Cecilia

It was my mom's surgery (she was 70 when she had it) that motivated me to get it done a year later!

I don't get why my doctor wants me on a puree diet for four whole weeks! I know, it will pass fast, but it's sooooo boring!

I came home with loads of information on what to eat and drink, but nowhere in my educational materials does it say what the breakdown of protein/carbs/fat/total calories should be per day. Do any of you have this information? I'm a little over a week post-op.

The day I had terrible nausea, the doctor figured it was because I hadn't had a BM in six days. Took some Milk of Magnesia, it worked, and no nausea since. I don't know if that applies to you, but for what it's worth... I hope you feel better soon!

I hear ya! I have to keep pacing myself!

Wow! I'm still on purees for the next four weeks. I tried (allowed) scrambled eggs yesterday and chewed them until they were so mushy I could swish them between my teeth... and still threw it all up. Isn't it interesting how different doctors take things at different speeds? I would kill for a bite of chicken right now that didn't come out of a baby food jar! LOL!

It's a tough balancing act. On the one hand, they want to thin your blod so you don't get clots, but on the other hand, if they thin your blood you are at risk not clotting where your new incisions are, and bleeding... I'm sending positive thoughts to you and to your team of doctors!

Hurrah! Welcome home!

Now more than ever, keep up with your fluids! And plenty of rest!!!! And remember you have all of us here to lean on!

I'm glad you got to see your doctor and that they have admitted you. You are in good care now! Try to rest and know we're thinking about you!

Being back in your own bed is an amazing feeling! (Though I do wish my bed were adjustable like the hospital beds are... it would make reading in bed so much easier)

Wow! What a story! I hope your recovery is easier than the surgery was!

Well... four hours later (JK) I'm caught up with everyone's stories. Soccer Momma, will you add me to your amazing list? I had my surgery on the 13th...

I'm going back and reading this thread from the first. I'll bet your hubby has heard stories. I've been chatting with this guy whose wife left him after getting surgery.

Well hi there everybody! I just realized where everyone was hanging out. I posted a rather long-winded introduction on the "Fabulous February Post-Op" discussion. Did you guys want me to introduce myself here? Cecilia p.s. Just ordered some of this: Syntrax nectar Fuzzy Navel Protein shake. I'm wondering if any of you tried it. I realized I was getting a lot of carbs and fat from the shake my mom recommended, so I thought I'd try something different.

Update: As of Day 6 postop, I had lost 15 crazy pounds. Advanced diet to include Protein shake, and I gained a pound back and have stalled. So don't be jealous. I probably should just be weighing weekly, but it's so exciting to jump on the scale these days... except the last two days. My dietitian gave me loads of info on what to eat and not to eat, but no actual numbers to aim for. I mean, I know I need 60 grams of protein per day, and no more than a suggestion of fats, but I have no idea what the carb limit is, and the Protein Shake I found that tastes delish (Muscle Milk) has 300 calories per 30 grams of protein. There have to be "lighter" ones out there... but maybe those are the ones that taste gross? Any suggestions welcome.

I'm so sorry to hear about your other complications. My mom has fibromyalgia, and the way she describes it, some days can be truly awful, and the rest of the days are just dealing with chronic low-level pain. Groan! But the surgery and dramatic weight loss have helped her tremendously. (she had the surgery a year ago) Please don't think for a minute that I was putting you in the class of people who walk through the door at our unit. Naturally, I worry about anyone getting addicted (myself included -- I was seriously tripping on the dilaudid they gave me in the hospital. I could easily see trying to buy that on the street!) I hope the weight loss works wonders for you too! Take care, and keep taking it easy!! Cecilia

Thanks for your feedback!

