swedeville1

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Nine months ago I weighed close to 400 pounds!  I was soooo unhappy and unhealthy.  I couldn't move and I was killing myself.  I was not the person I once was and I definitely wasn't the person I wanted to be.  I used to be an athlete.  I used to be in shape.  I used to be happy!  I took all I had for granted and slowly lost it all, one meal at a time until it was gone.  I was still loved by others but I really didn't love myself. How could I?  How could I love myself and still mistreat myself the way I was.  I would look myself in the eye in the mirror and look for the strength and conviction I needed to make a change in my life, to get back what I had lost, to be ME again.  I wasn't me.....I was someone...not me!   The old me looked for adventure, looked for competition, embraced life.  In high school I played volleyball, football and baseball.  I kept playing volleyball in college until life kind of got in the way and like all thing that once were volleyball had fallen away.  Then the weight crept up and up and up until I couldn't even see volleyball anymore.  I missed it but figured it was just one of those things I had lost forever.

Fast forward to last night.  I was invited to play some indoor power volleyball on Monday nights at a gym in Greensburg.  I accepted the invitation and showed up before anyone else last night and just waited in my car in the pouring rain until everyone else showed up.  I made my way into the gym and sat around stretching until the other players showed up.  I watched as the others got warmed up as well and as someone who understands volleyball I could tell that everyone else here was a pretty good player.  I started to get nervous and excited all at the same time.  OK so its time to start...time to see how I match up...time to see if I can hang....time to just be in the moment.  Being the new guy in the gym I know that everyone is watching to see what this guy is bringing to the table.  Guess what?  I BROUGHT IT!!!  I hadn't played at this level since I was in high school.  I was moving, jumping, hitting, diving, digging....it was like my body finally caught up to my brain.  For years I would find myself knowing what I wanted my body to do but it just wouldn't do it.  Run over there...(NOPE).....jump up there....(NOPE), until last night!  Run over there....(SURE, NO PROBLEM TODD)...jump up and hit that thing...(YOU GOT IT...ANYTHING ELSE???).  OMG it felt so amazing.  
I kept looking at these young people I was playing with who are athletes and have never lost that ability.  They have no idea that I weighed 400 pounds last year and that I had lost so much.  For all they knew I had been playing volleyball for the past 25 years.  We were on our 5th or 6th game and I thought to myself "why aren't I tired, I shouldn't be able to do this!!!" but I was able!

If you couldn't tell I am so on cloud nine right now!  I am amazed at where I am in my life and I seriously haven't felt this good about myself in decades.  I'm back, I'm back, I'm back!!!!!

Swede  

Hi everyone!  I want to thank you all for your prayers and well wishes.  I found them all inspirational.  You guys are the best!

Well so far so good...mostly.  I have been adjusting to home life and I can say that I am so thankful to be out of the hospital.  My recovery is still on-going and I am struggling to get my liquids in.  It wasn't a big deal for me after my surgery for the week I was home before going back in.  I was getting in about 70 oz. a day.  Now I'm struggling to get in 40 oz.   I have only been off IV fluids for 2 days so I'm sure I wont be dehydrated right away but I am seriously concerned about it.  It seems to be getting better each day so hopefully i can get back on track.  I think it has something to do with the multiple scopes and repairs they did to my pouch...maybe swollen.  I have been tolerating the soft and pureed foods and it seems that the food actually calms my stomach.  

So here are my thoughts on all of this.  I still think that I needed this surgery!  None of that has changed.  But you can bet your life that I have thought to myself more than once that I wish I would have never done this to myself.  This was too much to endure!  I never bargained for this.  You think to yourself...I wont be that one percent guy, I will work through it just like everyone else and reap the benefits and live the good life.  Two weeks in the hospital, the docs not knowing what was wrong, losing blood and needing transfused, getting scoped 4 times, vomiting blood!!!  That was some of the scariest unsettling stuff I have ever gone through.  I picked the best Dr. on this side of the state.  She has done 8000 of these surgeries and is the head of the department at a center of excellence.  So, basically shit happens sometimes.  I realize that I am still really close to these setbacks and I am not really getting to enjoy the benefits of my hardships.  I am sure that if everything goes well from here on out I will be able to get some perspective and I will be more tolerant of everything.  Like I said before I needed this surgery, I want to be alive to enjoy my kids.  But, understand that unfortunate things can happen to good people.  I hope this makes me stronger and allows me to appreciate the benefits...when they come.  

