Anna D.

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So I've moved on to pureed foods.  Today is 3 days post surgery.  Last night I had pureed cottage cheese with some soy milk added to thin it out a little.  It was yummy.  Then this morning I had cream of wheat made with soy milk and also added some plain yogurt to it.  I put a scoop of unflavored protein powder in the cream of wheat.  I was able to eat about 3-4 Tablespoons of it and I started to feel full.  30 minutes later I'm really glad I stopped when I did or I would be in pain.

So what does full feel like now?  Right after surgery you feel stuffed and full of gas.  Then, as you progress, you're able to fart a lot of it out and you sort of feel like you need to burp all the time.  Sometimes you do burp but other times it's just slight discomfort.  For me, feeling full felt like my chest was stuffy.  I'm still wearing my binder because I didn't take it off after I got up this morning.  So when they say it feels like tightness in your chest they're right.

I had Ben take a few photos of my incisions so you can see where they were.  His parents are out camping this weekend so if we get bored we might go out there to visit for a little while.  It's mostly a little walking and some sitting so it won't be too bad.  I was talking to a friend last night that has had several heart surgeries and he's 26.  He was telling me that bed rest per doctor's order is the most boring thing because you can't do much.  At least my husband goes back to work on Monday so he isn't home and bored the whole time.

Well, we got up at 3am the day of surgery.  We left the house maybe around 3:40am  and arrived at Abbott Northwestern Piper building around 5:15am.  In the waiting room there was this guy that was very overweight with another guy and a woman.  It sounded like the woman was having surgery but all the fat guy could talk about was going to McDonald's for breakfast *rolls eyes*

Anyway, I was called back and weighed (I lost 12 pounds during my one week liquid diet which was fantastic!!).  I got all changed and all that fun stuff.  My nurse was on the older end but I asked her and she said she has worked at Abbott for 30 years.  Wow!!  They made me do an EKG which was nothing.  They took 2 vials of blood from me.  I met the anesthesiologist and his student/intern guy and also the anesthesia nurse.  It was the most painfree IV I have had put in.  Dr. Drew came in around 7:20am and "initialed" my tummy (it's still there!).  I was given the lovely relaxer and wheeled into surgery.  I only remember them putting the O2 mask on me but I was out from there on.

I woke  up in recovery with a pain around 5-6 but they gave me something and that made me feel lots better.  Ben said that I was out of surgery and recovery and into my room by 11:30am.  He stayed with me for nearly the whole afternoon and didn't leave until around 6pm.  He stayed with some friends of ours in Burnsville.  They had me sipping water by 4 or 5pm or something like that.  I know they wanted me to do one small medicine cup each hour.  I took my time and did really well with it.  My level of pain hovered around 3-4 on a scale of 1-10.

My surgeon came by around 6:00am Thursday morning to see how I was.  He said again that everything went great and that I could go home.  I had breakfast (chicken broth, milk, and chocolate milk) and then I also had lunch later on (chicken broth, milk, and jello).  The jello didn't taste good so I didnt eat it.  I got my bag of SWAG that I should have gotten had I gone to the pre-op class.  Ben and I left at 2pm and drove home.  It took 2 hours to get home since traffic was a little heavy on 35W.  I napped for a little when we got home and was awake for most of the rest of the time.

I slept in our bed last night which felt great with my back.  I went to bed around 10pm and hooked up my cpap and I took a percoset and fell asleep without much pain.  I woke up around 3am needing another dose and then slept straight through until 11am.  I am just slightly sore right now.  It's partially gas and having the feeling of being backed up.  The other part is feeling the soreness.

I took a shower with my husband earlier and he washed my hair for me, etc.  It was really nice and I felt SO much better afterword.  I have two nightgowns that I got when I had my gall bladder removed and they still fit (imagine that) and I've been wearing that so far.  Very comfortable.  I'm excited because I just finished one 16oz bottle of water PLUS having soup and some soy milk on top of that.  It's incredibly exciting that I'm able to get more fluids in.

Tomorrow is my surgery.  I'm super excited.

