Well – Yesterday I had my six week check up.  I was guessing about 10 lbs lost between my last appointment, 3 weeks ago, and this one, but ended up being 12 lbs lost!  So that was good.  My total lost according to scale at Dr’s office since the two weeks before surgery (Which was eight weeks ago) is 41.50 lbs.

The things I need to work on are:

1.  Eating less.  I had stopped measuring.  Nutritionist said at this point I need to be eating 1/8 of a cup and not eating until I’m full.  So I’m going to try to be better about that.  I know a lot of that is mental.  Just got to get it through my head that 1/8 of a cup is all I need to eat at this point.

2.  More water/liquids.  I mentioned to the doctor that I’m having a hard time with liquids, because it still hurts a lot of times when I drink.  He said if it’s still hurting at my next appointment in 6 weeks that he’ll do a scope.  His guess was maybe it could be a post surgical ulcer or something.  He also wrote me a prescription and told me to take acid reducing medicine twice a day to try to help with it.

3.   More protein.  With eating so little food, I’m not able to get my protein in that way, so to prevent becoming malnutritioned, I need to have to get in protein shakes between meals.  I wish I was more adventurous as to mixing things in with my shakes.  They are so expensive, I’m afraid I’m going to mix something and not be able to drink it.  It’s not something I enjoy in the first place.  I’ve had people send me some recipes …just need to try something, I suppose.

4.  Upping my cardio.  I finally started on my walking 4 days before my appointment, so Renee just wanted me to continue and once a week up my time from the 30 minutes.  She said to remember to take a day off during the week to rest and/or do something fun.

5.  Get on a schedule to get in all my vitamins and pills I’m supposed to take!  There are many days that I’ll forget part of them during the day.  I’ve always had issues with this.  When I had my thyroid cancer, they REALLY had a hard time regulating my meds, because I would forget to take them.  Finally, I got to where if I could take them before bed, I’d always remember them.  That is not the time of day most people take those meds, but my doctor was like “Just take them when you can remember them!”  So that is when I’ve always taken them.  BUT with some of the pills I take now, I can’t take them at the same time, so have to stagger them.  Just going to put some on my work desk so I can take them during the day, because if they aren’t in front of me, I probably will forget them.

Well – I think that is it for now.  Hopefully if I follow all that, the weight will come off quicker.  At least the scale is going in the right direction, no matter how slow.  Don’t get me wrong – it is coming off quick, but I just know at this stage, it’ll come off quicker than in the future, so I’d love to get off as much now before it slows down.

I’m looking forward to my sister’s visit next month.  I’ve taken 4 days off work to spend with her.  I know my Aunt is also off work.  I’m hoping to lose some more before they get here.  Also working up my duration a bit more.  We’ll be all over the place.  Looking forward to all the pictures I’ll take. 🙂

Well – that is my update.

Well – I wasn’t going to make a new post until after my follow up appointment on Monday, but hey, why not.

SO – I’ve been frustrated because my weight hadn’t changed in like two weeks.  I belong to several forums/groups and see posts from people that had surgery close to when I did and they are losing a lot.  I’m thinking “This early on, shouldn’t the weight just be melting off??”  Well – Maybe my expectations are too high.  I think, though, that only I am to blame.  Sure – I’m not eating as many calories, currently, that someone should get in a day, but it takes more than just eating less.  I got SO burnt out on protein shakes, I just couldn’t stomach more.  I KNOW that it can stimulate the weight loss……I also haven’t been doing my working out.  Currently I’m just supposed to be walking 30 minutes a day.  Things just got crazy there for a while.  We had two big snow storms, right after another.  Then my Dad came to visit and I went back to work and the first week back, my manager wanted me to come in the office every day, which would bring me home late and tired.  By the time all of that was over, I had been making so many excuses I just didn’t feel like doing anything.  It’s been cold out and I just wanted to stay in!

