Started my journey in October 2003 with an orientation meeting, but didn't follow through until Jan 2004.

Had my consults all completed and waiting to hear from insurance since May 2004. Doing my clearances in the mean time.

8/13/2004- Friday the 13th was a lucky day for me. I called the insurance company just to check on the progress and found out my application had just passed the medical review board and I was approved. Letters have " been generated". Now I can't wait until my surgeon's office receives their copy!! I hope my next update is a surgery date.

8/18/2004 - Called insurance company... letter had been generated apparently but not mailed until 8/17/2004
Must be big letter if it took 4 days to type and mail.

8/26-- Approval letter still not received! I'm going to call and ask for it to be faxed in the morning. Thoughts of flying to Chicago getting it and hand delivering it have been floating in my mind. Patience is not one of my virtues.

8/29-- Approval letter here.. YEAH!

9/10-- I have a surgery date. That short sentence simply overwhelms me. I think I had gotten to the point of not believing in it, even though everything was going through the process. I just kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I may have sabotaged myself by getting depressed and falling off the diet wagon. I still need to lose weight or that won't be my surgery date. Well, I will do the best I can in the next 17 days. WOW, only 17 days away.

9/13 down 4 lbs. preop seminar on 9/16. Can't wait. I've been shopping for my crystal lite, water and sugar-free popsicles. Ordered my nectar and vitamins.... I guess just need to shop for that phospha soda stuff and will be in a holding pattern until the 27th. I'm ready! (I think)

9/30 I have been slack about updating and so much has happened. I'm not a person to keep a journal on the web or open my life to everyone, but the profiles that have been the most help to me are the ones where people have shared their lives. So I decided to try to be the same.
Preop - I worried so about losing enough preop and then it seemed not to be an issue. Oh well, its that whole improving life thing. The diet modification was good, increasing exercise was great.
2 days preop- that whole phospha soda thing was disgusting, chilling it is supposed to help the nasty taste... I really wished I'd learned to chug in college so that I could have bypassed my toungue entirely. The bathroom was my best friend for the better part of 6 hours. My son had a double header baseball game. I made it to the last half of the second game and probably shouldn't have done that.
Surgery day- actually went good. It was a lot of hurry up and wait. Had to get there early, then was scheduled for a later surgery. I really liked the people at Atlanta Medical Center. They came by and introduced themselves and told me what part they had in my day. Everyone from nurses, orderlies, doctors, anesthetists, radiology technicians to aids took the time to intoduce themselves and make me comfortable. My only problem was immediate post op and because of my sleep apnea I can't have one of the little pain meds button. So I had to rely on the nurses to bring it and one was really slow. Everyone else was great and made sure I was comfortable. So caring. One stayed overtime so that she could get my IV catherter replaced even though it meant she drove home in the worst of Hurricane Jeanne.
Day 1 of the rest of my life- I felt pretty good. My leak test went great and I was anxious to get home.
I am now at day 3 post op and my shower was a great pick me up. I have energy, not really hungry and not having so much trouble getting my liquids down. Went out to dinner with my husband and son. Lovely little dinner of wonton soup without the wontons. But that bit of normalacy was important to me.

10/3- Glad I've moved on to full liquids. I'm not really hungry, but I find I want something. Doing good with soups (creamy, no chunks), sugar free pudding, and small curd cottage cheese. But I did something stupid tonight too. I ate a teaspoon full of my son's left over mac and cheese.... DUMB, REALLY DUMB. What pain. obviously not ready for anything that big... I wasn't even hungry, it was just leftover on the table. That is part of what got me in this mess. Not wanting to see wasted food and snacking behind the family. Good thing I will have some reminders like that as I relearn a life time of eating habits!


10/16- Well, I've been bad about updating and somehow can't get my picture working. My 2 week checkup was 10/11 and I haven't really had any problems. As I read on the message boards about the complications and gi upset and vomiting I realize how I have breezed along and have no reason to complain. But I will anyway. I only lost 12 lbs post op at my 2 week check. I was devastated. I've calmed down since then and realize that nearly a lb a day is great and I should be happy. Back to work part time... its going well, but have tremendous lethargy thats slowing me down. I sure its because I'm only able to take in between 200 and 480 calories a day. Working hard at keeping my protein up. Can easily do the protein shakes now and that gives me my 50 grams to start. They want me taking in between 70 to 80 grams a day and thats just not happening.

All in all, I'm really grateful to have had this surgery and don't regret it.

FOR KATHY, THANKS FOR ENCOURAGING ME TO CONTINUE THIS LOG!

