Liberated Sleeve

March 10th, 2012
 
Yesterday they scheduled my endoscopy for Thursday, March 15th because they have to check for potential ulcers. I have been on NSAIDS (Advil) for a very long time in my life and take Omeprazole to prevent damage to my stomach. They want to make sure before we go ahead with surgery that everything looks okay inside. A bleeding ulcer would be contraindicated obviously. The last thing you want is to be bleeding after surgery. For this procedure and the surgery I have to stop all my intake of Advil indefinitely. As you may have read in previous entries, I have been running around on cloud nine the past few days. Well I have bad knees, ankles, hips, and shoulders. I woke up this morning with the worst joint pain I have had in years. I looked like a stiff mummy trying to come down my stairs this morning. I cannot take the Advil for it, only Tylenol. The Tylenol helps a little with the pain, but not the swelling. I assume once the weight starts to come off, the stress on the joints should reduce, hence the pain will hopefully reduce as well. I just have to be patient and endure this for a little while and hope for the best. My body is telling me to chill out a little bit today and stop trying to conquer the world in just one day. I'm going to listen to it.

I just got home from Maui last night and was really interested to see what the scale would tell me.  During vacation I decided to not put any limits on what I ate or drank, so had many treats over the course of six days ... I really enjoyed my food at Maui, but restriction kept me in good control of caloric intake.  Plus, we were pretty active ... lots of swimming, snorkeling, and walking around in the warm Hawaaiian sun.  So I figured the activity would counteract the splurges at the table.
 
So ... my final weigh in was on July 5th (the morning we left for Maui) and I was 169.6 (just barely missed my July 4th goal of 169.0).  Today I got on the scale, and O Happy Day, it said I weigh 167.2 -- a loss of 2.4 lbs.!  Yay!  That was a happy moment for me!  
 
I had a couple of NSVs this week too.  The biggest one was how easily I now fit in a plane seat.  I used to hate and dread flying, because I would overflow the seat and could barely close the seat belt, but now I have no problems at all with the plane seat or seat belt.  That felt great!  The second NSV came this morning -- my hubby went out to get the mail and saw one of our neighbors, who told him, "Your wife is the incredible shrinking woman!"  LOL!  I am now wearing a size 14 (or women's Large) and that is so cool!  
 
Life is really great with my sleeve!  

So my weight started moving again - 339 this morning. That's 25 lbs since surgery in a little over 5 weeks with 3 periods in that time lol. Total of 47 lbs lost. I'm feeling pretty good about that
Could it be more? heck yeah! But could it be less? thank god its not!
 
I'm eating turkey meatballs in cream of mushroom gravy. A fave when I was a kid. Very yummeh.
 
Excited about going to Texas - gonna see some old friends. Got a good gameplan for food and exercise. Just gonna keep on track

I clean when I get nervous or frustrated and right now my house is spotless, my plants have been replanted, and if it wasn't so cold out, the cars would be washed. I have ONE more day and a wake up before my surgery. Don't get me wrong, I'm super excited, but I'm really nervous because even though I lost on the pre-op diet, I'm still dangerously close to my cut-off. My body is just rebellious! As soon as she figures out I'm on some kind of diet, she shuts down all weight loss. Story of my life!
 
Meanwhile, going to find something else to clean.

Okay, venting shall now occur and I consider this fair warning!
 
So I realize that I should be grateful that (for the most part) my friends, coworkers, and family are behind my 100% on this surgery. It definitely takes down the stress level and for those who look down on me for it I have no problem walking away. I've been going through the hoops and am almost done with all my classes/tests. In fact, all I have is the EKG (Monday!) and the support group meeting (3/8!) and I'm done pending final clearance by the insurance company. So why am I all "bitchy Lyra" right now? For the last few weeks all any of my friends want to talk about is the surgery. Again, I tell myself that I am happy that they're so curious and supportive...but it feels that anytime we get together somebody brings it up and they continually ask me if I'm scared/nervous/excited. They can't seem to believe me that no, I'm not scared. They ask me if I'm going to miss eating, etc. I dont really want to talk about how I'm worried that I might have emotional upheavel for awhile afterwards as I go from food being my emotional blankie to just something that I eat to survive. I feel so mean spirited and hypocritical, but I'm getting really frustrated with them. I am more than just a weight loss surgery. Talk to me about horrible monster/zombie movies, my art classes, work, my hobbies, my bucket list, my desire to play the violin...anything other than my surgery. I have this nagging fear that after it they're going to want daily updates on my weight loss. I know that it's up to me to have boundaries but this is just maddening. I love these people dearly and don't want to snap at them but I'm so irritated right now. Perhaps there is such a thing as being too supportive? God, what an oxymoron. Anybody else have this happen to them?
 
Okay, rant over. On the flip side I had my chest xray done yesterday and had a funny conversation with the technician.
 
Tech: So this is pre-op for gastric bypass?
Me: No, it's for the vertical sleeve gastrectomy of the stomach.
Tech: So its for the bypass.
Me: No, there is no bypassing. It's a VSG.
Tech: So its a lapband.
Me: ....no.
 
Personally I think it's more disturbing for them to totally bypass your stomach or to have a plastic thingy in your side where a surgeon can influence a choke-collar on your stomach. This woman was horrified at the idea of someone cutting part of your stomach out, which to me was the saner choice. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-to.

Happy Lord's Day Family, Life Is Good!
 
 
"Spiritual Vitamin" for today is C: CONTENTMENT
 
 
 
Phillipians 4:11--- The apostle Paul states, "Not that I speak concerning my want, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am in, there will I be content!"
 
Contentment means: to be satified, to be enough, to be at peace, to be full!
 
How are we doing with our contentment as we go on this journey Family? Is God's grace sufficient enough?
 
 
For us to be in full contentment, we must believe God will meet our needs, and that He will work out "all our circumstances" for His good and not our own! Remember, He knows how
 
we have struggled with this weight and He has opened up an avenue (The Sleeve) for our battles to end. But, we must let Him lead us and be "content" with whatever big, small or no
 
progress made, that we find ourselves facing each day. So let us take this Lord's day, to truly examine ourselves and when we are finished, Pray to our wonderful Father, and ask that
 
He may search our hearts (mind), and take out those things which are preventing "our spirits from being content!" AMEN AMEN
 
Much Love To You,
Diamond :rolleyes: