Pouch... Check... Pain... CHECK!

So, surgery was Monday afternoon around 1pm after arriving there around 11am and talking with a chaplain who had a very thick Puerto Rican accent and could not pronounce my name or Kendelle's... he kept referring to her as Candle and Candelabra(sp?). My nerves exited the premises once the IV was started and I started making jokes and asking the anesthesia staff and surgeon if they had slept well Sunday night, needed to eat lunch before surgery, and if any spouses had made them particularly mad. This is how I cope with stress.

So anesthesia guy gives me the Versed which is basically glorified Valium that hits you before you can say the alphabet. I remember leaving the pre-op room and recall entering the OR where I also remember them getting my arms and legs strapped in. That was about the extent of it before the curtain closed and I was out for the count.

Fast forward to about 2:30-3pm(an estimate as I was told my surgery lasted right around 2 hours), as soon as the anesthesia started fading the nausea hit. That was quite possibly the most nauseated I have EVER felt. IF I recall correctly they tried to doses of Zofran before my surgeon authorized Phenergan which did the final deed to get me decent although still far from great in terms of nausea. I remember the nursing asking me a couple times if I was ready to allow visitors, mind you my daughter was waiting with my husband's grandparents and my biggest thing had been wanting to see her post-op, I felt that crummy that I told them not yet for somewhere around an hour. Finally I was able to open my eyes and talk enough to tell Kendelle how much I loved her and such before they left to take her to their house. I got my PCA pump with Morphine and worked on resting and such.

Fast forward to about 6:30 pm... time for the first post-op walk. I knew not to fight it because I needed to do it for my health and certainly did not want Sandra, the bariatric nurse called in to chew me a new rump after I committed that I would follow the guidelines. Lets just say though, Nagging Nausea accompanied me on the walk and stayed right on my heels. Part of this was due in fact to having lost my PCA pump button and the nurse call button not working. I made it though.

I walked again at 8pm, 1 am, and basically strolled around in spurts between 6:15am-8:30am when I got moved upstairs after getting showered, dressed, and all the contraptions essentially disconnected. I also had my first tray of fluids before going upstairs.

Got upstairs about 9am and spent the day watching tv, walking, doing my incentive spirometer, and got discharged about 5pm with a small pharmacy to accompany me that includes Nexium, 2 forms of liquid pain meds, some anti-nausea meds, and stool softener. That is in addition to the abundance of vitamins and such I already had in stock to take.

Now, let the journey of weight loss begin... the ride will have ups and downs but I've got my seatbelt on and I'm going to rock this!

Countdown to the Battle of the Bulge..

Well, the day has come to say I am 1 week out from the next chapter in my life. It is going to be a rollercoaster without a doubt yet so rewarding at the end that any obstacle will be worth it... or so I believe and so I've been told. What is this chapter you ask?
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I am having Roux En Y Gastric Bypass. I am not doing this merely so that I can be skinny, although admittedly I will be quite welcoming to that side effect. I am doing this for my health, for my LIFE, and to be the person I am meant to be. I am 26 years old with high blood pressure. I am a mother. My body deserves better and I deserve better.

The easy route many may say? That is idiotic in mere logic. I have struggled with my weight not for a mere year, 5 years, or even 10 years. I have been fat to some extent my ENTIRE life. There has been nothing easy about any route my life has been on. I went through stages where self-confidence was at a high but never has my weight been normal. Is it "easy" to be embarking on a journey where I will have 6 incisions made into my abdomen, have staples and stitches put into a surgically separated portion of my stomach which will then bypass 100 centimeters of my intestine? Is it "easy" that I will be on solely liquids for 2 weeks which will then be followed by 4 weeks of food at the consistency of baby food which is at a level a 6 month old baby consumes? Is it "easy" that for the rest of my entire life I will be obligated to read EVERY label for sugar content, protein content, etc.? NO is the answer to each and every one of the above questions. There will be nothing EASY about this journey. I will have to work out on a very regular basis, I will have to adapt my way of thinking and realize that my disease, yes DISEASE, of obesity is just as much an addiction as alcoholism, narcotic addiction, etc. I will have many moments where my brain has not yet caught up with the new sizes that my body will become. I may struggle at times with poor body image, often because after spending years being obese many people simply cannot see that they aren't FAT anymore. Yes, there may be excess skin but that is often after the fat is depleted. I've done exercise, I've done diets, I've taken pills. If I could do this without the tool of gastric bypass, I would have done it long ago. I would have a beautiful shape, no health issues, and I certainly would not be entering an operating room for a procedure that COULD entail complications.

You see, I am taking this journey for ME. I am not taking it for the approval of person X, Y, or Z. I am doing this so that my life can be enriched. I am doing this so that I can live a healthy life and teach healthy living to my family by example. I don't need the approval of any bystander. I won't be swayed by whether anyone or everyone thinks it is too soon, that I'm too young, or merely because of their own fears.

1 week, 7 days, 168 hours... I'm doing this, I am proud of myself for taking the step to change my life.

Until the scale stops the drops,
Cort