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4 months out and down a total of 90 pounds! Woohoo! I'm feeling GREAT about the weight loss and better health! I am wearing a size 18 now which boggles my mind. I'm starting to get the double-takes and compliments from friends and family. Wow, it feels so good!

I'm eating pretty much whatever I want nowdays. Bread and pasta don't really work for me, but I honestly don't miss it. Actually, I have thought it would be wonderful to have a sandwich once in awhile, but that's it. 

Things have been really tough around here lately. My Dad's cancer has returned. He had tonsillar cancer about 2 years ago. After a grueling treatment process, he was pronounced "cured". Apparently some cancer cells had set up shop in his spine, and now he has cancer in his spine, both femurs and both shoulders. Right now the kids and I have basically moved in with him so I can help him out. It has been stressful and I really need to find another outlet for my stress besides food. At least I'm not stuffing myself with huge quantities like before the surgery, but I am grazing and snacking all the time. I'm not sure what I need to do to quit it, but I do know it needs to stop. This surgery has been an amazing blessing, and I promised myself I would never waste this amazing opportunity.

I promised myself that I'd do a blog update once a month, so here I am!

I'm feeling great. I've lost about 60 pounds now and I'm more than 1/3 of the way to goal. I'm on a full diet now, although I still have trouble with quite a few foods. I need to try more things, especially healthy protein sources. Its just easier to stick with the things that I know "work", but I know I'd feel more satisfied if I was eating more dense foods.

At this time next month, I will be relaxing in a villa in Tuscany! I can't believe it! We've been planning this trip for so long. I can't wait to go and I know I'm going to be feeling so confident in my ever-slimming body. I weigh a bit less than I did when I went to Thailand about 6 years ago. That was the first trip where the seatbelt situation was a little shaky. I never did use a seatbelt extension, but I nearly cut off circulation to my lower body on a few of those flights, especially on the Asian airlines. I'm really motivated to kick it into high gear and lose as much as I can this month. I want to slide into those seats with ease, buckle my seatbelt with room to spare, and be able to put the tray all the way down! I can't wait for that feeling... it will be pure victory!

I'm getting excited for a milestone coming up. 40 more pounds until I weigh what I did at my wedding! I weighed 214 on my wedding day. I'm 5'8" and carry my weight pretty well. At 214 I was wearing a 16/18 and was still feeling pretty decent. I was three months pregnant at the time. After I delivered my son, I weighed about 260 (just a bit more than now) and that's when I really started to feel like a "fat person". 214 seems like a magical number to me, like I'll no longer be a "fat person". I'll still have about 75 pounds to lose at that point (exactly half the total weight I needed to lose) but I'm still really looking forward to it.


I dont' know if I'll blog right before or after our Italy trip, but anyway, see you in about a month!

Well, I'm just over a month out now and down a total of 53 pounds (29 before surgery, 24 since).

I've lost 24 pounds in a month- that is really pretty danged awesome! It look me 4 months to lose the 29 before surgery. This is so much easier!

At first, I swear it felt like I hadn't had a surgery at all. It wasn't like I felt hungry, but I never felt full either. Boy, has that changed! I guess my nerves in my pouch must be healed up enough to tell me when I'm doing something wrong. And it does. Often! I finally am on "soft foods"...Hallelujah! I had a very hard time with the pureed diet. Pureed food just grossed me out SO much. It was easier just to stick with full liquids or just not eat at all. Not good.

I've been feeling very passive about my surgery lately. Like I have very little do with what's going on in my body. I need to take a more active role! I've been walking, but I need to kick up the exercise too.

I really need to work on eating more. Not necessarily portion sizes- I can eat 2 oz pretty easily most of the time and sometimes 4 depending on what it is. But I don't eat often enough. Getting in my liquids is a daily struggle, but I'm going to strive to do a little bit better every day!

Oh hey, guess what? I can cross my legs now!! :)

So I promised to come back and tell the rest of my surgery story, but the rest is pretty uneventful!

My surgeon allowed ice chips, so I didn't have the Dry Mouth of Doom that you always hear about. I loved my ice chips. I'd have to call the nurse to take away the cup once it got melty though, I didn't trust myself not to try a sip.

