I'm Home!

The surgery went great!  A little more pain than I was expecting compared to what I remember of my old surgerys, but that is only to be expected and it was controlled after a bit.   All in all I was in the hospital for about 6.5 hrs or so.  1.5 hrs preop and 1.5 hrs post op.  The rest was mostly recovery since the surgery was pretty quick (max 45 minutes).  The doctor told my parents that it went great so I am very happy. 

I took a little nap when I got home, but felt like getting up and moving around.  So now I am sitting in front of the TV (watching Project Runway) and sipping some crystal light.  The only thing tht is bothering me right now is the random hicup - ouch! 

 I only wish I had someone to light my furnance (the pilot blew out - again). My mom doesn't know how so I am going to have to walk down the stairs later and help her out.  She said that she would  figure it out, but I know the first time I had to do it I had a really hard time.  It isn't too bad for me since I like cold, but it may get too cold for my mom (and animals) tonight.  However, if I don't feel up to going down I won't.  My mom said that she can just bundle up and I am boiling water to get the humidty up which really helps heat my house up.  Now, I just hope Michigan weather doesn't do something crazy like snow tonight. 

Thanks for all the good wishs,
Tracy

PS. Please excuse any grammer or spelling errors my mind isn't 100% up and running yet :)

Birthday and the day before Surgery!

So today has been a little strange for a birthday. In fact, I forgot it was my birthday until someone texted me this morning (granted it was early). I spent most of today cleaning the house since my mom will be staying with me for a few days and my dad for a couple days after that (since I can't drive for 10 days). Plus it kept my mind busy :)




Now I am sitting in the hotel room waiting for my parents to arrive watching a christmas movie on TV.. I am starting to feel a little nervous, but I am not sure why. I have had surgery several times before and never got nervous (until they wheeled me into the OR, but I think that is normal). I think it is because I have had so long to think about this. In the past, things have happened so fast there really wasn't much time to really think about things. Plus I think that it isn't really the surgery that I am nervous about, but the life afterwards. I mean no matter what good things will come it will be a huge change in my life.



Well my parents should be here soon so I better go. Only 12 more hours to go!!! Wait only 11 hours - my surgery was pushed up an hour :)

Medically Cleared!!!

…with less than 15 minutes to spare! Talk about cutting it close. I was woke up this morning with a call from the surgeon’s office - so much for staying up late since I could sleep in :) I found out that the doctor’s office didn’t get the Echo results yet, so they wouldn’t write up the clearance – or call me back I guess…grrr…. And since the doctor is out on Thursdays I had to get everything by the time they closed today.

Of course this ticked me off since I was told several times by the Lab that my results would be there in plenty of time. In fact, the person doing the appointmentw seem offended that I even asked. The tech doing the echo even said that she would write down that I needed it for surgery in 10 days so it wouldn’t get delayed. But of course, it did.

I called the lab and they told me THEY didn’t have the results yet, but they expected them to be posted soon. I had to laugh at this point. They made it sound like there was nothing that could be done except wait until they posted later in the day if they did. So I waited for a while, but then I decided that my presence in their waiting room might do more things than a voice on a phone so I drove over to the Medical Village.

I spent some time waiting in Radiology only to find out that the office reading it was just upstairs - not in some far off location like they made it sound earlier. With 1 little phone call they were able to fax it down – why they didn’t do that at 8am I will never know. However, I was extremely lucky since the lady who was able to make that phone call was gone for the day. She was in her coat when she was talking to me and left before it was faxed down, so if I was a minute or two later I would have missed her.

Luckily, I got a copy in time and ran it down the hall to my doctor’s. Waited some more. Got the medical clearance. Ran up the stairs to the surgeon’s office. Found out that it wasn’t good enough (didn’t actually say “medically cleared”). Ran back down stairs. Waited some more. Finally got the words I needed at about 4:45pm.

Good news is I have had about 100 calories today and with all the stress I am not even hungry. Great news is I AM HAVING SURGERY ON FRIDAY!!!!!

2 days!

