Starting to see results!!

Well tomorrow will be my 2 week anniversary for my surgery. These past two weeks have not been the easiest but have not been as bad as I thought they were going to be. I am still on soft foods; jello, mashed potatoes, pudding, cottage cheese, apple sauce, re fried beans, and Cheerios's. I am very tired of soft food and just want something that I can really bite into. But I am seeing some great results, on Saturday I weighed myself and I am down 20 lbs. I have never had that kind of success before. I can't help but smile after I see those numbers on the scale. My family said that they can start to see results and say that I am looking thinner in the face. I will try and up date this post and a few older posts to add some pictures that I have taken along the way.

I have been doing pretty good at home, the first week I was home I had to stop half way up or down the stairs because it was to much for me. But now I have been able to go up and down stairs without stopping just not very fast. I did not think that I would be physically winded just because of the surgery but I was. Well like I said I have been doing so good so I thought I would go shopping with my sister (Laura) to Jo Ann's to get some stuff for our postcard project that we were going to do.

So of course Jo Ann's was having a great sell on fabric and other things so we had to walk back and forth to make sure we say everything. Then we decided that we needed to go to Walmart also. Half way thru Walmart I was not feeling so good. By the time we got out of Walmart I was sweating up a storm. So even though I am feeling pretty darn good I think I will have to cut back on my shopping trips.

After surgery.

I made it thru surgery!!! Now is the hard part. My mom and two of my sisters, Laura and Holly, came to visit me in the hospital after my surgery. I don't know how far out of surgery I was but I was having a hard time paying attention to them. They brought me flowers and cards but Scott had to read them to me. I did not hurt as bad as I thought I was going to. But they also gave me a magic button that I got to press every 10 minutes to make sure I did not hurt that bad. I was really kind of out of out but Scott was there for me the whole time. I had a great nurse that was so nice and helping me out but then she had to go. My next nurse was not the same, she was OK but not very friendly. That night I had to get up and go pee 3 times. The first time was not fun at all but it got a little better every time. I ended up in the renal care unit for some reason so I got a funky hospital room. I did not have my own bathroom, I had a room that I say was the RV room. My toilet just pulled out from under the sink and all I had was a curtain to pull out to give me privacy.

But other than that everything has gone pretty good, and know that I have a bit of recovery ahead of me.

The day of Surgery.

Yesterday was one of the worst days I think I have ever had to go thru. Two words "bowel prep". I think that that experience is horrible, at noon you have to start drinking this stuff, 2 bottles, within an hour. The bottle says it has a "pleasing lemony taste", I don't know who thought it would be good to say that but I think that who ever wrote it should drink that stuff and see if it is pleasing to them and they would rethink that product label. ( I have to admit I did not got all of the second bottle down, I could not take anymore I had to throw it in the sink)

Then you get to take some lovely pills to make sure that the liquid you drank did not miss anything in you system.

Later that night my dad and my husband Scott gave me a priesthood blessing that I am so grateful for. They blessed me that I would get thru the surgery OK and that this whole process would be a success and that I might be able to have children one day because it was a righteous desire and not a selfish desire. Maybe one day soon this blessing will come pass.

So now is the day of my surgery. I have been kind of scared but haven't said to much because I didn't want to so fear, but I have had a small fear that I will not wake up from surgery. There are so many people who have this surgery and do great but you just don't want to be that 1 % that does not do good. But I health is getting worse and worse so my life would not be any better if I do not get this taken care of. It seems like no matter what time you get to the hospital you always have to wait. My doctor's office told me after several time changes that I would have my surgery at 9am, which I was not looking forward to very much because that meant I had to get there at 7am and since I live an hour away from the hospital leave at 6am. I am not a morning person, my family use to joke around that I was really a mole person in the morning because I don't like light or noise and don't want anyone to talk to me. Well I am not that bad anymore but I still do not like mornings!!

Well we made it to the hospital at 7:30am and around 8am they took me back to the pre-op area to get ready for surgery. And wu-hu, I lost another pound, they weighed me got the compression stockings on put my IV in and then layed the news on me, my surgery had been moved back to 12 noon. I got up that early for nothing!!!!