Dear Kat, I am so sorry to hear you are still in so much pain. People who are not in pain have no idea how all-consuming it can be. From a professional perspective, I can tell you that addiction to pain meds is a real concern from the prescriber's standpoint. I can't tell you how many people I see walk through the doors of my unit suicidal because they just can't deal with the pain any more. And they are on massive amounts of narcotics. And they walk around and move the way someone you or I would think is really in not that much pain. (?) So where is the pain? Is it real? We have a whole unit (Pain Rehab Clinic) devoted to weaning people off of narcotics and teaching them how to live with moderate amounts of pain in their lives. The pain is real, (and I'm not talking about you now, I'm talking about suicidal/addicted patients) but it's also in their brains. Not "in their head" but in the connections between the nerves in their brains. Once you become dependent on narcotics it hurts to quit, just like it hurts to quit street drugs or cigarrettes. My suggestions: 1. Are you taking Tylenol 1000mg every 6 hours around the clock? If not, you should be. It's important to do everything you can to stay on top of the pain with non-narcotic meds. 2. Are you rating your pain? Meaning, can you differentiate between when it's a 4/10 versus 8/10? Use your narcotics for when you can rate your pain at 5/10 or higher. Eventually, you can use them for pain that's 6/10, then 8/10, then you're weaned. 3. Are you getting enough rest? Don't make the pain worse by doing things you can't do yet. Your priority is you, healing your internal wounds, letting your body recover. Don't use the pain meds to get up and clean house. That's what the kids and hubby are for. 4. What are you doing to manage the pain aside from pills? Have hot showers worked? Hot pack? Alternating hot and ice? Deep breathing? Listening to a meditation CD (there is a ton of free stuff on the web - look for guided meditation). 5. Continue to rate your pain. Keep a chart. Every 2-4 hours write down what you were doing, and what your pain was. It might help you spot a pattern of what works and what makes it worse, and it will give you very good documentation to take to your doctor if it doesn't start getting better within the next few days. I hope this helps. I'll take my nurse's cap off now and go shower. Cecilia

I have a question for those of you who are 6 or more months out, where the weight loss is dramatic and showing. I imagine you have had a lot of people ask you about your weight loss and offer their (welcome or not so much) opinion. How do you reply to people who say: "But you weren't that heavy to begin with!" or "My (insert friend/relative) did that surgery and (insert complication)." or "I would never do that to my body!" I realize most of these comments are well-meant, or at least not born of maliciousness, so I want to provide a polite response that will not offend the person offering them. What has worked for you? Thank you!!!

I got the book, and I'm loving it! In lieu of a review, I invite you to take a look at my blog (follow if you like). I will be working through the book in the blog, and this will have the double-benefit of distracting me from wanting to eat for the sake of eating, as well as hopefully helping me tease out the negative and harmful self-talk until I can banish it completely. I do highly recommend the book!

Bwaaaa-hahahahahaha!

