Chris G.

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243 this morning.  Still no hunger at all.  Getting very sick of clear liquids and still have a whole week to go before I get to full liquids.  Bored at home, ready to go back to work.  

I think I already see a small difference in my face, and I definitely see it in the way my clothes fit.  I've lost thirty pounds, so I oughta see a difference, right?  Damn straight.  

I hate my fat face, so I haven't put it up here, but over in my photos I've added two partially obscured pix of my face.  One is from February when I was 274 and the other is from today at 243.  I think there's a little bit of a diff.  Do you? 

Before I delve back into the Play By Play I have to fill you in on some of the current stuff that's going on. First and foremost, I am SIX days post-op and apart from some mild tenderness in the belly, the healing incisions, and more gas than you ever thought one human could expel, I feel great. The body's ability to heal is truly amazing.

I bet you'd like to know if I'm hungry. The answer is a resounding NO. Not even one bit. It's bizarre, really. Your mind is just so trained to expect the hunger, so it keeps asking "Am I hungry?" and the body sends back a clear message of no, you are not. For me personally, this is a strange and unusual phenomenon that's sort of blowing my mind, and making me giddy with happiness. This is why I did this. This is what I wanted. This is the feeling I've never been able to achieve on my own and it's wonderful beyond words.

Tomorrow will be my official one week weigh in (I'm going to make every Monday my weigh day for keeping track) but I've been stepping on the scale just out of curiosity, and today's weight? Are ya ready? 250!!! Meaning I'm down 24lbs since I started my pre-op diet. I've lost at least 8, possibly 13 pounds since surgery. I say that because at home I was showing up around 258, but at the doctor I was 263. Of course at the doctor's office I had clothes on and it was late in the day.

Other items of note:

I have the best husband in the world. He cares for me as if I were a baby bird with a broken wing. He has been nothing short of a saint and I love him so very, very much. My children are also tender and loving and willing to fill my ice up or bring me a magazine if I ask them to. It's so good to be loved.

The first three days I was home my phone rang non-stop. No sooner would the receiver be in the cradle and the phone would ring again. I never knew I was so cared for. On Friday, the doorbell rang and it was a flower delivery from my boss, Ben. Gorgeous flowers with a card that read "Get well soon, We miss you around here!" Never in my life have I worked for a person like this man. He's a dream.

I'm living on water, sugar free jello, sugar free Popsicles, broth, and 1% milk. That's it. I drink or slurp continuously because that's what they say to do. I have to remain hydrated or I risk becoming very sick. Sometimes the very last thing I want to do is swallow another sip of liquid, but I force myself. I can only imagine what it's like for people whose surgeons let them start right out with soft foods. My program calls for a clear liquid diet for a full two weeks, then I'll be able to add non-clear liquids for the following two weeks, then I'll be able to add some soft foods. It will be a full six to eight weeks before I even attempt something chewable.

Okay, that's the present. Now back to the Play By Play of my hospital stay. This part should be short because I left of on Wednesday and I was released on Thursday.

So, I'm back in bed and I realize that the curtains are drawn and I have a roommate. In some ways I'm glad not to be alone, but in others I feel a bit invaded. I just hope that it's someone who is quiet and not vomiting. I couldn't handle vomit right now.

The nurses offer me the opportunity to shower, but I'm exhausted and want to rest. I know that the husband is coming around 2 in the afternoon and I'd like to wait until he can sit with me in the shower room. So I rest. I find out that my new roomie is a woman, about my age, and she's just had a full hysterectomy. Apparently she is well known in the medical field because she has dozens of people who work in the hospital stop in to see her. Our curtain is drawn, so I can't see her, but she sounds like a very nice person. I listen in as she explains that she had severe endometriosis that was affecting her ability function normally. All other venues had been tried, so she finally decided to just have everything removed. She's not sad.

