lirri

I live outside of Portland, OR. It's been rainy for the past week which is normal this time of year. But it's reflecting my mood. Hopefully the sun will come out soon. Let us know how it goes with the doctor.

You have such a beautiful home! My surgery was also on May 24th. Pay attention to the pain and talk with your surgical team if it persists. It's better to ask about the pain than ignore it. I have two cats that wanted to climb up on me all day yesterday when I got home. They seem very forlorn that they can't sit on me right now. You sound like I do right now, a bit sad. I've been up and walking around all day today just to keep myself busy. I feel almost stuck in my house. I'm going to go for a walk outside in a bit and hope that it perks me up a little bit. Things will get better, and before you know it you'll be able to have them on your lap!

New to the site. Just had my surgery on May 24th.

I had a sleep study before surgery. I think I got a little over two hours of sleep the whole time. I have trazadone left over from last year when my family was going through a hard time. I'm afraid to take it right now since I just had surgery and I don't know how my body will react. I'll have to talk with my providers and see what would be the best solution. I was able to get in about two hours of sleep this morning non-stop. Problem is right now I'm feeling so groggy from the lack of sleep and I don't have the energy I need to get up and do things, like eat or take my medicine. I need to remember I just got home and I'm still on the mend, I shouldn't be expected to be up and going non-stop from 7am - 11pm every day.

So here's my first blog post on the site. I just had my surgery on Friday, May 24, 2013 at OHSU in Portland, Oregon. The surgeon told my boyfriend, Will, that the surgery was textbook, and everything went very well. I woke up with a foley catheter and no drains, which I was very happy about. My pain has been manageable as long as I take my pain meds on a regular basis. I'm on liquid Tylenol and oxycodone for my pain. I was lucky in that my surgeon was able to call in a prescription for the tylenol to my local pharmacy so that I didn't have to buy a bunch of the smaller bottles over the counter. A little background on what I went through leading up to surgery. I made the decision to get WLS in November 2013 after a second endoscopy showed that while my ulcers in my stomach and esophagus were healing, I had a hiatal hernia and needed surgery to fix it. Oh and I needed to lose weight, which would help with the acid reflux. I was at the point where I would wake up in the middle of the night choking on stomach acid that I was aspirating into my lungs. By December I was at OHSU going through their WLS orientation. It didn't take long for me to get all the testing done. I needed a pap and a parathyroid hormone test, and I had already had all the other tests completed in the last 3 months, my PCP just needed to send over the results to OHSU. I also completed a psych review. One of the requirements from my insurance company before they would approve surgery is that I needed 3 consecutive months of visits to a dietician. I was travelling for work and ended up missing out on my February appointment and had to start over in March, April and May. My last appointment was on May 1st which is when OHSU submitted for approval. We heard back on the approval in a week and I was scheduled for surgery for May 24th. I think my journey from when I made the decision to have the surgery to my surgery date was a relatively short period of time with few hassles. I had to make a lot of changes in a short amount of time including quitting smoking, soft drinks, and becoming more mindful of what I ate. I think the hardest thing for me was to slow down my eating. I am used to quickly eating and moving on to something else. I didn't like the idea of chewing for long periods of time and really didn't enjoy what the texture of food in my mouth after chewing it for a long time. I have two kids, Brieanna is 15 -- she turns 16 in another month and Sylar, who is 11. I was lucky to have my children when I did because right after I had Sylar in 2001, I went menopausal. Brie is a typical teenage girl who has ups and downs almost hourly. It's a roller coaster ride with her at times. She's finally figured out that her grades in high school are very important and has turned herself around academically. Sylar is very different from her sister, but just as smart and enjoys being athletic. I'm sure I'll mention the girls a lot if I continue blogging. Let's see, I also have two cats. Mr. Mushy face is a lynx point himi and Zim is a black domestic short hair. I love my cats so much. I never thought of myself as a cat person yet four years ago my best friend suggested that I get a cat as a pet since I live in an apartment. I got both cats at the same time and they were such a welcome addition to my family. I have a boyfriend, Will. We've been dating for a little over a year. We've had a lot of drama since we started dating. Brie really doesn't like the fact that I am dating again. I chose to stop dating in 2008 and focus on my children. Before that I was in serial relationships from the time I was a teenager. It was a good period of time for my family. Just me and the girls. When I decided to start dating again after 4 years of being single, Brie took it very hard. Every day we still are having to work through her passive aggressive tendencies with regards to Will. Though she's improved greatly over the year we've been dating. I'm just taking it one day at a time right now with the relationship. I don't know if it will last, but I'm going to give it my all while I have the chance. I got home from the hospital around 11 am yesterday morning. I was really looking forward to being able to sleep through the night in my own bed. Yet here I am writing my first blog entry. Since it's Memorial Day weekend, I'm going to have to wait until Tuesday to call my PCP and get a follow-up appointment made for after the surgery. If I'm still having trouble sleeping, I'll bring it up with my PCP. My anxiety level has dropped significantly since the surgery. Most of the things I was worried about were the unknown aspects of the surgery. What was my pain level going to be? Would I be able to tolerate anything in my pouch after the surgery? What about drains? Luckily I didn't have any drains when I woke up and I'm tolerating everything I've tried so far. I haven't had any nausea to date. Though I did get a little spell of it after I had some liquid colace (a stool softener) at the hospital. The surgeon was quick to change out the stool softener to senna after that. I'm going to give blogging a try for a bit to see if it helps me organize my thoughts for the day in addition to chronicling my post-op experiences.

