First "Stuck" Episode

I always hear people talking about food getting "stuck" and I always imagined how they know something is stuck. Well, I JUST felt it. Stupid me, I was carefully eating one boneless chicken wing that my fiance had leftover from last night, and usually if I have some of his food, I just chew really really well. I guess I didn't chew well enough this time, because all of a sudden, my stomach (or slightly above it) hurt really bad and I could feel the chicken trying to slide back up the pipe. I started sliming (producing lots and lots of saliva as my throat tried to lubricate the chicken) and promptly went over the sink to try to cough it up. I spit up a little bit, but after a few minutes, I felt the popular "plop" as the chicken fell into the stomach at last. It was my own fault for trying to eat a solid piece of food only 2 weeks out, but DAMN, nothing like that very very uncomfortable feeling of being stuck to teach you a lesson!

First Post-Op Appointment!

NINETEEN POUNDS! 19 pounds gone. I was afraid that I had lost less because I hadn't been perfect on my diet, but now I'm kind of disappointed that it wasn't more. Surgery was 12 days ago. I really can't complain, that's more than 1 pound a day! As I mentioned, I haven't been perfect. I've had one bite here and there of whatever my fiance has, chewing very very well, but that's not enough to mess up my diet, in my opinion. What I have been messing up though is that I keep eating more at meals than I'm supposed to. I'm only supposed to have about 3 oz. a meal right now, but it's just not enough to keep me full. If I eat closer to 4 or 5 oz, it keeps me full all night. I don't know how big of a problem that is, considering it's still only about a half cup of food.

My surgeon said my scars are healing really well and it was a short visit. I don't see him for another 6 weeks, but I have to see my dietician before then. Still moving along with mushies. Other than that, not much news. My incisions look pretty good now without the steri-strips and all the old scabs are off now. I think I might be healed enough to go swimming next Friday (4th of July). We'll see!

I need to get a scale of my own now, though.

Mushy Stage Tomorrow!

I had my surgery exactly 1 week ago today. Most of the pain is gone, thankfully, my incisions are starting to bother me a little bit, though. Also, I got these three mystery bruises about 6 inches directly under 3 of my incisions. Why am I bruising there? There's no reason for it. I still have to sleep on my back most of the night, though I can sleep on my side for short periods of time. Still can't sleep on my stomach and it's killing me. Other than that, I'm doing okay physically.

Mentally, however...

I've regretted getting my band so many times this week that it's making me resentful. I hate my liquid diet. It was pretty easy for me until about Tuesday night, when I felt hunger for the first time since the surgery. Now I'm just mad about it. I still didn't cheat, though. I followed the liquid diet to the letter. I made the mistake of going to the grocery store last night and I was so upset that I wanted to cry last night when I was trying to decide what liquid to have for dinner.

I never realized how hard this is going to be for me. It's not just a matter of eating less. When I see commercials for restaurants and food, my head still thinks the same way as before the Band. Example: Dairy Queen was advertising 99 cent hot dogs. I imagined going there and still ordering like 4 of them, and that's not something I'll be able to do. It will be hard for me to accept that the MAXIMUM amount of food I'll ever eat at a time again in my life is 1 cup. According to the diet my program goes by, the maximum I should ever have is 5 ounces, which is a little over half a cup. After spending a lifetime overeating, it's hard to imagine and hard to accept. I love food, and that's how I got to be this big.

Anyway, I am VERY excited to start my mushy phase tomorrow, even though it will last for 3 weeks...but at least I'll have more options than with the liquid diet. I already have my menu planned out for tomorrow (following the quantities for my program):

Breakfast
1 Tbsp scrambled egg
1 Tbsp corned beef hash

Lunch
1 1/2 Tbsp pureed roast beef/gravy
2 Tbsp mashed potato
2 Tbsp mango baby food (I didn't want to puree my own fruit or veggies)

Supper
1 1/2 Tbsp refried beans
2 Tbsp salsa (probably less since there's less beans)
2 Tbsp mango or applesauce

I'm soooo looking forward to it!

Ouch!

