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So I was chatting with Waning Woman on Twitter (I'm @KellisRedDoor) today.  I was complaining that my sleeve is very talkative.  He can't shut up!!  She suggested that I name it.  She named hers Sleevie Wonder and she said name it something like that.

So I settled on Sleevie Van Zandt.  I grew up in Jersey and love Bruce Springstein and the E St Band and I'm from the area that the Sopranos are based on.  I might have even gone to school with a couple of kids that have parents that charactors based on them...

I have also lost 1/3 of the weight that I'm planning on losing!  Woo hoo!  It feels great!

I haven't posted in awhile but I thought I would update the latest...

I am slowly but surely losing weight.  More importantly I'm losing inches.  Last weekend I cleaned out my closet and emptied more than half of the clothing in there.  And what is left is mostly stuff that is a little big on me. 

A couple of years ago, when I rented my house out and moved in with my mother, I gave away so many of my clothes.  I gave my mother about 10 pairs of jeans that didn't fit me anymore but were too nice to give away and I had hoped she would wear them.  She never did but never gave them away either.  So last week she presented me with all of the jeans and a skirt that I really liked too!  I was pretty excited! 

My birthday was two weeks ago and it was a really nice one!  My sweetie surprised me by calling me and waking me up with birthday greetings!  I was so excited that he called me since calling in the morning from work is never something he does.  I was supposed to get a package delivered that day.  But it never came. 

He called the next morning, and while we were on the phone, the Fed Ex guy came.  In he box was a necklace with a garnet in it!  15 minutes later the doorbell rang again and a flower arrangement with a bear arrived. 

So now is the countdown - 3 weeks - until I go and visit him in TX.  I can't wait!  I don't know if he'll recognize me! LOL

I'm not one that makes New Year's resolutions.  Mostly because I don't follow through with them.

I'm still not going to make any "resolutions" for this year.  But I am going to make a list of things that I need to work on. 

When it comes to my weight, I basically forced myself to have a list by having the surgery.   

Oh I'm not going to be ridgid in timelines of how many pounds or inches by a certain date. 

Instead I am going to strive to do the best I can with my new stomach to make myself the healthiest person I can be.  I'm also working to help my mother be more healthy as well.

Happy New Year everyone!!

So I'm bruised everywhere.  I always joke around how "delicate" I am.  But it's really no joke.  I was bruised on my back right after the surgery - presumably from moving me to a bed.

My stomach is one huge bruise across.  To the left and to the right of my belly button.  It's from the blood thinner shots.  It's really ugly. 

Not to mention the ugliness of my incisions all over.  I hope one day I'll get a lower body lift and won't see any scars!!!

Wow I haven't written in awhile.  I haven't felt like doing much of anything but I thought I would try to get some words on paper (so to speak) since I want to have a record of this entire journey and what was happening while I'm going thru it...

Let's go back to the day before surgery.  I had some problems with the surgeon's office about my financing which got resolved.  I was hungry.  And I was pretty nervous.  By the time that 11:00 pm rolled around I had not heard one word from Ray.  I was furious that he said he would call and didn't .  So I called him and blasted him (I was crying at this point since I had been weepy all day).  He apologized and said that he had been in the hospital for one of his headaches.  I said I'm sorry to hear that but you weren't too ill to get online and screw around there.  We had a serious conversation about our "relationship" and where it is going and where he wants it to go.  He knows how I feel about him and right now the ball's in his court.  There was another issue but too lengthy to go into.  So we talked awhile and he said he would call and talk to me after my surgery. 

The next day, I got to the hospital an hour early - I live on the 95 corridor and with rush hour traffic you never know how long you will be sitting in traffic.  That day there was no traffic - it was weird.  So I got all ready for surgery and had my IV started and they came and took blood for typing.  They gave me my first heparin shot. (I am still bruised but more on bruising later).