Around 3, my darling Mr. Clean arrives. For the first time he is alone and we can just sit quietly and hold hands and talk. I have always known that this man loves me, but it's never more obvious than this day. There is a look on his face that a thousand words could never capture. I get a glimpse of what it might be like when we are in our eighties and living out our golden years.

We go for a couple of walks and I continue to rest. I can now have liquids and my tray arrives. Broth, Decaf Coffee, Sugar Free Jello, and Skim Milk. The only things that are appealing are the jello and the coffee. I pour the skim milk into the coffee, add the packet of Splenda that was provided, and sip it. It tastes funny, but it feels good. The jello is cold and sweet and heavenly.
I am afraid that it may hurt to ingest something, but it doesn't. It does create some funny burbs and gurgles, but no discomfort.

Around 8pm my surgeon arrives. I'm so happy to see him! He looks everything over, tells me I'm doing great and says he'll be back in the morning to take out my drain and let me go home. I want to kiss him.

Mr. Clean and I head down to the shower. Showering has never felt so good. Mr. Clean helps me wash what I can't reach and tells me that my back and butt are completely covered with a raised, red rash. I had wondered why I felt a bit of stinging/itching in those areas. Turns out I'm allergic to the tape that they use to hold everything in place.

Mr. Clean stays until 8:30 and then I'm on my own. This night turns out to be the longest one so far. I can't sleep, I'm restless, and I'm bored with the television. I do manage to watch Rescue Me at 10pm (this season is really disappointing so far) , but then after that I don't know what to do with myself. It's only 11, what the hell am I going to do until morning? I feel bad for my roomie that I can't settle down. This is her first night post-op and she must be exhausted, yet her roomie is up and down and unsettled. I decide for a midnight stroll around the unit. I walk further than I have so far and discover that the maternity ward is around the corner. I wonder if I can go look at newborn babies? Unfortunately the doors are locked and a sign says the unit is locked down from 9pm to 6am daily. Oh well.

Back in my room I open my closet and dig out the reading materials I'd brought with me. Finally I settle in and read for a couple of hours. Still not very tired, but at least I'm settled. The nurses continue to come in throughout the night, either for me or for the roomie (but never at the same time for both of us, which means one is always disturbing the other). The roomie is dehydrated so they are doing rapid fluid infusions on her. The alarm goes off every 30 minutes as another bag is empty. I finally drift in and out of sleep until morning.

Morning comes and I officially get to meet my roomie. She's very nice. Couldn't weigh 100 pounds soaking wet, she's a very tiny woman. We talk about what we had done and she tells me that she has four different friends who have had the bypass and have all been thrilled with their choice. I apologize for being up all night and she says don't sweat it, she was up all night too, she just can't get out of bed yet.

Mr. Clean arrives around 9:30 and my surgeon follows right behind him. It's time to take out the drain. I was nervous about this, having envisioned that the skin must have begun to close around the tube and it was going to hurt to have him pull it out. He removed the bandages and the pin the held the tube to the gauze. For the first time I can see what's been hiding under there. Gross. I'm laying on my back with my arms over my head. He tells me to take a deep breath and as I inhale, he pulls the drain out. I have my eyes closed, so I don't see it, but Mr. Clean says that tube had to be at least 15 to 18 inches long. It doesn't hurt. It sort of feels like when you stick a Q-tip into your belly button and press around. You feel it on the inside and it's a squeamish sort of tickle.

They put new ointment around the opening (a hole! in my belly!) and clean dressing, and that's that. My surgeon goes over my instructions, tells me to call him immediately if there is anything that I'm worried about and wishes me well until we meet again. I get two prescriptions, one for pain meds and another for Protonix. The nurse does all the discharge stuff, including removing the back-up IV port from my right hand and going over dozens of forms that I have to sign, and then I can get dressed! Mr. Clean takes everything to the car and pulls it around front while a volunteer wheels me out.

The ride home is an hour long and I feel every single bump and jiggle. I'm tired and sore, but that's it. Once home I begin my regime of fluids, Mr. Clean fills my scripts, and I rest comfortably in my own comfy bed!

