Hooray For Dumping

Weight 269

I lost another one!! I'm sure I lost more today since I had dumping syndrome all day. It's really the first incident like that I've had. I started sweating and then thought my stomach was going to blow and blow it did. Unfortunately, this all took place for 3 hours during my youngest daughter's birthday party. :(

Small World

Weight 272

My body finally decided to give up trying to hold on to the fluid it retained during my recent gall bladder surgery.

I've been eating pretty normal foods (for me) but have had a hard time getting more than a few bites of anything down. This is where supplementing has saved me. Felicia turned me on to Pro Complex. It can be mixed in as little as 4 oz of fluid so it's easy to get down. The best part is that it tastes like chocolate milk.

On a different note, I received an email yesterday from a woman who had taken me under her wing when I attended my first support group meeting before surgery. She was so sweet and caring and kept in touch with me after my surgery. I hadn't heard from her for a while when I got this email:

Jenn, don't know if you remember me, but I met you at the support group meeting at MMPC before your surgery and talked to you quite awhile. I saw that you had gall bladder surgery on Friday. You're not going to believe this, but I did too. I think we were recovering together. YES, I was the grumpy one across from you. I didn't have my glasses on so I couldn't really see you. All I know is that I was not feeling the greatest and I couldn't believe you were so upbeat and chipper. Sorry I was so grumpy! Anyway, this is quite ironic don't you think?

I can't believe what a small world it is!

Connect The Dots

Weight 278 (gain because of surgery fluids)

I thought I would give you blow by blow details of my gall bladder removal adventure.

• Friday the 13th, 3:00 am wake up call. Finally get Mr. Sign to haul his butt out of bed at 3:45 am.
• 5:30 am, get to the hospital after missing the the road it's on.
• Register just ahead of 10 other people. Yay, no waiting for me.
• Give a urine sample (hooray, I'm not pregnant!)
  
• Receive the largest gown the hospital has. It looked like a strapless gown since the neck hole was so large.
• 6:30 am, I'm taken to the surgical holding area where I watch the rest of the room fill up.
  
• The nurse, EKG tech and the surgeon all decide to come talk to me at the same time. The surgeon wins. He explains that he will be doing some exploratory diagnosis while he's in there. He even draws me a picture. I ask him if I can keep the gall bladder. He says that it's no longer allowed because of bio hazards. He says he can only imagine what I would do with it.
• 7:20 am, nurse tries to start an IV. I've had at least a hundred IVs in my day and show her where she will be successful. She picks a different spot. She says the new catheters are not sharp and it hardly pokes through my skin. The vein rolls and she has to call in enforcements. The new person tries a different spot and fails. I show her my spot. She doesn't like it but tries and gets it in. Yay! I only have one black and blue arm.
• The nurse anesthetist comes in to talk to me and she has the most comforting voice. She explains exactly what will happen and then gives me some "la la juice".
  
• She rolls me to the OR. I slide over to the operating table (which feels much bigger than it did last time) and she tells me we are just waiting on the anesthesiologist. We waited for 10 minutes. I got to have conversations with everyone, including the surgeon who was joking about letting the Physician's assistant do my surgery.
  
• Finally, the anesthesiologist shows up and says that he was trying to drink his coffee in peace but the OR kept interrupting him. I'm assuming he was kidding because he laughed.
• The nurse told me to think about Hawaii and drift off to sleep.
• 9:15 am (I can see the clock). My eyes are open and I finally figure out where I am. I'm shaking violently and I hear the nurse say, "give her (fill in the blank [I was on drugs, I can't be expected to remember this stuff])". They also piled 5 warm blankets on me and I was in heaven.
• The nurse gave me ice chips and I called her a goddess.
• 10:30 am, I'm returned to where I started, only there are differnt patients. I'm doing better than all of them. The rest were grumpy.
• 11:30 am, I'm told to get up to go to the bathroom. They get my clothes and tell me to get dressed. I have a feeling I'm being kicked out. As I'm in the bathroom, I notice that I've started my period. The joys of abdominal surgery!
  
• 11:45, a little tiny old lady comes with a wheel chair to try to escort me out. She hits 3 walls and can't get me into the elevator. I told her I would walk so I got out of the chair and onto the elevator. I turned around to thank her and she was already gone. Hmm..the Little Old Lady From Pasedena just sped away.
• 1:00 pm, we arrive home. I'm in total disbelief that I had surgery just a few short hours before and now I'm home lying on my couch. It's amazing that you can lose a body part and still be sent home in a matter of hours.

