My Surgery Journey: Pre-Op, Surgery, 8 Days Post-Op

[sarahcc 184]

Okay! So I want to keep this as short as it possibly can be (not very) so let's get right to it!!

Basically I'm 25, a mother of two (6.5 & 3.5). My highest weight was 241 and I'm 5'1" tall. I am a text-book "healthy" person who's fat. I don't smoke, I rarely drink, I had no co-morbidity in addition to the obesity. My blood pressure and cholesterol are both fine. I'm not diabetic or pre-diabetic. The point is that I knew that this health wouldn't last for long and it was time to do something about it once and for all.

I started with my initial surgical consult in November 2011. On January 30, 2012, while in Orlando with my family at Disney, I was on my laptop at my hotel and saw online that BCBSIL (my provider) had announced that they would lift their 6-month supervised diet requirement on February 1. When I got back home to Wisconsin, I called my surgeons office and they confirmed. They then put me into action with my psych eval, an upper GI and whatnot. My insurance approval through BCBSIL took 1.5 business days and was submitted in February, though I can't remember the day.

I anticipated having a surgery in March however, my surgeon goes on an annual mission trip to Guatemala every year for the entire month of March so, it was April for me. I wasn't willing to compromise the surgeon although it was offered to me by his office. I worked with Froedtert Hospital & the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee where I'm from. My surgeon is the director of the bariatric program and a professor of surgery at the College. I will say that to this day I worship the ground this man walks on. He is no-nonsense and I get a lecture for sure when I mess up, but I wouldn't trade him for the world. He is amazing.

Pre-op diet: It was one week of high Protein, low fat and low sugar. Salads and some fruit were ok. It was basically a week on weight watchers. It was so nice, because it gave me one less thing to worry about prior to surgery. I know a lot of other programs encourage liquid diets but mine didn't have me on one for even a day. Just nothing to eat or drink after midnight of the night before my surgery.

Surgery: Anyway, so I had surgery April 19. What's kind of funny is that for as "healthy" as I am normally I gave them quite a scare in recovery. Apparently my heart started to beat very erratically and I maintained a very, very high heart rate (think 140's-150's) without a break. I also spiked a 103 degree fever for a while too. The surgery itself went fine. I went through an upper GI the next day and there were no leaks, although the Dr. in Fluoroscopy did note that my sleeve was very very tight and would probably give me difficulty for the first few days (it did.) I went through a complete panel of tests on my heart and no one is really sure to this day why my heart did what it did. I'm on medication that's got my heart rate into the 90's and that seems to be good enough for now. They suspect I've always had an erratic heart beat and no one caught it until I was hooked to a heart monitor. It may have been an after-effect of the anesthesia. I stayed in the hospital for 2 nights, 3 days total.

Post op diet: Again, there is no liquid diet. My nutritionist and doctor both just feel that it's not necessary before or after surgery and causes an unnecessary distraction. I started on pureed foods starting the evening of day after surgery while I was in the hospital. I had some pureed scrambled eggs that aren't as bad as they sound, but nothing to write home about either. Just tasted like a mushy hard boiled egg yolk. As of today I've eaten yogurt, cottage cheese, hard boiled egg yolk/salad and refried Beans with sour cream. I eat Jello and chocolate pudding. I drink Water, chicken broth, 1% milk.

It's been 8 days and today is really the first day I'm starting to feel semi-normal. I have no trouble getting around and stopped using any pain meds two days ago. I have 6 incisions which is funny because I had no idea until like day 5 when I was getting out of the shower. That's when you know you're too fat - when you can't even see that there's an additional part of your body that's been sliced open!

I had my follow up with my surgeon today... it was supposed to be a two week follow up but he's about to be travelling again, heh. So I guess I'm glad I caught him! He said I'm doing great and he cleared me for the stage II diet starting with dinner tonight, which is basically "soft" foods that break up with a fork, and I can move away from pureed meat and into ground meat. He said to be careful and chew thoroughly. He said I could start soft fruits and cooked vegetables but I probably won't be able to fit any of it in. He said that his normal goal for patients is 60g of protein daily but because I'm younger he wants me to try for 75. I've been struggling as is so we shall see!

Weight loss: I feel like I've done pretty good. I lost hardly anything on my pre-op diet and given the diet I wasn't expecting to... I lost 3 pounds. So I started at 238 and as of today I weighed in at 224. Not too bad for 8 days

I really wasn't planning to share my surgery story with the world but I felt compelled to because I see a lot of people questioning why their surgeon is different than those in Mexico or whatnot and I just wanted to say - trust me, whatever your surgeon recommends will work. I'm in the early early stages but I can't say enough about my doctor and his staff. And I can only speak for the first 8 days but my surgeon's program seems to be working just as well as any. So HAVE FAITH!!

Have a great day everyone!

[kimmy*custis 276]

Thanks for sharing your story, I am sure it will help many others. I am glad you are doing well, it good to hear that. Keep up the good work!

[amusgrave 22]

Thank u so much for sharing Ur story with us. I was a little stressed on how quickly the weight would come off. Our age height Nd weight are almost the same... So i look forward to watching u advance and lose. I get sleeved the 21st

[amusgrave 22]

Thank u so much for sharing Ur story with us. I was a little stressed on how quickly the weight would come off. Our age height Nd weight are almost the same... So i look forward to watching u advance and lose. I get sleeved the 21st

[sarahcc 184]

Thank you!! Its been about 7 weeks and I'm down to 202 from 241. All is going well but I am definitely still learning what goes down best and what not so well, heh. But I will say this for sure... if I can do it, anyone can do it!

[amusgrave 22]

Do u have aFacebook?