Post Op Day 3

 I really have had a pretty good first few days, relatively speaking. 

I had a NICE full night of sleep last night, waking up only to take my pain meds to keep ahead of the pain, and that was FABULOUS. I woke up feeling tons better. I know by night time I will not be feeling so great if my past experience with c-sections holds true, but I’ll take how i feel right now. This is great. In general, I have tolerated liquids great, not had any nausea, had lots of bloating and gas pain and referred pain through yesterday from the CO2, but all in all doable.

I walked 6200 steps yesterday with my small walks around the block with hubby or son. Which, ironically is more steps than I was getting in on average pre-op. LOL. Small walks add up if you do them regularly (lightbulb moment, duh)

I really don’t WANT anything to eat. but it is hard to see the commercials on TV for yummy things and to smell the foods other people are eating in the house. Hubby has felt bad and I told him, he needs to eat and he shouldn’t feel guilty about that!

My hubby has been GREAT. He always is. So helpful and uncomplaining, he is the best. He’s very supportive. He has a difficult time sleeping when I am not there, so although I would have preferred sleeping in the recliner, I slept in our bed so that he could get some good sleep. with the incline in my bed because of pre-op reflux and a stack of pillows, it worked out quite well. I slept great.

The only really bad thing that has happened was that my two year old was sitting on the lower part of the recliner I was sitting on last night, and although I had a pillow protecting my tummy, at one point he suddenly turned and wanted to lift himself up and of course somehow shoved his little hand UNDER the pillow, and shoved all his weight right on the most tender site to hoist himself….OMG. I cried. I couldn’t help it. That hurt.

One thing, I don’t know if its the meds, the wear off of anesthesia or what, but my sleep is heavy and my dreams are vivid and crazy. the last dream of the night I dreamed that I “accidentally” ate beef stroganoff and noodles during the post op clear liquid stage and was sitting there horrified wondering what was going to happen to me. It seemed SOOOO real, I woke up sure I had accidentally done that.

Also, although i was pumped full of liquids, I’ve been able to clear them adequately and I’m not really water bloated, and I would say that is confirmed by the fact that I’ve lost a few pounds since surgery when I weighed myself this AM. I was expecting to have gained some water weight.

First full postop day

Well, I am sleeved! I had my surgery yesterday with Dr V. As he had suspected, I did have a hiatal hernia, the more rare kind as it turns out, a paraesophageal hernia. This means that my stomach was bulging up through the hiatus right next to my esophagus. So he was able to repair that as well as do my sleeve. I have a keepsake picture of my hernia…lol…aren’t I lucky?

So the blow by blow of surgery day. My brother drove me to the hospital at 6:30. The timing of being at the hospital was hard because our younger kids daycare doesn’t open until 7, so hubby had to take them into daycare and then come down to the hospital later.

They took me back about 7 am to begin prepping me. I had drank gallons of fluid the day before because I am not an easy stick. They had noted this on my chart because of their experience trying to draw my blood in the preop labs, so the nurse was ready for me, warmed my arms with warm blankets and then hot gel packs, and got it on first try, in a great location– first time that has ever happened for me, god bless sue!

My husband arrived just before they took me back, traffic was bad, but I got to see him before they took me into surgery. They gave me a shot of lovenox blood thinner and the relaxation med. I was feeling mellow. I was out like a light soon and then waking up in recovery.

They started on time at 8:30 and I was coming to in recovery at about 10:30. I stayed in recovery for an hour, during recovery, i was feeling sore, they kept upping the meds and added demerol because i was still feeling it pretty decently. That seemed to do it. they brought me up to my room and got me settled in and hooked up to my pain pump so I could just push a button when I needed more.

I walked once around the unit the first night and had a restless night. The early part of the night was hard, because I felt like I had to pee, and I had a catheter in! Turns out when the bag was drained at one point, the tubing got vapor locked so my bladder was really hurting and that was bouncing pain all around my gut. Once they got they figured out, I was able to get some sleep.

Doing the breathing and coughing is a bitch. The coughing in particular sucks.

My mouth is a dry wasteland. I am hoping they get me down for my swallow test soon so I can begin to sip, sip, sip! I am wondering what that will feel like. Kinda freaked, will it hurt?

My abdomen basically feels like I have done a zillion sit-ups. Yowch!!

Anyway, I am on the loser’s bench. My night nurse said they are probably going to want to push me out of here today, (my guess because the doc wants me crossed off before he leaves for vacation.) I however would like to stay my full two nights because my two youngest are going to want to be jumping on me and I would like to have one more day just to focus on me and recovery before I jump back into being a mama. I can actually sleep in the hospital, so am hoping I can get one more day.

It makes me nervous that I did have a hernia, as well. One more thing to leak or have complications with. Send positive vibes and prayers if you are so inclined? Thanks to my hubby, brother, local friends for faboo support, and Thanks #wls world for all the great support you have been offering, my twerps and the lovely folks at verticalsleevetalk.com have been AWESOME!

More soon.

1st of 3 WLS Medical Diet Supervision Appt. – Southbeach?

I had my first of three required medical diet supervision appointments with my surgeon’s PA today.  She was smirky.  Glad I don’t have to see her too often. What I mean by smirky is, you don’t get a vibe of true passion for the plight of obesity.  Do you know what I mean?  I am not sure if that was because she had a student observer in there and she was not being normal, but I am not a fan of smirky.  Anyway, don’t have to love her, just have to meet with her once a month, and I can do that! 

She said that they would like to see me lose weight of course, but at a minimum, I can’t gain any weight.  According to their scale today, I am 270.9.  I really need to set my scale to match theirs.  I wonder how I do that? 

We discussed my current eating and activity habits.  I already have the functional knowledge of what is needed so our discussion was fairly short.  She handed me a handout based on South Beach Diet because she said that is most like what my diet will eventually be in pre-op (phase 2 of South Beach).  We talked through the handout.  She said I could either choose to do that plan or continue with Weight Watchers, but she definitely seemed like leaning toward the South Beach plan because it would better prepare me for post-op life, so I think I’ll be headed that way, but maybe still tracking with Weight Watchers, unless South beach has similar awesome tracking tools.

She said I would not have a pre-op liquid diet. She said occasionally, with sleeve patients, my doc might require a brief period of liquids only pre-op, but only if BMI warranted it. 

I asked her for her opinion on sleeve versus RNY for me, and she said if I have a problem with carbs/fats and craving them, that RNY would probably likely be the better way to go.  I think that is true, but I also really like the idea of losing all the grehlin-producing stomach, curbing my appetite.  So I remain torn, but maybe a skosh closer toward RNY if dumping might be a tool for me.  I wonder if sleeve would be enough to get me on the right road and build new habits, without the drasticness of RNY?  Of course, removing the majority of your stomach is pretty drastic too.