Annetta

Send Message

Block

Add Friend

I did it!  I'm a bandster!  Surgery was on Monday and it went well.  The huge hernia I had is now gone, and in addition I have a band.  Monday and Tuesday in the hospital was a breeze and I had no trouble at all.  I walked a lot while I was there and the staff took great care of me.   I had my best friend and my sister in law there with me the majority of the time, and they kept a good eye on me.  A person that I met through these boards was also scheduled for the same surgery with the same surgeon, for the next day.   She and her hubby popped in to visit after I was in recovery – it was really nice – and in turn, I popped over and visited her the next day while she was prepping for surgery.  Besides that I had only had one other visitor, a very close girlfriend.  It was good that way, it allowed for just enough “entertainment” and just enough rest.  Perfect mix.

Tuesday night when I got home I wasn't able to sleep.  I tried every position in every location of my house (bed, sofa, recliner, and couch) and I was basically just miserable.  I think somehow I got 3 hours in, but it just wasn't enough.   On Wednesday my lungs felt weak, as if they were going to collapse.  All I wanted to do was take one big breath but I couldn't make that happen.  I could barely blow the Spiro meter thing at all.  It was horrible.   But when I woke up on Thursday morning, magically, my lung issue had disappeared and I could totally breathe.  Whatever my problem was, it was intermittent.  I had some nausea that morning and ran to the sink about 15 times, thinking that I had to barf, but nothing ever happened.  That wasn't much fun, but finally after about 2 hours the nausea magically disappeared too.  And Friday was the first day that I felt really great.  I got a full night sleep the night before, I had no nausea issues, no lung issues, no problems, I had an appetite, I was moving around well, and I felt like I could do whatever I wanted to do.  Same goes for me today, and I'm attending a local party tonight!

I could easily go back to work on Monday, I feel fine, but I am not in any rush to get back to the office.  Besides, it's a free week of medical leave for me, so I'm going to enjoy it.  I work twice as hard as anyone else when I'm in there, so this doesn't really bother me.

To sum it up, I had no pain what so ever, no soreness, and no gas problems.  In fact, my pain medication remains virtually untouched - I had two tbsp of it, but over 90% of the bottle is still there.  Sleeping was difficult but it got better by the day.  I had about 2 hours of nausea total, but that also disappeared, and I had one day of funky lungs, but that's also gone.   If I drop something, I am able to slowly bend over and pick it up.  I can put my socks on myself.  I walk a good amount, not outside, just within the house.  I can do the stairs with no problem.  I did laundry yesterday, washed the dishes, and can do normal household activities.

I haven't been consuming much intake this week, certainly not as much as they recommend us to.  There is no way I could drink 64 oz of water right now - it's just not going to happen.  A typical day has been one glass of apple juice, one glass of water, one glass of chocolate unjury protein mixed with low fat milk, one pudding, and about 10 or 12 TBSP of some sort of cream soup with all the content drained out of it.   That totally fills me up and I don't want anything else.  I don't crave anything else.  I couldn't handle anything else.  Friday was the day I woke up with an appetite, and I definitely consumed more on Friday, I probably had three times the amount of soup I've normally been having and I think I added sugar free jello in to the mix as well.  But here it is Saturday, and the appetite is not here again.  Its 5 pm. and all I've had is one chocolate unjury and about 10 small sips of water.  I'm going to have some egg drop soup in a few minutes though.   

The weight has been dropping off this week, that's for sure.  My numbers look like this:

1/24/2007:  Highest Known Weight:  206
2/1/2007:  After doing Atkins one week for the Pre-Op Diet, at my Pre-Op appointment I was 202.
2/5/2007:  Surgery Day:  199.4
5 days post-op:  196.2

For all of you that were rooting for me and sending me notes of encouragement and wishing me well with the surgery, thank you, a thousand thank yous!   I've been recovering well and I have no complaints.  :-)    My follow up appointment with the surgeon is on Wednesday (Valentines Day) and hopefully he’ll give me the thumbs up to start mushies.   I’ll post more after that appointment.

