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hhahah.  I lost a WHOLE pound this morning.  well at least now i am no longer in the stall and i am 309 not 310.  :)  dang scale.

Wow.  I can't believe it has been 5 months.  Like most I people I haven't been losing as fast as I was at first or thought I would.  I am still at a plateau of 310 lbs and have started excercising this week for the first time post surgery. I know I should have before but the weight was falling off so I got lazy.  
I have a very busy schedule.  I get up at 9 am do 15 minutes on the stationary bike then go to my internship at the university where I walk on campus to and from my car which takes me a total of 20 minutes (10 minutes each way).  Then I go to my regular library job until 9pm.  I am exhausted but I am counting on my body to adjust.  Because this is so stressful both mentally and physically I am paying more attention to getting all my protein in and my water in.
I also rented a Hip Hop dance workout dvd that may interest me enough to workout with of my only off day.  

I am just frustrated about this plateau.  The scale hasnt moved in 20 days!!

I have been at a plateau since new years and this one is bothering me.

1. need to drink more water
2. drink more protein
3. stop eating junk
4. excercise

A blog that seems very good:

http://theworldaccordingtoeggface.blogspot.com/


I currently weight 310. I am down 87 since first consultation and 60 since surgery 8/16/07.
I am *just* about to have to buy new clothes.  My size 28 pants i have on right now feel so loose it bothers me (plus they are now too long in the leg).  
I have yet to go shopping to see what size I wear now.  Maybe do that tomorrow to boost my mood.

I am having trouble with having time and money lately.  I stopped my therapy appointments because of it.  However with the wt loss I am no longer depressed.  However, I can still eat.  Though I eat WAY less than ever before, I can eat sugar, pasta, breads, and sodas but not very fattening fast food.  That means I have not conquered my demons. I will always be addicted to food.  

The reason I have gotten out of control is that I am very stressed right now.  I am not in a total downward spiral but I am loosening my grip on my eating.  I also have not been counting my protein.  I confess all this in order to start again.  The wt loss however has just barely been affected by my bad habits which enables me to continue to be bad.  However, I want to stop eating those dang cookies in order to nourish my body better.  I make excuses that I do balence it out.  I eat protein and veggies and drink water and protein shakes but each day I dont do my very best.  I want to do my very best each day.

I will.

I hope to post information and pictures tonight.  However, the pics are from September so I haven't been keeping up well.   I also tend to approximate my pounds lost so I will have to get out the list of weights and type them up so I can have the track up online.

Bare with me. 

Post Op--Day 8  8/24/07

I have a timer so these "meals" are 30 to 40 minutes apart and water is spaced throughout the day but I put it in the glass beforehand.


8oz   SF Carnation Instant Breakfast + milk = 12 grams protein

22oz water + diet cranberry juice

4oz  Pureed Tuna + 2 saltine crackers = 36g

2oz  mushed banana

4oz  Pureed Veg. Beef Soup + Soy Powder = 3.12g

1/4 cup  Pureed Fat Free Hot Dog + mustard= 3g

4oz  skim milk + 4 tiny sugar free choc chip cookies mushed in= 4g

4oz  Fat Free cottage cheese+one peach slice in lite syrup mushed=13g

16oz Crystal Light

6oz Pureed Veg. Beef Soup + Soy Powder= 4.62


Day's Total=  60 oz of fluid
                         75.62 grams of protein


too much food????

8/2/2007	386
8/4/2007	380
8/5/2007	375
8/6/2007	379
8/7/2007	375
8/8/2007	374
8/11/2007	370
8/12/2007	370
8/13/2007	370
8/21/2007	364
8/23/2007	360.5
8/24/2007	360
8/25-8/27	360