This surgery was so much easier than the last. Pain has been minimal. I still have some pain where the gall bladder was, but it's no worse than it was before surgery.

The surgeon took the time to look around in my abdomen since he was there. He was able to use two of my old incisions but had to make two new ones (for a total of eight beautiful scars. I didn't think I'd ever be a bikini model anyway). He checked on the previous gastric bypass surgery that he had performed. He shot dye into my liver to check the ducts for gall stones. The last thing he did was to check on my intestines for hernias. He said everything looked excellent. I'm so relieved. he also said that it was definately my gall bladder that had been causing me all the trouble. He told me all of this in recovery and said I wouldn't remember any of it. I guess I come out of anesthesia easily because I remember everything in vivid detail.

The doctor did say he would like to see me take 2 weeks off work but I'm going to see how well I do after a week. I can't lift anything for a while which won't help me at my job.

Who Are You?

Weight 274

A friend and I were talking at the kids' school when another mom approached us. This woman's children had gone to school with ours but had left the school 2 years ago. She was visiting our kids' school because she does vision testing.

The woman hugged my friend and immediately began conversation. She completely ignored me which I found strange because in years past, we had spoken pleasantries every day.

I stood back and watched the exchange between the two women like I was invisible. She hugged my friend and left. I couldn't imagine why she hadn't spoken to me.

My youngest daughter came bounding out of the school and asked if I had seen "Mrs. Friend" because she had asked about me and even told daughter to make sure she told me "hello".

It took me a second to figure out that she had now clue who I was when I was standing there. She was looking for the "old " me.

So, I've officially had my first incident of not being recognized because of my weight. Weird.

Happy Easter

Weight 274

Wooooo hoooooooo!!!!!! I'm on a roll, baby!! That's 5 pounds in 4 days. 9 if you count this week's gain to 283.

I know it won't last so I'm celebrating today.

Happy Easter!

Measurements

Weight 276

I know, I know! You are all telling me not to weigh myself every day but I'm obsessed you see! If I hadn't weighed myself, I wouldn't know that I've lost anything. This puts me at -108.





I took the time to take my measurements this morning.

Here are last month's (3-11-07):
Bust=50"
Under Bust=44"
Hips=55"
Waist=53.5"
Thigh=32"
Calf=22"
Arm=17"

This month's (taken 4-7-07)
Bust=46"
Under Bust=41"
Hips=55"
Waist=50.5"
Thigh=31"
Calf=22"
Arm=16.5"

As you can see, I'm losing much faster on my upper half. I'll take it any way I can get it. I have no choice.

That's Better

Weight 280

I wonder what weight tomorrow will bring?

The picture on the right was taken in July 2003 at a family reunion. The picture on the left was taken in March 2007.

I still can't believe we looked like that!

Ugh!

Weight 283

Yes, that's a gain of 4 pounds! I have no idea what is going on. Nothing has changed except that I've been taking Vicoden. I'm seriously freaking out here.

Click to visit A Longer Road

For those who started their WLS journey at or above 350lbs.

Weight Breakdown

Weight 279

I was feeling upset that I hadn't lost more weight this month so I figured out my monthly losses. Because I was afraid to document my weight here on OH at first, I only know my total loss for Oct. & Nov. combined.

October & November total = 47
December = 14
January = 18
February = 11
March = 15
__________
-105 Total

I was very pleased to see that I had done so well in March. I'm glad I sat down and figured it out.

I'm still hanging in there with the gall bladder pain. I took Vicoden all weekend and that seemed to help. I can't take it during the day if I have to drive :( I can't wait until the 13th. It can't get here fast enough.

Keep On Keeping On

Weight 279

I still have pain constantly, but yesterday there were no "twinges".

Today the pain was quite excrutiating at times. I'm still working and today we were putting the lettering on our trailer. I was doubled over several times.

I can't believe I have to wait two more weeks to have this pain gone.

My other option is to go to the ER (one hour away). If I do, and they decide to keep me in the hospital, I have to pay a $500 co-pay.

I'm taking the Vicoden they prescribed right now.