And that folks, is my complete and unedited Gastric Bypass story so far. I hope you have enjoyed and not been too grossed out.

Okay, so it's Monday night. How am I feeling? Mostly drugged up and out of it. I don't really have any pain. I'm pretty numb from the epidural, so my belly just feels sort of heavy and full.

Tuesday morning comes and I realize that someone has delivered a huge flower arrangement to my room. Turns out it is from the girls I work with. Sweet girls, they are. I also get a visit from one of the surgeons in my Dr's practice. I don't particularly care for him, but he's thorough and professional, so I don't care that he's so stiff. (My own doctor told me prior to surgery that he rarely gets to the hospital on Tuesdays, so I would see one of his colleagues instead).

Most of Tuesday my family is there to sit with me, and most of the day I'm pretty out of it. There is constant vital checking and all that stuff, but I just fade in and out of sleep.

Around 3pm a bunch of people come in and attach a huge bar to the top of my bed. It's got one handles on it that will help me pull myself up and down as I try to move. Suddenly, as I move a little bit, I'm struck with wicked dry heaves. They seem to last forever, but it was really only a few minutes. They don't hurt because of the epidural...I imagine without it they would have been hell on earth.

Once the bar is on the bed, the team says it's time for me to leave my ICU room and move over to the regular unit. The family gathers all the stuff and the team gathers all the equipment and we start rolling. I dry heave the entire time. It's awful, but not the end of the world. Diva has a vomit phobia, so this upsets her a bit and she doesn't want to be around me. It's okay baby, Mama understands.

We get to my new room and I'm surprised that it's so tiny. Apparently ICU rooms are mammoth! There is no one in the second bed so I am alone. They get me set up and comfy then the ICU people leave (they were wonderful people and I felt sad to say goodbye to them). As soon as they are gone, the new nurses and aides from this floor arrive. More vitals and questions and blah, blah, blah. The one and only complication that I'm having since surgery is that my blood oxygen falls way too low whenever the O2 is taken out of my nose. Nurses don't like this, so they come check on me every other second. I am still having some dry heaves whenever I move, so they give me some wonderful anti-nausea stuff via IV and it takes them right away.

I don't recall much about Tuesday night. I wasn't nearly as drugged, but I slept better and felt more rested by Wednesday morning. I think I got up and went for a walk around 5am on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning was the first time that I laid there and really thought about what I had done. I had an hour or so where I felt extremely vulnerable and afraid. It just hit me like a ton of bricks that I had put myself in a position where I could die, or fuck up my body forever, or face years of complications, or whatever other dark, depressing thought I could come with. I felt very sad and worried, but I just kept reminding myself of all the people I know who have done this with no problems and how happy they are and how NORMAL they live. The odds are totally in my favor.

There is another side effect that I'm hating, and that is the taste in my mouth. I don't know if it's from the anesthesia or what, but there is just a disgusting taste in my mouth that will not abate. It's sort of a mix of a metallic, rotten meat, overly sweet, noxious chemical taste. I do not like it one bit. All I've been able to put in my mouth are ice chips, which are divine, but that sort of activate that taste as well. Blech.

So it's Wednesday morning and the other surgeon comes to visit again. Everything looks good. I should mention that I have this bulbous drain coming out of the one incision on my stomach. It's like the bulb at the end of the blood pressure cuff, but this one is clear. It fills with fluid and the nurses drain it frequently. I try not to look at it very much because I think it's gross. The other thing that happens frequently is the shots of blood thinner to the belly. Very important not to get clots!

An aide arrives around 9am and says it's time for my leak test. This is the part I have been looking forward to the least. I will have to swallow some type of dye while they take pictures to see if the dye stays where it should or if some leaks out. If any leaks, I will be going back to surgery for repairs. The thought of this, when I already feel as if a bulldozer rammed into my abdomen, is soul-crushing.