I started my B-12 today and it gave me a lot more energy.  I am on day six (tomorrow will be one wk since the surgery) and the pulling pain from I guess the staples is almost completely gone.  The internal pain (upper back pain) went away the second day home.   I find I can eat a lot of food, more than I was expecting.  Yesterday I got all my protein in using a combo of shakes and tuna and beef and didn’t have any head hunger at all.  However my head hunger for McDonald's hamburger and pepperoni pizza have been EXTREME.  I think it was because I wasn't getting enough food. Today I craved choc chip cookies which are my favorite and decided to have a sugar free choc. pudding cup....so far the diarrhea after dairy is tolerable and not annoying enough to cut dairy out (especially if I mostly plan to have dairy when I am at home and near a bathroom).   I bought a watch that has a timer and an alarm because I forget to eat and that weak feeling really bothers me.  I am listening to my body and stomach so much more now.  I also feel clammy and tired if I eat too much (no diarrhea, so not total dumping but some of the other symptoms).  I measure my food but more so I am paying attention to my stomach and how it feels to tell me when I am full because I want to learn that feeling in case I want to go to a restaurant.  
this is not an easy thing to do.  I can see how much work it will be to not only nourish myself but also fight head hunger.  I didn't quite prepare for exactly this..... I was thinking something different...don’t know what but......

 

 

 

 

 

 

I realize the need to share information about the surgery with others because there were times in which I was lost during my stay in the hospital.  So if you are in Memphis, TN and have Dr. Virginia Weaver as your doctor this is my best recollection of all that happens.

 

My surgery date was August 16, 2007.  I got to the hospital at 6:30am that Thursday and it was later because that was there “late day” to do surgery.  I heard that a bunch that day, “Oh yeah that is right today is the “late day.”’  I went straight to the 3^rd floor nurses station and checked in.  I got my wrist band, which they checked for correctness with each person I came in contact with and my 3 ring binder “chart” was started that would follow me on my bed as I got the prep taken care of (this binder stayed at the nurse’s station until I got into my bed).  I was told that my mom and sister, Tisha, who came up from Mississippi,  could go with me to a private room to wait.  An aid or nurse came in to give me the large gown, tight white support hose with no toes and non-slip bottom socks –all things I wore the whole time in the hospital.  (Take a good shower the morning you go in because you will feel dirty very soon). 

After a 40 or so minute wait (made less hectic by having at least 2 people who make you comfy and like to talk with) they came to let me get in my bed to go to the operating room coral- like waiting area.  As they wheeled me away from my mom that initial time I had a strong rush of anxiety and nervousness.  However, the guy who was rolling me was talking to me about another lady who worked at the hospital who had had the surgery and now looked all “Hollywood”.  “She looks really good,” he said.  In order to take away the feeling scared I focused on him and really understanding what he was saying.  He seemed like he really was impressed with the Hollywood lady’s looks and I also thought ..”Hey if hospital staff does this too, it can’t be a bad thing.”  Because you see, I still had some hidden reservations that I didn’t even let my own self know about.  They wheeled me into a coral (yes like cattle) and everyone was busy.  I hated to stare at them but what else was I to do, they pulled the curtain so that all I saw where the nurses and students and several anesthesiologists who always seemed lost.  LUCKILY, I got an anesthesiologist that looked like a cross between the Brady Bunch mom and Hillary Clinton..Her name was Dr. Briggs and she was really nice.  I talked with her as she found my dehydrated vein  (dehydrated being NPO makes it harder for her to find a plump vein).  I also had a student nurse with me named Ashley that I enjoyed talking to while I was in the coral.  There were several cute UT student doctors and I kept thinking of “Scrubs” (my favorite TV show) and making myself less nervous. 

Then they wheeled me in to the operating room and Ashley the student nurse trailed behind me and I watched her walk behind me thinking about how this is something she is nervous about too but for different reasons—being a on the job training day for her.   Dr. Briggs, the anesthesiologist was already in the OR and had the hat and mask on.  I put my own self on the operating table (it looked like a metal human with places to put my legs and arms).  I remember looking that the legs would open so they could put the catheter in…(I was scared about the catheter and though it didn’t hurt or anything it isn’t very clean and I have a yeast infection from all the antibiotics).  I am not nervous about needles AT ALL but I am very protective of my soft fleshy areas.  Needles and drawing blood is no problem for me because my mom is a nurse so how could I be? She gave me a tetanus shot once when I was 17 while I was ASLEEP! I was at home from school and napping on the couch and she had brought it home from work to give to me.