I'm not trying to scare anyone (Scott) or deter you from making the decisions that will benefit you.  I am using this board to get the support and insight from my friends on here.  We share the good , the bad and the ugly.

Thanks for hanging in there with me everyone!

Swede

Im not sure where to start,  What a rollercoaster ride its been.  At this point im cautiously opptimistic and scared to death.  Here is a recap of my week.

Saturday.  Woke up feeling sick, Weighed myself and found out that i had lost 25 pounds in 9 days.  I was happy for about 10 minutes until I went to the bathroom and all that came out was blood and clots.  I called the hospital and they said come on in. After two more trips to the bathroom and having the same results I decided that I needed an ambulance.  My wife called her mom and she rushed over to get my kids so they wouldnt see daddy being put in an ambulance. 
Arrived at Magee ER.  They stuck me here and there (btw I could never bat for the other team....did not like it).  They decided to admit me for observation because they didnt know whhy I was bleeding,
Sunday.  A lot of sitting around having my vitals and blood count taken.  I was losing blood...dont know why.
Monday.  To scope or not to scope...that is the question.  My surgeon doesnt want to scope me for fear of injuring my new stomach and other connections.  We will wait and see how the blood numbers look,  Guess what...still dropping.
Tuesday.  Less and less blood in my body....how is this happening?  Wait and see........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday.  Well Mr, Baumgardner, you blood count seems to have leveled off even if they r low...you will be ok and we are going to discharge you.  Um...Ok.  They come in and take out the IV and disconnect the heart monitor,  Jen and the kids are on there way.....but i dont feel good.  I make it to the bathroom and round two begins.  I call the nurse and she calls the dr. and I get readmitted!  I am losing faith and trust in the people who are supposed to be taking care of me.  What would have happened if this happened when i got home?  At this point i am really scared and frustrated.  What the F@#$% is going on?  I called Jen and told her to turn around and take the kids home and why.  She said ok.  About twenty min later she comes in and we just both break down.  She was stronger than i was....God bless her!  Im glad she didnt listen to me.  So, the dr. comes and guess what the plan is????? lets wait and see how your numbers look tomorrow.  Guess what?!?!?!?!? They are still dropping!  Im very weak and tired but they do schedule an endoscope to see what my new pouch looks like. 
Thursday.  Well I was NPO (no food or drink all night) and in the morning they gave me the endoscope.  There was debate about the results.  My dr. doesnt think that the pouch is the culprit, she thinks its my old stomach and that its a staple line bleed.  BTW they cant scope that far down.  They cleared out a little blood from the area.  Guess what we get to do now?  Wait and see how my numbers are.   All night long my levels dropped and they kept me npo. 
Friday.  My dr. wakes me up and says that we are going to scope you again both upper and lower just to rule those areas out.  We are also going to transfuse u with 2 units of blood. I ge the blood.  They take me down for both surgeries, they are going to do them in one sitting.,  I wake up in recovery and im still alive.  Yeah!  When i get back to my room I find that my dad, wife and surgeon are waiting for me.  Here is what my surgeon said.
"the endoscope showed nothing, however, there is a mass in your colon.  They took a biopsy of the mass but we wont know if it is cancer until tuesday or wed of next week.  It is in an area of the colon that produces cancer.  It was difficult to see because of all of the blood surrounding it.  We are going to have you do a colon prep on sunday and do another scope on monday."  She actually said this is good news because now we have found the cause of the bleeding and we can do something about it.  I agree with her about that!  Now I just hope and pray that it isnt cancer. 
Jen has a pretty positive outlook on it and I am trying as well, but it is some scary shit. 

I left alot of the ups and downs out of this post but I think you guys get the idea.  It should be a long weekend.  Please send your prayers to me and my family.  I know we will get through this and some day down the road it will be but an unpleasant memory.

BTW thank you all so much for the prayers and well wishes you have already sent my way.  You have no idea how much it helps.

