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Ok so it is official. I am hungry as heck! It's only day 3 of a 10 day liquid/chicken diet. I am trying to down protein shakes everytime I feel hungry. They help for a little bit. I thought it might get easier as the time goes along, but it is getting harder!! Let see - today I had some egg beaters scrammbled with chalula on top and a chocolate blended protein shake. Then when I got to work I was hungry again so I ate some of my SF vanilla/butterscotch pudding. Then I was STILL hungry so I drank a pre-made chocolate protein drink. Then I was okay for a while. For lunch I had my boiled chicken breast that I had cooked the night before - used mustard and chalula to dip the pieces in. Then I ate the rest of my vanilla/butterscotch pudding. That held me til the end of the day when I drank another pre-mixed protein vanilla drink on the way home from work. Ate a SF popsickle and just drank another blended chocolate protein drink. I feel full - but not satisfied. I know that will be a problem. I hope I get the satisfied feeling after getting the band in. Oh - and I also drank about 64 oz of water and chewed many pieces of SF gum (this has been helping alot I think). Can't I just sleep for like a week until my surgery comes?? That would make it much better since sleeping is my favorite thing to do!

PS - I found out 1 of my 3 friends that have been waiting to be approved from their insurance got approved! I am super stoked for her!!

So - I went to my PCP to get my surgery clearance note. I told him about my gallblader "episode". You said it sounded just like a gallbladder episode - he gave it some type of scientific name. He said he thinks I should get my gallbladder removed because it will only cause more problems once I start loosing weight. It freaks me out to think I have to get a piece of my insides removed and I am only 27! But - I guess I have to do what I have to do. I have a follow up appointment with my surgeon on Monday (because of the episode). He will most likely tell me then what he would like to do. I just hope that the removing of the gallbladder doesn't increase my time off needed for work. I only have so many days available. I just started a new position at my job so I will have some traveling I have to do at the end of the month. PLUS I will be moving to Chicago for my new job at the end of September. Stressful!! I guess the positive part about possibly having to remove my gallbladder is that I guess the hospital stay would be billed to my insurance at 100% versus the 70% if I was only going in for LapBand. So, I'll have alittle extra cash in my pocket. Can't beat that!

Tootaloo's!

So - my liquid diet started today - ho hum.... well let's rewind to last night. Had a nice fatty dinner (was kinda broke so we couldn't go out) - 1/2 NYPD Pizza Calazone and 1/2 of my Sonic blast I had left over from the night before. Then the pain started. About 2 hours after dinner I started getting this pain, almost like a gas pain in my stomach, under my sternum. I was watching TV with my hubby hoping it would go away. Over the next 2 hour period it got worse and worse - I started to think maybe it was my heart or something because the pain was intensifing and starting to go to my back. I tried to lay down to go to sleep and it was terrible - my back hurt, my chest hurt. I was scared. I called the nurseline and she told me to call 911!!! I couldn't believe it. I did not want to call 911 but I knew I had to do something. I thought at the least I should get someone to check my blood pressure to make sure I wasn't dying. My husband took me to the ER at Good Sam's. I got in and the nurse took my bp and pulse. I couldn't sit down, that would make the pain worse. My bp was a little elevated, but not terrible. The nurse said it was probably my hianal hernia or my gallbladder. I was moved to the waiting area with the other 30 people. Again, I couldn't sit down. I just kept pacing back and forth, breathing consistantly, and rubbing the pain area. A few times I went to the bathroom to see if maybe I could throw up and that would make it better. It didn't work. The pain was weird. It would come in waves - about every 3/4 minutes it would get less severe and then realy severe. I told the nurse it was a 6 on the pain scale. But as the first hour in the ER went by, the pain increased to a 7. I asked to lay down on a streatcher because it was too painful to sit and I was kinda starting to get dizzy from walking back and forth and breathing. After almost 2 hours of waiting, the nurse came back over to me and got my vitals again. This time my bp was low. He wanted to get a urine sample and draw blood. I got him the urine sample and went back to lay down since more intake patients had shown up. About 10 minutes later, a pain bout was coming again - and I worked through it. The pain subsided as usual and it stopped. No more increase in pain. I was shocked. I layed there for about another 5 minutes to make sure it wasn't going to happen again, and it didn't. I told the nurse and told him I would rather not give the blood or continue to stay in the ER if the pain stopped. He agreed but said he would keep my chart open in case it happened again. He also told me to try some pepcid if it happens again before returning to the ER. And at 2:30am I finally went home. I laid down to go to sleep and about an hour later I woke up with more light pains. I took the pepcid as the nurse suggested, and went back to bed. I sleep until I had to wake up for work at 9am - I didn't feel too bad, just tired and sore.