This weekend I ended up going down a few more pounds on the scale, which gave me a little boost.  Since the two weeks before surgery (that was my last official weigh in before surgery) until now, I have lost about 38 lbs.  That is about 8 weeks, so if I break it down to losing 5 lbs a week, that’s not toooo bad.  I need to stop being so hard on myself….well, actually I don’t, it’ll keep me motivated if I’m hard on myself.  It’s funny, when I see people at work, I can see them look me up and down to see if I’ve lost weight.  I’m getting a lot of “I can tell in your face that you’ve lost weight!”  ((Of coarse though – that is the first thing I’d like to go – that horrible double chin – I’d love to see my jaw line again!))

SO -anyway…..starting yesterday I tried a suggestion my Mom made and put peanut butter in my protein shake.  It make it different enough that I could drink it again!  SO – I got in my protein shake in the morning to start my day.  In the evening, I came home and got on my tennis shoes and went to my grandma’s and did my 30 minutes on the treadmill.  She was saying “Don’t do 30 minutes right off!  Work up to it!  Do a little now and more tomorrow.”  But no, I was determined, I did my 30 minutes.  Today I’m starting my day off again with my protein shake and have made plans to meet my friend, Kerry, after work and walk in the park, since it’s supposed to hit the 80’s today.  She is SUCH a great walking partner.  She always is encouraging and lets me go at my own pace and is right there with me.  Ready to go or stop whenever I am.  I think once it starts getting nicer outside, it’s going to lift my spirits and get me wanting to get out more.  I’m HOPING that Tommie will start to want to get out more too, but if not, I’m going to have to try my hardest to make it not effect me getting out.

Bad habits are really hard to break, but I’m hoping with the tools this surgery have given me, it will make my decision making better.  Here’s to a better year ahead. 🙂  Thank you for my friends and family for all your support and encouragement.

Well – It’s been a busy week.  Last week I was back to work.  Friday, my Dad came to visit for the weekend.  He flew back Monday.  It was so good to see him.  Too bad my Mom couldn’t come too.  Would’ve been nice to have them both here.  My Dad hasn’t been back to town in a long time though.  We didn’t do a lot while he was here.  We got in some visiting with family and I took him around town and showed him some things that had changed since he had last been here.  Spent a lot of time with my Grandma.  In the picture above is my Dad with his Mom and Sister (My Aunt Carol).

We did a lot of eating out while Dad was in town.  I tried to pick stuff I could eat off the menu.  I also had lots of left overs to eat this week.  I’ve had an issue lately that most would consider TMI.  It’s a problem I had before surgery too, but it’s just more noticeable and uncomfortable now.  I’ve been taking some pills daily, hoping it will make the situation better, but it hasn’t worked so far.  I’m just getting really frustrated.

I haven’t lost weight since I last posted…..or in the past week and a half or so.  That can be frustrating also.  There are days I look in the mirror and think that I look so pale, but I’ve been told by others that I have good coloring to me.  Maybe it’s the lights in my bathroom. 🙂  That is really the only mirror’s I have in my house.  It’s not like i like to look at myself a lot.

I haven’t starting my walking yet.  I’m supposed to be doing 30 mins a day at the moment.  First it was the snow, then my Dad visiting (which we DID get out and walk some days), my left knee has bee killing me, and then this week my manager has wanted me to come into the office every day….I’m going to have to stop my excuses though and just start!  My plan is to go to the community center and use the treadmill for now.

I’m needing to get more water in a day still and I think I’m going to try to eat less and get at least one protein shake in a day.  That will hopefully help.  Only time will tell to see how things will go.

Well – Today was my first day back to work.  I ended up working almost 10 hours, just because I was engrossed in catching things up and only really got half way through it.  Tomorrow is month end and I’ll have to go into the office.  I think it’ll take a little while to get all caught up.

