5 Weeks Post Op, with Pneumonia

Mar 08, 2017

I am down 51.4 Lbs total since starting this journey with 3 weeks of Optifast on January 18th, 2017. My starting weight was 304 Lbs.

I lost 23 Lbs on Opti, and weighed 281 on my surgery date on Feb. 1st, 2017. Today I weighed in at 252.6, so that's 28.4 Lbs lost since my surgery date.

So, I've hit my first goal of losing 50 Lbs this week; that's great!  My next mini goal is to get below the 250's as it's been years since that happened...and that's only 2.6 Lbs away!

I was feeling great, other than the problems with pain after eating, which totally went away when I went back on full liquids. I was walking every day, which is how I got sick win pneumonia, I think.

I live in Northern Ontario, Canada, and we still have a lot of snow.  Last night the snow plows kept me up all night as the cut away the still 5-6 feet snow banks from both sides of the road, and this is the third time they've done that this winter.  There's still about 3 feet of snow everywhere else but the roads, but at least we can see out of the driveways to turn now.

Becausae of the snow, I"ve had to do my walking in the mall.  I was out every day, and on Thursday came home sneezing and coughing, with a runny nose. My Dad mentioned I had cought a cold right away.  I should have just stayed home on Friday but I went for my walk anyway.  By Saturday the cough was really bad and I was wheezing and short of breath so I needed my asthma puffers.  By Sunday it had gotten worse and I should have gone to Emergency but I waited until Monday to see my Doctor.  My laptop's power cord died so I couldn't use email to contact my doctor and had to try to get through on the phone. When I still couldn't get through after being on hold all morning, I had my Dad drive me to the hospital, and thank God I did, as I found out I have pneumonia. 

I was stuck in the hospital for 8 hours, getting tests and 3 Ventolin treatments in a row. It took 3 nurses 7 tried to get one vial of blood.  They are so badly trained here in the Sault; when I was at St. Joe's in Toronto, they took blood often, and always got it on the first try.   Once in the Sault they picked me 12 times trying to get blood.  I go home badly bruised because they wiggle the needle around in my arm and almost always blow the veins by doing that.  I don't think they are supposed to do that.

The Doctor at emerg scared me because he said he was worried i had complications from surgery.  He said he was worried about a blood clot and that I might have to go back for a CAT scan depending on what the blood work showed.  He said he'd call me, but he never did.  I called the hospital yesterday and the nurse said I'd have to go in to get the results; she couldn't give them to me over the phone. I explained that I had pneumonia but she didn't care.  She said that if I hadn't heard anything from the doctor, that meant it was good news.  I think it's pretty awful to scare someone about complications from surgery, say you're going to phone, and then not do it.  My Dad went out and bought a replacement power cord for my laptop, so I was able to email my Doctor to ask him to please get the results for me.  I see him on Friday morning so should have more answers then.

My antibiotics are huge, and I need to take 3 all at once, one time per day.  I have to cut each pill into 4 (the pharmacist OK'd this), so I end up with 12 little pieces, and it takes me an hour to take them all.  Thankfully they seem to be working already.  My breathing is better and I'm able to get rid of some of the gunk in my lungs.

The doctor at Emerg didn't know anything about my atelectosis in my left lung because he was unable to access my records from my family doctor.  That seems very weird, and I wish they were made accessible.

I'm happy with all of the weight loss but my goodness, I've not had an easy time lately. I got sick almost 2 weeks before surgery and was coughing every day right up to surgery.  I was very lucky that it didn't go into my lungs, as bronchitas, which is usually what happens with me. Then I was coughing while recovering, which was not fun.  I had so much pain, which I was totally not prepared for as everyone on OH seemed to breeze through their surgeries with only discomfort, and not pain.  My friend Donna said her surgery was very painful and she felt like hell for 2 months afterward and regretted having surgery until her 3rd month post op, but I really assumed I'd be fine, like everyone else seems to be.

I don't regret surgery but I do regret having it in winter.  For the entire 2 plus years I've been waiting for surgery, I've been saying over and over, please schedule it for spring, summer, or fall, as I get sick every winter.  Nobody listened.  I could have rescheduled my surgery but they really pressured me to take the date I was given, and told me if I put it off, I could be looking at it being rescheduled for next winter and then be in the same predicament. 

I do get sick every winter, although it usually only goes as far as bronchitas and asthma, not pneumonia and asthma. I haven't had pneumonia since I used to teach in the Toronto area.  I used to get it all the time then, 3 or 4 times a year.  The kids used to come to school sick all the time and i caught everything and my body couldn't fight anything off.  I sure hope my body won't go back to that.  It was horrible.

I can't get flu or pneumonia shots as they make me very sick, so I usually try to avoid crowded enclosed places so I wont catch anything.  But I needed to walk every day so went to the mall, which was a bad idea as people insist on going out when they're sick.

It will be so much easier when spring finally comes, when the snow and ice is gone so I can walk outside.  I can't wait to be able to ride my bike again come sping.

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