Jen F.

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Barb at Park Nicollet gratefully agreed to let me use thier scale to weigh myself at my 2 month mark.  It's actually 2 months and one week since surgery, but it's close.

My new weight is 247.9 (clothed).  That is 51.5 pounds lost which is 17.2% of my highest body weight lost.  I'm glad for that.  My BMI has almost dropped 10 points.  I'm wearing a size 18/20 top and 24P pants.  I can fit in 22.  When I started, I was a 26/28 on top and bottom.

I just came from my 1 month post-op appointment.  I am down 28.1 pounds with a prediction that I will reach 30 by the 15th.  Dorothy told me that averaging 1 pound a day in the first month is very good.  I have lost 5 inches from my waist and 4 inches on my hips.  I'm pleased, but not happy.  I thought I would be 40 pounds down by 1 month.  Dorothy said that was unrealistic.  I never really thought about inches lost, so there's no expectation there to disappoint.  I'm kind of a goal driven girl and I disappoint myself easily.  I asked if I can expect to keep losing 30 pounds per month and I was told no.  I didn't ask how much I will lose then, because I was pretty sure she wouldn't have given me an answer anyway.  Well, surgery is working.  For sure.  It's measurable.

I've kind of been lead to believe that this is when it starts to snowball though.  As I can eat more variety and continue to lose weight, I'll feel better.  The water will get easier to drink.  The sizes will drop.  I'll have more energy.  Bring it on because for the second day in a row, my butt is dragging and I'm dehydrated.

Dispike a rocky bowel prep day (threw it up, had to do it again), Surgery Day was a pretty good day. Beautiful morning. Good friends and family. Unfortunately I was so zoned out after recovery, I wasn't very good company, couldn't track any conversation and could barely keep my eyes open. I slept for about an hour in the afternoon and felt great. I got myself untangled from all of my stuff (grrr, I have a catheter) and went for a walk. I walked by the nurse's station and kind of freaked her out. She didn't know I wanted to walk around. She made me promise I'd let her know I wanted to walk BEFORE I actually went for a walk. I walked three of the four wings up here and didn't really get too tired. When I was getting in bed, I popped off the bulb from my J-tube. I called the nurse. When she came into the room, she thought I had been trying to take it out! (I think not) I had some more guests and pooped out. When I woke up and had pain I wasn't having before. I really hadn't been using my morpheine pump an I knew they wanted to swtich me to Roxicet, so I called the nurse. I'm not quite sure why, but the pain was the worst I'd had so far and I started to get scared it meant something was wrong so I started crying. The nurse thought the last of my surgery drugs were wearing off which is why I finally needed pain meds. I tolerated to Roxicet ok and they gave me a sedative and I fell back asleep. I've been gotten up twice for vitals, but now at 1am I'm not really feeling like I want to go to sleep, so I thought I'd check in on you fine people. They said my next vital check is at 4am. I'm sipping 20cc of water. They want me to do 20/hour but I'm feeling more thirsty than that. I still have some air bubbles. I burp when I drink anything and my incisions are starting hurt. Things are going as well as can be expected. I'm really pleased how good I feel. Feel free to stop by and visit if you want. I think Wednesday is going to be a very good day. Thank you SO MUCH to all of you for keeping me in your thoughts and a special thanks to my Angels. HUGS to everyone!

I had a 7am pre-op physical with my primary care physician this morning.  I was weighed.  I'm down about 7 pounds so far on the liquid diet.  My vitals are good.  He ordered a cholesterol test and a tetnus shot.  I also asked him to order a bone density test and prescribe some valium because I'm starting to get freaked out about surgery.  Yesterday I had a mental health appointment and got my Lexapro changed to liquid.  Hopefully, I'll be able to pick up the Lexapro and Valium/diazepam after work today.

The liquid diet is ok as long as I keep drinking the CIB.  If I wait too long and start to get hungry, it's like a caged animal has been set lose and no one knows if it has rabies or not.  Yesterday I really started getting nervous.  It's not the procedure, I know that will be ok.  It's the voluntarily walking in there knowing they will knock me out and cut into me.  It just seems so wrong and unnatural.  This is my first surgery.  Hopefully any after will be easier to tolerate.  I only have one week to go.  Six more days of CIB.  One day of clear liquids and bowel prep and I'm there.