I think I’m going to call the nurse tomorrow and let her know how I’m doing and see what she says.  Just looking in the mirror tonight I feel like color is drained from my face.  I just look tired.  There were a couple days that I didn’t drink much, because it hurt to drink.  I was told by the doctor’s office that it’s hard to catch up on hydration with the new stomach if you get behind.  Well – I’m finding out how true that is.  Yesterday I drank 72 oz of liquid, and so far today I’ve drank 32 ozs.  My urine is still REALLY dark.  I just don’t know what else to do.  I have a feeling the nurse might tell me to go to the ER and get a bag of saline to get caught up on my hydration.  I’ll just have to wait and see what they say though.  I keep having a stabbing pain every once in a while in my right side also.  Who knows, maybe it’s my body healing, but it’s really annoying.

I feel like I have too much to do before this weekend, and not a lot of energy to do it with.  I haven’t made a lot of plans.  Guess I’ll have to do it spur of the moment.  I’m wondering if I’m going to need to go by the post office and set up for me to pick up my mail there, because I have a feeling we’re not going to have any mail delivered here for a while.  I don’t want to be late on bills because of it.

Well – I guess I need to go get some more liquid before it gets to late.  Done venting. 🙂

Thought it was about time for an update.

All this snow has been something else!  Tommie finally got to use his new snowblower that he’s had a couple of years now.  It’s been a while since Kansas City has gotten this much snow.  Too bad I don’t have the energy to really get out in it, or have any kids or animals to play with in it. 🙂  I AM glad that I’m still off work during it.  I can’t believe we are supposed to have ANOTHER big one on theway!  Tommie had someone come over and borrow his snowblower and he’s supposed to get it back Monday, so hopefully he gets it before the next big one arrives.  A couple of the neighbors had bought snow blowers too, so they were all out using them this past week. 🙂

On to my WLS (weight loss surgery) update and struggles.  I have been struggling with getting my protein in and getting all my liquids in.  Also, all my vitamins.  I’m just not being an ideal patient at the moment.

First off:  Protein.  I wish at this point there were just better ways to get it in than doing the shakes.  The shakes aren’t unbearable, but at this point, I’m just TOTALLY sick of them.  The only one I can really tolerate all that well, is the chocolate and I’m just tired of it.  I really need to work better on getting that in, because I know it will help me the most with feeling better and getting the weight loss going.  I’ve been sitting at the same weight for most of the week, though past few days it went down some.  I’m about 36 lbs down from my highest weight.  I don’t know if I see it much in the mirror, but I do feel it in the way my clothes are fitting.

Second off:  Liquids.  My issues with the liquids are that when I drink a lot of times, it makes my stomach hurt.  I’ve looked on the forums and there are some people that have mentioned that after surgery, they can’t tolerate the Crystal Light.  It upsets their stomach. That is the issue I was having too.  That is the way I got my water in before surgery.  I’d just put in my drink mix and I could get my water in.  It doesn’t help that the flavor’s I prefer all have caffeine in them and we’re not supposed to drink caffeine.  So – I tried the Crystal Light Fruit Punch and it just cramped my stomach and made me  nauseous, so I didn’t have any more of that.  I have been able to get down some Sobe water, but sometimes that upsets my stomach too.  Plain water even upsets it sometimes.  I don’t understand why liquids upset my stomach, but eating doesn’t.  I also know that dehydration can make me really sick and I worry about that.  I am torn on this.

Third off:  Vitamins.  Well – you know what happened at week one with my pills.  SO – I stopped taking the pills and ordered some baratric chewables.  I’ve always had a hard time remembering to take pills.  If I can’t take them before bed, they get forgotten.  When I had my thyroid cancer and had to start taking my thyroid meds, i had the worst time.  Night isn’t the best time to take them, I guess, but my doctor told me to take them at night if that was the only time I could remember them.  That is when I take all my meds.  With the chewable vitamins, you are supposed to take two a day.  One in the morning and one at night.  I get my night time one in, but don’t always remember the morning dose.  Plus, they don’t include iron, so I have to take that separably and the one I got is too much of a dose, and I haven’t gotten out to get the right one yet.  I just need to come up with a better routine for this all!!

Fourth:  I haven’t started on my exercise yet.  At some point, I plan on going back to the community center and at least at first just start on the treadmill for half an hour.  That is what they are wanting me to do for now.  I’m thinking once I’m back to work I’ll come up with a daily schedule for all that.

So, today I got out for the first time since last Saturday.  Tommie and I ran to the grocery store.  I’m now on solid food and have actually felt like eating some.  Today I had half a catfish fillet for lunch and for dinner we went by Wendy’s and I had some chili.  It was strange…..after I ate the chili, for a little while I got overwhelmingly tired.  I mean, I couldn’t keep my eyes open and it was just like all my energy got zapped out of me.  Not sure if I ate too much or what.  I had to go lay down and I could hear my heart beating in my ears.  I’m OK now, but that was a bit strange.  It also drained me walking around the grocery store.  By the time we were done, I was just exhausted.

Well – This week will be a busy one.  I need to spend the first part of the week cleaning up a bit around the house and clearing the guest room for my Dad’s visit.  Wednesday  I will be starting back to work, and playing catch up there.  Should be interesting to see the state of my spreadsheets when I get back!!  Friday my Dad arrives for the weekend and leaves on Monday.  I’m really looking forward to seeing him.  I am a “Daddy’s Girl”.  I was usually the one tagging along everywhere he went when we were little. 🙂  I’d go to his motorcycle races with him, I’d go to work with him if he had to work on the weekends, I’d follow him off on adventures, I love my Dad.  I’m SO lucky to have such wonderful parents.  My Mom is always there when I need her and I think we’ve grown closer as I matured, I wish I was more like her in a lot of ways. 🙂  I’ll probably never reach TOTAL maturity though.  Ha ha.

Well – I think I’ll close this here if you haven’t lost interest already.  Have a great week everyone!

OK – I have my official two week appointment today with the surgeon.  It’ll be two weeks tomorrow since I was on the table.

I spoke with him about the pills getting stuck and my concerns that I had damaged something, since ever since I have had irritation when drinking.  He assured me that I didn’t damage anything, if I had, I would’ve been much sicker.  He said that most likely I irritated things or scratched, etc.  He told me to double up on acid reflux pills for now and it’ll get better.

I’m not up to where they’d like me to be on drinking and everything, but from the sound of it, where I am is normal.  So – goal from here is to increase my liquids as I can, get my protein in, adjust my vitamins and get in 20 to 30 minutes of walking a day.  My next appointment will be in four weeks and will be my six week appointment.

The doctor told me I had already lost a lot of weight and brought down my BMI quite a bit and he said he was proud of me.  From my pre-surgery appointment (which was two weeks before surgery and before I started on the liquid diet) to today, I have lost 29.5 lbs.  (Let’s just call it 30 – OK?  Ha ha)  My BMI is down 5.2!

I will return to work in a week.  I’m looking forward to week 5 when I can start eating more solid foods!  I want to thank the people who checked in on me (either by phone, email or FB) and sent me cards and prayers, and the one’s who helped me out.  I’m lucky to have many caring people in my life.

Had a little scare last night.  I was a week out and was told to start back on my vitamins on this day.  The vitamins consist of a HUGE multi-vitamin and two Calcium Citrate pills (which are also both HUGE).  I broke them in half, but that still leaves six big pieces.  I’m telling Tommie, I wonder if all these will even FIT in my little stomach!  Well, took them and after a little bit was feeling an uncomfortable pain mid abdomen.  I just knew it was stuck.  After laying there for a little while, I ended up getting up and walking the hall.  Just walked back and forth, hoping it’d help work it on through.  A couple of times I got that iron taste in my mouth and my mouth started watering and I felt like I was going to throw up.  I stood in the bathroom until it passed and then continued to walk the hall.  Eventually i sat down at the computer and posted about it on a few of my bariatric forums.  So anyway, yeah, they got stuck, it was uncomfortable and (yay) I didn’t throw up.  It eventually went through and I was able to go to bed.  I learned from my forums to not take the calcium at the same time as the multi.  Plus, I went online and ordered some chewable one’s I needed, so I’m not going to take any more until I get those in the mail.  Forget that!

