lirri

Thanks guys, things are slowly getting better. I can tolerate sounds a lot better today. Smells are a big thing for me. It's nice to smell food cooking in the house. I don't see it as me missing out on it, but it's a way for me to experience a sensation that I can't any other way right now on a liquid diet. I savor every smell now.

Glad to hear you are doing well. My mouth and throat were so dry and irritated by whatever was down my throat during surgery that I couldn't talk right until into the following day. Wish you a speedy recovery!

I'd love a copy of the protein list! lirrianna@gmail.com. Thanks!

Keep doing what you are doing. You'll be able to take in more soon. My surgical team suggested sipping every two minutes except 30 min before and after a meal.

Woo! Congrats!

I think everyone has covered it. Toiletries are a must. I felt so much better after I had a shower. I went a full day of walking around before I remembered I had my flip flops. Such a game changer after I could walk around in something besides the booties. A robe would be good, or at least ask them to give you something that works like a robe while you walk around. I brought some loose-fitting knit pants with me to the hospital to wear home. But I ended up calling Will and asked him to bring me a dress to wear home because they elastic waist was too much against my incisions on my waist. I wore a dress the first two days I was home and it was very good. I brought my iPad, S3, and laptop to entertain during the longer times of doing nothing at the hospital. I didn't end up taking out my iPad because it was too much stimulation. When Will would go home for the night, I had him take the laptop and iPad with him, keeping the valuables away from the hospital. The only thing that stayed with my was my phone and my charger. You may want to ask if the hospital has a safe that you can put your kindle in. When you are in the hospital, ask for Water whenever you can and don't use a straw. The straw can get more air into your stomach and you don't want that. I had a hard time getting enough water while I was at the hospital.

Just a quick blog post while I have this on my mind. I need to drink more water. My goal today is to drink all the water I need to when I am supposed to. I have 12 oz down so far this morning. I woke up a few times last night to use the restroom and to re-up my pain pills, but then I went right back to sleep. I got out of bed at 8:30 and started drinking water. One of the things I've been religious about is taking a shower. I feel so much better after my showers. Completely energized. What do I plan on doing today? I think first thing is I'm going to get out and do some walking this morning. I will try to get three sessions of walking in today. My mobility is a lot better today. I sat up out of bed without my stomach muscles screaming at me. And I had to pick up a towel off of the floor this morning without any pain. All good things!

Hi guys! New here, 4 days post-op. I'm not getting enough water so my goal today is to make sure I consume all the water I need to today. I can sit up so much easier today. Every day is getting better. And I was able to sleep most of the night last night. I woke up twice to re-up my pain meds and went right back to sleep. Progress!

Very good advice. Our docs are the ones that have the most information regarding our specific case and should be our final sounding board before making any changes to our current plan.

Welcome!

Yep, yesterday was the first day I woke up and went to bed at my house. I got home from the hospital on Sunday afternoon.

I'm writing this entry a bit early today. It's my first full day at home. I attached a screenshot of my MyFitnessPal progress for the day. I'm using MFP to ensure I'm getting all the protein I need while staying under the sugars and fats for the day. I didn't sleep well at all last night. I'm hoping that the sleep gets better. I was able to get a few hours of sleep in from 2 to 5 am this morning before I finally got up. I didn't end up following the food schedule I wanted to today. Mainly because my sleep was all messed up. I'll try again tomorrow. I took all the meds and my multi-vitamin I was supposed to take and had a BM finally. I was worried about not having one. I had a little bit of help though, because I took a suppository. One of the food suggestions during this phase for me is cream of wheat with a scoop of protein powder. I use chocolate light muscle milk to mix in and it tastes so good! My worry is that I don't have the ability to feel full yet so I'm eating it very slowly. Cream of wheat changes its texture very quickly to hard and dry once it's out too long. So I got two good bites in before it got hard and I couldn't eat anymore. Anyone with any suggestions would be nice. It's one only thicker consistency things I can eat right now and the taste is so lovely. For dinner I decided to try some fat-free yogurt with the unflavored Unjury protein powder. I found is that once I mix the powder in to the yogurt, the yogurt is a little too watery. Probably the temperature causing that. And though it says it's unflavored, I could still taste there was something different about the yogurt. It's sort of the same reason I don't do those unflavored mix ins for fiber or drink miralax in water. I can always taste the change and it makes me not want to finish whatever it is I'm eating. I decided to try out one of the trazodones that I had left over from last year when I stopped taking them to see if I could sleep this afternoon. I took a 50 mg tablet and it worked almost instantly. I slept for a little over 3.5 hours. Waking back up felt so nice. My best friend made dinner for the family today. Spaghetti with italian sausage and some garlic bread. I snuck a small bit of the garlic bread and immediately felt icky. I chewed it up until the point where there was hardly anything in my mouth and swallowed. Then for about 10 minutes I felt like it was lodged inside my esophagus. That was a stupid move, one I won't make again. I had 76 grams of protein today from the small amount of muscle milk I had in my cream of wheat, premium protein chocolate shakes - I had two to make up for not eating much at breakfast, and the unjury protein packet for dinner with my yogurt. I'm getting tired of the current set of meal choices. I'll have to change some things up tomorrow to keep things interesting. My mood today started on the sad side. But after waking up from my nap this afternoon I felt a little better. I need to get a little bit of walking in tonight before it gets much darker. I weighed myself and I'm close to losing all of the water weight gain from my time in the hospital. I peed so frequently yesterday that I dropped 6 pounds from morning until about 5pm. By tomorrow morning I should be back to my weight I was at before going into surgery.

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!