I was then taken to a holding cell ( = D ) to wait my turn. At 12:30 my doctor came in made sure everything was OK and said a little prayer with me and Scott and let me know it was time to go. I said my goodbyes to Scott hoping that it would not be the last time I saw him and was taken back to my surgery room.

Getting ready for surgery.

So to get ready for my surgery I have to go on an Atkins diet. Which means no carbs, I hate this one of the reason's I have a weight problem is my love of carbs. But my doctor wants me to lose some weigh before I go thru with my surgery.

The first night that I can not have any carbs some girl who was over to our house for dinner thought she was going to be funny and make a joke that the muffins my mom made were so good and she just wanted me to know that. Well needless to she I wanted to let her know where she could go but held my tongue, Scott glared at her for me. Just have to love my husband he is there for me and love me and stick up for me always when I need him to be.

I did great on the diet for most of the week but I have to admit I finally broke down and had a sandwich I could not help it. But I think I still lost 6lbs before the surgery when Scott and I did our before pictures and before weight.

I've been approved!!!

So yesterday I got the magic call, around 9am my doctors office called and said "is Wednesday October 10th a good day for your surgery?" I almost did not know what to say, in my mind I was thinking did I even get approved? My next thought was, Duh!! do you even have to ask any day that you have I will take. They also asked me if I could come in that day to go over somethings. So I had to tell work again that I would have to be gone most of the day, but at this point if they have a problem with how much I am gone I would rather find another job than postpone this for them.

My doctor that is going to do the surgery is the best. He is so kind and treats you like a normal person not just this overweight thing like other doctors do. Dr Todd is not LDS but is very religious and before we left he had a prayer with us so that the surgery would go good.

I can hardly wait for this life change. The next 30 days are going to be very challenging but oh so worth it. I have had to start a pre-surgery diet to get my liver ready for the surgery and let me just tell you it sucks! I basically have to do an Atkins diet all protein and no carbohydrates and I am still hungry like a fat person. I know I should be scared of the surgery because it is major surgery but I am not I just can't wait to have it.

Ipod

Yeah, I finally have entered mainstream and bought an Ipod. I bought the new Nano Ipod, that is square, in black.

At work all day I mostly do data entry to bill out ambulance transports so music is kind of important if you want the day to go by fast. Before I just listen to the radio but the only channel that I could get was called the Valley station. We live an hour outside of Anchorage so the valley just listens to Anchorage radio stations. But the Valley does have it's own station that plays a mixture of everything. So you get a lot of songs you don't like. I moved to a different desk at work and the one station that I got I could not make come in very good anymore. So my 8 hour day felt like a 20 hour day.

We I plugged my Ipod into my parents computer to set it up the Ipod pulls all of the music you have on the computer. Well my dad is a big have of OLD COUNTRY and he had about 180 old country songs on there. I had to let the Ipod pull them in before I could delete them. So then the next day at work I was all ready to listen to my Ipod I found a few songs that I had missed from my dad's collection. Oh well, at least I can still delete them off.

Doctors

Have you ever just been so mad at your doctor and think then and there that you do not want to go back, but you stick out the appointment so that they will do what you want.

Man I had my monthly doctor appoint to follow up with my doctor supervised diet until the insurance company approves my surgery on Tuesday. I was so mad at him by the time I got out of there I could have just scream at him. My normal doctor that I liked a lot was going to have his first grand baby so he decided to move to the lower 48 to be close to the baby. Well that doesn't help me because I am still in the middle of the process trying to get the surgery. But I go to a family clinic so I think I will just make an appointment with a doctor that I saw maybe twice before I started this process. Well he was a jerk!!! He is one of those doctors that thinks I should be able to do this on my own. He told me that I am like "a smoker who smokes 2 packs a day and if you take away there cigarettes it does not solve the problem". And told me that I need to see a shrink because I have problems and they won't be solved with the surgery and that there are so many people who have the surgery and gain all the weight back. And the surgery is not going to be fun.

For one he is not my surgeon and if he was I would go to someone different, but he does not know me or why I am having the surgery, but talk about trying to make me fail. That is what it felt like he was just trying to bring me down.

So I bit my tongue so that he would finish the appointment and fill out the paperwork I need from a doctor for my September appointment. I am not going to jump thru all the hoops that I have to let some pompous doctor ruin it for me.