OMG – Only two days left! I can’t believe how fast the last few weeks have gone. I can’t wait for Friday. I am so ready. I still have 4 lbs to lose before hitting my pre-surgery goal. I thought I was closer, but I found out that my scale is a little sensitive on where you stand. I was standing too close to the front and that is probably why I thought I lost 4lbs in 2 days a few days ago. Oh.. well I am still down 11lbs in total and probably 6lbs this week so I am still happy.


I still haven’t got my medical clearance from my primary doctor yet and it is starting to drive me crazy. I just wish someone would give me a call and let me know what is going on. If my Echo really did turn out bad and I need to delay the surgery then I would just like to know soon. Talk about cutting this short… grr…

I have been struggling a little with the pre-surgery diet. I was supposed to travel the first week so I had talked to my nutritionist about non-liquid options when dining out, but when my travel was canceled I started to follow the diet as written. The first couple days I got so hungry that I decided to change things up a little. I stayed within the nutritional limits, but instead of a protein drink and a serving of vegetables I did a salad with chicken. It was great! I used about 2 cups of shredded lettuce , ½ cup of raw vegetables, 3oz of grilled chicken, fat free salsa and fat free sour cream (instead of dressing). It was very filling and made the days so much easier.

However, by yesterday I was soo burned out that I couldn’t even stand the idea of having that salad again. Plus this is my furlough week and it is making sticking to this so much harder. I have too much time on my hands to think and develop my mental hunger. And that extremely empty stomach type of physical hunger is actually a huge trigger for my mental hunger. Normally, when I get that extreme physical hunger I end up eating way too much of really bad food. I was so tempted to run out last night and have just one last “real” meal.

Instead, I decided to fix myself something at home that fit within my available calories, protein, and carbs for the day – a tuna salad in a tortilla. The fat content was slightly higher than I normally would have had with the diet (only had full fat mayo for some odd reason), but so much better that anything I could have gotten if I had went out. And after my stomach had something in it the mental hunger was controllable.

Tomorrow I start the pure liquid diet – clear liquids only. Thankfully it is only two days, but I really wish I had picked another week to do my furlough. Unfortunately, when we had to pick weeks in May I thought this week would be great since my Birthday is on Thursday. But on the positive side I don’t have to wait any longer for surgery and my Bandiversary and Birthday can be celebrated together in the future. It will be something great to look forward to!

10 lbs!

I am starting day 4 (of 10) on my preop diet and my wieght loss is now at 10lbs!  My goal is to hit 15 by next Friday, which since I had lost 8lbs prior to the preop diet I thought would be a breeeze.  However, I kinda splurged a little more than planned right before and gained a few pounds back.  Now I have lost those PLUS 2 more!! Yippee!!

Virtual Me

I have been having a little fun with a virtual wight loss program offered by My Virtual Model.  The model on the left is "me" at 275 - my starting weight and the one on the right is me at my surgeon's target BMI of 30 (180lbs). 

The first time I thought about being 180 I had a mixture of feelings going through my head. I was both happy with the goal being realistic and healthy, but was also a little disappointed.  The last time I was at 180 I was in high school and I thought of myself as so much heavier than most of my classmates.  I mean, after going through WLS I want don't want to still feel FAT.

Now after having that number in my head for a month I feel much better. First, reaching a BMI of 30 is great! It virtually eliminates all the health risks with being overweight. Plus as I reflect back, I realized that my memories of my weight and body were pretty distorted - surprise surprise :) I didn't stick out like a sore thumb and I could do everything that other people could do.

Plus 180 doesn’t need to be a stopping point. I am not sure what my end goal will be – maybe 150? But I think I look great at 180 and I am sure it will feel sooo good.

Sooo Hungry

Ok this is nuts!! Today is day 1 of the Pre-Op diet and I am sooooo hungry. In the past ,I have skipped meals when I am busy working and would just be getting hungry for lunch. Now, after two meal replacement shakes and a serving of yogurt my stomach is growling. I would swear my mind is playing tricks on me, but this isn’t just a case of the munchies like I normally get with “mental” hunger. My stomach is make so much noise my puppy is starting to look at me funny.


At least it means 1 day closer and luckily my pre-op diet includes many more options than some. I think I just need to play around with the timing of my “meals” and snacks. Only 9 days to go!!!!!