Then we (my mom and I) sat there waiting.  I was trying to hold it together so I actually didn't say much.  My phone rang and it was Ray!!!  It was so sweet of him to call me and he helped calm me down alot.  He said he would call back later and talk to my mother to find out how surgery went.

So my doctors come in and say hi blah blah blah and I'm all let's get this party started.  He said we'll take you in there in 20 minutes.  WOOHOO!

Twenty minutes came and went.  What is going on I'm thinking to myself!  My doctor came back in and said that there was a problem with the operation rooms and they overbooked the OR that has all the equipment to do my surgery.  It will be another 45 minutes.    I was like say what?  Tell them to get out!  (Yes I did say that)

But I had to wait another two hours - yes TWO MORE HOURS!!!!  I was thinking, I could've slept in later...

So they finally wheel me into the OR.  And the doctor is standing next to me waiting for everyone to get everything ready -- I guess he was just as ready as I was to get this going!  Then one of the nurses asks 38 or 40 bougie.  He says 38 and I said that's a great number!  The last thing I remember after that was getting a shot of anesthesia in my IV that made me scream. Yup I screamed.  Then I was out.

This next part of the story is mostly from what I was told by my mother and a little by Ray since I was passed out.  My surgery was finished at 2 pm and Mom said I was in there for 1 hour and a half.  The doctor came out and told her that I did great and that I would be in recovery for an hour and then taken to my room.  The weird thing about the recovery room in the hospital that I was in (I've never had surgery there before) is that no one, not even family is allowed back there.  Unless you're my mother, who had Ray egging her on to make it even worse.

You see I was in recovery for 6 hours total.  Not because there was something wrong with me but because they didn't have a room for me.  So my persistent mother bugged them constantly to find out what on earth was going on.  Finally she said, take me back to see my daughter at once so that I know that she's alive!  My understanding is that Ray called during this time and my mother had been nervous and asking if she could go back and Ray told her to flip out on them I guess.  I know she would have gotten there on her own but his nudge moved the process along faster.

So she got to come back and see me for a few minutes until another patient came in.  The only thing I remember from that time was that my mom came in to see me and then when I woke up again I was calling for her, not knowing where I was.  The nurses were yelling it's okay Kelli we're getting you a room.

Then it turned out that when they finally got an empty room, there was no one to get me to the room.  So now my mother is sitting in my room waiting for me and an hour later, I'm still not there. 

-- Just as a side note, don't joke around with loved ones that the hospital might lose you.  It really just makes it worse...

So Mom goes to the nurse's station and starts flipping out and they call down to recovery and say get her up here now!!!!

I got to my room sometime after 8:00/8:30 pm. 

God was I miserable!  I know I got another shot of heparin and I just kept saying "pain medicine now" all night.  My mom stayed with me at the hospital that night.  She was going to go home but she didn't trust anyone at that point.

I do remember waking up that night and going to the bathroom and saying that I needed to start walking the halls.  I couldn't get from the bed to the bathroom at that point...  Drugs do strange things to us.

The next morning after the night from hell, a new shift came on.  I actually don't know how many shifts there were during the night except that the nurse the first night was so great - she kept giving me pain medicine! 

But the next day I had one nurse all day long.  That day was terrible.  I was in so much pain!  

So they sent me down for my leak test.  Let me just say that I thought I was going to throw up since the gal that took me was "driving" so fast.  And I think they could have found a straighter path than we went.  I felt like I was on a roller coaster -- hence the wanting to throw up.

Then to get on this machine when you don't have good balance to begin with and drink that stuff that again makes you want to throw up is horrible.  BUT the worst part is turning you sideways on the machine!  

Honestly I don't remember if they told me they were going to do that and I didn't hear them or they just did it but I screamed again. (I honestly do not scream this much in my life but shit hurt so I've started screaming)

Everything was fine and back to my room via the roller coaster ride again!

