CrankyMagpie

Still alive. Chugging along, losing slowly but fairly steadily, despite the stresses of the season. So... yeah, not much to report.

Happy holidays to all of you! ✨

There are these chairs at work that someone should really just throw out. They have "arm rests" that are the wrong height (which is only a little offensive) , and those "arm rests" make them impossible for people of a certain girth to sit in (which is very offensive).

I can now sit in them. ... I still very much think they should be thrown out, because they're exclusionary, but they no longer exclude me, which is a small victory.

Had my one month (really, a day short of 6 weeks) post-op appointment today. Everybody seemed pretty happy with how things are going, and I'm now officially in Phase III (long-term bariatric eating phase), with the caveat that rice and pasta are still not allowed, and no alcohol until at least the three month mark. (Not a problem.) But I'm cleared to have fruits and veggies! 🥦🍎🥗🍊🍇🍓 So exciting! I want an apple so badly. (OK, like, a third of an apple, with peanut butter, because I'm not sure a full apple will fit in my stomach, and eating something without any protein feels wrong.)

I'm also cleared to exercise, though I've been advised to start slow with weights and to stop if I feel any "tearing" (😨) in my abdomen. Back to the pool with me! (I hurt my foot, so walking is out right now. I hate it. Swimming and starting with weight lifting should do a lot for my mood, though.)

I lived through the third week (and a half) stall, and I'm past it and losing pounds again. Given the stresses of the last two weeks, losing instead of gaining is a miracle in itself. Or maybe not. It isn't like I can really stress eat, at this stage. I've found that I fail myself in other ways, though: shorting myself on liquids or proteins or -- just the one dose, so far -- vitamins, when the pressure gets to be too much. I'm working on that: I know I can't afford to lose too much muscle mass, so I have to keep my protein up; I spent a day with a splitting headache after falling short on liquids, so that was a decent object lesson; and I know how important vitamins are, too. I'm just ... really crap at self-care, but I'm actively working on getting better.

I way overdid it at a vigil/protest last week (long walk, long time standing, and I really did know better but also didn't want to "let anyone down" by bowing out early to take care of myself 🙄) and re-damaged an old stress fracture in my foot, so my activity level has dropped badly. Getting in the pool will go a long way toward fixing that, and I'll be cleared for swimming next Tuesday. (I may sneak into the pool on Monday. My incisions are fully closed, and my doctor said that if that's the case, I should be good to go.) In the meantime, I am trying to take good care of my foot so it heals up quickly. Weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise, they say, so I'm not really losing that much ground, now. It's fine. I can take the time to heal.

I can finally drink room temperature water again, at least some of the time! I still strongly prefer hot tea. But carrying a water bottle might not be a total waste of time, anymore, which would be amazing for my hydration levels on days when I'm at work or school.

So. Past my first month, not doing perfectly, but certainly chugging along.

Hit a major milestone on the scale today.

Emotionally, I still feel like garbage (other than maybe a little leftover tiredness from surgery, it's nothing relevant to this forum), but I'm slightly happier garbage, anyway.

My shipment of new vitamins and flavorless protein powder should come today. Not a moment too soon. I'm so tired of feeling sick every time I take the Multi-Chews, and Quest is just too sweet for me now. (Plus, if I put flavorless protein powder in my foods, maybe I can stop needing protein shakes sooner.)

A small NSV: I had a meeting on the third floor of a building without an elevator today, and I was only breathing a little faster (as opposed to being totally winded) when I got to the top.

I'm going to hit my stall now. I can tell, because 1) almost everybody stalls when they start moving on to real foods, in addition to the liquids, and 2) I'm at 302 pounds, lol, and the scale knows I want to see the 2 in the first digit.

I'm fine. It's not going to freak me out or really even upset me. Honestly, I could stand the reconfiguration of inches that always comes with a stall, for me.

I'm posting here in between bites of refried beans, which (knock on wood) seem to be going pretty well for me, so far. I'm so happy. Between ricotta (with a little sauce and a little seasoning) and refried beans (with a very small amount of low-fat cheese melted in), I can live without chewable foods for a pretty long time. (I'm also eating yogurt and ricotta cheese.) I do want to upgrade to the ricotta bake, because it has better protein and might cut down the number of protein shakes I need in a day. It's probably a bit more firm than ricotta alone, so I held off at first, but I think it's time, don't you? Plus, my spouse can put it over pasta and enjoy it with me.

