Day 3

Today has been an exciting day for me.  The best thing was that I got to take the dressings off of my incisions.  Not so thrilling on its own, but taking the dressings off meant I was allowed to take a shower.  Yay!  That was a nice shower.

I also moved from clear liquids to full liquids.  I was living on water, Crystal Light, and popsicles, so it was nice to be able to drink something that has nutritional value.

The suggested meal plan has six small meals throughout the day.  I'll have to work up to that.  I was able to get to three of them, and I'm still working on the third.  It turns out that a four ounce protein shake takes me about two hours to finish.  Yikes.  It'll improve as I move forward, but there's no way I'll meet my protein needs for the day.  I'll end up with about 45g of protein.  I'm supposed to get at least 60g.  It'll happen eventually, but it doesn't look good for today.

My meals for today have been a protein shake for breakfast, sugar-free pudding thinned with milk for lunch, and another protein shake for dinner.  

I'm not going to hit my goal for liquids today, either.  I'm trying, I really am, but I feel full really quickly, and I'm afraid I'll burst my banana if I try to swallow more.

I still have zero hunger... I don't even have head hunger.  Food commercials do nothing for me.  An hour or so ago, someone tried to deliver a pizza to me (he had the wrong apt.), and I wasn't at all disappointed that I couldn't eat it.  I'm sure eventually it'll come back, but for now I'm loving this lack of appetite and especially the lack of head hunger.  Head hunger is what got me into this mess in the first place.

I went through most of the day without any pain medication.  I wouldn't be a good drug addict at all.  I can't stand the blurred vision that impedes my ability to read.  Yuck.  I did eventually take some, because a couple of my incisions were bothering me.  Beyond that, I do feel a little bit of pain when I bend or twist certain ways, but following the surgeon's order of "if it hurts, don't do it" takes care of that quite nicely.

The other exciting thing from today is that I pooped!  Twice!  The first one was a big surprise, as I hadn't eaten anything in 72 hours, so I didn't think there was anything in there.  The second time was after I'd had a protein shake, so that seemed normal.  I also learned, to no surprise, that liquids in equals liquids out.  Fun!

That was my eventful day.  It may not have been exciting, but the fact that I feel this good two days after surgery is something to celebrate, even if I celebrate by going to bed early.

Less than 12 hours away

So yeah.  I'm panicking a little.  Scared about the surgery, nervous the anesthesiologist won't clear me for surgery, afraid I'll be the 1% who has complications, and this may sound trivial compared to the other things, but I have vomit anxiety. 

I have an anti-nausea pill and an anti-nausea patch, but people still often throw up quite a bit the first couple of days after surgery.  Not everyone, but enough that it makes me nervous.  I hate throwing up (does anyone like it?), but I'm terrified that it'll somehow hurt my new teeny stomach, like it'll spring a leak or something.  Ugh.

Honestly, there is a tiny part of me that wonders if I'm doing the right thing.  For the post part, I believe this is the best decision, but there's that scared little voice saying, "You've stuck to the pre-op diet so well, you haven't craved carbs, you never once had to talk yourself down from the ledge of ordering a pizza.  Just lose the weight on your own!"  Sigh.

I know that's not the problem, though.  I can lose 50 pounds like a pro.  But I can also gain back 70 like an all-star.  I need this tool to help me keep it off.  The complication risks exist, but they're small.  I have a much better chance of developing full-blown diabetes than I do of having a leak. 

Still, it's scary.  It's 8pm here.  If all goes as planned, I'll be in the middle of surgery 12 hours from now.  I have some prep things to do tonight, I still have to keep drinking tons of water until I go to sleep (or until midnight when I can't drink anything anymore)(and let's face it, I won't be sleeping much tonight), I have to get up at 4am to get ready, take my anti-nausea pill.  I still need to mop the kitchen and bathroom floors, and finish the last load of laundry.

I can't even read fanfic or watch TV.  I cannot pay attention to anything for more than a minute, then I back to obsessing about tomorrow.  I'll be so happy when it's over.  Even if I am ralphing all over the place.

Pre-op diet

As I was researching VSG (vertical sleeve gastrectomy), I saw many different versions of the pre-op liver shrinking diet.  The majority of them were some version of an all-liquid or mostly liquid diet.  Protein shakes and sugar free jello, two meals of protein shakes and one meal of lean protein and vegetables, some lasted two weeks, some up to four weeks, some allowed only clear liquids for the final three days before surgery.

Mine came with only one restriction:  no more than 40g of carbs a day.  It hasn't been difficult at all to stick to it.  In fact, the only thing that has been difficult is to get in as many calories as I should.

The scale went insane, and I lost nine pounds in the first five days.  Crazy!  Right around then was when I started to have a hard time getting enough calories, and for about a week, the scale didn't move much-- just a fraction of a pound here and there.

Over the weekend I got my 1200 calories each day, and I'm happy to say I was down another 2.4 pounds this morning.  Yay!  That's 13.6 pounds I've lost since I started this almost two weeks ago.  That is insane for two weeks.  Yeah, I know a lot of it is water, but it's fun to see anyway.  Too bad I can't trust  myself to stick with this for the long haul without the help of a teeny stomach.  I could save $20,000 (actually, with all the pre-screenings and PCP visits and prescriptions, there's another $2000 added to that).  Unfortunately, my problem is less losing weight than it is keeping it off.

I don't know what sparked the scale to move again.  I hate to believe it was getting the calories in, because after surgery it's going to be quite some time before I'll be able to get that many calories in one day.  For the first couple of days it'll be almost no calories.  Once I work up to full liquids, which should start around the third day after surgery, I'll be lucky to get 500 calories in.  I'll only be able to drink/eat around 1/3 of a cup at a time, and I'm sure I'll have to work up to that.

Whatever.  I should stop worrying about that.  This surgery is a proven weight loss method.  I might post more later about my fears there.

Trials of organization

Last night I got the brilliant idea that I needed a binder to keep all my weight loss surgery (WLS from here on out) information organized.  I've got things for the nutrition portion, psych, exercise, surgeon, pre-op, and post-op.  Too much to keep organized without a binder.  I also realized that I needed a printer so I could print stuff to put in my binder.

I was out bright and early to make my way to Staples.  Fun!  I found an inexpensive all-in-one printer/copier/scanner, which was more than I really needed, but there's no such thing as just a printer anymore, at least not at Staples.  I also bought some regular and three-hole paper, binder clips, paper clips. a notebook, pens, post-its, manila folders, and binder tabs/separators.  It really was a joy.  I like shopping for stuff like that.

I started setting up the printer right away when I got home.  I first had to clear off a spot for it on my desk, which was no simple task, but it wasn't that bad.  I got the printer set up with no major issues, and all that was left was installing the software on my laptop.  That should be the easiest part.  It was not.

For some stupid reason (eventually I realized that stupid reason's name is Vista), it wouldn't read the CD.  I kept trying and trying, but nothing.  This made me unhappy.  I started to lose it.  Words were shouted.  "Motherfuckingcocksuckingbastardsonofabitchpieceofshit!  FUCKING WORK ALREADY!"  Then came the tears.  "All I want out of life is to put a binder together to keep my information organized, but NOOOOOOOOOO.  I can't even get the damned CD to work.  Why can't one thing ever go right for me?"  Yes, I realize I was a bit melodramatic.  It was a moment.  Not a proud moment, mind you, but a moment.

I finally took a few deep breaths and visited the website of the printer's maker.  Good choice.  They had the info there on what I needed to do to get it to work with Vista, and I had to download the drivers from the site. Things were looking up.

Then I tried to print something.  *sigh*  It wasn't the end of the world or anything, but the three-hole paper doesn't work properly in this printer.  If I put it in the wrong way, it prints just fine, but the holes are on the wrong side.  When I put it in so the holes are on the correct side, it jams.  Or at least it claims to be jammed.  What really happens is that the paper is shoved through without printing, but it says it's jammed.  Grrrr.

I found that I can go into print setup and have it rotate 180 degrees when it prints, which isn't such a big deal, but why the heck can't it just take the paper so the holes are on the correct side in the first place?  Sheesh!

The good news is that I now have my different forms and other info printed, and I'm ready to put it all in The Binder, which is exciting.

That's my story for today.  Tomorrow I visit the nutritionist.