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Feb 9, 2005 - Today was my pre-op appointment day with U.S. Bariatric in Celebration, FL. I was a little on the nervous side but I did okay except for having a dispute with my mom and my husband because I felt that they were getting a little impatient after a while and wanted to go home. I warned them ahead of time that this would be an all day event. I really think it was my mom more than my husband. She has the tendency to be impatient sometimes about a lot of things. However, she did say that she learned a lot which was the general idea!! I got weighted, measured, and given a breathing test to see what type of metabolism I have. From December 20, 2004 which was my highest weight of 336 until today, I lost 13 pounds which takes me down to 323. A lot of information!!! Information class was about morbid obesity, the surgery itself, hospital stay, and how to eat and take care of yourself pre-op and post-op. I also got to see the Bariatric patient area of the hospital where I will be staying. I was pleasantly suprised when it didn't smell like sick people and was a clean environment. I heard that staying there is more like a resort and really nice. I got to meet Dr. Kim and found out that I have long legs!! He said that he didn't have much room to work with because of my body frame and I guess that means that I'm short up top with long legs. I saw and ostrich on a commercial and told my husband that was me!!! You know that he laughed!!

Feb 20 - 8 days before surgery!!! Whew!!! I had some rough moments this week. Moments of frustration and on and off moodiness which I can't stand. I will feel better when eating and exercising won't be so hard. I know the Lord will help me and take me through this. I also pray that that dreadful scale will go down on my weigh in/hospital registration day on Friday. I'm doing my best to eat what I supposed to eat and exercise so I'm looking for the scale to move!!! Will there ever be a day that I will like the scale or will the scale and I have a love-hate relationship????

Feb 24 - 4 days before surgery!!! This week was a lot better even though I'm still a little nervous. I'm told that it's normal but I wish it wasn't so because I have had surgery before. The scale finally went down!! I went from 323.5 to 321.5 so that's 2 more pounds so that's 15. Tomorrow is the day that I go for the hospital registration and get on the dreaded scale. My mom has been a great support when it comes down to the scale. Very prayerful about my date and expecting great things.

Feb 27, 2005 - This is the evening before surgery day and I'm excited. Thank God for the prayers of my friends for the surgery and the nervousness. I'm waiting for the magnesium citrate to kick in and be done!!! I hate laxatives!!! Only 12 hrs. and 45 minutes from losing to win!!

Feb 28, 2005 - Surgery day!! Woke up still feeling some of the effects of the magnesium citrate but ready to go! I got to the hospital at 10 minutes to 6:00 am and supposed to be there at 6. My surgery was at 7:30 am so I was the first one called back. IV was started well and talked to Dr. Kim and anestiesiologist. When
I woke up,I was in recovery and hurting quite a bit until Dr. Kim came to see me and find how I was doing and then he requested that I be given an additional pain killer along with the morphine and that helped me out soooooo much with the pain. I have been walking pretty well and taking in fluids. Looking forward to going home!

March 12 - It's been a little while but I finally felt up to posting. I had to end up going to see Dr. Kim about the gas. I took Gas X and changed from pepcid to prevacid which helped but I still felt it. He told me to discontinue the puree diet for a little while because my pouch may still be swollen from surgery and go back to all liquids and cream soups if tolerated. I've been doing better but it is a day to day process. I was weighted when I was there and I am now down to 306 lbs. I was 317 when I went in for surgery and 306 is what I weigh a week after. So my hightest weight was 336. On Feb 9th weighted 323 (13 lbs), On Feb 25th weighted 317 (19 lbs), March 10 weighted 306 (30 lbs all together).