I have read many blogs and posts on LBT, but most people said how minimal the pain was after surgery, and that Liquid Tylenol took care of it mostly. So imagine my surprise when last night, I couldn't sit or lie down comfortably at all. I'm in almost constant pain. Not very strong, but constant. Tylenol doesn't help at all. Maybe I just have a low pain tolerance, but I've gotten so little sleep and I'm just exhausted. I know I'm not drinking as much as I should be, so now I'm afraid of getting dehydrated. I've drunk maybe 8 or 10 ounces of Crystal Light since I got home yesterday, plus my 1 oz chicken broth and 1 oz jello. My surgeon's associate told me to call if needed something stronger for the pain, but he didn't tell me who to call over the weekend, so I ended up calling the program coordinator. She told me to call the office's answering service, and some other doctor called me back. I told him I was still in a lot of pain but he refused to give me a prescription. He basically talked down to me and told me that I should expect to have pain after any surgery. Well, thanks. So now my stomach hurts from the surgery, my back hurts from trying to get comfortable (and I can't lie comfortably on my back because of my weight), and I'm just miserable.

I don't want to scare anyone away from having the surgery, but I wish someone would have warned me that I could be in a lot more pain than I planned on. The doctor who called me back today told me it could take up to a week to 10 days for the pain to subside. I'm just hoping I can go back to work Monday like I planned, I don't want to waste all my vacation time sitting around useless in pain. I'm forcing down some jello now even though I don't feel like it. I can't tell if I'm hungry or what now, my stomach keeps gurgling everything around and making noise and such. I know once this starts healing it will all be worth it, but I at least wish I could get some sleep to get away from the pain.

I'm Alive!

Everything went really well for the surgery. We got there on time yesterday (6 AM) and everything went exactly as scheduled, no hold-ups at all. There was a little confusion with the anesthesiologist about whether or not I have a CPAP machine, but it didn't hold anything up. I wasn't nervous at all most of the morning while I was getting ready, but once they separated me and Matt and had him go wait while they took me to the holding area, THEN I got nervous. My anesthesiologist spoke a mile a minute and I could barely understand what he was saying, and I was praying none of it was important for me to know! My surgeon came and spoke to me for a very few minutes, I don't know if that's normal or if he's holding the whole fiasco with another of his patients against me. Who knows. Either way, they wheeled me in for surgery after hooking up my IV at 7:30 exactly, and after a few minutes of strapping me to the table and everyone running around, I just passed out, no warning at all. Hehe. When I woke up, it was after 9 AM and my stomach HURT. Not horribly, but enough that I kept asking when the pain meds would kick in. Morphine is so wonderful. I had to stay in the recovery room until about noon, and I kept fighting off sleepiness because I wanted them to move me up to my room ASAP so I could see Matt again. I slept most of the afternoon after they moved me and made sure everything was okay and sending Matt to go eat some lunch. He wasn't allowed to stay overnight with me since I had a roommate, and I was really lonely since I was only sleeping on and off during the night. The nurses kept forgetting about me when I needed things, like the IV bag changed or when I could have ice again. My mouth was soooo dry and they only let me have a medicine cup of ice every 4 hours.

They wouldn't weigh me before my surgery yesterday, so I have no idea how much weight I lost with the pre-op diet. They only weighed me today, and according to that, I gained 2 pounds, but they said that it was because of the 4 bags of fluids that they kept pumping into me and that nobody says they lost weight when they are weighed at that point. Pfft. I need to order a scale this week so I can keep track myself.

The sorest spot on my stomach is where I think my port is, and I think I was expecting it to be on my left side, but it's on my right? I dunno. My bandages are in a nice little row, 4 all next to each other, and then 1 is kind of under my breast. I went home around 1:30 today and they made me wean off of the morphine all this morning, so I'm very sore and the Liquid Tylenol isn't helping. I tried to take a nap with Matt, but since I can't sleep well on my back and it hurts too much for my side or stomach, it didn't work very well. I might end up sleeping on the couch until the pain goes away so I can be propped up.

They had to take blood from my artery in the wrist for blood gas levels and for the two samples they needed, yesterday and today, they poked me a total of NINE times. If you've ever had this done, you know how painful it is since they didn't numb me for it and they had to keep poking around. Ouch!

I'm on my liquids today, and I thought I'd be hungry with only 2 oz. of liquid at a meal, but I just have more of a dry mouth than anything. I hope the soreness goes away before I have to go back to work Monday. I have to go see my surgeon again in 10 days for the check-up. So far, everything seems to be on track, though. My vitals have been really good everytime the nurse checked, they were impressed with my recovery, especially since they were expecting me not to be able to walk around very well because of my size. I don't have any problems walking and they were really surprised when I just got up, and the only problem I had was a little dizziness and nausea. They didn't make me do a swallow test, though, which seems strange when I read everyone else having to do it. Ah well. I don't really feel anything around my stomach area itself, is that normal? I only really feel the incisions and port.

