dittohead2
10/5/03
I am leaving for detroit today. I am staying over night in a hotel so I don't have to drive so far in the AM. Wish me luck. I am anxious and scared at the same time.
10/9/03
Well, I am home. 4 days in the hospital. Was it worth it. Hell no! But I think it will be. It was really different then I thought. I was much sicker, weaker, tired and out of shape then I thought I would be. First couple days are just a state of medicated haze for me. Not that I didn't appreciate that fine state. My incision is from my sternum around the left side of my belly button and about an inch below it. Had a drainage tube and an IV for 4 days...and tube in my noes and a catheter for about 2 days. An epideral for about 3 days. I have to give myself shots twice a day. My stomach is the size of a grape. I can eat and drink .5 - 2 ounces of food at a time. Food right now is clear liquids. Haven't had a bite of food in a week. Probably won't for another couple weeks. My mother stayed with me the whole time so Dawn could take care of the kids. She was great. Thank God for mothers! Thanks for your interest and I will keep you posted on my progress.
11/5/03
I will be 1 month post-op tomorrow. My pre-op BMI was 40 and I am currently at 33.4. I am 35 years old. I have had some ups and downs and some confessions I have to get off my chest ;). Immediately after the surgery (Dr. Kole at Harper Hospital) was a lot worse than I thought it would be. I had a fever and a lot of chest congestion so I was in for an extra day and felt relieved to get home. Very sore at first but I was fine after a few days. Couldn't stand the taste of the Lortab they gave me so I just stuck with Tylenol. Liquids the first week and a half the some pureed stuff. Yuk. I started to eat some small foods like Campbell's soup. Their veggies are so small you can hardly see them anyway. Whey shakes for the first two and a half weeks (sugar free ice cream). Whey is really yucky. It's about the only way I can eat it. Started out with a liquid vitamin, that was horrible, then went to my regular vitamin crushed. That was worse. So, after nothing for a couple of weeks I started to take my daughters chewable vitamin.
OK, now the bad stuff. Lets start out with the Vomiting (spitting up) episodes. The first time was with the uncrushed vitamin. The second time was in the middle of a hamburger. I know! Don't yell at me! The next time was toast and peanut butter (I had eaten this before without a problem). The next time was scrambled eggs with cheese. I know that all of this was my fault and I accept the responsibility. I am not taking my Whey any more and I am hardly drinking water. I use to drink a ton of water but it was with meals. Now I can't drink with meals. Those are my sins.
Last night I had some sever stomach pain after eating roman noodles which I have eaten before without a problem. It was mid abdomen and came and went. No position seemed to make it go away. After about a half hour I called the doctor. He suggested that I wait a couple hours and then go to the hospital if I still had it. He was concerned about a bowel kink. My word not his. The pain went away and I am fine now.
I saw him on Monday for my one month check up and I have lost 40 pounds. I have a dimple under my sternum and some pain (not pain really more like pulling on my sternum) when I stand after sitting for a while. He says he can fix it and I am going to have him do that at my 3 month check up.
11/15/13
I am getting use life after surgery. I am afraid I have not been able to keep some of my old habit from returning but I think that is becoming less of a problem because every time I do it there are consequences. Kind of like Pavlov's dogs. :) I have officially lost 41 lb. in 6 weeks that's 59% of my WLS goal. Now that is incentive! I am thrilled about it! That alone has made it all worth it! 27 lb. to go to my potential WLS goal (171 lb.-70%). That will put me at 29 lb. above my ideal weight of 142 lb. I do not know if I will ever make that but I am going to try like hell. Could I have done this with dieting? Yes, I did. When I was 220 lb. I lost 40 lb. on the Atkins diet. By the time I had surgery I was 240 lb. Hummm. There is a clue.
3/7/04
I am now 5 months out. I have lost 72 pounds. I hit a few plateaus and that was discouraging but now I lose 2 or 3 pounds a week. I am eating fairly normal diet. I have little appetite and I always have food left on my plate. My eyes are truly bigger than my stomach. Old habits die hard. Dr. Kole fixed my sternum problem. I have had no more problems with that. He took out the top section of my scar right in the office. I watched with a hand mirror. My biggest problem now is I am terrible iron deficient. Dr. Kole said take 3 iron pills a day, my family doctor was so concerned that he wanted
me to take iron AND B-12 shots. I really got confused so I went to a hematologist. He said that I should have an infusion of iron. So next Thursday I am going to spend all day in the doctors office getting and IV of iron. He says that it should last me 5 years! He also says the shots leave a permeant iron stain on your butt! LOL. I don't want that! I don't feel anemic or tired or anything but I want to get the problem taken care of.
My friends and family all say "Your so skinny!" even though I am still 30 pounds over weight. I think they mean skinnier. I ran into a former co worker yesterday and he did not recognize me. I look so much better and I feel terrific. I need to update my photos.
The best news of all is my wife has decided to have surgery. She is about 150 pounds over weight and was not very supportive of me after surgery. She thought I would leave her for a slimmer woman. She refused to talk about my surgery and got mad when I talked about my new look. She thought I was being vain (maybe a bit) and that I had the surgery to look better instead of for the health benefits. Recently she said she was considering it and last night she said she is going to do it. I am very happy. She has a family history of diabetes and needs to lose a lot of weight to avoid the problem that her grandmother and mother have had.
