crosswind

My GOODNESS Tiffy good for you. I'm ashamed to even say what I spend on groceries in the same thread as you. I always admired coupon clippers and one winter it motivated me to have taken advantage of both CVS and Walgreens programs. But mostly I just get in my car and go to the store.

That's interesting Tiffy. I have never been a cook-from-scratch kind of person, but I always heard it was better to do because you "saved money". Another myth busted I guess.

Oh me either. I'm just bored and not being able to eat is annoying. However I was pissy before also when I weighed twenty more pounds than this and I probably would weigh that or more for the rest of my life. People who are recovering from surgery should be put on an island somewhere until they're ready come out and be civil. I should say I decided to start sharing my daily musings, first because nobody else is even going to get what I'm talking about but also I thought it might help people who are about to do this. It's kind of amazing to me that after blowing off insurance, getting on a plane and going to a foreign country and having my stomach resected the only thing I'm really bothered by ten days later are these minor nonsensical complaints you could just as easily have if you had the flu, or shingles or an ingrown toenail. The worst thing about flying home three days after surgery was that I hated the movie. The worst thing about right now is that I don't even want any yogurt. I know thousands of people who would kill to have this problem, you know?

I didn't really need it all that much but I went through the little box of Supradol the nurse gave me at the hospital. How are you medicating for minor pain after this surgery? Crushing up tylenol? Crushing up aspirin? Liquid motrin?

Medifast isn't the greatest tasting stuff but I'm never hungry when I'm on it. It's PRICEY but I can see it -being a good post op alternative because it's lowcal, lowcarb and spares Protein, People were talking in another thread about what diet they would do if the started to regain and I think this would be my choice. Gotta have the Toranis, though. They definitely make a difference. My favorite stuff they make are the brownies and the chili.

Call your doc or doc assistant and tell them you might have misunderstood the post op diet, tell them how you've been eating and ask them what to do. My sense is they'll say it's okay and as long as you're tolerating you should be fine. I wouldn't * assume* that though, make the call.

I think over time your stomach can stretch a little bit. But your stomach used to be an organ that could stretch like a snakebelly to take in *enormous* amounts of food at one sitting story and there is * no way* it can go back to being that way again. There is just not enough material there for it to go back to its original size. I also have never heard of an emergency high risk surgery needed for a restretched sleeve. I hope misunderstood him and he wasn't just lying to you. There are enough myths about weight loss surgery as it is.

One more thing I wanted to mention about getting enough protein -- I was on Medifast kind of on and off this whole past year and I have a bunch left. I wrote Gaby an emai and she said Medifast was fine for the appropriate phase. These are puddings, soft serve ice cream, and oatmeal ( also shakes, bars, and pretzels) with 15 grams of protein per serving. I definitely plan on snarfing those down pretty soon, even though I'd rather have a chalupa.

. Okay, I managed to get down two scoops of chocolate Injury. I mixed it up with a lot of ice and Water and drank it pretty slowly. And then my stomach started to feel sort of distended and I was a little uncomfortable at the top of my stomach and I walked around like for a while thinking I really had some kind of Chocolate Injury. And then you know what I realized? I was *full*. I was absolutely positively freaking unbelievably stuffed. I *overate* Protein powder. You're right meggie this is going to be long haul, it already seems. Congrats on your date by the way! That's my son's birthday!

My doc said no soda ever ever eeeeever again because it could stretch the sleeve. I *loved* diet cola more than anything a person could eat. I was hardcore with a sixpack a day and I quit cold turkey too. I'm fine without it for now. What I can't believe is how everyone used to ride me about drinking the stuff because it was supposedly making me fat and keeping me awake and quite frankly neither one of these things is true. I think..if it's not hurting your weight loss, your nutrition, your wellbeing or your sleeve....eh.

The boredom continues, punctuated by moments of slight disappointment and minor terror, which appear to tbe high point of my whole day. I weighed in today and I was up a couple pounds, first of all, which I know is just an anomaly but it was sort of depressing. I just shrugged it off, though because my bathroom scale is like the worst member of my whole family. You know, the one who's always whining and saying things like, well, we just can't have nice things and locking you out of the house? That's my bathroom scale. It's just a total pain in the ass and I've stopped paying attention to what it says. Of course it thinks I look fat. It's had a horrible life and has an extremely narrow perspective. So then I went upstairs to speak with my thermometer. My thermometer was adamant that today my temperature was 99 degrees fahrenheit. I asked it again to see if it was kidding. No, it changed its mind. My temperature was now 99.9. REALLY? I said, and asked it again. Nope, nope,now it was positive my temperature was 103.3. But I don't really feel that sick, I told it. It then recanted and said it really meant my temperature was 99 like it said before. I'm not the slightest bit feverish, I said. It rechecked something and said never mind, it was 97.6. You know, you're really bad at this job, I told it. I really always wanted to be a bathroom scale, it said.