I just had surgery three days ago and I've had the worst time trying to sleep. Tonight was my first night home and I thought that I'd have a good night's sleep but here I am awake at 1:30 in the morning. I need to make an appointment with my PCP anyways as a followup after the surgery. I think i'll discuss with her at that time.

My nutritionist had a number of samples that I could try out before my surgery. Unjury was one of them. like wannabeskinnyme said, check out Unjury's website to get more information. They also have a starter kit that comes with twp packets each of their chocolate splendor, vanilla, strawberry sorbet, chicken soup and unflavored. The kit also comes with a shaker and food thermometer.

I had surgery on Friday and didn't have any drains. My foley catheter was removed the day after surgery. I was very worried about having drains before surgery as well.

I didn't have to lose weight before surgery. Though I know some surgeons require it and some insurance companies do as well. I ended up losing weight before surgery though just in diet changes.

I think I will at my next appointment.

I tried the unjury chicken soup today. It tasted very good. Watch the temperature of the liquid that you mix with it because if the liquid is too hot you'll get lumps.

I plan on bringing a number of things up very soon with the hospital. Between ambivalent nurses and unhelpful pharmacists, I was happy I got out of there in one piece! Though my surgical team was top notch and have been such great resources up to and after the surgery. I don't think I would have ended up going through with the surgery if I wouldn't have had such a good pre-op appointment with my surgeon.

I totally know where you are coming from and it was one of the biggest parts of anxiety for me before my surgery. What I remind myself every day is that I can't look at all the foods around me as something I'm missing out on. It's a big mental shift for me. I try to look at all the foods that I was eating before that I loved and remind myself that I got to my current health/weight state because of those food decisions. I know that if I continue to feel that I'm not getting the things that I want, i'm going to have a much harder time with keeping my diet regulated. i'm taking it one day at a time. For now, I've made the decision not to go out to restaurants at all until I can make good choices on my diet and not look longingly at someone else's plate. Good luck to you!

I just had surgery on Friday and my diet wasn't as restrictive as I've seen others be. I was encouraged by my surgeon to have clear liquids the day before surgery, but the main thing I couldn't do was have a huge food funeral the day before surgery. He advised to not have large meals the week before surgery and definitely not a steak dinner the night before because it's a pain to do the surgery with food still in someone's stomach. I would talk with your surgical team and see if they have any suggestions on what colors of gelatin not to eat. Every surgical team seems to be different on what they do or don't want their patients to do.