surgery experience

Mar 17, 2010

So I promised to come back and tell the rest of my surgery story, but the rest is pretty uneventful!

My surgeon allowed ice chips, so I didn't have the Dry Mouth of Doom that you always hear about. I loved my ice chips. I'd have to call the nurse to take away the cup once it got melty though, I didn't trust myself not to try a sip.

The following day I had my pouch study (7 hours late! Grrrrr....) and it didn't go very well. I tried to swallow the contrast, but when you looked at the x-ray, you could see that it was all just sitting in my esophagus. It wouldn't go down.  So they had me sit back down for 10 minutes (I instantly fell asleep LOL!) and when they looked again, it was all still sitting in the esophagus. I guess everything was so swollen that it just wouldn't go down. So they send me back to my room. The nurse knew how much I'd been looking forward to some yummy crystal lite so it was waiting for me when I got back to my room. I burst in to tears!

My doctor told the nurses to go ahead and let me drink. He had checked for leaks during surgery and was positive I didn't have any. (So why do the dumb study in the first place?) So I had the nurse bring in some herbal tea to see if that would go down. Right at that moment, my bestest OH buddy Trish came to visit! My surgery date is her 1 month surgiversary. She looked AMAZING, I couldn't believe it. She brought me a gift basket full of lots of protein stuff. It was so great to get to chat with her! I was highly drugged though, so Trish please forgive me if I talked gibberish the whole time!! :)

Anyway, with all our chatting I wasn't really paying attention and lo and behold that tea went down. Hurray! So I had crystal light the rest of the evening and then got to have SF pudding and yogurt the next morning. Yum city! It was so delicious! I was home by the afternoon and have been feeling great ever since.

So now, I'm 2 weeks out. Physically, I feel fantastic. I sleep a little later in the mornings and go to bed a little earlier in the evenings. If I get 9 hours of sleep, I feel 100% fine.

The weight loss has not been too wonderful so far. Actually I'm really disappointed. I lost 29 lbs pre-op. Since surgery I've lost 11.5 lbs. In 2 weeks! I keep hearing of all these other people that are losing 20-30 lbs the first 2 weeks! Ughhhh. I'm really struggling feeling like this surgery is not going to work for me. Sometimes I swear it feels like I didn't even have the surgery. I don't feel hunger, but I stopped feeling hunger during the 2 week liquid diet. The thing that sucks is that I don't feel full either! A couple of times I've felt a little bit full, but not really. I hope when I start eating more normal food and the nerves heal up that I will feel some restriction. Right now, the only restriction I have is self imposed -in that I'm not allowing myself to eat. I keep pushing the envelope too. Full liquid diet is supposed to mean "pourable", but I've had some things that I don't think probably qualify. I know it sounds crazy, but I wish I'd throw up or something! I've got this iron-clad pouch that doesn't seem to care what I do it.

Ugh, frustration.

I know its going to get better. I know it is!

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