I was the weirdest thing! I thought I was dying. My husband did some research on the net and it sounds like possibly I was passing a gallstone. My surgeon had said during my pre-op appt I had some gallstones but nothing too serious.

Now it's monday - I got through my first day of liquid proteins and I feel better than last night, but I still feel crappy probably because of the sugar and carb withdrawls, but I expected that. I have my surgery clearance appt with my PCP tomorrow. I am going to bring up the gallstone pain problem just in case he wants me to do some more tests. I called my WLS place also today and they set up an appointment with me for next Monday just so the surgeon can meet with me if he wants to do some tests concerning it. I hope it was nothing major and I hope I don't need to get my gallbladder removed.

It has just been a wierd last 24 hours. Makes me think even more strongly that my decision to have the lap-band procedure is the right thing for me.

Ok - so my pre-op liquid diet starts tomorrow. I drove all the way to Super Target in Gilbert (I live in Phoenix) to be able to buy the groceries I need (I had a giftcard I needed to use). I got the SF Jello, SF Pudding, SF Carnations Instant breakfast, SF General Foods international Decaf coffee mix, crystal light, a bag of skinless/boneless chicken, a tub of NF plain yogurt, eggbeaters, and NF Milk. I got my magic bullet the other day ($39 at Linen's and Things on sale-$49 - 20% coupon I had). Man I hope I'm ready!

It going to be difficult to figure this out for work - I figure I'll boil some chicken tonight and bring that to work tomorrow. I was going to bring my magic bullet too so I can make a shake or two while I'm there. I guess I'll just bring the ingrediants in a seperate container. Man - tomorrow should be fun. .... NOT!!!
For now I am going to enjoy eating my Sonic blast and enjoy the NYPD Pizza calzone that is sitting in my stomach.

So - I had my pre-op appointment today. I found out I have pretty high cholesterol - so surgery will definatly help with that. I guess I also have a hiatal hernia - my doc told me the surgery will help with that too. So that's a good thing. I got some weird plastic thing I have to take to the hospital with me to breath with once my surgery is done. It's called a spirometer. I don't quite understand why couldn't they just bring it to the hospital for me, but whatever. I guess the biggest thing right now for me is the pre-op liquid diet. At WLIAZ you are asked to go on a 2 week all liquid, no sugar diet. I convinced the nutritionist to let me start 4 days late - so I can over indulge a little more, at least through the weekend. I feel really crappy about eating really bad things right now - but I kinda almost feel like I have "last supper" syndrome. I figure I'll just be crazy right now and then starting Monday - get down to business.

I know the first 3 days or so are going to be hell on earth. I've done the Atkins diet a few times in the past and getting all of the sugar and carbs and cravings to exit your body is terrible. I told my husband to be prepared for bitchness. I really hope I can keep myself busy enough to not totally break down during it. I think I'll be okay.....

The other thing that is going to be a total crazy pain is trying to address the liquid diet at work. There is a kitchen at work with a fridge, so I can bring my ingediants in. But, I'll have to buy a Magic Bullet to be able to mix the protein drinks. And the other thing is not too many people at work know I am getting the proceedure - so once I bring in a big container of protein powder and a magic bullet, people are going to start asking questions that I will have to answer. Oh well - screw them if they look at me in disgust and disappointment. All I know is I am doing this for me and no one else (okay, maybe for my mom too!).