bachelder98

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Hard to believe it's been a year already.  I have my 1 year phone follow-up with my surgeon's office tomorrow afternoon, so I'll see how my bloodwork came out.  Hopefully good.  Last check my Vitamin D was low, but I've been taking 50,000 IUs of D3, so that should be resolved.  I have lost 153 lbs so far.  Still losing, but more slowly for sure.  Sugar is being a bit of a beast lately for me, need to get back on Folic Acid, as that seemed to help some with the sugar cravings.  I'm down 7 pants sizes, and starting to see the extra skin, but not planning on any reconstruction.  All in all, I feel good, I'm thrilled with my loss so far and have no complaints.  Need to take another photo (each 50 lbs), hopefully will remember to take and post that soon on here.  Finally joined a gym, I'm walking 1.5 miles a day (most days) on the treadmill and enjoying it for the most part.  Went kayaking for the first time this last weekend, and really enjoyed that, too.  New worlds are opening up!  :)

I hit my first 100 lbs of loss last week (I'm almost 6 months post-op now.)  That never would have been possible without this surgery.  ONE HUNDRED POUNDS!  I'm still losing 2-3 lbs a week (with the occasional slow week).  I'm just now starting to SEE a difference when I look in the mirror.  I can see it more clearly in pictures (I take a photo by my back door every 50 lbs).  The only problem I've had (which is really relatively minor) is that I get queasy if I eat with my kids.  Too much action, too much noise.  My stomach clenches up and makes me feel rotten.  I try to sit with them at most meals and drink water or tea while they eat, but most dinners I still just eat in the next room.  It's getting better little by little, though.  I finally bought some new clothes and am thrilled to be able to pass my old clothes on to someone on our local Freecycle (potlatch) who has relatives in need of clothes in those sizes.  I still ordered these clothes online, but these should get me through the winter, and by spring I'll be shopping in regular stores - it's been a long time.

My tastebuds are back to normal, food tastes good again. My incisions are all healed, I'm only queasy when I forget to eat. I'm having a little trouble remembering my vitamins (esp. calcium), but working on that. I've lost 66 lbs (as of last Thursday... only my Thursday weigh-ins count.) :) I just bought new pants, down 3 sizes, which feels good. I believe I now weigh what I did when I got married. In a few short weeks I hope to hit a big milestone - weighing on a normal scale! (No more "Freightmaster 400"!) Then the next milestone will be my "heading off to college" weight. I'm still very happy about my decision to have this surgery (the DS). At this point, the weight is coming off almost effortlessly. I'm noticing I'm able to walk further, carry more without getting tired. I'm confident my life is getting better with every pound that disappears.

Down a total of 13 lbs. Still some incision pain, but doing quite well, I think. Food is interesting. Most things go down fine, but have had trouble with a sandwich and with banana bread (but garlic bread was fine.) My taste buds are a little screwy still, but I hear that clears up at about 6 weeks.

