5-weeks and working

Sep 23, 2012

This is a brief update. It's also my favorite one so far.

I think I may finally be getting the hang of this. Tomorrow marks five weeks for me since getting my VSG done, but it's my wife's birthday and I won't be able to post - she celebrates her entire birthday week (frankly, she's in the shower now and I just snuck away). Anyway, without wasting any more valuable time, let me give those of you who are behind me a few bright spots to look forward to and those ahead, maybe a nice memory or two.

First and most importantly to me, I'm pretty much pain free for the first time in a month. My sutures must have dissolved, or mostly dissolved, and I can do everything I could do before without debilitating and crushing pain - everything except sneeze and stretch/yawn with my hands over my head. I can deal with those things, the sneezing, of course I just hope to avoid and the stretching, well, it can wait a few more days. Without the pain, there's no need for the vicodin suspension! -1 med.

Thanks to the calendar soldiering forward, my script for the Neurontin has stepped down to twice a day from three times. And, without the constant twinges and painful reminders that I had stitches through my nerve, I don't have the edge and soreness that had me taking 1600mg of ibuprofen four times a day either. -2 meds/8 pills.

I started the Actigall med last week, just once a day instead of twice, to allow my body get used to it. I also was instructed to take it with OJ to aid in absorption, since the Prevacid kills the acid. Now, this pill was an issue because it needed to be taken two hours after and one hour before antacids, which needed to be taken an hour before meals and an hour away from the Neurontin. Because the Neurontin was stepped down two twice a day, I can take it with the Actigall in the morning and before bed now with my multi and my beta blocker and I only need to take the Prevacid midday and carry one pill with me to work. With the week behind me and no symptoms except a little more regularity... full dose starting today, 2 pills. Bonus, though, is that I can eat as I am hungry instead of by the alram on my phone and I can sleep an extra hour. +2 pills and 2-3oz of orange juice (awesome!), -1 scheduling nightmare.

Friday, after applying all the instructions that I could handle from my surgeon/nut visit last week, I promoted myself to soft solids. The PMAS (puke myself awake syndrome) and overeating (ha ha, still funny when I say that) are under control and I got myself back to regular visits from the doctor by adding a bowl of grits for breakfast every other day. I bought the Metamucil as instructed, but haven't had to use it yet! -1 gritty, sandy, make you poop at defcon 3 beverage, +SOFT SOLIDS!

I just mentioned it a second ago, but for the glory of it all, and because it deserves its own paragraph, I'm finally on soft solids. I ate some of the best tasting foods I have had in a month. My first meal was scrambled eggs with three whites and half a yolk. It was so delicious and awesome I think I cried into my plate. I made some turkey chili from scratch with veggies from my garden, 99% FF ground turkey and pinto beans that might as well have been fois gras or filet mignon it tasted so amazing just chewing something with texture and more than a single flavor... In my travels with the wife and the girl this weekend, I went to two restaurants. I went to Qdoba (like Chipotle for those who aren't familiar). I didn't order anything, instead I had the filling from one of my kid's chicken tacos and a forkful of beans. I was full, and strangely enough, not sad. Later that evening, my in-laws invited us to a local restaurant for dinner and I ordered a sashimi app and fought through half of it - I loved it and have a nice little meal for myself today with what I couldn't fit into my pinky finger sized stomach.

Best yet about the solid foods, I filled up much faster than with the densely concentrated purees and, even though I had an extra meal in place of my snack, I lost 3lbs over the weekend, breaking a two-week creep that had the makings of a stall. 

I will make an appointment with my PCP next week to get off the beta blocker and see if he wants me back on my regular BP meds and I might even schedule a plain old physical just to see what I can start working on. After this week, I am back to full duty so I will be able to get back into the shop and start working on my race car, in earnest, in time for the winter tours and challenge races. I will also be able to get a little more aggressive with my exercise and finally get to try out my new kayak. I am happy to say that my life is beginning to feel somewhat regular again.

I'm still hungry all the time, because my tiny little stomach continues resisting arrest, but I am finally beginning to understand how much food I can eat without feeling like sh!t. My surgeon promises that my pyloris will adjust and that the reduction in gherlin will eventually get the hunger vs full feelings to correspond.

I'm 95% pain free, down to taking pills when I get up and go to sleep, plus one little capsule on the way to work which is easy to live with, I'm losing weight again, I went out and ran around with the wife and the girl, I sat in restaurants, ate a little food and didn't have any breakdowns or food rage - any maybe best of all - I just feel great. I mean, I feel terrific - best I've felt in years. I've been this weight before but it was always a diet and exercise struggle and I always felt deprived. This time feels different - I know there's a lot of work ahead of me, but it feels more permanent. So, this was not the milestone post I had hoped for, but it was significant in that it seemed like a big turnaround. 

If any of you out there are having a rough time post-op, browse back over a few of my prior blog entries and compare notes. Point being - it gets better. I swear, I must have popped a squat under a rainbow this weekend. I'm so freaking excited about going forward and learning more about my new physiology and shedding the next 50lbs to get back down to an ideal weight!

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