I took the magnesium citrate this afternoon.  It worked within 20 minutes.  I've been pretty cleaned out already on this whole liquid diet thing.  It's nearly 6pm and we're already "running clean" as it were.  I'm trying to keep myself busy until around 8pm when I can do my shower thingy and go to bed.  We went to bed around 1am last night and Ben got me up at 8am so I would be able to sleep tonight.  I'm pretty tired right now.  It probably doesn't help that I have had really low calories today.  I'm trying to keep myself hydrated but it's hard.  The nurse Vicki tried to call me but Ben was playing Rock Band so loud I didn't hear my phone ring.

I can't believe it's happening.  I can't believe it's tomorrow; I actually have to be there in less than 12 hours.  When I began this journey, I imagined that I wouldn't have a date until August or October but May 27th?!  Wow... I actually wanted a May surgery date though.  I wanted to have this done before June and it looks like I'm getting my wish.  I graduated from high school on May 27, 2001 and now eight years later I'm having a rebirth of sorts.  I moved down to Mankato, got married, graduated college, bought a house. 

Big steps, folks!  Whew!  I'll update as soon as I can! 

I just saw a horrible commercial.

It starts with a little girl wearing a sports uniform sitting on the front steps of a house looking forelorn.  Mom comes out and says "rough game?" or something to that effect and the little girl says "I don't want to talk about it".  So what does mom do!? SHE GIVES HER SOME DOTS ICE CREAM!!!!!! What the f@cking hell?!  I becoming more and more sensitive to commercials and advertising.  Sure, I was sensitive in the first place from my social work classes and women's studies courses but come on!

Sheesh.

Okay, tomorrow is prep day!!! I'm SUPER excited!!

So this is day 7 of my Liquid Diet.  Normally you need to do 14 days per the surgeon but since my surgery was moved up 3 weeks (oh thank goodness) I can only do the number of days I have time for!  I'm not missing food as much as I was the first day.  Ben ordered a pizza last night and I didn't strangle him.  He swears he feels bad about it but I don't know why he wasn't choosing more humble foods to eat.  Ugh, tomorrow I have to take the magnesium citrate.  I'm not looking for that

Ben (hubby) and I went out and did a few geocaches around the area today. I'm really tired but I should be. I slept about 6 hours and, from the point of breakfast until now, I have had:
-8oz Light Soy Milk (50 cals, 6g protein)
-Vanilla Whey Isolate Powder - 1 scoop (112 cals, 26g protein)
-Four frozen strawberries mulched in the blender with the shake (30 cals, 0g protein)
-Four SF puddings (60 cals each, 2g protein each = 240 cals, 8g protein)
-One SF jello (10 cals, 1g protein)
--Total = 442 calories, 41g protein

I still have my shake for later in the day plus whatever else. I need to hit 80g of protein each day. Maybe I'll have a shake now and then have one late tonight to make sure I hit it. I could use some extra cals and protein after all the running around today. We still have to go out and get more cat food and such.  Oh well, we'll go out later and take care of it.

My husband just ordered a chicken alfredo pasta bowl, a 1-toppping large pizza, and got free cinnamon sticks from Domino's pizza. Am I upset? Nope!  I will enjoy the hell out of the smell of everything and make myself a protein shake.  Sure, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have a slice or two of pizza, etc, but I am NOT screwing this up for myself.

Ah, it has arrived.  Anyway, after a day of yard work and fixing the internet (stupid bad cable modem) we're going to watch WALL-E.  Maybe we'll do a fire again later.  Two more days *sigh*

Seriously, what ISN'T to be excited about right now?  I don't have to go back to work until June 11th or sometime around then.  I'm 4 days away from surgery.  I've nearly lost the required 10 pounds pre-surgery.  I think the thing I'm MOST not looking forward to are between 12pm Tuesday and 7:00am Wednesday.  I know I'm probably not going to sleep Tuesday night.  Ben thinks that's okay because it's not like I have to be awake for the surgery or as if I have to drive.  This is true but I don't like waiting. 

