6 Months Post Op

Dec 11, 2009

It's been a little over six months since surgery.  Holy cow!  I have still have a feeding tube.  The hole healed up and was great for three weeks so the doctor removed it and a couple weeks later the hole opened back up and caused an abscess.  It put me back in the hospital for 10 days (blah!).  So, this time around we're going to wait a LONG time before taking it out again even though it seems for all purposes that it has indeed healed up.  I had another CT scan this week and am waiting to hear the results.  I'm really hoping it'll be all good.  I was severely ill for about a week with something like the flu and I threw up over and over.  My esophagus was very sore after wards and hurt quite badly so I have been worried that it may have re-opened things.  But the last couple of days I've been feeling a lot better so I am thinking that maybe it didn't after all.  Hopefully I'll know soon one way or another.

I am still on soft foods and don't plan to eat "normal" foods until January.  Because of the fact that the hole has opened up a couple of times after healing it means I obviously need to take a longer time period to let it heal.  A few weeks wasn't long enough.  So I am still limited in the food I can eat.  I have always been a salad and meat girl so this soft food diet really sucks.  Its hard to lose weight when mostly what I can eat is mashed potatoes and soups and slim fast (and chocolate!).  Salads and meats and veggies are too rough for my stomach so the fact that I've lost as much weight as I have makes me happy.  Though I know once I can get back to my normal diet I will probably find I lose faster.  Though I have been able to add several things to my diet lately (like soft cheese) and that has been wonderful!  I am allergic to wheat so I haven't missed breads and such since I normally can't eat it anyway. 

Currently I am about 152-153 pounds and wearing a size 8/10 and medium shirts - I am able to get into a lot of my pre-pregnancy wardrobe again, finally.  So I've lost about 30 pounds and was about 145-150 pre-pregnancy (I had gained 5/10 pounds after I got married).  Most people would think that 30 pounds is terrible six months out from surgery but having had the lap band previously (done in June of 2000) I know my body and I know how I lose weight.  Slowly!  And not when I'm eating a lot of carbs.  So even though it's been really slow compared to some people's weight loss I am not the least bit worried about getting to my goal weight of 135 to 140.   I also have not been active since the surgery.  The feeding tube hurts a lot if I am too active so I have been very sedentary the last six months.  Normally during the summer I love to bike ride, do landscaping, go for walks, play with the dogs, etc, etc.  I am a very active person.  So the fact that I have been sitting around a lot has also stalled my weight loss.  Once again, I know that when I am finally "back to normal" I will lose more weight.  And actually my weight loss has sped up... I was stuck for several months and recently started losing again.  :)

Not helping my weight loss any is chocolate and ice cream.  LOL  Though I will admit, I don't want to eat nearly as much as I used too.  A little bit of sweet goes a long way now.  Since ice cream is soft I can eat that, but even a baby scoop is usually more than I want now.  And seeing as how I'm a major sweets fan this is super helpful and probably one of the biggest benefits of this type of surgery. 

The hole did put me in the hospital a couple of times and there finally came a point where I got very depressed because I felt I would never heal.  But once I got over that hurdle and things started to look good again I am happy to go forward.  I am still not sure if I would do it all over again knowing how tough all this has been to go through. But, I LOVE the fact that I am feeling so good about how I look.  I hated, hated, hated being fat again.  I haven't been fat since 2001 and gaining so much weight when I was pregnant just made me feel miserable all the time.  I didn't want to go out with friends or go shopping or anything because I wanted to stayed holed up in the house and not let people see how fat I had gotten.  So I'm sure once I'm  back to normal I'll probably be really glad I did this.  I already feel a lot better about myself since I'm starting to fit back into my old clothes again. 

The hardest part I've had so far is being able to drink enough water.  I don't come close to drinking enough water each day and it's a good thing I have the feeding tube that I can put water through.  If I go several days without being hooked up to the feeding pump (I just have water in it, not formula) I get very dehydrated.  So before I can get rid of the feeding tube I'm going to have to figure out how to force myself to get enough liquids.  In that sense having the feeding tube is helpful.  Same with getting in nutrition.  With only eating soft foods I get a very limited amount of nutrition, so I mix together powdered veggies into water and put it through the feeding tube.  When I go too long without doing that I get very, very tired. 

I have heard others say the same thing though, that drinking enough water is really hard.  Its because the stomach is so small the water fills you up very quickly and you feel like a walking water bed.  Its just uncomfortable to try to drink very much at a time.  So I have to teach myself to always have a bottle of water in hand and sip water all day long.  Its the only way I can get enough water. 

So I guess I'm getting to the point where I regret the fact that I did this a lot less than I did a few months ago.  LOL  Which is good.  I hope in the long run it proves to be a good decision that helps me lead a healthier, longer, thinner life.  :)

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