I'm eating 2.5 ounces of ricotta in a serving and maybe that much in beans? (this is my first attempt, but that's how much I served myself) I can eat 4 ounces of Greek yogurt in half an hour, which feels like a lot before the 2 week anniversary of my surgery. But I still haven't really figured out my body's "full" signal. I felt a little sick and stopped eating, one time, which made me think I'd overdone it. Other times, I just take tiny bites, sometimes a few minutes apart, for half an hour. And then I refrigerate or throw out what's left, because that was the guidance the nutritionists gave me. But other people talk about a sore shoulder or something as their signal, and I haven't found that yet.

I guess it'll come with time and practice.

I'm off of these boards for a while. My stepfather (my dad's husband) just passed away last night, and I only just lost Dad last year, and ... I kind of need to be focusing on that, you know? I'll see you all later.

It's a full week since my surgery. Several of the smaller incisions itch, which I guess means they're healing pretty rapidly now, and even the biggest one only rarely hurts. (When I cough. It hurts when I cough.) I'm officially down more than 40 pounds from my highest weight and, I don't know, 5-6?, from my surgery weight. (I check the scale daily, but I don't focus on it too much. I know it's unreliable.)

Overall, I don't feel like roasted garbage anymore, which is pretty great, but I am still a bit tired and fuzzy-headed. Getting to 64 ounces of liquid isn't hard for me, at this point, and getting past 60 grams of protein is only hard because I don't have enough varieties of protein shakes on hand. My delivery from Unjury, with a bunch of packets of chicken noodle soup flavored protein, should arrive today. That'll make things better.

I'm trying my first decaf coffee since surgery. Cross your fingers for me--I love coffee (even decaf, yeah) and would be pretty bummed if it was off the menu for too terribly long.

My surgery was Wednesday, and already, on Sunday, I'm feeling mostly human. I count myself very lucky!

I have been taking the nausea pills I was prescribed ("as needed" is what the bottle says) every morning, and I think that has helped me get closer and closer to my fluid goals. A pill is only good for 8 hours, though, so it isn't doing anything for me in the evenings, when I am still drinking fluids. Maybe I'll try to go without it tomorrow and see if I can.

Anyway, I'll hit 64 ounces for the first time today, my third full day home. I'm on track for 56 grams of protein, 57 if I go for Jello instead of popsicles, which obviously I'm going to do, now that I've said that.

With more distance, I'm able to report on something I've kind of glossed over in my other statuses ... I had some really rocky time while I was in the hospital. There were at least two hours in recovery where nobody checked on me, and my IV stopped--I felt very sick and dehydrated when they finally fixed it. (I was stuck in recovery through a shift change, and they wouldn't let my spouse back with me for something like 4 hours, because people's assigned rooms weren't ready yet, and not letting spouses join inpatient people in recovery is policy. That was terrible. My spouse complained to the nursing supervisors when he found out how I'd been (not) treated, and he never does that!)

Once I was in my room and had a working IV again, everything progressed OK. They didn't let me walk as quickly as I'd expected; I woke up the first time around 4pm, was in my room by 8pm, and didn't get to walk until around noon the next day, with the exception of trips to the in-room bathroom. The pain meds wrecked me almost as much as I expected (I feel like they added to queasiness, but I can't be sure; they definitely forced me to sleep, instead of really taking care of the pain, though, as I'd thought they might ... happily, the pain has been pretty manageable without them).

Home has been better. I've been pacing the main floor of the house roughly every hour. Once it cools off this evening, Spouse and I are going for a walk part of the way around the block, to see how that goes. (80+ degrees in October, ugh.) I feel a little lightheaded sometimes when I'm walking around, and I'm not sure what that's about. It felt enough like a sugar low, yesterday, that I dropped a single sugar cube into my tea (which my plan allows). That did seem to help. I haven't had to do it again today, happily.

