Hi all. I haven't posted since the morning of my surgery. Unfortunately I was one of those where things didn't go oh-so-smoothly for me. This isn't meant to be a discouraging post but my tale and where I am at.

I had my sleeve done on the morning of January 25th. Everything up to the point of surgery had gone swimmingly. When I awoke in recovery I was in a tremendous amount of pain and nausea. I do not do well with anesthesia so waking up was doubly difficult. While I do not suffer from sleep apnea my breathing was irregular and if I would start to drift off to sleep I would stop breathing. I ended up being in recovery for probably 6-8 hours. As to the surgery itself my doctor said things went perfect. Liver was tip top and the time of surgery went quickly.

When I got to my room the discomfort continued. What complicated things further was that the pain meds seemed to be making me nauseousness all the more. Getting fluids down was really difficult. My stomach must have been seriously swollen because any amount of Fluid seemed to sit at the top of my stomach and gave me terrible heartburn. Thursday continued to be a difficult day. The nausea continued and got so bad to where I wretched a few times although there was nothing to come up.

By Thursday night things had started to improve slightly, but on Friday things went downhill yet again. I had fallen asleep in my reclining chair and awoke around noon with terrible pain and cramps in my left side and shoulder. Then suffered another wretching bout on top of it. As time passed the pain increased and moved to the center of my chest. Breathing became difficult and painful. The concern was a leak or internal bleeding so they took me down to do a CT scan. Scan showed that it appeared my spleen had decided to spring a leak. Good news is that it was not a continual bleed but I had blood in my abdomen. By the time I got back to my room the chest pain increased and breathing was rapid and shallow. At this point the pulled me out of my room and sent me down to ICU to try and stabilize me.

The next 18 hours were scary and painful. By Saturday I was starting to feel slightly better with a reduction in chest pain and breathing became easier. I got the all clear to go back to my original room, but by that time the floor was full and they had no bed for me. So I was essentially stuck in ICU for almost a day longer than I needed to be. By the time I got into a room on my original floor it was Sunday evening. My luck seemed to be on a crash course as the heating was malfunctioning and all of the rooms were well over 80s degrees. Sleep Sunday night was minimal and miserable. Come Monday morning my doc told me that he wanted me to stay yet another day for observation. At this point I was ready to jump out the 12th floor window of my room as being in the hospital was taking its toll on me.

On Tuesday I felt the best I had. Sadly my heartbeat was still elevated and temp was over 100, but my hemoglobin was showing normal again which pointed to the internal bleed being gone. At the last second I thought they were going to change their minds and keep me again but my doc gave me the okay to go home. Total time was 6 nights and 7 days in the hospital.

I'm now home and doing better, but far from being out of the woods. My temp continues to bounce around at 100 degrees and heartbeat is about 100-110. I wanted to give myself a solid day of rest at home as the hospital stay was making me a wreck, plus the heat problem made the last 36 hours all the worse.

Getting fluids down is now a piece of cake. Still have no appetite at all, and cool drinks are all I want. I've actually gained weight but that's due to being pumped full of so may fluids while at the hospital. At this point in time weight loss is the last thing I'm worried about. Still having some pain but it's bearable, and the meds I'm on aren't causing nausea which is a Godsend. Still pretty scared about the temp/heartbeat and that it could be a sign of infection. The wretching bouts I had left me worried that I had done some damage, but my stomach seems to be happy at the moment. Put a call into my doc this afternoon to update but haven't heard back from them yet so I'll follow up again tomorrow. Hoping another decent night's sleep will help get me over the hump to a full recovery.

Could definitely use some well wishes right now. Was feeling horribly discouraged at the hospital but so thankful to be back at home.

Edited January 31, 20179 yr by orionburn

Wanted to update on where I'm now at:

Had my 4 week follow-up appointment with my doc yesterday. Said everything is looking good and I'm on track. Weighed in yesterday morning at 291 which puts me down 27 lbs since surgery. Starting to really see/feel the difference now in the weight loss. I recently got back into my old size 42 jeans and had to buy a new belt yesterday because they're already starting to fall off my butt. I imagine I'll be back into my 40s soon enough.

Only downside I've experienced is that some of my old sciatica pain seems to be wanting to creep back into my life. I think it's largely due to being more active over this past week in walking again. The good news is that I don't have the pain that I used to have, but in the evenings I can feel my hip wanting to "limp" along like before along with some numbness in my foot. Trying to get up and moving around at work as much as possible. I'm pretty lucky in my job that I have the flexibility to get up from desk when I want.

food wise my doc's office has a fairly strict regimen to follow but for the most part am cleared to eat about 90% of regular foods. Still have to stay away from stringy veggies, no nuts/seeds, and no "heavy" meats like steak. The biggest upside is that I can now eat most meats again like ground beef, chicken, tuna, and so forth. Last night was the first time I've had ground beef in 6+ weeks and my whole half cup of food was so wonderful! I was past burned out on yogurts and cottage cheese so it's great to be able to eat as close to normal as possible after nearly a month and a half.

Every now and then I still get some oddball pains/aches but they seem to pass day to day. I think part of it is again because I've been getting more active. The only incision point that ever bothers me slightly is the one closest to my belly button. Yesterday it hurt a bit, but today nothing. Looking to get back into going to the gym in the next week. Before when I was going just to try and lose weight I had no desire to go which made me sad because I used to love being a gym rat. The sciatica pain was a huge hindrance and the main reason the fun of working out was gone. I'm hoping that with the weight I've lost so far and getting back into lifting/stretching that it will help my sciatica and get some strength back into my hip & leg.

