – a drip, not a mask – and that I would start feeling dizzy.

The last thing I remember is her asking me if I was nervous and me saying yes and then she said it’s time to go to sleep and hummed a lullaby. 
I vaguely remember a dream about Chelsea Handler (I was reading her books on this trip), but I thought that was weird because the last time I had surgery I didn’t dream about anything.

Either way, the first thing I heard when I woke up was Iris’s voice telling me I was done.  I was laying on my side on the slightly more comfortable recovery gurney.  I apparently laid on my side all through recovery and at one point, Iris, whom I guess was watching me, told me my step-mom was there.  I assumed she was waiting for her surgery, and so I also assumed that she was nervous, so in an attempt to make her feel better in whatever way I could, I yelled (at least I thought), “Hi Kay-Kay!”
I’m not really sure what kind of anesthesia it was they gave me, but whatever it was it put me in a really good mood.  I was even nice to my step-mom’s boyfriend, and I’m never nice to him.  Don’t worry about him, he tends to think I’m a bad influence on my step-mom and that we spend to much time together.  Not really sure how we can remedy that considering we live and work together, but whatever.

When they brought me into my room and finally let me sleep on my comfy bed, I slept for what I thought was six hours, but it was only about thirty minutes, so I started to get up, but I was a big nauseous.  I asked the nurse if I could walk and she said yes, but then when I started dry heaving, she told me no and gave me anti-nausea medication on my IV.  So much for that.
I don’t really remember a whole lot of the first night.  I kept getting up and I also kept waiting for the gas to start, and I was surprised when it didn’t.
Well, the gas did start the next day, and at first I was able to pass gas safely, but then I got some diarrhea and couldn’t fart without going to the bathroom, for fear of shitting myself, so that was the end of that.
Every time I did get up, I wanted to visit my step-mom.  I kept thinking it had been several hours, but it had only been an hour or so.  I think I drove the nurses crazy.
I finally got to her room the next morning.  My pain over the next few days was kind of high, but nothing that kept me from getting around when I needed to.  I had to be careful sitting and standing and bending over because my stomach was a bit sore and I couldn’t sleep on my side because the pain had now set in and I had to sleep on my back, which ended up making my butt sore.

For the next few days, I had trouble walking long distances.  The drive back to the hotel was difficult on the cobblestone roads and getting around the hotel was a little hard, but we managed.
Kay and I got our drain out on Monday night, the night before we left Puerto Vallarta.  It didn’t hurt at all, but the incision drained a bit more that night and the next night while we were on the plane.
Well, since I’ve written a book, I think I’ll stop.  If anyone has questions about something I left out, please ask me anything!