I've got some updating to do!  I had my appointment on 7/19 and got a surgery date of 8/15.  It wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared. 

I've kind of been a bit stunned since then and only in the last day or so does it feel like I'm actually doing anything about surgery. 

Yesterday I started doing a modified liquid diet.  I drink Carnation Instant Breakfast (CIB) for meals (10oz skim milk +1 packet) and water the rest of the time.  I'm drinking my water from a 2 ounce plastic cup so I'll get used to drinking in small amounts.  I've discovered that tossing it back like a shot isn't comfortable so I'm sipping it.  I've also discovered that I really have to have a lot of those little shots to get un-thirsty when I've gone too long without drinking.  When I have a clock visable, I try to drink 2oz every 15 minutes which is getting me 8oz an hour.  I did that really well yesterday and had to pee all day!  I don't think I've ever been so hydrated. 

I decided I'll allow myself to eat food for dinner if I must, but otherwise I'll have CIB.  We had a company event last night and I had a chicken sandwich, baked beans and a Coke.  1. It didn't taste that good, 2. I got there two hours late and was so hungry by that point I was really cranky.  It wasn't worth it.  I'm having a quiet night tonight so I plan on sticking to the CIB.

 

I'm having all the same issues everyone has when doing the liquid diet.  I smell foods from other people when I'm at my desk at work, there are people around me discussing snacks - ice cream bars vs. rice krispie bars.  I'm suddenly VERY aware of how much food is discussed.  I'm not really tempted to breakdown and have some because I'm drinking my CIB before I get too hungry, it's just a strange feeling to know I won't.  I must be doing OK because I even watched a show on cakes and didn't get a hankering.  The water and the CIB seem to be doing it, but it doesn't taste as good as somethings smell.

 I figure I'm getting about 600 calories/day total with the CIB and water and not more than 1400/day if I eat supper.  I go to the nutritionist tomorrow and hope I find I've lost some weight, but I'm not betting on it.

 Two weeks to go.  Two weeks from right now and I'll be coming out of surgery.

My consult is tomorrow and I'm not really looking forward to it.  I talked to Barb yesterday.  Svendson is booking surgery in September.  I could wait 2 more months before I have surgery.  I'm so disappointed, it's indescribable.

I'm approved and my surgery consult is in 2 weeks.  I'm this weird combination of excited, inspired and antsy.  One of the realities of being in this process so long is watching all the people who've passed me by and had surgery before me.  Fifty pounds in 11 weeks, 120 pounds in 8 months etc, etc, etc.  I can barely conceive it in my mind, but yet I'm watching it happen. 

 Everyone is looking so good, feeling so good, I'm jealous, but I'm also inspired because these are people I saw before surgery and now I can see the change and how quickly it's happening for some.  It's inevitable that it will happen to me too, but I'm not feeling very patient.  I figure I'm a month or more away from surgery now.  I'll be hitting my stride right around my birthday (January 1) which seems awful far away.  I can't make time go fast enough at this point.  A nice coma would do right now.  I'd be all rested up for surgery, time would fly by.  Hmmmm....

nuf said

Not much has happened as far as progress towards my approval despite calling all parties involved daily.   The person who had my paperwork took PTO with it sitting on her desk.  Instead of being the decision maker, she was just  paperwork flunky, so now I'm waiting for the decision maker(s) to get their act together.  The expediting was cancelled because my condition is not life-threatening.  My HR is fine with not expediting and defends the medical insurance company.  I got my boss involved.  She's been wonderful, a great advocate for me, but still nothing has changed.  I went to visit Farrah to get her mind off of looking for her furniture and my waiting for approval.  I really thought that everything would be settled by the time I came back to work yesterday.  It wasn't and I had a complete meltdown.  I cried for a total of 2 or 3 hours yesterday, most of it at work, which doesn't do well for the resume.

Today, I've got a lump in my throat and tears waiting to come if I think about it too much.  I feel weighted down and I'm having a hard time acting normal - planning a shower for my coworker who's getting married, complimenting my team lead on her new hairdo. 

When I got my boss involved, I told her I was at my end.  She seems to think it was a figure of speech, but it's not.  I'm really tapped out on enthusiasm, positive thinking and fighting for what was promised me.