- I'm HOME! I had my post-op appointment at 9:30 yesterday morning. I was down 6.5 lbs, which was honestly less than I hoped for, but I'm still thankful. Everything else was looking great. I evidently already had gall stones, so in a way, that was a relief to me - like I would have had to have surgery eventually anyway (runs in the family), so glad to have had this much more beneficial one. We went essentially straight to the airport after the appointment, hoping to get an earlier flight home (I'd scheduled so late just in case I couldn't get an early post-op appointment.) No luck. Alaska Airlines is heavily over-booking these days and there wasn't a chance. So we waited, and waited, and waited (the removal of the steri-strips at the appointment made my incisions much more sensitive, so I was in a fair bit of pain, in addition to my bruised tailbone). While we sat at the gate waiting for our flight, we saw flight delay after delay. One flight to Vancouver, BC that was supposed to leave at 7:05 didn't take off until after 9:00! And they still had to continue on to Anchorage and Fairbanks that night! Needless to say, our flight was delayed, too. We'd left ourselves a 1 hr, 15 min layover in Seattle to catch our return flight to Bellingham at 11:15. After a painful, but not unbearable flight, the plane touched down in Seattle at 11:10. By the time we got to the gate and waited for everyone else pushing their way out of the plane, it was 11:25 and our flight was long gone (last one of the night.) The airline refused to do anything for us and despite telling them the situation (surgery, kids waiting, etc.), they had no compassion whatsoever. Their only solution was that we could sit in the airport all night (I was already in tears from the pain of having to wander all over the airport to get to where we needed to bbe - the assistance promised was not at the gate when we arrived, either), and possibly get on a flight the next day. Seeing how overbooked the flights were, we could have been in that airport for a week! We begged for other arrangements - an airporter shuttle back to Bellingham, assistance with a rental car, etc, but their one-liner remained the same. "Nothing we can do for you." Holding my DS pillow to my gut and tears streaming at the thought of my kids (adopted - already with abandonment issues) waking up without us there yet, we went down to the rental car area (me looking like a blubbering idiot), stood in line for nearly an hour, and over $100 later, finally had a car to DRIVE home (and Brian was already exhausted), arriving after 3AM. I'm angry with the airline, and still plan to contact their customer relations department. On the plus side, our kids were thrilled to see us (after 3 hours of sleep), and the cream of wheat we had for breakfast was the best thing I've tasted in over a week. Downright heavenly. I've also found I learned how to sleep, sit, etc, to accommodate the furniture at our hotel - everything's having to be re-learned now that I'm home. I had a 3 1/3 hour nap this afternoon, and was surprised with a great dinner from a wonderful friend that even I was able to nibble at. I'm very, very glad to be home. Very.

Seems like I hurt more at the hotel then at the hospital. Could be that I don't have the nifty bed. The meds were supposedly the same, but I sure ache more than I did there, and water is harder to get down without the easy-to-chew ice they had at the hospital. I was pretty low on my intake yesterday, and am really struggling today, though I think I'll get close to my RDA. Had KFC mashed potatoes last night for dinner and boy, did they cause trouble. It tried to plug up the whole works...well into the morning. Really uncomfortable, but I still haven't thrown up. Every sip or bite of anything makes me burpy, though, and I'm kinda dizzy.

Dr. John came by every day to check on me while I was in the hospital.  I also had a visit from Deb from the PacLap web group -very sweet of her to stop in. The last day Dr. John came while Brian was gone, and before my breakfast came, and said "Wanna get out of here?" Gave me my walking papers, and I just had to sit and wait around for my hubby to return to pack up and leave. I took a cup of ice to go, and we drove to the hotel (the drive wasn't too bad, a few sore spots, especially the long curve of the highway exit.)

They came to get me for my leak test right after my husband left to get breakfast, so he didn't know I'd gone. I was down there for about 2 hours, hated the whole thing. The first table was freaky (thought I was going to fall off), the solution was gross, though not as bad as I expected. The fact that I kept it down was a huge surprise. I did accidentally choke on it twice, and the coughing wasn't fun. The radiologist then thoughtfully said "you don't want to get that down the wrong pipe." yeah, thanks. They left me for a long time on the moving table, then sent me to another room with a LOW table for x-rays, and that HURT to get up and down (and me without my meds). They didn't give a lot of info, just said I had to come back at 1:30. No one said I'd passed or failed so I just didn't know. Brian (husband) asked the nurse if I had a leak, and all she would say was "You just let us do the worrying." Since I really didn't know anything at that point, my biggest concern was that I'd have to drink the stuff again! Ick! My assumption was that the fluid hadn't moved all the way to the colon yet, and it seems like that was what the problem was. At 1:30, it was back to the radiology hallway for a long time, then moved to the x-ray room with the low table, and they didn't give a lot of assistance that time, so it hurt even more getting up and down. Took the x-rays, layed there FOREVER, then they said I'd have to come back at 4:00, and wheeled me back to the hallway where I sat again... forever. The x-ray tech came out of a room on the left, to talk to someone in a room on the right, but they were busy, so he waited a few minutes, then came out and whispered to me "You're done", then went back into the room on the right. Eventually, I went back to my room. I STILL didn't know for sure if I'd passed the leak test, but assumed they would have said something if I hadn't. That was confirmed by the variety of liquids they brought me as soon as I returned to my room.