So here is my first post since my surgery.  Well I went in Thursday around 1230.  Jen and I went in to pre-op and I got to sign a bunch of stuff.  They had me put on the gown but didn’t give me a blanket.  Jen told the girl the came to take some blood that I was giving everyone “the money shot” and she replied, “we don’t get that here, very often.”  So I got a blanket.  Then the girl came in to start my IV.  I gave her a hard time about giving me a shot so they could give me an IV.  She was sassy and gave it right back to me.  Next came in my Anestheologist.   He took a look at my throat and said mine looked good.  Next came in the anestitist nurse and he gave me some feel good stuff.  I gave Jen a kiss and then took me back to the OR.  Once there, something a little funny happened.  I guess my CAN had a bit of a belly ache.  He was standing somewhere behind me and I hear a soft rumble of gas escaping from him.  I think he may have has some Mexican food for lunch.  I could just tell that he was trying to let it out soft so no one could hear. Lol.  Then I hear him on the phone calling for someone to come in and put me to sleep.  A minute later some lady came in and introduced herself to me and told me that my eyes were a pretty blue…(smart girl).  The next thing I know the shot is put it and i'm on my way to sleepy ville.  I felt it coming and told everyone that I would see them afterward.  The next part sucked for me.  I woke up in recovery.  Holy hell I felt terrible.  My stomach hurt, my throat hurt, and it felt like there was something jammed in my throat.  I was very disoriented.  I ended up staying in recovery for about four hours.  Apparently there weren’t any rooms clean and ready for me.  The girls that took me upstairs did clearly not like the fact that they were being kept over and couldn’t go home until the recovery room was cleaned up.  Whatever!  Not my fault.  SO I finally make it to my room and Jen is there waiting for me.  Soooo glad to see her. I’m sure the wait sucked for her.  Surgery was at 2:30 and I didn’t get to my room till almost 10:00.  SO I got in the room and I don’t remember much of it other than there was like 6 nurses and each of them doing something to me and Jen was on the phone with her mom.  Once that all settled down, I got caught up with Jen about what happened through out the day, and then it was time for me to go to sleep and Jen went home.  I woke up and they came to take me to my leak test.  I passed with no problem, it only took like 2 minutes.  Back up stairs and it was time for a walk.  The walk was ok but I was slow and didn’t go far.  After that my nurse Roberta came in and said it was time to take out the catheter.  I’ve never had one so I asked if it would hurt.  Her exact words were “this will be the easiest thing you’ve done so far.”  She says ok breath in and blow out.  I blow out as she pulls it out…Holy shit that hurt like hell!  I told her that she lied to me and she said I didn’t want u to get worked up.  Fair enough.  Jen came back around 12:00 noon.  We hung out all day and did the whole sip and walk thing and I got to have some jello and juice.  We also watched some movies on the computer.  I ran into my Doctor in the hallway and she said that I really made her work.  Apparently my stomach was somehow stuck to my pancreas.  She had to separate the two before she could do the bypass.  As a result she had to put in a stomach drain.  So, the pain is manageable and the drugs don’t hurt either.  My next hurdle was to go pee on my own.  My nurses came in like every half hour to ask if I had peed yet.  I had a slight sensation that I had too but I just couldn’t.  They were worried that I may not storing the IV fluids in my bladder so they did a bladder image test thing and found out that there was like 317 ml. in my bladder.  They said it wasn’t an emergent issue yet but they needed me to pee soon.  A couple hours later and nothing!  They came back and said if I didn’t pee on my own soon then they would have to put in a straight catheter, they gave me 15 more minutes.  I went into the bathroom again by some miracle of God I was able to go.  I peed 300 ml.  Thank the lord above, I did not want to have another catheter!  On a more positive note, I also got to meet Janet who had her bypass surgery on Wednesday.  She was doing well.  Her OH name is jlag.  Hope your doing ok Janet!  Friday kind of just went on by and before you knew it, it was time for bed.  I asked for something to help me sleep and they gave me some Benadryl through my IV.  Ahh, that was nice!  Sunday came around and it was back to walking and sipping.  A team of Doctors came in around 7:00 am and told me I could go home sometime this morning and that my discharge papers were signed.   I got ready and decided to wait until my 10:30 dose of pain med to leave.  I was out of there by 11:00 and home by 12:00.  The drive was good.  Since i've been home everything seems to be getting better every day.  Doing ok with the whole liquids thing.  I’ve found that I really like the chicken bouillon.   I’m walking down the block to the stop sign and back.  My head ache has gone away but I still have a rumbly in my tumbly.  I also have some diarrhea but I guess with only liquids in my system what should I expect.  Over all, this isn’t something I would suggest to someone who wasn’t sure they wanted to do it.  Don’t take this surgery or the recovery lightly.  I hope I continue to progress and it was great to see all of the comments on this board when I got back home on Saturday.  You guys rock!