The aide must have pressing things to do, because she wheels me as fast as she possibly can down the hallways. I begin to dry heave again, but it's not as bad as before. We arrive at radiology and a Styrofoam cup is pressed into my hand. In it is an orange colored syrup. If hell exists, this is the devil's elixir. It's the consistency of honey, but it tastes more like Robitussin mixed with three week old orange juice. Amazingly, I do not gag or heave. There are about six tablespoons of the stuff, and they keep pushing me to drink, drink, drink! God damn them all to hell. I think I managed to get four swallows down and they make me stand on a stool in front of the x-ray machine. "Hold your breath" Zap. "Okay you can breathe." It's all I can do to not gag and heave, but I'm holding it together. Two more zaps then a man comes in to read the images. He doesn't feel like they are enough of a view, so they want me to lay on the table now and get some done that way. Getting on the table is hard. There is nothing to hold onto and the aides are not helpful. I do not like these two aides one bit. Once on the table they do four more zaps; two while on my back and two while rolled on to my left side (oh what a joy that was!)

Finally the tech approves the images and I'm raced back to my room by the Speed Demon of Floor 2B.

The nurses come and announce that they can now remove my catheter and one IV. Yay! Getting them out is a very nice reward for the shit I just went through. For those who wonder, there is no pain at all when a catheter is removed. The nice anesthesiologist (did I mention this guy was freakin' hot? because he totally was) comes and take the epidural out. Again, no pain. I forgot to mention that McHotty had also come to visit me twice before that just to check on me. I'm telling you, I had wonderful care from everyone on my surgical team.

So now that everything is out, all I have is the O2 for my nose and I only need that when I'm laying down. They have decided that my breathing is way too shallow, so I'm getting breathing treatments and using my incentive spirometer to take deeper breaths. This entire time my chest has felt like there is a fifty pound weight on it and anything more than a shallow breath is very uncomfortable. This is why my O2 level drops off when I lay down, and we have to fix it or I won't be allowed to go home.

I think by now it's going on 11 and I get a surprise visit from my friend Laurie who had her surgery a little less than a month ago. Unfortunately, right as Laurie arrives I begin to have some diarrhea. I rush to the potty and (TMI ALERT!!!) there is much black liquid expelled from the rear end. I blame this on that foul syrup that I had to drink. The black squalls continue and Laurie decides it's not the best time to visit, so she heads out. As I'm hugging her goodbye, I feel wet, hot ick on my legs and I realize that I have just shit down my legs without even feeling it come out. This alarms me and sickens me all at once. I get on the pot and push the alarm for the nurse.

A few minutes later she pokes her head in and asks if I'm okay. I point to the floor and my legs and she sees why I called her. I'm still wearing my white compression hose, so she had to peel them off of me and clean things up. Here's a note: you cannot reach to wipe your own ass when you are swollen up like a balloon, have a drain hanging from your belly, and are too sore to bend over that far. This aide was not interested in wiping my ass for me, so I just had to live with it. This was humiliating and gross. I did get her to give me a pair of those net undies and a large maxi-pad which I placed over my crack just in case Mt. St. Asshole decided to erupt again. This also helped me to not feel as if I was soiling my bed.

Finally, I was back on the bed. I got another anti-nausea med and tried to relax. I felt drained and exhausted by all this activity.

Oh yeah! While I was busy leaving shit trails on the tile, I got a roommate! Perfect timing, no?

Okay, I'm stopping here. Time for some walking and bed rest. I feel really good today, but I don't want to over do it!

Monday, August 6th: Arrive at hospital at 10 as told to. Check in with surgical waiting area person. She advises us that a nurse will come out and call my name when they are ready to put me in the pre-op holding room.

10:40 that nurse does call me back. My entire family is allowed to be with me. They take my vitals and weight and height. Weight 263, height 5' 6.5", BP and pulse ox all good, temp, normal.