Then they tell me I can order some "food".  I just said how about you go and get me some nausea meds and some pain meds and keep them coming and we'll call it a day.  That didn't work....  So I ordered a Popsicle, jello, tea and water.  None of that went down.  Ice chips please!

In between all of this fun, my phone starts ringing and since the pushed the table across the room I can't get to it.  It was Ray leaving me a message.  Once my mother got there, I called and left him a message.  Apparently I sounded very bad...  He called later and I sounded very bad some more...  He didn't tell me this until later...

Then it was time to get up and walk the halls.  I'm just happy there are no pictures of this adventure for the first half of the day...  I had a death grip on the IV machine and I was hunched over taking tiny steps. 

So the day just wore on with me feeling nauseous and demanding pain medication and nausea meds.  When the first doctor came in to see me and how I was doing, he said I have made sure that you can take your medicines.  A couple of them are important to be on schedule and not miss more than a dose.

What I didn't know is that he had started yelling at nurses about it.  That's okay that shift deserved it.  My nurse sucked!  She would give me one kind of pain med and then when I needed more she would say you can't have that for 2 hours but I can give you this other one.  Yeah okay whatever let's keep a steady stream of pain meds in my body here!!!  I was on an ordered dose of nausea meds so I got that every 6 hours.

When my surgeon came to see me, I was in bad shape at that point of the day (the day went up and down).  He told me not to worry about the liquids since my stomach was still swollen and to concentrate on ice chips and any water I could get in.

I had hoped that I would have a quiet night on the second night.  Nope.  Every 2 hours someone was in my room doing something and at one point I said if there isn't pain medicine or nausea medicine in your hands, don't come back!

Oh My Gosh!  How could I forget that I got my period 9 days early?  And I thought my insides were coming thru my vagina at one point!!!  I had my period for 7 days... 7 DAYS!  Of really bad bleeding...  I've never bled like that in my life.

The next day I was able to get cleaned up and change into a new hospital gown just in time for my doctor to come in and check me.  I said I don't like it here can I go home and he said yes!  Woohoo!!!!  He removed the drain...

-- Side note about the drain.  That damn thing caused me so much pain.  And it was draining stuff too.  When he took it out, it felt like a snake was being pulled through my abdomen.  I almost threw up.

Once they removed the IV, I couldn't get out of there fast enough.  I went home in my pj bottoms and the tshirt (Navy one from Ray) and my coat.  Can you believe a nurse actually wheeled me down?  I thought it was weird but she was going to her car and said I'll take her.  Um okay thanks.

So that is the story of my surgery.....

I'll write more later about the past week...

I really like my surgeon and the other doctors and the nutritionists.  But my doctor's office staff sucks!

I have to self-pay for the surgery.  Because I am disabled, I have Medicare part A and BCBS.  Since I am going into the hospital, BCBS won't precertify and Medicare doesn't precertify.  With no pre certifications, the hospital won't schedule the surgery without some money upfront.  Just so you know, it took the doctor's staff three months to explain this to me.  Not because I wasn't understanding, but because they didn't understand or maybe because they didn't want to do some extra work to have an understanding of it.

So I took out a loan with Care Credit and paid for everything with that.  I asked the doctor's office how many months "interest free" I could have.  They said 24 months.  I said great, let's do 24 months "interest free".  So they put it through and I prayed all was done correctly.

I didn't' pray hard enough.  I got my first statement and they put the wrong codes in.  In fact the clueless wonder that did it put it in for 24 months of a fixed payment WITH interest at 14.9%.  I was furious!!! 

So when I called Care Credit to find out why my account was like that, he informed me that the office did not enter the correct code and told me to tell them to enter it such and such a way and if they had trouble they should call Care Credit to walk them through it.

So I got the clueless wonder on the phone.  I was really trying to be nice.  Really.  I was.  She told me that's not what I asked for.  I said are you kidding?  We had three conversations about "interest only".  So fix it and here's how.  She tells me she can't because the checks have been cut.  So I said oh you're going to fix this since you screwed up.  I am going into surgery tomorrow morning, drinking this liquid diet and I had a family member die a week ago (Prudence, though a cat, is more loved than many members of my family).  Oh and I raised my voice. 