The following day I had my pouch study (7 hours late! Grrrrr....) and it didn't go very well. I tried to swallow the contrast, but when you looked at the x-ray, you could see that it was all just sitting in my esophagus. It wouldn't go down.  So they had me sit back down for 10 minutes (I instantly fell asleep LOL!) and when they looked again, it was all still sitting in the esophagus. I guess everything was so swollen that it just wouldn't go down. So they send me back to my room. The nurse knew how much I'd been looking forward to some yummy crystal lite so it was waiting for me when I got back to my room. I burst in to tears!

My doctor told the nurses to go ahead and let me drink. He had checked for leaks during surgery and was positive I didn't have any. (So why do the dumb study in the first place?) So I had the nurse bring in some herbal tea to see if that would go down. Right at that moment, my bestest OH buddy Trish came to visit! My surgery date is her 1 month surgiversary. She looked AMAZING, I couldn't believe it. She brought me a gift basket full of lots of protein stuff. It was so great to get to chat with her! I was highly drugged though, so Trish please forgive me if I talked gibberish the whole time!! :)

Anyway, with all our chatting I wasn't really paying attention and lo and behold that tea went down. Hurray! So I had crystal light the rest of the evening and then got to have SF pudding and yogurt the next morning. Yum city! It was so delicious! I was home by the afternoon and have been feeling great ever since.

So now, I'm 2 weeks out. Physically, I feel fantastic. I sleep a little later in the mornings and go to bed a little earlier in the evenings. If I get 9 hours of sleep, I feel 100% fine.

The weight loss has not been too wonderful so far. Actually I'm really disappointed. I lost 29 lbs pre-op. Since surgery I've lost 11.5 lbs. In 2 weeks! I keep hearing of all these other people that are losing 20-30 lbs the first 2 weeks! Ughhhh. I'm really struggling feeling like this surgery is not going to work for me. Sometimes I swear it feels like I didn't even have the surgery. I don't feel hunger, but I stopped feeling hunger during the 2 week liquid diet. The thing that sucks is that I don't feel full either! A couple of times I've felt a little bit full, but not really. I hope when I start eating more normal food and the nerves heal up that I will feel some restriction. Right now, the only restriction I have is self imposed -in that I'm not allowing myself to eat. I keep pushing the envelope too. Full liquid diet is supposed to mean "pourable", but I've had some things that I don't think probably qualify. I know it sounds crazy, but I wish I'd throw up or something! I've got this iron-clad pouch that doesn't seem to care what I do it.

Ugh, frustration.

I know its going to get better. I know it is!

So I'm 8 days out now. I wouldn't say I feel 100% yet, but I'm feeling fully functional at this point. My energy is kind of low, but that's to be expected. I remember before surgery I was wondering how this would compare to the c-sections I've had. I would say its less painful, but has about the same recovery time in terms of energy, etc.

Since I'm keeping this blog as a diary of sorts, I thought I should take some time to write about my hospital experience.

My husband could NOT take the day off of work, so I had my best friend bring me in. We went to the surgery check-in and then to the waiting room. Within 5 minutes or so, they had me back in a room. I wish I would have known they required a urine test (pregnancy)...I wouldn't have gone before I left the house. Kind of hard to rustle up more pee after you've been NPO for 8 hours!  I had a terrifying moment where I was POSITIVE I was pregnant. My dh just had a vasectomy, but we haven't had it "checked" yet. Anyway, I obviously wasn't, but I was panicked for a few minutes!

There was lots of hustle and bustle in the room for awhile. Lots of people coming in and asking you the same questions. I was pleasantly suprised to find out that they numb you before doing IVs. I had a zillion IVs, but have never been numbed before. It was wonderful! The started an IV of antibiotic and it turned out I was allergic to it! (It wasn't their fault, I had never had it before). I was covered in a rash. I (again) was panicking because I thought they'd cancel my surgery. They didn't! They just gave me something else.

Finally the anethesiologist comes in and offers me IV versed so I won't remember leaving the room. Sounded good to me! Unfortunately, they didn't give me enough. I remember going in to the OR and the anethesiologist asking if I was feeling loopy yet. I was like, "you better give me some more of the good stuff!". He topped me off and I don't remember anything past that.

I remember about 5 seconds in recovery where they asked me to point to the face on the 1-10 pain chart. I remember moaning and pointing to the 7, but I honestly don't remember the pain. Next thing I remember is being wheeled to my room and saying "ouch" as we went over the bumps. I remember seeing my friend and asking her if everything was OK. I don't remember her answering and I think I slept the next few hours.