I have my surgery tomorrow!!!  Im pretty excited and a bit nervous as well, im sure both emotions are expected.  Pray for me that all goes well.
Swede

I had my last weigh in last week with my PCP.  I was sweating that one out cause this month has been difficult for me to keep to any sort of diet.  My back was out for like 3 weeks, I was on steroids and I was on vacation to the outer banks (which included too much food and beer).  Anyway, after all of that I was somehow able to lose 3 pounds since last month which makes my total 20 pounds for the six month supervised diet.  I also had my new ekg done and completed my stress test.  Both came out normal (pretty much) and the cardio Dr. cleared me for surgery.  YESSSSS!

So, I completed all of my weigh ins and did all of my pre-op stuff (so I thought).  Well, when I call in to my surgeons office I find out that they didnt receive half of my tests.  So off i go calling everybody and their brother to have them resend the labs and test results.  I recommend to anyone reading this " dont be afraid to call and recall to MAKE SURE that your surgeon's office gets your stuff!"  So, as im talking to the scheduling lady at my surgeons office she in passing says...I received your authorization today."  I was like "ok thanks, so is there anything else i have to do?"  We chatted a bit more about a blood draw and physical I need and I started replaying what she said and then it hit me...so I asked her "sorry you said something about an authorization, what did you mean by that?"  She said "Yes you're authorized by your insurance company...your surgery has been approved."  Being the laid back kind of guy I am I said "oh, well thats good," I know, so cool of me huh?  I got off the phone and started calling the few people I have actually told about the surgery and whooped and hollered....I was so happy.  It all seems so real now.

3 weeks till surgery!!!!!!  Bring it!

I got back from vacation to the outer banks on Saturday the 12th.  While at the beach I managed to gain 7 pounds!  I did the whole "this is you last vacation where you'll be able to eat and drink what you want,,,live it up big boy!"  Well I did!  I had to reschedule my weigh in for month six to the following week because if I went in on Thursday I know I will show weight gain.  I don't want to jeopardize getting approved for the surgery so I will give myself another week to get ready.  wish me luck!
Swede

One of my pre-op tests was an EKG.  I had it done on the 17th.  I got a letter in the mail yesterday from my surgeon telling me that the EKG was abnormal.  Apparently I have a Right Axis Deviation.  So, I have to have a full cardiac workup to make sure im ok for surgery.  My cardio appointment isnt unti June 17th.  im not too woried becaus I did look reasons why that happens and it seems that it is much more prominant in taller individuals.  I think 6'5" qualifies.  I hope thats the reason why.

I had my weigh in at my 5th of 6 monthly PCP appointments.  I had lost lost ten pounds since my last visit.  Well done!  Remember when you look back on this post that you were able to do it by sticking to it!!!  Dont be a slacker. Food is never worth it.  Food is never worth it!!!!

I was driving home from work yesterday when I received a phone call form Karen at my Surgeons office.  She started off by saying that she had been looking over my PCP write ups from the last 4 months and had a concern about my weight.  I started off at 400 pounds in January.  I slowly but steadily lost weight since then except for my 4th month.  I gained 3 pounds from the previous month, but had still lost 7 pounds overall.  She said this was a concern because this shows the insurance company that I may not be a good candidate because of weight fluctuation....  OK i guess I can see her point but my immediate response was that I had still lost overall.  She acknowledged that but said that this kind of weight gain could still hurt me in getting approved.  I then told her that I was in my surgeons office just last week and according to her scale I was down to 383 pounds...doesn't that count?  She said good job but no because that paperwork wasn't being sent in to the ins. company.  So, I guess I will have to make sure that I demonstrate a continuous downward trend. 
After all of that talk she said since it looks like you have everything else taken care of except for a few pre-op tests we should go ahead and schedule your operation.  We decided on a July 29 as the date!!!!  Whaa hoo!  I'm very excited to finally get a date.  Now its just a waiting game.  I will have to focus extremely hard on continuing to lose weight and I am going to take this time to start living my life like I am already post-op.  Time to put the exercise on high gear and start looking into maybe doing some meal replacements with protein drinks.  Hopefully i can find a drink or two that I like.  The ball continues to roll.  Wish me luck!
Swede