4/3/05 I have been terrible about staying current. It has been a busy and adventure (every day seems new) filled 6 months. I attended the Obesity-help.com conference in November in Nashville. It was exciting and encouraging and extremely eye opening for me to go. An experience that I will repeat as often as possible. Made it through the holidays easier than I ever thought possible. I ate whatever I felt like I could handle at the family gatherings. So what if it was only mashed potatoes at one house and sweet potato souffle at the other one. I enjoyed the fellowship and wasn't hungry. Discovered in November that chicken was a food I was having trouble with. ( Goes for thanksgiving turkey too!) No matter how well I chewed it, it came back up and I heaved for hours. This was miserable and I tried on 2 separate occasions before I gave that up and decided I would not try again for a while. In March gave it another try and chicken is again my friend. Didn't realize how much I ate until chicken was off my list of foods...
It has really gone so well. You'd think that I would have terrible cravings for Christmas candies and goodies and feel terrible that I couldn't have them. (Or at least I was sure that is how I'd feel...) didn't happen. The thing I craved and missed the most over the Christmas holidays and into January was all the wonderful citrus fruits coming out ot Florida. Tried a piece of navel orange and realized in a hurry that I was not up to that level of pulpy material. Such a minor thing really so once again I put it off until later.
January had another OH conference closer to me in Atlanta, but conflicted with a dear friends wedding so that was out. Have been going to my support meetings and enjoying them.
At the end of December I hit the magic 200 lb mark. I never thought I would see me at 200 lbs again. It was a huge mile stone. I bought a couple of new outfits in size 16 for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was so proud.
In January I started showing horses again in riding classes, I had to borrow show clothes from friends and family and by the February shows I was returning them because them became too big in a hurry.
I've been really lucky on my journey down, because Mother had taken this journey before and I had her old clothes down to 16 that I could borrow from her. Now I am borrowing from nieces. They took me through size 14 and a few size 12's. I am going to have to start shopping now as this morning I weighed 168 lbs and am wearing a size 10 in most clothes. My original (personal goal) when I started was around 170 lbs. Since I've reached that I have finally begun to believe that the goal of my bariatric doctor of between 135-145 is actually achieveable. I never would have believed it before.

You know the weight loss and the clothing sizes are exciting, but the best of all is the additonal things like energy, flexibility and being able to play with my son. I am only six months out and my quality of life is all that I could ever ask for. I can run up and down the stairs of my house, race my six year old ( I won!) and just generally enjoy life. I can't wait to see what the next six months will bring.

Since I have a very irregular schedule, I didn't join a gym that I could never use, but my husband and I did purchase 2 pieces of gym equipment. The first was the Treadclimber from Nautilus. It was my start and has been a tremendous asset. At first we were not able to even begin on the beginner levels, but after only a couple of weeks we were able to complete 30 minutes on it at a med slow speed with our heart rate in the target zone.
The next purchase was a bowflex machine. We chose the Extreme 2 out of all their products and we chose it for a really silly reason. It had a wide seat and could hold up the heavy weights that were going to use it. Now that we've had it and been working out on it. ( side note: I really hate squats!) I seen that it was the right choice for many reasons not just the wider seat. It is probably the most versatile of all and takes up relatively small space. I am in love with this machine and am hoping that it will help with toning up all this saggy skin.


4/21/05 Well, I've had a little bump in the road. In the last two weeks I've had small bowel obstructions and been unable to keep down solid foods. Saturday it all came to a head and I couldn't keep down liquids either. After about 24 hours of vomiting I went to ER on advice of my wonderful PCP who met me there. Spent about 4 days in hospital on fluids and finally able to eat and drink again. Never did figure out what was wrong, but I feel great and am back on track.

7/13/05 Doing great. No more problems since little abdominal pain episode in April. Still losing but at much slower rate. Now weighing 148 and wearing a size 6-8. Who knew? Energy is fantastic. Am doing everything I always wanted to do. Am thinking about a little plastic surgery to get rid of excess skin. Never thought I would, but I like my new figure and think it could be even better. My wrinkly upper arms bug me the most. May look into it.
Am going through what I'm calling my age of exploration. Start my day with a 50 gram protein shake, and go from there. Can eat almost anything, but find I don't like breads and pastas like I always have ... they are heavy and just don't sit well. Not feeling deprived like I was afraid I would . Enjoy meals with the rest of the family. Still try to eat protein first of course, but can enjoy all the dinner ( in very small portions) even dessert. Made a lovely blackberry cobbler the other night and enjoyed my tablespoon or so. It was enough to satisfy me, didn't want more, and a small enough amount that I didn't have to worry about sugar overload and feeling awful. My dumping episode with the cheesecake was an excellent lesson and well learned.
Been busy at work and home and workouts have suffered. Back to work with the Bowflex again.. I see the commercials. " I'm 50 years old and I have a Bowflex body..." Well, I figure that gives me 5 more years to get that Bowflex body. Better get to it. Don't want to lose any more muscle mass when I go back for my 1 year checkup. Do want to have fat % way down though.