I'll have to come back and add more to this later, my 3 year old is trying to "cwick" my mouse all over the screen!

So, I'm home! I got back Friday evening. I'm feeling pretty good. This water thing is SO tough! Its crazy how difficult it is to get in. I think I need to work up the courage to take bigger sips. I'm taking teeny tiny sips all day long and am not getting even close to enough in.
I know the IVs have carried my through to this point, but now I need to really work hard so that I don't get dehydrated.

I can't complain about the pain. Its not too bad at all. I feel like I still need something though, and the liquid oxycodone might be too much. It makes me sleepy and ITCHY! I remember after my c-sections I'd come home with 1000 mg Ibuprofen and it was plenty.
I wonder if I can take liquid tylenol?

Anyway, I will add more about my surgery later. So far I'm feeling good and ready to drop some pounds!! (I haven't dared weighed yet, I feel like I'd gained 15 pounds in the hospital from all the retained water!)

Woo Hoo! Out the door and on my way! See ya on the healthy side!

Pre-op goal that is! Back in December, I decided to set a goal for my self before my surgery date. I really wanted to be below 300, but decided to really challenge myself and make it 290. Guess what? I'm there! 289.5!

The liquid diet has finally become EASY! Finally! Wow, I really struggled for about a week. I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it. I envied the people who were on modified liquid diets. There were days were I would have killed for a salad.

So its Sunday night. Tomorrow I will continue on with my protein shakes. Tuesday is clear liquids, and Wednesday is my day! I'm excited but nervous too. Mostly I'm nervous about recovering. My husband is wonderful and is incredibly supportive, but he simply does not like cooking/cleaning/etc. I have spoiled him rotten in that respect. I'm sure its going to be fine, and if the house is a mess for a couple of weeks, who really cares?

Well, time to sign off. I have lots of little bits and pieces that need to be taken care of by Wednesday!

I believe it was my last blog entry where I wrote something to the effect of "oh, this liquid diet thing shouldn't be too tough".

I was lying, my friends! This liquid diet is SO HARD! I don't know why this is so hard for me.  I won't bore you all with my life story, but the last few years have been extremely challenging by anyone's standards. People are always saying to me that they admire my "strength". I appreciate that sentiment, but what exactly does it mean? 

For example, two years ago, my daughter was very ill and was in and out of the hospital for a few months. My Dad was diagnosed with cancer at the same time. I temporarily moved home to take care of him and take him for his chemo treatments 3 days a week in a town 2 hours away while dealing with my daughter who had just had a naso-gastric tube placed and was attached to a portable machine for round the clock feedings. Yes, it was a really hard time, but what option did I have? I just put one foot in front of the other and just did what needed to be done at that moment.

This is different. In some ways this is harder. If I had to do this diet for the health of my kids or my husband, I would do it no questions asked. Somehow, I have a hard time doing this for ME. What the heck is wrong with me? Why am I so weak?

Ugh, enough whining for the day. Hopefully I will be back and in much better spirits soon.

Boy, there has been some drama around here since my last blog entry. Within a couple days of getting my surgery date, my gallbladder started to go wack-o. To make an extremely long story short- 2 ER visits, 2 dr. visits, 1 cancelled surgery date,a new surgery date for April 14, a CT scan, and ultrasound, and some pleading phone calls, my original surgery date is back on! March 3, here I come!  They are going to remove my gallbladder at the same time. What a relief!

I had my pre-op nutrition and nurse practitioner appointments yesterday. They went really well. The NP was especially pleased with my 15 pound weight loss since my initial consultation. I really wanted to be under 300 per their scales and I was- just barely at 299! The nutritionist warned me to not get discouraged if I don't lose a lot of weight during the pre-op diet. She said that doing the Adkins diet the past 6 weeks has already de-fatted my liver, so I probably won't have a drastic loss. She did say though that doing the 2 weeks of liquids would make it so I wouldn't have to do the pre-op bowel prep I've read about so much on here.(thankyouverymuch)

So today is day 1 of liquids. Honestly, I don't think its going to be too tough. I went 4 days with NO food last week and it wasn't very tough at all. I was feeling so miserable though, so this might be a little tougher.

13 days to go!