Looking forward from here, I'm not forcing myself to go to class (3 hours, a half hour drive away) tomorrow or Tuesday night. The professor was nice, saying "you're the sort of person who would try, even if you feel bad and even though you're ahead on the material, so I am telling you to stay home." I feel like, if I keep on recovering at this pace, going to class the following week should be no problem for me, plus I should be able to work that Thursday and/or Friday. (I might ease in and try just Friday. Nothing I do at work is time-sensitive. I have a very unimportant job.)

I know from reading these forums, though, not to get too overconfident. So I'm still taking it pretty easy and focusing all of my energy on healing.

OK, surgery's done (Weds), I'm home, and I'm trying to tough it out with just Tylenol in the daytime, because the oxycodone makes me too tired to function. I might take it before bed, just to give my liver a break from Tylenol each day.

I'm taking the anti-nausea pills preventatively. I'll want to go off them as soon as possible, but the patch they put on is only good for three days. This is day three. I'd like to avoid forcing my new stomach and the nicely sewn up hernia to send things backwards, if at all possible.

I'm doing small loops around parts of the house and using the spirometer often. Just trying to heal up, you know. Coughing hurts, but that's to be expected. So far, Jello is the main thing my stomach seems willing to accept, though I've had a little luck with black tea, too.

It took all of the courage in my soul, but I did manage to give myself the shot of blood thinner in my stomach. Blood clots are serious business.

Days 'til surgery: 1
Number of ounces of sugar-free jello my hungry self is going to eat today: so many

I'm all packed, though I still have to run a small load of clothes and towels through so I have "just washed" things for after I use the pre-surgical soap tonight and in the morning.

I have a class from 6-9pm tonight, and I predict I spend it mostly pretty distracted. (It's fine. I'm ahead in that class.)

The first nurse has called to go over meds and stuff (and she reassured me that there will be pain meds in my system when I wake up, lol), and I'm expecting the scheduling call any time now. ... Probably while I'm in the car on my way to school.

Anyway, it's getting close!

On day 3 of the pre-op liquid diet. As predicted, those days of low-carb beforehand probably made this all easier. I was foggy yesterday, but it could have been any number of things (the rain, chronic illness, low calories, or no caffeine). The hunger has been there, but not totally unmanageable (I say, having eaten 8 servings of sugar-free jello in three days, because that's on my "unlimited" list and it fills in nicely around the shakes). Maybe it's because I've been sleeping so much this week, though--I'm not awake long enough to be hungry 😂

I gave in and had one bag of caffeinated tea today. Don't look at me like that--my surgeon allows up to 16 ounces of coffee or tea per day, at all points during our program. I was only cutting it out because I don't much want headaches when I'm healing from surgery. I do, however, find that I need a little bit of caffeine to do my homework. Maybe not every week, but this week we're doing ... complicated things you all don't care about.

Cutting down from the amount of coffee I was having to one bag of tea is still something I'm proud of. And the headaches I get when I skip it are manageable enough that I'm not stressed about this one thing, post-op, anymore. (I maybe can't concentrate like I'd like to, but I can read and go on walks!)

Anyway, three days (almost) down, three more to go, then one of only clear liquids (jello, broth, and protein water), and then the big day! ... And then probably several more weeks of liquids only, but I'm not focusing on that right now. 😁

Today is day one of my liquid only diet. (For me that's four protein shakes and unlimited sf jello, sf popsicles, and broth.) I did myself a favor and went no-carb (except for some vegetables) for the last three days, to try to stave off hunger a bit and make the transition easier. I think I will thank myself for that.

I'm going ahead and cutting out the last of caffeine now, too, even though my surgeon doesn't require it. I can't imagine coffee settles well on a newly post-op stomach, and black tea can mess with opioids' effectiveness--who needs that?! I was down to two tea bags' worth of caffeine, most days, so I might? not? get horrible headaches?

I'm having a decaf coffee now, though, in the hopes that I can convince my body that we're OK, we aren't depriving ourselves of anything we need.

Anyway, cheers to other early October surgery folks who have started or are about to start the liquid diet! We've got this! 👊

Had my final pre-op appointment today. Next Wednesday my liquid diet starts. It's getting real.