While life is really different now when it comes to food I feel better right now than I have in years and do not have any regrets despite some of the initial hurdles. In two weeks I have another follow-up visit and that should set the course for a while. Looking forward to what the following weeks & months will bring.

Forgot to post earlier this week to update my 6 week follow-up appointment. So far so good on everything. Getting back to regular foods has been wonderful of course. That 2 weeks before surgery and the 4 weeks of liquids & pureed was rough but it also was a valuable learning period to know the difference between real hunger and head hunger.

My appointment was uneventful. My weight loss has tapered off a bit in the past two weeks. It had been about a pound a day but for the past week or so my weight had been stuck around 285 with some back and forth. Today I came in at 283 and that puts be at 35 lbs down in 6 weeks. I'll take it! I admit I was starting to mildly freak out with the stuck scale but I knew things would slow down a bit at some point.

I got my old gym membership going and will be hitting it for the first time in a long time starting today. Since my sciatica is doing better I'm hopeful I can have a decent workout for once without being in terrible pain. And I'm also not dreading going to the gym. May sound dumb but when I'm focused on going to lift and build muscle I love going to the gym. When it was all about weight loss and doing cardio I loathed going, so I'm actually excited to be getting back at it.

I won't see my doc again until 12 weeks out and am pretty much cleared to eat all foods again. Our office has a support group meeting once a month and will be going to that in a few weeks to see some old faces and keep some accountability going for myself. At this point just knocking on wood for continued improvements and fingers crossed that my initial complications were just a matter of getting that out of the way a head of time so I don't have any future episodes.

Glad to hear things have improved!!!

Oh my gosh, how scary. Was the spleen nicked during surgery? I'm guessing it had to be, if not, how else did that happen? I'm so glad you are ok.

27 minutes ago, Finding_Stacy said:

Oh my gosh, how scary. Was the spleen nicked during surgery? I'm guessing it had to be, if not, how else did that happen? I'm so glad you are ok.

No idea. Doc said the spleen is a funny organ and sometimes just brushing against it, even without something being sharp, can cause a minor bleed. My pain meds made me really sick and the wretching bouts I had probably didn't help matters. I really think it was a fluke thing. All the weird stuff happens to me.

Gosh, I'm afraid this could be me. I do have a problem with pain medicine. It always made me throw up after my c-sections. Good thing I have a high pain tolerance, so I'm going to keep (try to) a positive attitude towards the surgery, because I'm really looking forward to the restriction of the stomach and surgery is just something we have to go through to get those amazing results, right?

17 minutes ago, Finding_Stacy said:

Gosh, I'm afraid this could be me. I do have a problem with pain medicine. It always made me throw up after my c-sections. Good thing I have a high pain tolerance, so I'm going to keep (try to) a positive attitude towards the surgery, because I'm really looking forward to the restriction of the stomach and surgery is just something we have to go through to get those amazing results, right?

My mistake is that I wasn't recognizing the difference between pain and nausea at the time. One of the nurses kept saying I needed to use the pain meds and looking back I would have been better off without it. It's something you may want to discuss with your doc in advance. They did start giving me another med to help with the nausea and it helped. My favorite was some sort of Tylenol drip that they gave me. That helped out more than anything else.

I'm an oddball statistic so don't let my trials and tribulations scare you. The first few days are challenging, but with the right attitude you'll get through it just fine. Honestly you'll look back after a few weeks and be like "meh, that wasn't so bad".

Im glad you are on the mend.

I guess when we make the decision, we're in it for the long haul. You're quite the trooper! Best of luck on your continuing journey.

Hope you feel better. I was infected with c diff during my stay in the hospital during sleeve still taking antibiotics.

Speedy recovery to you! Sorry to hear about your experience that is super scary

It's been a long time since I updated my post and/or visited the board. A few weeks ago I hit a big milestone and broke through the 250 barrier. In all honesty I think the last time I weighed even close to that was when I was in middle school some 25+ years ago. Today I came in at 244 lbs. Weight hit a major slowdown about mid-May. Was a very frustrating month of only losing about 2-4 pounds after such a good run. Made some tweaks to my diet (upped the calories a bit and lowered carbs) and have been losing again, albeit still at a slower rate. Slow & steady isn't so bad.

Eating wise I feel normal and can eat pretty much anything. I had my (almost) 6 month follow-up with the doc this week and all looks good. Outside of the rocky beginning it's been a pretty good journey. Have to actually go do some clothes shopping this weekend as my old shorts are huge on me now.

Next milestone will be the 225 lb mark. I don't have the muscle I used to back in the day, but that was always a target goal for me. I wouldn't call that a goal weight as I think I'll still have more to lose by then, but will have to wait and see.

Today is my one year surgiversary so I thought I'd blow the dust off of this thread. I had my one year meeting with my doc yesterday and everything is going along smoothly despite a hell of a start to this journey! Like a dummy I forgot to take photos this morning to mark the occasion so I'll have to do that tonight.

When I first started taking a serious look into WLS in May of 2016 I was back up to 354 lbs. I had to do a 6 month program due to insurance. I was at 336lbs starting my 2 week liquid diet, and 318 on the day of surgery. This morning I weighed in at 232. That puts me down 86 lbs since surgery and 122 lbs total lost. I still got a good ways to go and weight loss has slowed down significantly in the past three months. Lousy weather has kept me from walking much and it's been difficult to get to the gym.

Doc asked me yesterday if I'd do it all over again and without hesitation I said yes. Even with the rough start I've done more and felt better in the past year than I had the previous 3-4 years combined. Little bummed that I didn't reach my "goal" weight of 225 lbs. Now realizing that isn't really a goal weight any longer. In the coming months I hope to get some more fat off and replace it with muscle to get evened out a bit.

Anyway, it's been a hell of year and glad I did.