1 week post op

Well its been 1 week since surgery, sorry I haven't updated sooner but its been crazy here. I spent just about 3 days in the hospital. The first two were painful and full of morphine. I didn't accomplish near what they wanted me to those days.  I didn't get up and walk but maybe twice. I literally slept/passed out the entire days. Come the end of day 2, I said no more morphine and they gave me percocet...much better.  At least now I could eat, or should I say drink, the broth they gave me and some jello.
     I do have to say I have some of the best friends around. Lots of facebook support, a few short visitors. And the even my sister flew in from BC to help my mom with the kids.
     This full fluid diet I'm on now is sooo much better than the all liquid diet before surgery.  Yes I can only eat small amount of smooth, no lumps at all, liquid or purees.  So my food consists of stirred yogurt, Cream of wheat, smoothies, shakes, coffee, soups, puddings and jellos. Yum right?  Hey it's better than the shakes I was confined to for 3 weeks lol.  The hardest part of this is not eating too fast and making sure I get my 62 g of protein in daily.   I have yet to meet that goal, however I get closer every day.
     My incisions are healing nicely, no stitches or staples...yay! They used steristrips to close them up and they have now all come off. My stomach looks pretty rough but once they are completely healed up I'll do what I can to reduce the scarring.
     My pain is getting less and less everyday, barely use the pain killers at all. And even though I feel really good I still get exhausted easily from the inside.  Just have to learn to take it easy and not over do it!
Well that's all i have for today, thx for your continued support and encouragement!

Surgery Day!

   Well it's here, surgery day!! I am up an hour earlier than I wanted to be, but I guess that's better than an hour later than I needed to be lol.   I am anxious, excited, nervous and elated! There is no word to fully describe what I am feeling this morning.  It's almost surreal, maybe once I have the IV in and they are putting the drugs to knock me out will it seem real.
   I am really most scared about the pain after, they say when the gas settles it's painful, ughh.  I don't really want to be all hopped up on morphine all the time, but if that's what it takes I'll do it.
   This is one of the biggest things I have ever done, besides giving birth, and honestly I'm scared.  What if I fail and go back to my old eating habits, what if I gain all the weight back? What if I succeed and people see me differently? What if I succeed and I don't like who I become? What if my spouse doesn't like who I become? There are so many what ifs out there and it's hard not to think of them all at the same time.  I guess I can try to take it one day at a time and deal with things as they are thrown at me, but that's harder than it sounds.
   So many emotions running through me, this post is all over the place, I hope you can keep up haha.  I know I have lots of friends out there to support me, and family is all behind my decision as well.  But somehow sitting here at almost 5am I feel alone in my decision.   Maybe that's because I made the decision, although unconscious, to become almost 300lbs.  And maybe because I made the decision not to do anything about it until I had to take this drastic measure.  Don't get me wrong I am so happy I made the decision for surgery, but it is a drastic one.  One with real potentially dangerous consequences.  One with real commitment involved. That in itself is scary.
   Well a few more photos to post and I'm going to go and relax on my couch for a while before I have to head to the hospital.  Surgery is at 745am, wish me luck!!

Into Week 2 of liquid Diet

Well week 1 of the Optifast is over, and can't say at all it was easy in any way!  I also cannot say I didn't cheat :(. I started off really well, the first 3-4 days were tough but I stuck my guns and kept at it. Then I started going back to the gym, probably not the smartest idea, but I had the membership so why not right?  Well working out made me crave carbs, which I'm not supposed to have and I caved...more than once.  I'm not proud of it, but it happened and I'm moving on.
On a plus, my weight is down,

The first day on the diet I lost 6 lbs!! I nearly crapped my pants when I seen that, but it was mostly water weight, and it has levelled off now to approx 1lb\day.  Being 12lbs down doesn't feel a whole lot different most of the time, but some days I can feel it, especially when my work pants start to fall down..woops I guess it's time to buy some with belt loops and a belt! 

The shakes themselves aren't fabulous.  I have to drink 4/day. I have half chocolate and half vanilla.  The vanilla ones on their own made as directed is disgusting! I can tolerate the chocolate ones. But what I do when i have access to my Vitamix and ice is I put the water, shake mix, ice and either orange extract, banana extract, or coconut extract to make shakes that taste good.  It has definitely helped!!