I've been studying my "Day 1 (clear liquids)" and "Day 2 to 2 weeks  (full liquids and pureed diet)" food stages.  Anyone else that's familiar with Dr. Drew or even Abbott Northwestern is familiar with this plan.  It's going with us when we go grocery shopping this weekend.  I've been surviving on protein shakes with soy milk and some fruit thrown in to cut the protein taste because OH MY GOD I can hardly drink it without some added flavor of some kind.  I should get some SF syrups while we're out as well.  SF pudding and jello.  SF Cub brand crystal lite type drink mixes.  I've really been getting my protein in each day and my calories seem to be hovering anywhere between 750-950.  

I've read from others that having their gall bladder removed was more painful than having the RNY.  I've had my gall bladder removed and that was 5 years ago.  I remember waking up at night a lot needing Ben to give me some pain meds.  The gas pain settled in my right shoulder and that hurt the most.  I wish I had known back then that walking would help the pain.  I'm very very curious to find out if the pain is comparable or not.  Over the last 5 years my threshold for pain has increased.  I got another tattoo right on the middle of my back.  I never realized it would hurt but it did - BUT I made it through.  I plan to get more tattoos after I lose the weight.  I used to be really scared of needles but after 2+ years on Depo Provera and giving blood and having blood drawn and flu shots they no longer bother me.  I've stubbed my toes so many times.

Oh, let's add on that I stopped taking my birth control on this past Monday and I had to suffer cramps all week without any kind of pain meds (didn't have any Tylenol).  I usually don't take anything anyway but I whined anyway.

The sun just came out so I think I'm going to go check out the wind damage from earlier this week and possibly mow the lawn.

Day three of liquid diet and I think I am balancing out now.  Someone tipped me off about wanting salty/savory things.  So the other day and this evening I splurted a little bbq sauce on a plate and dabbed at it with a finger and licked it off my finger.  A little gross but just that little dab of a teaspoon of bbq sauce satiated my needs.

I went to Cub and picked up more soy milk and sugar free pudding.  I've been getting the Light Soy Milk.  One brand that I like is 8th Contitent Lite.  They only had one carton of the one I like so I picked up another carton of the 'Silk' brand of Light soy milk.  It's much thinner which made my dinner shake less 'substantial' so to speak.

I need to figure out where I can buy Isopure and some more/different protein powders.  Any ideas and brand names?

I made my protein shake this morning and added some flash-frozen whole strawberries with it in the blender. OH MY GOD YUMMY!
I was somewhat dreading my shake this morning but this made it SO yummy!

I had nightmares last night that I couldn't get my chest x-ray done and I had to cancel my surgery.  I was bawling in my sleep and I woke up crying once or twice.  I don't usually have vivid dreams like that.  This surgery is SO important to me and even the fact that it got moved up 3 weeks is even more important to me.

I called the Radiology Department (Digital Imaging area they call it now) this morning and they said I can walk in for a chest x-ray and that my doctor will 'prescribe' it after my physical later this morning. WHEW.  There is no way in hell I would have been able to fast for this physical/blood lab.

I'm in a much better mood today.  I also woke up around 6:00am with cramps in my abdomen.  I sat in the bathroom for a little while and had quite the fanfare of a bowel movement.  I swear all my water/shakes were pressing to get out.  I feel less water-weighted today.  I don't know if that was supposed to happen or if it was just my body's reaction to "oh noes, no solid foods!"

To cheer YOU up, here's a photo...

Oh lord.  First day of liquid diet.  It felt like the day CRAWLED.  It's not that bad but I would KILL for even a damn slice of american cheese. It's mostly the salty/savory flavor I'm missing right now. I'm tempted to just take a salt shaker to my tongue.  As it stands right now, I have had about 700 calories and 90g of protein... Maybe a slice of cheese will not throw me off the wagon.  I am peeing like crazy, too. I've probably had about 80 ounces of water IN ADDITION to my protein drinks.

I have my "emergency" physical tomorrow morning at 10:15am.  I have to remember to grab my sheet from the surgeons. Tomorrow at 7:30am is one week until surgery.  I'm so freakin excited.  I don't feel as anxious as I was feeling on Saturday and Sunday which is a relief.