One of my fears is throwing up at this stage!  I’m glad the few times where I thought I was going to, it passed!  My Grandma came over this morning to make me breakfast and we had a good talk and a walk.  She mentioned that she can tell that I’m getting stronger every day.  I told her I can feel it.  I can feel myself healing.  I can finally sleep on my side (either side) and it hurts less and less to stand up and move around.  Though I do still have a couple incision points that are still sore because of their location.

Tomorrow I will have to wake up early to get a shower, eat breakfast and make it to a doctor appointment with my primary.  He’ll check on my blood pressure.  They took me off one of my pills in the hospital, so I guess we’ll see how that is working.  It’ll be nice to get out of the house.  We’ll see how worn out I am by the time I get home. 🙂  Friday, my friend Kristie is going to come pick me up and I’ll get out to go see a movie.  Tommie and I were going to go see one last night, but we couldn’t agree on one.  We couldn’t think  of anywhere else to “get out of the house” to either.  🙁

My Mom bought my Dad a plane ticket to come see me in March.  He was only able to spare two days off work though.  It’s RIGHT after I go back to work, but he’ll be here all weekend.  I’m going to try to take one day off on his last name.  I still have three weeks of PTO, but I also know I’ll be doing a lot of catch up when I get back.  Of coarse when you’re sick and feeling bad, you want your parents.  No one ever takes care of you like Mommy and Daddy.  Feeling very selfish at the moment and wanting my Dad to myself, but I know he has a lot of other people to see here too, because he makes it back so rarely.  I wouldn’t want to keep him from that either. 🙂  I have to think of some stuff for us to do together while he’s here though.

Well – that’s about it from my exciting life for now. 🙂

I’m really not sure how my recovery is supposed to go.  I’m not sure how I’m supposed to be feeling or how quickly I’m supposed to get better.  I’m just taking it as it comes.

Good points:  I’ve been able to get up and walk.  I’ve had no problems eating and drinking.  I don’t feel hungry (thank goodness!).  I haven’t had any nausea since those two times in the hospital (which they said was caused by dehydration)  I haven’t thrown up.  The last few days I’ve been able to lay some on my side.

I told Tommie that I felt like I was behind on recovery, because hearing people talk about it that has gone through it, recovery was nothing and they were up doing what they do every day in no time.  He told me to not compare myself to anyone else.  I just had major surgery and it’s going to take a while to get back to where I need to be.

Yesterday was the first day I didn’t take a pain pill (until bed time).  I also had my first visitor come by.  I was just SO tired all day, yet when I tried to nap, I couldn’t sleep.  I also took a shower yesterday, and that wears me out.

Today I seem to have a little more energy, so maybe it’ll get better as days go by.  I did sleep really well last night.  Tommie is back to work today.  My Grandma came over and helped me make breakfast.  She went home, has too many dogs to take care of so can’t really stay with me.  Don’t think I really need anyone here anyway.  I’ve been told to stay away from the stairs.  Ha ha.

Not sure when I’ll get more visitors, but I hope I get warning.  I also hope I’m going to be ready to go back to work when it’s time.  I think it’s going to be tiring. 🙂  I just made my first follow up appt with my family doctor for Thursday.  Need to do a check on my blood pressure.  The follow up with the surgeon is for two weeks after surgery.  Not sure what will be discussed then.

Well, that’s about it.  I haven’t really felt like being online much or reading much or talking on the phone much.  Thought I’d update people on how I was doing though.  Thanks for the thoughts.

Well – It’s done!  We went in first thing Tuesday morning and I had my Gastric Bypass surgery.  I was very happy that my nurse listened to me and put the I.V. where I told her to. I have the worst times with those and nurses not listening to me.  My husband and my Grandma was there with me before I was taken back.  I remember being wheeled back, but I don’t remember anything else until I was being rolled down the hall to my room.

