Tami Y.

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OK, I work with socially challenged men .
Yes, there are women here, and we travel in giggling girl packs, because we're the minority, but there's a lot of men, and they're nerds, and they're often obtuse and not given to compliments.

A friend and I were looking at our badge pictures and talking about how they're 6 years old, and how people change. He took out his, and said, "See? More Hair". I took out mine, realized that my hair is exactly the same, and said, "Huh. Pretty much the same". He said, "No, you look thinner, now".

When someone isn't complimenting and they say that, it is a gooooooood feeling.

I am pretty happy today. I know I said I was going to post my weight on Mondays but today the scale said 436.4, and I'm pretty darned happy about it. I want to lose at least another 10 by the end of the year, and I'm sure I can do it. That would put me at 426.

I'm going on a cruise at the end of January. Last time I went on a cruise I weighed 412 (Perhaps I'm a bit obsessive about numbers), and it went pretty well. If I could be about that weight at the end of January... I know I can at least be very close. I could certainly wear the same swimsuit, then.

Swimsuit is a joke - because I hate showing my swollen yet droopy legs (thank you, lymphedema!), I bought something called "aqua tights". They're like leggings made out of swimsuit material. Toss on a tankini top (I get all this stuff at Junonia), and I'm the most covered-up non-Muslim swimmer, ever. Doesn't matter, I like to swim, and that means that I will.

I have *never* been the kind of person to wait to do things because I might lose enough weight "someday". I'd have missed a lot of my life that way.  And I'm not losing weight so that I can become beautiful, I think I'm beautiful *now*. There's just too much of me, that's all. In a year or two, because of my band, I'll be beautiful and healthier. That will kick ass.

I could eat WAY too much at my cousin's birthday dinner last night. Good thing I had a fill scheduled for this morning!

My surgeon does all fills under a fluoroscope. He put the numbing stuff on, put the needle in, and had me do a barium swallow. "Wow," he said, "You *are* wide open!" Looks like I made the right call asking for a fill. Also, good for me that I've *lost* 3 pounds in 2 weeks instead of starting to gain! Yay!

Today I weigh 437.8. I'm not posting my actual weight often enough to see the progress, I think. I'm going to try and have a weight here every Monday.

Don't know how much fluid is in my band, now. The doctor says that he doesn't even check the amount any more, just how the restriction level looks. He says that he used to track it obsessively, but somewhere around band 500, he stopped. Because no 2 people are alike, no one else's fill level could be a guide for future patients, so it wasn't useful.

Makes sense to me.

Yay, I ate a chicken thigh at a party without a PB incident! I cut it up into small pieces before even thinking about eating it. I did have one piece a little too fast, and I slimed a bit, but only a bit. I went to the powder room to spit it out, no one noticed.

My weight this morning is 442, which means that my BMI is now under 70. Woo-hoo!!!!!

OK, TOM. Cramps suck. Bloating sucks.
Weighed in this morning, 4 pounds more than Friday morning. This crap isn't ever fair, but you think I would be used to it by now.

Anyway, weighed in at 449.6, which is 30.4 pounds down from a month ago. Still pretty good.

TOM makes me exhausted, and apparently, very hungry. Actually hungry, not just that odd craving feeling in your head. Pangs in the stomach, here.

I only brought my normal amount of food with me (at least, normal *now*), so I'm just going to have to live with the growling stomach until lunch. I'm trying to make it go away by drinking water as if it were my job.

I ate solids over the weekend, too, which is exactly when I expected  to gain a little weight back, but it still hurt. I ate a cheese, tomato & spinach omelette (yum), a whole chicken cutlet that wasn't chopped to bits in a food processor, lettuce and regular tomato, and popcorn. I had too-big bite issues with the omelet and the chicken, but I figured it out.

I already know I'm supposed to take small bites in my brain, when do you think that my mouth will catch up?

Good news first - I got on the scale this morning, and I'm down almost 30 pounds! 29.8 to be exact. I called it 30 on my ticker. That's 30 pounds in 26 days.

This whole time that I've been eating 900-1100 calories a day, I've been half expecting that I wasn't losing any weight, which I know is crazy. But the crazy part of my brain was wrong! Woo-hoo!

The gross news is that my gut spit out my first suture. The one on the lower right side of my abdomen came out when I was cleaning the incision with hydrogen peroxide. It was an actual loop of black thread with a double knot tied at the top. Eeeeeeeeeeeewww. It looks like it might actually be healing up, now. The other spot where a suture is coming out isn't quite as far along, yet.  I also suspect that it's starting to happen to my port incision, too, as it looks like the other two did just before they got disgusting.

At least there's only 4 incisions; this can't go on forever.

30 pounds!!!!!

I had my first fill this morning just 3 weeks and 1 day after my surgery. My doctor put just under 6ccs in my 10cc band.

I was totally nervous, but it wasn't that bad. OK, I did say "ow ow ow!" when it burned a little, but it was over in seconds.

I had to do a million barium swallows. Ew.

I'm excited to be started with the fills so quickly!

I was sooooo nervous, and now I'm soooo happy.

Oh, and it turns out that what I thought were infections is my body "spitting out" my sutures. Seems that in some people, instead of just dissolving where they are inside the body, the body rejects them. The doctor said to keep them clean and covered with bandages and that it's fine.

Of course, now I'm on clear liquids again until Monday, but hey, it's a journey.

The title says it all. I got on the scale this morning, and it still says "over limit". So there it is, my first mini-goal: to get lower than 455 so I can use my damn scale again!

I need to call the doctor's office, one of my incisions is infected. Don't know why I'm putting it off.

Do you count from the surgery date or the day after?

Whatever.

The surgery hurt. Don't fool yourself into thinking that it doesn't hurt. It goes away, though.

I went to the hospital, and I was a lot less nervous than I was for the IVC filter, which is a riot, because this was way more of a big deal. I've changed my whole life, here! I got weighed the morning after the surgery, and not before, which sucks because I know that I bloat up ridiculously from surgery. Still, I wasn't prepared to see a scale that said 480. Broke my heart, that did.

9 1/2 days of clear liquids until I saw my doc on 9/14. I lost 12 pounds, down to 468. I'm scheduled for a fill on 9/28, which I think is amazingly fast, but I'll take it!  And I got to move on to full liquids which is *so* much easier. After Friday I'll move on to mushies, but no meat yet. The paper says that fish is OK. I know that every doctor has their own rules about this stuff, but my doc seems to have really successful patients, so I'm sticking with whatever he tells me.

Saw a metabolic specialist today, whatever that is, and he admonished me that I should exercise every day instead of just 3 days a week. I know he's right. I've been so self-righteous all this time, knowing that I was going to a gym - that was wrong of me. I need to move at least a little bit every day.

Things I love - I know it's from the post-op swelling, but I love that I get full so easily.

Things I hate - feeling my damn port. I shouldn't be able to feel it at all when I'm this fat! Not fair.

Well, OK, I have a vena cava filter in my femoral vein, now. You'd think that I'd have some pain at the insertion site, but nope, doesn't hurt AT ALL. My hand where the frickin', IV was, though...

*sigh*

Why am I such a baby about the things that are supposed to be the easy parts?

Saw Dr. Nusbaum yesterday for the first time in a year, about 5 minutes before I saw him in the OR. As nice as I remember, thank goodness.

Today is my first day of 8 on clear liquids. Know what I'm honestly feeling? I cannot BELIEVE that I'm doing this. I cannot believe it.