Hospital check-in, sit and wait, drew another vial of blood, sit and wait, "Jim" came to transport me downstairs (he was great... very encouraging), kissed my hubby goodbye and since they had a busy morning at the hospital, they had to put me in the recovery room to wait... in a side room - felt like I was in quarantine! Dr. John checked in, I met the nurse and anesthesiologist, waited some more, then was moved to the operating room. I didn't get nervous until that moment... crawling up onto the skinny little table, under the big lights, strapped down, etc. Kinda creepy. But after some minor struggle getting an IV in, they put on the oxygen mask, and next thing I knew, I was waking up. Oddly, IN the operating room, still, WITH the throat tube in. They quickly removed it, but that was one of my biggest fears, and it happened. I wonder if I woke up too quickly? I thought I was supposed to be out until I got to recovery. The first few hours were kinda freaky. I felt like I couldn't breathe, and kept hyperventilating (and getting yelled at by the nurse) to try to get enough air. She said my levels were fine, but I felt like I was suffocating. I was in recovery for over 90 minutes, and just happened to run into Brian (hubby) and Olaff on the way to the elevator! I did sleep a good portion of that day, but I was awake more than I expected, too. I'm a pretty light sleeper, so a little tip to pre-ops: If you open your eyes when the nurses come in at night, they're going to take all your stats every time. If you keep them closed, they pretty much leave you alone. :) I didn't learn that until day 2. Had my first walk that first afternoon, VERY DIZZY, only walked to the square in the hallway right outside my door. The next one was later that evening, and I walked further, but was gagging and heaving as I got back to my bed. Never threw up, though. Walk 3 was 5:30 the next morning, hubby was still sleeping.

We got into San Francisco yesterday evening. Today was full of pre-op appointments. We took the MUNI to the hospital - the first bus got so full, we didn't make it out through the crowd before it took off again, but everyone was nice enough to yell at the driver for us. :) That bus was also late, making us wait for another bus for the 2nd half of the trip. The second bus just completely ignored our requested stop, and by the time we got him to stop ("Oh, you wanted THAT stop?"), he was 4 blocks downhill from the hospital. We were (or at least I was) huffing and puffing and nearly 10 minutes late for that appointment. We did most of the check-in stuff in that hour, but had to save the labs for after the PacLap appointment. The nurse went to get my lab orders and just never came back - after we were already 5 minutes late for PacLap, we went looking for her and she'd left the orders with someone else. We grabbed them and hustled over to the doc's office. There was some confusion about how much I was to pay up front to PacLap, and I was almost in tears (and I am NOT a crier)- thought I'd have to go back to Bellingham with no surgery. But that did eventually get worked out, too. Watched 2 videos did the test (filled mine out before the video... it was nothing most of us don't already know), then went to sit in the exam room to wait for PA Jennifer, then Dr. John. Finished up there, hurried back over to the lab at the hospital for blood work (about 10 vials!!! And they forgot one and had to do it the morning of surgery.) After that, up to radiology for my chest x-ray. By the time we got out of there after all of the waiting and running around, we had no chance of getting back to the hotel by 4 to do the bowel prep if we took the bus, so we called a cab, which ended up being quite reasonable ($10.50 plus tip), and quick. Back to the hotel, and took my first 3 pills. I had begged and pleaded to not have to do the Fleet, and on Monday night was faxed a prescription for V...tol... sorry, can't remember the name, and I threw away the bottle already. It was a pill to replace the fleet, taken 3 at a time, every 15 minutes until 20 were taken. I don't know if it made the process easier, too, or not, but it wasn't that bad for me. Started "emptying" by about the 4th dose, used some diaper rash cream early on to prevent acid burn (as suggested by someone in the online PacLap support group), and it worked great. Had flushable wet-wipes on hand, too, but barely needed them . About 10:00 I was just tired, and decided to go to bed. Got up once more at about 10:30, then slept until 2:30, when I had one more "bowel dump". We were planning on sleeping until 4:30 (6:00 check-in at the hospital), but we were both already awake, so we just stayed up. Took a Yellow Cab to the hospital (pre-scheduled), and that was fine, too.