Well, I've been "peer pressured" by Cynthia Louisa to make a blog post prior to surgery - so here goes!

I have to be at the hospital at 0715 and the surgery begins at 0915.  They expect that I will be released no later than Noon on Tuesday.  I'm on the pre-op liquid diet, and my tummy is growling as I write this post.  For me it was an all weekend liquid diet, so this started at 0900 yesterday.  I just figured I'd sleep a lot, wake up, have some chicken broth, sleep some more, wake up and have some broth, go back to bed.  That way I wouldn't think about food or see food or smell food...  But that plan hasn't exactly worked.   I've actually been pretty productive this weekend.  I was close to changing my surgery date to Tuesday, I didn't want my team of medical people to be hungover from the SuperBowl parties  - but then the other side of me wants to press forward and do this as soon as possible.  I'm hoping that the medical team performing on me are like major medical nerds or something and not at all interested in todays game and the beer chugging that goes with it.  :-)   I'll be chugging broth as I watch the game.   I'll post more later on in the week after I return home from surgery!

Well I've completed the remainder of my pre-op tests.  Two issues came up.  I have a severe case of obstructive sleep apnea and now I am sleeping with a wonderful CPAP machine on a nightly basis.   That takes some getting used to!   But if all I have to do to fix my problem is sleep with a mask at night, I'll happily do it!  And hopefully after the WLS, the apnea will go away, maybe 6 or 7 months down the road.   The other issue was that I have a hiatal hernia - a pretty  big one.  I had no idea, but it's going to be fixed when they do the Lap Band.   I'm excited - only 10 days away!  I probably won't have anything more to post until after the surgery...

I've done the majority of what I have to do.  I've met with the nutritionist, I've done all of my blood work, I've had my X-rays, I've had the psych evaluation, did the EKG, had the Upper GI done, the urinalysis, and so on.  Since I'm a self pay, I know exactly how much each test cost and I've been forking out the money for the past week!   I only have 3 things left to do - my sleep study test is tonight, and on the 25th of January I have my Gallbladder Ultrasound and my ABG.  That'll wrap up all the preop testing.  So far I haven't had any problems and my test results have been fine.  I'm curious to see how my sleep study goes since I do toss and turn and sometimes have a difficult time falling asleep - but I guess I'll know the answer tomorrow morning!   All of the pre-op testing was rather easy, even drinking that chalky white fluid for the Upper GI wasn't as bas as I expected it would be.   Soooo after all the test results are in next week I should know if there are any complications or problems that are going to prevent me from doing this - I'm keeping my hopes high for the best!

For nearly 2 years I've toyed around with the idea of having weight loss surgery.  I'd read about it, think about it, and then dismiss the idea.  Having my insides all sorts of rearranged and stapling up my stomach - I don't know - it was just too drastic for me.  But I knew that I had to do something, because I wasn't very successful on my own when it came to losing weight.   Then I heard about the Lap Band.   I started checking that out, and it seemed so much more up my alley.  I could get the help I needed without reorganizing all my internals, it seemed safer and it was reversible.   Life has a way of creeping up on you, and I guess I just got busy.  Work was demanding and taxed my schedule.  I was finishing up a Masters Degree and the courseload was heavy.  The timing was never right.   After toying around with the idea for 2 years, I decided to revisit weight loss surgery and look at the new statistics.  I wanted to see how things had improved, what enhancements had been made, how the cost had changed, etc.  I liked what I read and I knew Lap Band was something I had to do.  I actually have some down time in my life right now and I could easily manage to do this and take a week or two, perhaps even 3, off of work.   If I don't do it now, who knows what life will bring me 3 months from now.  Like I said, life has a way of creeping up on you, and I don't want to miss this opportunity because "I got busy".   So - I plan to get this done quickly - and I mean quickly.  The holiday season was very slow for me, so I spent the most of December doing all the research I had to do.  I agressively reviewed all my options and made the firm decision to press forward.  Now it's January and it's action time.  I've been visiting with doctors, going to seminars, contacting patients, getting my money in order (I plan to self pay) and now the appointments are made - and the journey is really starting!