I loved they way they were able to move me from the rolling bed to the bed in my room.  They inflated what felt like a raft underneath me and just lifted me over!  I was thinking I was going to have to move myself like I had always in the past  That was really nice. 🙂  The first 24 hours I had a morphine button I could push whenever I wanted.  I was told to just keep pushing it as much as I needed, it was set where I couldn’t over dose myself and would only dispense every 10 mins or so.  I took FULL advantage of that!  I think they were surprised I didn’t use it as much as I could though.  I know they were wanting us up and walking when we could, so I asked that evening to get up and walk the halls.  They said I was ahead of the curve.

Next day they brought food.  I tried eating it, but it was NOT GOOD at all.  I think I got a few bites down from each meal on Wednesday.  They also took away the morphine drip that day and replaced with pain meds in my I.V. and some pills.  Dose is two pills at a time, but only one is enough for me.  I got up and walked about 7 or 8 times that day.

Thursday they wanted to see how I handled breakfast and then they’d most likely send me home.  I told him I hoped the food was different   They said it was, it was more like what I could eat at home.  I did a lot better with those meals.  I really liked the nurses I had at St Lukes Plaza location.  I think Tommie was happy that I came home though, because he didn’t have a good time navigating around the place. 🙂  He’s not the best with directions. 🙂

Tommie’s been doing really well taking care of me.  He’s made me all my meals and has been tracking everything.  Encouraging me to eat, drink and walk.  Today was the first time I showered since the morning of the surgery.  I think my eyesight has gotten better today too.  I was trying to read words on my cell phone, but it was just a blur of things.  Was sort of worrisome.  Tommie looked it up and found out what was causing that.  There was this anti-nauseous patch they put behind my ear before surgery.  One of the side effects was blurry vision and the other was severe cotton mouth.   It was so bad!  I felt like my mouth was sticking together, it was REALLY bad. It DID give me the desire to drink though, which was very important.  When they took me off the I.V. I guess I wasn’t drinking enough, because I had a couple bouts of nausea.  Luckily I didn’t throw up, but they put another bag of fluids through me and I felt better.  I haven’t had that feeling again so far.

I’m still pretty tired and worn out, but I’m getting through.  I’m feeling lucky that I’m not having hunger pains.  I know this probably isn’t new news to anyone, but I haven’t felt like updating much the past few days and at least I a little down. 🙂

Wow.  I started all of this at the beginning of July and my surgery is finally almost here.  Tomorrow I will drink the clear liquid protein.  I’ve heard horror stories on the taste of it.  It’s just one day though.

Today we went out and bought all the food we will need for when I come home from the hospital.  For the first two weeks I’ll be able to eat 6 teaspoons of food at a time.  I will also have to drink 8 ozs of water per hour between meals.  Most food the first two weeks will be pureed food.  So we picked up what I can eat and also go some baby food.  Should be interesting.  But you know what?  After two weeks of no food, just about anything sounds good at the moment.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day at work.  I have to get as much done as I can before I leave.  I’m not sure if my manager will try to figure out my month balancing or leave it until I get back.  I’ll be getting back to work just in time for next month’s end.

I have to say – Tommie has been so great through all of this.  He didn’t want me to have surgery at first (and still doesn’t really), but he stands behind me and hopes it works at making me more healthy.  He has made a point these past few weeks to not eat in front of me.  He also drinks protein shakes with me, and makes my shakes to make sure I drink them.  He said after surgery he is going to be on me to make sure I get in all my protein and water.

Today Tommie got me a Google Chromebook.  That is what I’m typing this on now while I watch TV in bed. 😉  I think I’m going to really like it!  Just something simple and light that I can pick and and take with me for basic things.

Well, today wore me out.  Just have no energy with no food for so long, so I’m going to go ahead and end this here.  I probably won’t post again until after my surgery.