Dr.Aceves does three leak tests in the hospital, immediately. I think the reason is twofold: one, these are tests that might have to be ordered separately from the surgery in the states -- but two, in his case my sense is he wants to make sure it's clear that if somethings goes wrong later on, it is not because it is something *he* did. Its either something your body did spontaneously or something YOU did, like stuffing your head with Papa John's pizza three days out. He's basically proving his work before he sends you home, which gives me peace of mind but it also makes sense for him. Leaks are possible but they really are rare. Surgeons don't really expect them to happen if all conditions are met for a safe surgery. If you are covered by insurance for this you can march right back to the hospital if you get a fever and have them do that same barium swallow I did back in mexicali. I wouldn't sweat it.

Recovery from surgery is boring. I'm not really hungry anymore. I don't want anymore juice. I can't go swimming. And I think I need to wait a couple more weeks before I start my new life, you know? I kind of want to go back to Mexico and get *another* surgery because it was more interesting than sitting here making Protein shakes and changing my tedious gauze. All the drama happens beforehand, this part is just incredibly dull. I had a little bit of drama yesterday when I got diarrhea and it came out green. I mean *emerald* green. I don't even own a color that major. I wrote to Gaby last night, she told me it was the blue dye from the leak test a week ago, can you believe that? I thought I was dying, I thought my liver was doing its last River Dance before it exploded. Yawn. Anyway. Drama solved. Back to watching the paint dry.

Lol meggie, I gotta check that out.

I know, y'all, it's just boring, right? I watched two back to back episodes of "Ancients Behaving Badlly" on the History Channel, took a nap, and then went back to the TV room until I heard what the voiceover was saying on the "How It's Made" show: "Just imagine, for a moment, what life would be like without....PACKAGING..." Ugghhh.

Hey Indiana, you lost 40 pounds already? Christ on a cracker. I'm glad I'm not the only one bothering Gaby. I think I've written her ten emails. And yep, I am so bored I am counting the days before I can have cream of broccoli Soup and butterscotch pudding...

Seven days post op. My incision is not infected. I am not sick or throwing up. I have no fever and no pain. I am obsessed about getting Water, Protein, taking small sips, not putting anything into my mouth the doc said not to, taking my nexium, getting lots of rest...etc -- because I literally can not afford a complication. However. Just to let ya know. So far, if you're thinking about going rogue over the border ( with a GOOD surgeon) and no insurance -- seven days out and I'm still not dead.

optasia, Mexico was awesome! I want to go back!