Am taken to holding room and given the gown to put on. One regular gown fits me almost all the way around, and since my alternative is one size 10X gown, I opt to keep the normal size one. If I have to walk around, I'll just wrap the sheet over my back like a cape. Surprisingly, I am not nervous or emotional.

Nice nurse puts my IV in and they begin the rapid infusion of fluids. She also gives me a shot of blood thinner in the belly and a shot of Protonix via the IV. I believe the blood thinner is called Hepprin, but I don't know the spelling the Protonix is to kill stomach acids.

By this time it is noon, so the family is hungry. The husband stays with me, and when they mother and spawn returns from eating, he goes and grabs his own sandwich.

There is much sitting around and waiting. We brought a deck of cards and backgammon, which we play to pass the time. The first bag of fluid is done and they begin the second. At this point I feel no hunger whatsoever, I'm not nervous, and I'm just getting impatient for things to move.

Finally at 1:30 the nice nurse comes and says that they are ready to take me to the surgical floor holding area. The family can walk with me, but then Mom and the Girls will have to go to the waiting area. Husband can stay. I forgot to mention that Diva has been video taping each step as we go, so I have all of this on video too.

I hug and kiss my children, promise them that I will see them in a few hours and tell them how much I love them. Nobody cries! My mother gets a bit teary, but she was the only one who was truly nervous all day anyway. They wave goodbye to me as I'm wheeled around the final corner.

In the pre-op area things move quickly. The anesthesiologist comes to see me first. He asks me lots of questions and I ask him my fair share as well. We agree that I'm going to have the epidural as my main form of pain control. The surgeon comes to see me and asks if I'm ready. He assures me that I'm in the best hands possible and that surgery is going to be just fine.

I kiss and hug my hubby and say goodbye and at 2pm they are rolling me away to the OR.

Once in the OR they give me a little something via IV that will help me relax. I walk from the stretcher to the table, where I sit with my back hunched over while a nice assistant holds me steady. The ant. begins to try and get the epidural in. I can feel that he is touching me and that the needle in my back must be touching various nerves, because there is weird pulsing or throbbing like sensations radiating outwards from my spine. He asks me where I feel this and where I feel that. Eventually he must be happy with where he has it because he applies enough tape to hold a ten pound sinker in place when in actuality the tiny hose and the needle at its tip are weightless.

Once I'm taped up, he helps me lay back and the tells me to take a few deep breaths of the air that is coming thru the mask that he's holding over my face, and before I even finish one breath.....I'm gone.

I know that I'm in the recovery room and that my family is with me. Apparently there is no room ready for me in the ICU, so they are letting my family come see me in recovery. I'm not coherent. I think I'm moaning a lot. Hubby says that my whole body is moving under the covers and that they had to give me Benadryl because I wouldn't stop itching. This is a side effect of the epidural. I say goodbye to Mom and the Girls so that she can get them home. Hubs stays with me. I'm in and out, mostly out. At some point I get an ICU room and they take me over there.

Hubs leaves around 10:30PM.

Around midnight I start to wake up and ask the nurse if I should get up and walk. It's been stressed to me over and over that the walking is very important.

I have the IV, the epidural, O2 in my nose, a Foley Catheter, and the pulse-ox thing on my finger. I'm wired! But she helps me get it all under control and we go for a short walk. I use a walker and each step is small and careful. I'm wobbly. Back in bed, I sleep for the rest of the night. They come in often to check vitals and give me shots.

(I'm going to stop here because I'm exhausted and need to go rest. Will tell the rest later tonight or tomorrow)

I'm home.  Surgery went as smooth as possible.  Dr. Moon said I had perfect anatomy and my surgery was one of the easiest he's ever done.  

I'm too tired to write my whole surgical story right now, but I will when I'm feeling more up to it.  

Everything so far is perfect.  I just have to get thru these next ten days or so without getting dehydrated, getting an infection, springing any kind of leak, or any other random complication that could happen.  This part is more nerve wracking than pre-op because now I feel completely vulnerable!  

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes and prayers.  They are appreciated more than you'll ever know.