Dr. Briggs had already stuck me with the start of the IV so she just hooked up the bags told me “Ok” and I was OUT.  

I woke up dry heaving and very nauseous .  TRY NOT TO HEAVE if you can.  The nurses were wheeling me down the hall to my permanent room and telling me to take deep breaths to control the urge to vomit.  I instinctively put my hand on my stomach to provide a barrier to gag against.  For some reason the nausea stopped once I stopped moving so that must be something to it.  I could hear the nurse’s comment that “that one always bleeds” and I looked down and she was looking at my incisions and one was bleeding a bit.  They had asked my sister and Mom to step out of the room until they got me situated.  I am still curious how I got from the operating table back to my bed. But I was asleep so who cares. I also when I took my first shower when I was at home learned that they must have taped my boobs up under my chin because the underside was sticky.  The betadine stinks (that orange stuff that they prep the area with) and reminds me of sick people so I hated the smell the second day and  I wanted the catheter out bad the second day  (but the first day I slept mostly with a few times of waking up to hear what my mom and sister were talking about.  The anesthesia is strong and it was hard to stay awake even with visitors.   I was told that I could push the morphine button every 10 minutes but it wouldn’t overdose me and I pushed it each time I was awake, scared to feel any pain but what  I didn’t realize it was IV dripping morphine the whole time.  The second day at night my IV infiltrated so I asked them to take it out and I was then without pain meds.  The pain is NOT bad at all.  I won’t even describe it to you or where it comes from because the less you know the less you will be scared of it.  Menstrual cramps are worse than this pain.  TRUST ME…the pain is a piece of cake …my tonsillectomy at 25 hurt way worse than this.

Over the hose they have “squeesy boots” on  that pump your legs  in order to circulate the blood in your lower legs.  This prevents blood clots but don’t be too worried just move ALL your body parts as much as you can for 3 weeks after surgery to prevent blood clots.  You were just as much at risk before the surgery when you slept all day and were inactive.  But they will give you a drug called “Hepren” in your stomach which is an anticoagulant to prevent the blood from clotting.  In your IV is fluids and morphine, and they rotate an antacid (Pecid) and antibiotics.  The IV machine will beep at night when one of the bags are empty--- just call the nurses’ station and say “my IV machine is beeping” and they will come and change the bags. 

Through the night that came in not too much mostly to check my blood pressure and take my temp.  Around 5am they drew a tube of blood (that Dr. Weaver reads later that day before she comes to check on you).   You should be using that “Incentive Spirometer” (the tube breathing thingy) to make you cough enough to get the mucus out of your lungs. If you don’t do it every hour you may get pneumonia and you will get a higher tempeture reading.  

The next morning you will wake up and be less and less drowsy.  You should try to get up and hang your legs off the bed.  Just deal with the tugging on your stomach by trying to brace it with a pillow.   USE THE BED to move you when you get up.  Make the head come all the way up.  Lower the legs, lower the entire bed and then TILT the bed legs down.  Have your helper grab your arm behind the elbow as you grab theirs behind the elbow so that your forearms are together and parallel. Then you each pull on your end and it should be less strain on your helper.  You will still have a catheter so all you are doing is preventing blood clots by moving.  You don’t want to stay in the same position for more than a night’s sleep.

Your catheter will come out around 3pm the second day.  Ask the nurses to teach your helper how to connect and unconnected your squeezy boots cause getting up to pee is a good thing.  Make sure they give you the special recliner for bariatric patients (the room is small but your helper can rearrange it to get all the stuff you need to do in the room to work for you).  Walk in the hall further and further distances.  Start sipping on water (you will have to pee a certain amount for them to send you home).  You will go home the morning of the 3^rd day. All in all a PIECE OF CAKE!!!!!

 

 

I have lost 16 pounds on the liver shrink diet so far which makes a total of 26 pounds lost since June.  

Surgery is August 16th.  I have moved into a new apartment but am staying with my Mom from now until 2 weeks after the surgery.  

I'll post measurements soon.... too tired tonight.