So, I am one week out from surgery and feel really amazing. It has been 3 weeks since I’ve eaten any solid food. What I hear from family and friends is they can’t believe I stuck to it. I’m pretty surprised myself to a point, but what choice did I have? The doctor said I had to do it to shrink my liver and quite frankly, I’m just now getting my appetite back since the surgery so it really wasn’t so hard after the 1st couple of days.
The surgery… what a day. Tony and Dave kept me laughing all morning so I wouldn’t be so nervous. God bless them because I was really scared. I weighed in that morning at 282. Which meant I had lost 30 lbs on my own before even having the gastric banding. Some people even asked why I was doing the band if I showed so much success. Well, guys, I had incentive and once the incentive goes away and people start accepting you at the smaller side and they stop commenting on how good you look, it gets really hard to maintain. I know because I did this before with weight watchers when I lost 72 lbs. Anyway, I digress… my surgery went well. Less than an hour so they tell me. I woke up in a lot of pain so the recovery nurse gave me Delauded and that’s when the fun started. My already normally low blood pressure crashed to 50 over something and they had to pump me with fluid to flush the drug out and to get my pressure back up. What was supposed to be a 1-½ hour stay in recovery turned into a 4-hour ordeal. I didn’t care that much. I was sleeping. But, Tony and Dave were left to wonder what the hell was going on because no one told them what was happening. I felt bad for them. I finally got to a room and spent most of the night listening to the crazy neighbor next to me coughing and crying all night.
Friday dawned a gorgeous day. I passed my upper GI test. I was now the proud owner of a Realize band and the fluids were passing successfully through the band. I could order my bariatric diet breakfast. So I got to eat broth and popsicles and a protein shake for breakfast. WOOHOO. Tony, Dave and Carolyn came to get me and home I went to rest.
I put in for leave for the entire week following my surgery. I told everyone that if I felt up to it, I would log in part days and stay up to date on my projects and email. Well, you know what? I didn’t. I have enjoyed this week to myself so much. I didn’t really rest because I have so much energy. I was able to get caught up on housework that I have been neglecting for so long. The house looks good, I feel good but I am nervous as to how long all of these good feelings will last.
My journey has just begun. I have so much more to look forward to and things that are going to happen. I am trying to take things one at a time and one day at a time.
