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Meat Crust Pizza (PK’s recipe)
1 lb of ground beef extra lean

Pizza Sauce

Light Mozz cheese

Any other pizza toppings you enjoy

20 All Wheat Crackers Crushed

2 eggs

Directions:

Mix the ground beef, eggs and crushed crackers together and press into a cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 10-15 mins until brown.  Then top like a regular pizza and cook an addition 10-15 mins.

I have to laugh when I right this cause it’s sooo cliché. “sorry I haven’t updated in so long”

I’ve been too busy reading other people’s blogs to write my own. I just love reading about other peoples lives.

Here’s the update part. Shannon came home from the hospital last week and seems to be improving. We tried a homeopathic remedy and that cut her nausea in half. She was actually able to eat food and drink water.  OMG . We were very skeptical but now very happy we tried it.  We went to an acupuncturist last night and that also helped.

I have been walking Yoshi , our 9 month old Norwegian Elkhound, almost every day. We can now walk for an hour without me getting  too pooped. It’s nice to get out and see my neighborhood more. It’s good for me and good for Yoshi. He has this barking issue that we work on, when he sees people he totally spazzes, which is very embarrassing.  He’s getting better though, we just need to keep working it. I want to start doing some weights or maybe toning stuff but I’m a little afraid to work my Abs. I had this thing with my scar and the tape the doctor left on after the surgery. I felt like the tape was holding it together and I didn’t want to take it off. I even added tape to it to hold it together.  I mean I have allergies and sneeze a lot  and every time you sneeze you feel like your insides might pop out after surgery. Plus it hurts. Okay it’s official I’m neurotic. LOL.

Food has been challenging. I eat South beach diet meals which are about 250 calories and all have over 20 gm of protein. I can’t eat the whole thing but they are tasty and include a vegetable. I usually split them in half. At first I split them into threes but then I started using my food scale and they must include the tray in the weight of the meal. I also like the Amy’s frozen enchilada bowl and stuffed shells.  I eat yogurt and mueslix for breakfast usually Dannon natural or activia light. I let the mueslix soak up the yogurt for 5- 10 minutes until it’s soft and get about 9gm of protein for breakfast. I don’t drink coffee any more it tastes bad now L and have switched to herbal tea. Sometimes I have these Kellogg’s protein waters or crystal light. So far the raspberry lemonade is my favorite crystal light flavor. I usually have a protein shake, GNC brand, in the morning with light soy milk, either 8^th continent or soy slender, and mix it really well and add ice. I know it doesn’t sound challenging so far but what happens when you step outside the box?  grilled chicken sometimes ok other times not. I’ve been throwing up a lot  lately and worrying about if something is stuck but it never lasts. Yesterday I had lunch and then 30 minutes later had some tea and at first that was fine but then it felt like a stopped up drain the more I drank. Until I had tea sloshing around in my esophagus and making me ill. I threw up and then I was fine. I tried toast and that was really hard. You can feel it getting stuck in your esophagus. Steak sat in my stomach forever. I had Thai food last night and had 4 shrimp and some peanuts, a little onion, one piece of red pepper, at first I was fine. It wasn’t until an hour later that I has stuff backwashing up my esophagus. Same thing at lunch today grilled chicken. Oh well live and learn. I figure most days I get between 60-70 grams of protein. Did you know you needed to become a nutritionist when you had this surgery??

I’ve been taking my vitamins. I was taking two children’s chewable at first but now I’m taking one centrum, biotin about 1200mg, sublingual b12 2500mg, and I’m supposed to take calcium with vitamin d twice a day once at lunch and once at dinner 500mg. I also have to take Ursodial twice a day so that I don’t develop gall stones. Plus my allergy med. It’s more pills in a day than I am used to so I bought a pill box day by day organizer. I just ordered from Vitacost, liquid multivitamin and calcium. Plus I ordered protein samples from Bariatric Eating. Wish me luck with those.

What else can I tell you. I get huge head hunger…pizza, brats, lasagna, garlic bread. I have days where I feel good because my clothes are looser. My tight jeans are baggy and I’m wearing a shirt I haven’t worn for years and it is loose.  I’m worrying about money and bills. Hopefully this is more upbeat than my last two posts

Here's what's happened to Shannon so far. About two weeks after the surgery she developed neverending nausea and started throwing up 10-15 times a day. She can't keep anything down not food OR water.  The Docs did a bunch of tests but they can't find anything wrong and they just hope it will go away. She lost about 50 pounds in 4 weeks which was too fast. She ended up getting a PICC line which is a semi permanent IV line to get feedings from. Then she ended up with blood clots one in her right leg and both lungs. She is still suffering from the same nausea today. 