Day 6 status post roux-en-y gastric bypass surgery. The past five days of a clear liquids diet has made it abundantly clear to me that if I thought I had turned a new leaf, I definitely hadn't. Me: I'm hungry Ed: Oh, that food smells so good, doesn't it? It would be so good to take a bite. Look at it, just sitting there. Me: I'm going to turn away and not look at that Ed: Yeah, but whoops! There it is again. One of your kids left a perfectly good bowl of noodles drenched in Alfredo sauce just sitting there. Oh, the thought of eating it! Me: Distract! I'm going upstairs! Ed convinced me to just try purees a few days before I was supposed to. I did. It went okay, so he talked me into advancing the diet to purees a day early. I countered and decided on full liquids (liquids you can't see through but that still go through a strainer, like milk). Except he talked me into cottage cheese at night, just for fun, and I struggled to resist him. Me: One cup, and that's enough. Ed: Fill you up! Fill you up! Oh, it feels so good to fill you up! Don't you love that stuffed feeling? Don't you feel better now? Go take another cup. You can, you know, it's legal. Me: But I felt sort of full even before I finished the first one. I won't have a second one. Ed: DOOOO IT! Get up! That's right! Go over there and get another one, and make sure you pack it tight too! Level it off so it looks legal. There. Make an excuse now. Me: (to my daughter) "And I even get to have seconds! To think that this would have been two bites in the past -- haha! -- sigh." I don't want to eat another. Ed: But it does look so good. Really savor it. That's how you can justify it. You have 30 minutes to eat and it's only been 15, so you may as well. Me: But it doesn't taste so good any more. And I feel full. Ed: EAT IT! Me: Okay. And then later when I was in my daughter's room: Ed: Look! It's those powdered rice crispy things. What are they called? Puppy chow? There's three on her desk -- no SIX! Jackpot! You can take them without her looking. Do it! Me: I am not going to take them. They are soooo not on the diet! Ed: Take those three! There. You got them. Now the other three, right back there. She can't see you. Me: Why am I doing this. I'll throw them in the trash can. She noticed I'm doing something. Ed: No you won't. Walk out. Hide your hand. Real casual like, by your side, as if nothing were in it. Me: I'm going to dump them in the trash when I get out. This could really hurt me if I eat them. Ed: Eat them. Just chew them up good. Me: But the carbs! It's pure refined flour and sugar! Ed: Eat them! Good, good, now another... and another... Chew them slowly if that makes you feel better. Me: God. I hope I don't get dumping from this. How can I have cheated the first day I'm off clear liquids? Ed: Except you weren't, right? We ate that baby food meat for two days now, didn't we? Me: I feel so awful. Ed: There you go. You blew it. You didn't need any more food, but you had it anyway, didn't you. Didn't it feel good though? Me: No. It didn't. I feel horrible. Ed: You should. You never really will learn. You're going to start a blog, aren't you! You think you'll stick to that daily schedule you made today? You won't. You'll get bored like you always do and walk away. Sure, sure, maybe you'll get published some day, or maybe you'll just help someone. But really, you're going to quit like you quit everything else. You probably just gained back some of those pounds that you lost. And you didn't exercise today either. Hah! Fat lotta motivation you had for that, right? Me: But I thought... I was at least trying... Ed: But you failed as usual. Put it off. Screw this. Go to bed like you always do. Me: Okay. I'm not trying to shift the blame. There is no other person who is "forcing" me to eat the way I do. These are conversations I have in my head all day long. However, I've begun to read a book called Life Without Ed (Jenni Schaefer, 2004). In it, the author describes how she became the patient of Thom Rutledge and conquered her eating disorder by process of separating herself from these thoughts that had become so very internalized to her and later, as a separate "being" was able to end the relationship she had with the eating disorder/ED/Ed. I'm hoping that by blogging along as I read the book, I can experience some of the recovery that she has. Although the author describes a cycle of "starving, bingeing, then purging," it is just as easy for me to substitute the words "eating until I can't feel any more." Too easy. I have sought help for the craziness that causes me to eat when I'm not hungry, to eat until I'm stuffed, and then to eat more, but I'm told this is not an eating disorder. Like hell it isn't! So for now, those of us who don't binge and purge or starve ourselves, those of us who just have a problem with "poor food choices," or "portion size" and "not enough exercise" can go through the motions and get ourselves weight loss surgery. But why do so many of us not reach our goal, or gain so much of the weight back, eventually? Because we still are in the grips of disordered eating, or whatever you want to call the process that makes us want to eat when we're not hungry. I didn't even know that another way of eating existed until I had my third daughter. If she is not hungry, she will not eat. Plain and simple. She "saves up her hunger" when she knows she is going to her dad's for visitation, because she doesn't want to disappoint him by not eating. You see, if she forgets and has a snack after school, then she literally cannot eat dinner at his house, and ends up having a late dinner with me when she comes home. Or she will just skip dinner altogether, since she doesn't like feeling full at bedtime. One time I found a third-eaten Reeses Peanut Butter Cup laying on the counter. I had just enough restraint to ask her what that was all about before I devoured it in one bite. Her answer? "I took a bite and then I wasn't hungry any more." I gave birth to this child? Seriously? She definitely has her dad's genes, those of the calm observation that "If you just stopped eating after supper, you'd lose a lot of weight. It worked for me!" And of course it did. He snacked out of boredom or because he liked the taste of the food, but he really could take it or leave it. So he left it, and reached his goal weight within a month. If only it were that simple for the rest of us. But I see that I've gone on a rant, so I'll just shut up now and go to bed.

I wonder if this isn't a little like having the baby blues after having a baby. Or dreading going to work after a real relaxing vacation. It's the beginning of something new, and it's a huge learning curve. What you're feeling is perfectly normal. Now, as a psych nurse, I would recommend distraction. Find something else to do. Move to another room in the house. Go outside for a walk (anywhere has got to be warmer than Minnesota is right now!). Call a friend and find out how THEY are doing. Move your focus outward. I hope this helps!

This will be a big challenge for me when I return to work, too. I'm glad I was able to take a full month off. At least the lunches I pack won't have to be pureed! Still, I feel for you. Last night I made my family chicken fettucini alfredo and I mourned not being able to eat with them. But I did take the pan drippings where I seared the chicken (all those goodie bits were stuck to the pan) and dumped in 2 cups of Water and a bullion cube. Poured it through a strainer and had dinner with them.