I have lost a hundred pounds twice already. Once when I was pregnant. I started out weighing about 180 and got up to 278 before my kid was born. I dropped twenty pounds and him with it, and eventually, about a year later, I was back at 180. 180 is still a bit overweight for me, but I liked what I looked like and I felt good. But the weight would never stay off. I would go on serious diets to get back down to 180 but would never make it to my high school weight of 155. Good, but not good enough. So I would drift up and then bash it down with pure and total concentration -- low fat, low carb, shakes, drinks, bars. I'd get up to about 230 and panic, smoke like crazy and be afraid to quit, get back down to 210...on and on like that. Then around 2001 for some reason ( or lots of reasons such as depression, exhaustion, frustration, and various other shuns) I gave up and let myself get up to around 278 again. I just didn't care and refused to go out, and then one day I decided to go on low carb for real and inexplicably was able to stay on it for seven months. I lost 100 pounds and then finished up the year pushing my weight down with low carb and exercise to 153. I said 153. My hair fell out and grew back. I was a size eight. I really thought i had a handle on the weight thing after that, I thought I'd be a lowcarber for the rest of my life. So then the same thing happened. I would just get tired of *obsessing* so much about this. I would let myself go out to dinner, eat carbs at night, and did I *really* have to work out for two hours a day every day? I mean how is this possible to keep up month after month and year after year? So by 2009, I was way over 200 again. 250, 265...my mother died and I went on Medifast and lost 40 pounds for her memorial. I hated the idea that all her old friends would be looking at me and thinking oh, wow, she got fat just like her mother did. All of 2009 was like that. 220...250...265...240...then 2010 I gave up dieting because I was just so damn TIRED OF IT. I stuck around 250 for awhile but then I got meds for depression, which brings me to a little bit before now: 285. What I was thinking all through the winter was that I was going to be fat for the rest of my life because I was *never* getting back on that ride again. I would not not NOT keep fighting with my damn scale day after day> I was not going to go through the sweat, blood, tears and obsession over something so completely STUPID only to gain it all back again. Truthfully, *dieting* has been my true career. In fact, so far I'm not finding the post op diet to be hard at all. Do you know how many times I've done this? How many times I've lived on liquids only, diet shakes, Protein sparing fasts? ALL MY LIFE, DAMMIT. I'm not convinced my metabolism is screwed up but I know my head is. I've learned to dread social outings of alll kinds because I know people will expect me to eat and I can't. People ask me out for coffee, I say no because I can't have a cappucino and a muffin, all I can have is plain Water or decaf with splenda. Or? I weigh 250 pounds and that muffin is no fun anyway. Insert clockhands moving around a dial to depict me ranting on endlessly into the night about this, but here is what I am really wondering: Why is everybody so fat all of the sudden? It used to be you'd put a woman who'd lost and gained a 100 pounds twice on a television talk show for people to murmur at. It used to be that a 300 pound person was direly and directly gawked at, it used to be that a 500 pound person was a medical oddity. Why are we like this and how did we get here? I no longer think the problem is *me* anymore. Or that I was doing anything particularly wrong. I think there is something wrong with western culture or our environments, something they are putting in the water, some kind of mindfuq going on between the womens magazines and the producers of high fructose corn syrup...*something.* Because it's just weird that so many of us, increasing numbers are in the place we're in right now. Don't you think?

Congratulations Meggie! You really crossed all your eyes and dotted all your tees on this one. I predict you will also be not dead very very soon!

That's just completely shitty, I'm sorry. Is it your iron count? I have low iron all the time because I have very heavy periods and I'm always bleeding. It may not be serious. Maybe if this is also the case with you you could explain this patiently to your doctor. Iron levels take about a month to bring up if you're religious about taking your pills. I never do because they make me incredibly sick. However *if* the problem is iron anemia and it's because of the problem mentioned above, go to Whole Foods and get a tincture of Shepherds Purse which slows bleeding to a normal level over time so your levels don't get so. Also you can go and get another blood test in a week and call your doc -- http://www.personalabs.com/panels.aspx?PanelID=417&PanelGroupID=4#Remark_121679 It's 130 dollars to do this and they have places all over the country.

I think the thing that's most abnormal is to have to constantly battle your environment to keep food out of your mouth. It makes absolutely no sense that the place you live, that feeds you, is full of stuff that's going to kill you. If you lived a place that had poisoned Water, you'd leave, right? You'd think right, I'm not staying here to drink from the poisoned stream, I'm getting out of here, this is stupid. It's normal to want more food that tastes good or makes you feel good. In fact it's normal to eat as much of it as you can. It's normal to eat food that's readily available and eat if whenever you want, if you can. Back in the day the only reason to stop eating was that you were out of food or that Urrgh, Sbpabo and UngaUnga were going to kill you if you ate their portion. Eating food that keeps our engines running cheerfully with no health consequences is a reasonable expecation. What I really think is that *this surgery* is the wave the of the future. I really do. More surgeons are going to learn how to do it and get better at it, so it's going to get safer. I think we're the early adopters. I mean enough is enough with this.

Sounds like you solved your problem. You probably also healed up your back a bit. Your trainer should hook you up. Good luck!

Hey there I am...wow, four days post-op. I ordered unjury Protein and all kinds of other tasty looking clear Protein drinks before I left to get surgery but somehow they got sent to the wrong address. I got back home yesterday with NO PROTEIN so I went to GNC today. All they had was Isopure powder and I bought two bags, chocolate and vanilla. My question is: Can I eat this if I am supposed to be on clears for the next five days? The guy at the store said it did not mix up clear. Is this the *right* isopure before I go killing myself due to bad company, bad advice and bad choices?

I bought those canned Atkins shakes at CVS in anticipation of the "thin liquid stage" and I'm not sure if I can drink them. Instructions say " Protein powder drinks mixed with Water." Ok or not ok?