Being able to have up to 2 cups/day of celery, cucumber and spinach helps too, however it gets boring so I am also able to have some chicken broth if I need something savoury. So there have been a few nights I have had celery soup, basically a cup of chopped celery simmered in chicken broth...doesn't that sound tasty??

Well that's about all I have this week..hopefully next week will have no cheats to report and the weight keeps coming off!! 

Ta ta for now!!

Helene

Well surgery date was bumped up to July 2nd, yes that's less that 3 weeks away! I started my optifast diet today as well. All liquid for 3 weeks...ughhh. oh wait I can have up to 2 cups of celery, cucumber and spinach a day..woohoo right! The shakes to be honest are horrible. I added some instant coffee to the vanilla one this am to make it drinkable.  The chocolate is ok on its own but could be better.  For supper I made the chocolate into a milkshake of sorts, added 5 ice cubes in the Vitamix and blended til smooth, made it sooo much better! Even made the vanilla better!

My weight went up a few pounds since my last  post,  up to 275.2lbs ughh. But that could have been all the popcorn I had last night too! Woops!

Hoping to update weekly with my weigh ins from now on! So until next week!!

Gastroscopy tomorrow...ughh

Well I have my gastroscopy tomorrow.  They want to check to make sure I have no infections, ulcers, or whatever in my stomach and throat etc.
So this means I have to fast after 7pm tonight, well no solids anyway.  so looks like a night of water and tea for me, and probably an early night.  I do have to be at the hospital at 830 am.

On Wednesday April 2nd I have my fluid diet training as well.  That should be fun, learn how to just eat....er drink fluid nutrition for just 3 weeks leading up to surgery. The reason for this diet is to shrink my liver to make it easier for the surgeon to get at my stomach.  Also to help make sure i'm fairly clean inside, lol.

As for my weight right now, it's disappointing, I was so sure I was doing pretty good, but the scale says different.  Up 2 lbs, ughhh...could be the chinese food I had last night for supper.  Oh well, can't beat myself up right now, it is probably the last time I'll have chinese food for a really long time. : \

Well here's to an evening of fasting and to an even better next few weeks until my next entry!! 

Don't forget to live, love and laugh everyday!!!

Day 1...well not techinically but day 1 of blogging

Ok so here it is, here is the start to my journey.  Last year around this time I had gone to my Dr. regarding my excessive snoring.  He suggested I have sleep apnea and referred me to a respiatory specialist.  Turns out I do have mild sleep apnea, I stop breathing 6 time/hour when I sleep, scarey!! So now I sleep with a c-pap machine to help keep my airways open at night and reduce the snoring.  On a side note the c-pap is a great hang over preventer...but that's another unrelated story.  My Dr. also asked if I was interested in the Bariatric clinic.  Not knowing that that even existed or what it was about I said sure.  For those that don't know Bariatric is another word for obese basically and I am.  Surgery wasn't an option for me right from the beginning, I wanted to try to lose my weight au natural...I had always thought of bariatric surgery as an easy way out.  Well was I wrong! At the clinic I spoke with an occupational therapist to help with time management, meal planning, stress management etc.  I spoke with an RN regarding blood pressure, meds I'm on, what I could expect from the clinic and how much weight is realistic to lose.  I also spoke with a Registered Dietician who helped me re-understand the importance of portions, vegetables, proteins etc.  All 3 of these wonderful woman made me feel and understand that my obesity wasn't just a product of me overeating or being a pig.  It is a disease , its a food addiction, a mental health issue, not just a physical issue.  I see it similar to alcoholism, where I would turn to food to comfort in times of stress, boredom, celebration etc just like an alcoholic turns to booze in the same situations.  It was slowly killing me and still is.
      A few months into the clinic I was seeing a little progress in weight loss, but was feeling so much better about myself and what I could accomplish.  And after speaking with my psychiatrist I came to the realization that maybe surgery is what I needed to do to help me.  I also no longer think of surgery as an easy way out.  It is major surgery with major possible complications and a major major lifestyle change.            
     So now I have a surgery date, June 20th, 2014, and i feel like my journey is really just begninning.
I'm hoping those reading this will be supportive and celebratory as I lose the weight I so desperately need to lose.  I 'm gonna struggle i'm gonna fall, but I can get back up and succeed!!

March 20 2014 Starting weight 270.4lbs