So I told her to get it fixed today and call me back or my mother would be coming over tomorrow to the office after my surgery and the last thing they want is my mother fooling with this while her daughter is having major surgery.

I got a phone call 30 minutes later saying that they had corrected everything.  But they could only give me 18 months "interest free".  I said fine.  I just don't want to pay interest, otherwise I would have written a check.....

I will be reviewing my surgeon and the staff later in the process.  It's going to be pretty mixed up! 

I know this is only temporary.  But this has been the worst week of my life.  Food is my comfort.  And after losing Prudence on Monday, I just wanted to eat french fries.  I wanted a cheeseburger.  I wanted anything that wasn't liquid!

I didn't get to talk to Ray all week except for 10 minutes on Tuesday evening while he was still at work.  So last night I was so weepy with everything that's happened.  So when he called I snapped at something he said that was stupid and then started crying.  I stopped quickly but I couldn't believe that lost control that easily

I have to mention that I have a wonderful mother.  I'm sure I'll be saying this over and over again int he future but tonight I really saw how good she is to me. 

We went to a late mass today (she wanted me to sleep in) and our church is on the same side of town as the majority of restaurants.  Mom hasn't been cooking in the house and she's been eating out alot.  So tonight I insisted that she order take out on the way home so that she didn't have to go back to the other side of town.

Big mistake!  The smell of her steak from Outback made me almost pull the car over and chow down!  She felt horrible and said this is why I don't eat in front of you or in the house!

Just one more day and I'll be on my way to the rest of my life!!!!

Wow!  Just four more days until my surgery.  I can't wait!

I just need to get a few things done around the house -- like the laundry -- so that everything is all ready for me when I get home.  I don't want my mother to have to take care of everything.

I am completely sick of the Optifast.  I did cheat during the 2 weeks.  I ate two dinners when Ray was here.  It wasn't any big deal but it did stall the weight lose for a couple of days.  But I will have lost enough weight before the surgery to not have to worry. 

I must also say that I am so tired.  I have no energy.  I am also having trouble walking.  I have an old knee injury from playing Lacrosse and Tennis.  They made me stop taking the Glucosatrine that I take twice a day to help my joints.  So I am feeling the pain in my knee which is making it hard to do anything at all.  Just four more days and I it will feel better (painkillers yay).

I am starving!

The day started off horribly.  I had to put down my cat Prudence.  Pru was almost 20 years old.  She had kidney problems and had lost 2 pounds in 2 months.  She was literally in renal failure.  It was the hardest thing I've had to do.  She was my baby.  She helped me through some of the toughest days in my life.  I will love her always and never forget my soft grey "bear".

Then it was off to the surgeon's office for my last meeting with him and Katherine the nutritionist.  That all went really well!  Then on to the the hospital for my pre-op registration and nurse assessment and meeting with an anesthesiologist.  The anesthesiologist was a no show.  It was no big deal since I have never met with one before the surgery before.

So it didn't exactly work out  with posting everyday on Optifast.  It's been a busy six days!

Gosh I am so cranky and tired.  Well I was cranky...  Ray came to visit this weekend, even though I was on this liquid diet and I didn't really want him to be here to see me like this, he came.  We had such a great time!  I did eat on both Friday and Saturday nights.  I had a salad with meat on it on Friday night.  And on Saturday night after getting rained on in Williamsburg, VA, I had the meat from some Irish stew and a salad.

When I weighed myself on Friday morning, I had lost 9 pounds by my scale.  I haven't weighed myself since so I don't know what I weigh now.  I have 9 more days on the "chalk diet" and hopefully I can make it.  I have been eating sugar free jello and sugar free popsicles too.  

I'm still hungry!