March 6 - I finally feel up to updating. I had my surgery on Feb 28th and came home on March 3rd that night. I have had a real struggle with severe gas. I've walked, burped, farted, vented my G-tube and still hurting. I will be contacting the doctor's office to see if there is anything I can take to push the gas out!!!! My hospital stay was bitter sweet. In the begining everything was nice but I hated ringing the nurse's bell and having to state what I needed and then wait for a long time to have someone see what I wanted. A bariatric unit should normally have enough large blood pressure cuffs on hand to take blood pressures right? Well, why should they have to run around to find a large cuff or try to take your blood pressue with a small cuff and the cuff pops off or gives you a high reading. Something inaccurate was written in my chart about my low grade fever was due to infection around my G-tube site and the doctor caught it and verified that it was not infected but furious!!! I did like the fact that Dr. Kim checks on his patients twice a day and he called me when I came home from the hospital and didn't wait until my two week apointment when he will see me. Will update on the gas, etc.

March 21- Finally got to update again!! I finally got to go back to Dr. Kim's office to get the dreadful G-tube out. Trust me when I say that I feel soooooo much better and my intake is even better. I was weighted and at that time the scale read 300.5. Yea!!! So now that makes it 35 1/2 pounds before and after surgery. I'm pretty sure that is has dropped some more. I went back to church for the first time yesterday and I fixed my hair a little different (wig) because I haven't been able to do or get my hair done. (cute wig though!!!) I can't believe that people that I know well and see every Sunday, Tue, and Wed walked past me and didn't recognize me already!!! I told them that they were crazy but don't get me wrong I'm not saying that I wasn't flattered!!! I don't want to look the same again. In fact, I want to look way better!!!! I'm on the choir and our music pastor even introduced me as a new member to the choir and when you think about it, it is true. Will update soon

upbeat songs back to back and I would literally pray and ask God is she trying to kill us??? (smile) This sad story could go on but I want to focus now on the happy ending that has begun. God blessed me with a good husband who I supposedly shouldn't have had because I was too fat and he loved me just the way I was and not only that God opened the door for me to have this surgery so that I could ultimately have better health, look better than I ever looked, and to help someone else. Lets not forget about the inward issues that are now in the process of being healed that were dealt with in the past by eating. I know that we probably shouldn't be talking about God so much on this website but you have to understand that without Him, I literally wouldn't be here tell you my story. Only the best is yet to come!!!!!

September 9, 2005 - Finally posting again. Reached my 6 month point August 28th and have lost 102 pounds which includes before and after surgery. I everything has been going pretty well until I started to have some anxiety about the sixth month and beyond. My anxiety is about the fact that my weight loss will slow down some as I was told at the doctor's office at my 6 month checkup. Dr. Kim gave me the results of my blood work. Everything was fine except my calcium levels were low and he said that it could be due to the fact that I wasn't drinking milk due to my lactose intolerance to milk. I was drinking Lactaid milk or Dairy ease before surgery and did fine but after surgery not to well expecially when I added my protein to it and tried to make a protein smoothie which made it too thick and left a bad memory in my brain and not to forget to mention the gurgling feeling that I felt in my pouch after I drank it. He told me to keep trying to drink milk and try it this time by mixing the 1% Lactaid with regular Soy milk and I found that I really like it. It has even made a better improved protein smoothie. Okay, now lets discuss the dumping syndrome that I decided to have after the sixth month and you know that I'm overexaggerating!!! For two Fridays now, Sept. 2 and today I had that mess. Dumping is the worst mess and I have been doing so well and trying to avoid eating things that would cause me to dump. The first time was over some honey mustard and onion nibblet pretzels and the sugar and carb content wasn't high so I decided to try them. Bad move!!! They made me sick for several hours with the severe stomach cramps, sweating, and a headache out of this world. Today I ate a little too much and then it started again. With the prayers of myself, my mother, and my husband I got through it and today I didn't go through it for hours. While we were praying and I was barely praying, I felt the pain leave me quick, I stopped sweating, I started getting my strength back enough to step out and run 2 errands. To God be all the glory!!!
Lastly, I also panicked about the water weight gain that I have due to it being that time of the month. The scale started to teeter-toter and I felt like I was gaining weight back and then the scale dropped back to where it should be. Now if it would go below that It would be wonderful!!! I really need to work on staying off the scale and weighing myself at the most 2 times a month.