Well I just reread my first post and I’m thinking I sound a little negative about my Hospital stay. What can I say….

I’m deliberately not writing too much about Shannon’s experience or her complications. What I will say is we are struggling and she is in the hospital again.

It’s been almost a month since my surgery.  I don’t know how much I have lost because we don’t own a scale. I keep telling myself I should just buy one but I’m kinda obsessing about weight loss as it is. I can tell you that my clothes are looser. Even the ones that were a size smaller. I need to get on some exercise program but it’s been hard with Shannon’s problems and going to the hospital all the time. I should probably be walking right now as I type this. LOL . You think you understand what  you are doing to your body when you sign up for this operation. Everybody glowingly writes about how much weight they have lost. It’s strange to me that we can focus on that like it’s the only thing that matters. What about the nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, vitamins, protein shakes, changed sense of smell, really bad complications like hernias, blood clots, malnutrition, dehydration etc…. There’s nothing easy about this operation or what it does to your body.  I take more pills now then I did before my operation, I will drink protein shakes for the rest of my life. When you are working to getting approved for the surgery you are focused on what your life will be like when you have lost weight but now the reality of the surgery and it’s life altering effects are in full swing. Has anybody else thought “Did I do the right thing”?

I think part  of my fear with the surgery is that Shannon is having so many complications and I have had to research  a lot more into the complications. There is a Yahoo group called OSSG- gone wrong. It should probably be required reading for anyone having these types of procedures. Of course no one believes they will be the ones to suffer. I have learned more about my nutrition from that site and these boards then I have from the hospital nutritionist. I’m really concerned about the long term ramifications about what I have done to my body.  More so now than before the surgery.

 After Two weeks I met with one of Dr. Buchwalds team Donna. Donna recommended Benefiber for my constipation. They weighed me and I had lost 16-18 pounds depending on which scale was used.  They seemed happy with the results and after that I met with the nutritionist who told me I should eat pureed foods for another week and then could start introducing semi soft food and then to solids and that I would be in charge of my transition myself. Dr Buchwalds office gives you a booklet  with foods you can eat and the different stages and approximately how long you should be in each stage. The nutritionist didn’t seem concerned that I wasn’t even getting 40g of protein a day. Which all just seems weird to me. I want to lose weight I just want to be healthy too.

 

 

The day of my surgery. Well I can’t really start there I have to start the day before. Dr. Buchwald has you use a  product called “Golightly” that makes you do anything but go lightly.  You go and you go and you go. In addition I had to take antibiotics and scrub with a  surgical scrub twice that day and once the morning of surgery.  I was only supposed to take clear fluids and  none after midnight. I have to confess here that I did not finish the Golightly completely as instructed. I found it to be vile and could barely stomach it even though they have you take an anti nausea pill before you start drinking it. Also I had some water in the morning about 8 oz. because I thought it would help settle my roiling stomach.

 
We got to the hospital about 10 and they called me back to the pre surgery staging area. The nurse took my vitals, got me gowned and socked, took a urine sample. I complained until they let Shannon come back to be with me. I‘ve never had surgery before and I think she was more nervous for me than I was. They got an IV started and gave me the foot cuffs that help keep your blood circulating. We waited a while apparently there was some snafu with the OR and somebody not scrubbed going into it. I spoke to my Dr. briefly and also the anesthesiologist. When they were ready they wheeled me back They strapped my arms down and that ‘s pretty much all I remember.

 
When I woke up I was having a hard time breathing. I remember hearing Shannon explaining to them that I needed my Cpap. Then I fell asleep again.

 
 When I really woke I remember being in pain and tired. I had a catheter, a nasal gastric tube and a drain in my stomach. My procedure was an  open so I also had an incision from an inch below my sternum to about an inch above my belly button.  The hospital stay is kinda blurry. I remember being aggravated with the staff. They won’t remove the nose tube until you’ve had a BM. Well they finally gave me a suppository after 3 days and the nurse who did it wasn’t very good at it. My nose actually has a scar from the nose tube. Also you can’t eat or drink anything until they remove the tube. Just swab your mouth with a pink crappy tasting thing.  The first thing the Doc did when he saw me the day after surgery was press on my stomach ( not too hard or anything) and tell me to cough. That really sucked. I had to walk around the floor a bunch. The staff didn’t really seem to give you a lot of attention and it’s hard to develop a relationship with any of them when they are constantly changing. The only meal I had was the lunch the day  the discharged me. In summation I didn’t care for my hospital stay very much