Jessica A.

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I had a really rough day today.  I saw my surgeon for my one week follow-up today and told him that my left side was bothering me.  I just thought that it would at least feel a little better by now since my surgery and the pain had not let up any.  I also had not had a BM yet and I wasn't feeling well in general (was getting chills then getting sweaty but with no temp).   He agreed that I looked a bit punk (his word) and thought it was best that I have a CT scan to make sure everything was working ok.  I had to drink two large cups of barium which is not an easy feat with my new little pouch.  I think it took me a bit over an hour to do it.  Then went off to CT and had to get hooked up to an i.v. contrast thingy.  They had a hard time finding a vein and it took a couple people and a few pokes but they finally got it in.  They went to start the CT and as the dye was getting injected, the i.v. blew and dye went all over me, down my arm,shirt,hair.  They had to stop the CT and redo my i.v. and restart the CT.  Got that all done finally and went out to the waiting room to wait for my surgeon to review and talk to me.  I wasn't feeling too hot at this point, I haven't been up and around this much since my surgery.  A nurse saw me looking not too swift and asked if I wanted to lay down.  God bless her!  I gratefully obliged and went and laid down to wait for my surgeon.  He came in shortly after and said that my CT looked good and that to give it a couple more days and let him know if my pain got worse or any issues arised.  He helped me up and I did NOT feel good and I think he could see it written all over my face and asked me if I was going to pass out and I said yes.  He laid me back down and decided to have me hooked up to an i.v. for a couple hours to pep me up as he put it.  The nurse came in and saw that I was going to be difficult to get an i.v. in and needless to say it took 3 people, 6 pokes and 3 of my veins blew out but they finally got one in me.  All in all I was there for 6 1/2 hours and I checked out all right but with a few bumps. 

I just got the call from the hospital with the time I need to check-in.  6:30am.  Normally I wouldn't be too happy about this time but I am so excited it doesn't bother me one bit.  Plus this means I am the first person for the day.  I am fortunate to have a good friend of mine coming up Thursday night to stay with me and then drive me to the hospital Friday morning.  We have to give ourselves about 1 1/2 hours of driving time because of the icy roads so I will probably need to get up at 3:30am but I don't think it's going to be a problem as I don't think I won't be able to sleep a wink the night before.  I can't wait!

I saw the dietician today and got my last weigh-in before surgery (down 15 pounds - yeah!).  I found out that I do NOT have to do the liquid diet for a week.  (just the day before surgery)  I am sooooo glad.  I also met with the pre-op nurse to go over pre-op instructions.  Got some blood work done.  Everything went good.  There was an issue  brought up about my head pressure and some concerns about having surgery with it so the nurse wanted to check with my neuro-opthamologist and the anesthesiologist and have them all say it was ok to go ahead with surgery.  This came as a bit of a surprise to me because they've known about my condition the whole time and I was baffled as to why this was only now being dealt with.  I do understand being safe for the surgery so I just waited for her to call me back.  She did and said everything was fine and the anesthesiologist felt comfortable that everything will be fine.  I didn't hear back the official results from my thyroid ultrasound but the nurse had received my clearance from my PCP so it must have been fine.  Yes!  I am officially cleared.  I can't wait for next Friday!

Had my pre-op physical with my PCP yesterday.  Got the usual stuff checked out, blood pressure, heart, lungs, weight (i've lost 15 pounds since my last visit - yay!).  All that stuff was good.  He felt my neck and told me that my thyroid is larger on the left side and he wants to get it checked out.  I have had blood tests many times over the years for my thyroid and they have always come back fine including one as recent as this past year but he wants to just be safe and get an ultrasound of my neck.  He thinks it will all be fine.  I told him maybe it's always been that way and now he's noticing it the first time because my neck is skinnier.  ;)  I have my ultrasound on Monday.  I really hope this doesn't mess up my surgery.  It's only 14 days away. 

Woohoo!  Got a call today that I was approved for surgery.  My pre-op physical will be on December 30th,  then I will meet with the dietician on January 7 to go on my 1 week liquid diet and then my surgery will be on January 14th!  I am so excited that it's finally happening.  I had a lot of hoops to jump through.  There was a lot of doubts about whether I would get approved because of my special situation with my BMI being towards the low end and not having a "condition" that the insurance company is used to dealing with.  I am so looking forward to hopefully getting rid of my "head" thing and getting better!

Today I had my appointment to see the dietician for my final weigh-in to get my paperwork sent in for insurance approval.  Finally!  We also went over the start of my pre-surgery diet which is a low to no carb diet for a couple weeks (ie. no breads,pasta,sugar,juice,etc)  I started that immediately.  I am super excited to get the ball rolling.  She said I will also switch over to a liquid diet one week before surgery but I would see her again before that pending my approval.  I also met with pharmacy to discuss what medications I would be taking after surgery and how to take the ones I have now with the new pouch.  Then I met with the surgeon and discussed my final decisions about which surgery I wanted and talked about what he needed to put in his letter to my insurance company to help me out.  He answered all my questions I had and was very easy to talk to.