Thanks for your support, everyone, and I'll keep you up to date!

I'm Really Having Surgery

June 12 is fast approaching and I can't believe how fast the 6 weeks went. I never did get back on the all-liquid diet, BUT I definitely stuck to my guns on a 2-shakes and 1 small meal plan, so I don't feel horrible. Sure, I won't have lost the 15-20 pounds I was hoping, but that's why I'm getting the Band to begin with! Had I really tried to keep with just shakes, I KNOW I would have binged binged binged...I become obsessed with food when I know I can't have it, especially when I knew that I didn't HAVE to do this diet. I don't have a scale so I have no idea if I lost any weight. I'm hoping I lost at least 5-10 pounds, but at long as I lost SOMETHING I won't feel like the diet was in vain.

I'm a little nervous that my surgery will be postponed, though. I finished my medical clearance with my doctor and I found out that I had a urinary tract infection, so they put me on 3-day antibiotics, which I finished this morning, and I hope they'll just accept that I was treated for it and continue as planned. I'm also nervous about the sleep apnea part, my surgery coordinator called me and said that my pulminologist will have to be absolutely clear about me not having my own CPAP and using the hospital equipment for surgery, and she said they usually want people on the machine for 2-3 weeks before surgery. I passed this information on to my doc and I hope it all works out. I will be so pissed if I went through all this and waited so long and to have it postponed over those two little things.

I probably won't post again until after I get home from the surgery on Friday unless something goes wrong (gets cancelled, postponed, etc.) so no news is good news!

See you on the bandwagon!

Liquid Diet...Day 4

I promised both myself and my fiance that I would not lie while going through this process. I spent most of my life lying to my mother about what I have eaten and constantly hiding and sneaking food. I started my liquid diet on Thursday, and now I understand "head hunger" better than ever. Originally, I was going to do 2 protein shakes and a small meal each day. Then I decided to do the all liquid diet (allowing myself one light yogurt per day with it) because most people have to do it anyway and I really want to drop some weight before the surgery.

So...did I keep with it? I'm on Day 4, and I failed 4 days. Not horribly, mind you (well maybe Friday). This is what I ate OUTSIDE of the protein shakes and my 1 yogurt:

Thursday: super hungry, decided with fiance that I wanted to go back to 2 shakes, 1 meal. Had my one meal of a Homestyle Bakes Chicken Fried Rice, which wasn't fried at all, so it wasn't too bad, and 1 sugar-free Klondike ice cream sandwich.

Friday: I decided I wanted to go back to just shakes because I was afraid of not losing weight with the meals. What did I do after work? I stopped at Wendy's on the way home, a chicken club sandwich and a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. I wasn't even that hungry all day, it was ALL head hunger. I just wanted to eat. Later that night, I ate a small frozen pizza (thin crust) and half of a ham and ricotta calzone. Now I don't feel so bad though, I just looked up the nutritional info and I still only ate about 1600 or 1700 calories, so I guess it's not a complete sabotage. I felt so guilty though that I swore I would keep with the diet.

Saturday: I didn't do too bad! I wasn't very hungry, but I did give in to head hunger and had a sugar-free Klondike Crunch ice cream bar, and I did that instead of eating something much worse for me. Still not as good as I wanted though.

Sunday: Since I did so well yesterday, I thought I would do perfectly today. I had Chinese in my mind all morning though. Thankfully, after dropping Matt off at work, the Chinese place was still closed, so I went straight home. But then, I had 4 boneless buffalo wings and some leftover chicken and rice--and I couldn't finish it all, so that's a plus. But, I also had a few Pocky sticks, which are basically these really thin buscuit sticks dipped in chocolate. I did stop myself though, I could have eaten a whole box of them but I only ate 2 out of the 7 little packs in the box. I think it's harder for me to focus when Matt isn't home because it's easier to cheat, which was Friday night, yesterday, and today. This week he will be home every night, and I can't cheat at all at work because my coworkers all know I'm on the diet. I hate making promises now because I keep breaking them, but this week I am going to try try try to stick with it.

Besides the diet, I spoke with my pulminologist about the sleep study. He said even if I would require a CPAP, I wouldn't need to get one for the surgery itself because they have all the equipment at the hospital. And I wouldn't buy one AFTER the surgery, so I'm all good. If I have to live with it for one night after my surgery, I don't mind.

Pray for me!