213.0; Feelings (again)

Every morning I get up and the first thing I do is weigh myself.  I've been doing this since December.  While I resisted weighing daily for quite a long time, I realized that I would never truly know my body unless I did so daily for a period of time.  So every morning I weigh myself.  And when I come out of the bathroom Pete asks me how much I weigh.

Now in the past I've run out of the bathroom to announce my weight, when it was a good/great one.  I've come out sad and disappointed and quietly said my number too.  Since the surgery I've come out with a puzzled look.  This morning Pete asked me why I wasn't happy when I came out and I had lost another pound.

I can't quite explain it.  I don't understand it.  Maybe it's because I don't feel like I've earned the loss?  I'm not working out to lose.  Maybe it's the emotions of having surgery and adjusting to my new body system?  Maybe it's because I'm in my second period of the month and my hormones are all out of whack?  But for some reason, while I'm glad the weight is coming off, it's not the celebration I thought it would be.

I'm going to take this weekend to rest up after my exhausting week back at work.  I'm going to try to get to the gym for cardio twice this weekend plus enjoy the nice weather outside.  And I'm going on a date with Pete tonight to the Mall of America to walk around and hold hands.  And I plan on thinking about all this too and seeing if I can come to any answers.

213: 1 week post-op

I'm waking up hungry.  It's interesting because I don't recall feeling actual hunger for a long time.  I was so used to feeding my body bad things at various times that true hunger pains rarely existed in my tummy.  Even when I was doing the liquid diet before surgery I wasn't hungry.  But twice in the last 3 days I've been woken up my my hunger.

Have you felt hunger pains lately?  The kind that rumble your whole tummy?  When they happen to me, they spasm the are where the band is and it actually hurts.  It's not good.  I've been eating about 1/2 cup pureed veggies for breakfast with coffee.  1/2 cup pureed veggies and 1/2 pureed fruit for lunch.  8 ounces of protein boosted chocolate milk mid afternoon.  Dinner is similar to lunch.  But the 10-12 hours between dinner and lunch is too long for my tummy.  I think I need to add in a glass of milk before bed and see if that makes a difference.

I saw my surgeon yesterday.  She took the tape off all my incisions.  There are 6 of them.  The port one is low on my tummy and still has sterie strips on them.  The next largest one is right on my left rib area and painful still.  It's got a large bump there that isn't normal.  She said that they use a netting in the hold to stop the bleeding and the netting may have popped out because it's so close to my ribs.  Or it's a pocket of old blood or fluid.  It's not hernia like because it doesn't get bigger with pressure from my abs.  In any case she said my body would start absorbing the bump and I should just watch it for signs of infection in the next week.  I don't have to go back until week 6 when I'm eligible for my first fill!

214: I GET IT

Monday was hell.  I had been gone from work for 3 days, but it seemed like forever.  I had cases to catch up on, calls to return and new cases to deal with.  I hit the ground running and really never got a break.

At one point my supervisor came in and asked me how I was doing.  I was honest and said that I was sore.  Then I blurted out that I had a gastric band put in.  Right then and there I understood it.  How odd and awkward it is to tell someone what procedure I had.  I get why the people in my life who've had it don't want to tell.  I get how weird it is to tell people that you work with or that you motorcycle with or whatever that you had this done.  It's as if I told them my my whole weight history with just one sentence.

Most of the people at work know because I've been honest about it.  It's not a secret, but I'm not broadcasting it either.  I need to figure out what to say to clue people in so that if it comes up I can be honest, but not awkward.

216: Feelings

I drove to work on Monday in my new 217 pound body and was suddenly scared.  I wondered where this feeling came from, but had to acknowledge it.  So I sat it in.  Truth be told I had been up for 2 hours and was spooning runny pudding with protein powder every 15 minutes on my ride.  But I was eating before having the feeling.  Actually eating my 1 cup of food each meal takes me about 45 minutes so if sometimes feels like I'm always eating.

Suddenly I was scared.  Scared of how quickly I was losing weight.  In almost 4 months I have lost almost 30 pounds.  My body is changing and I have folds and flaps where I didn't have them before.  And yet I also have collarbones and hipbones and ribs where I didn't before.  I feel as though I need to study my body each day to see what changes there are before I miss them, almost as though you watch a baby change and grow each day.  I wonder if I should take a picture each day?  And then I realize that I would be focusing too much on the small things.

I'm scared of losing so fast that my skin cannot catch up.  I'm wondering if the underarm floppy skin will only get a bit worse or much much worse.  Will I be able to live with it?  Will I be a candidate for surgery to have it removed? 

I'm suddenly scared of this process that I started 3 years ago.  Why am I so scared of it now?  It's what I wanted, right?  I remind myself that it is.  And yet I remind myself that I just had major surgery and I need to let my body and emotions heal from that before I start thinking these things.  I remind myself that I am partly scared because I am shedding my fatgirl persona and I need to do some hard  work to figure out who I am beneath all that. 

I remind myself that I KNEW it would be both physical and mental.  Maybe my mental just need to catch up with my physical?

217.2; Surgery is Hard

So I know that I said I'd be posting last week, but honestly surgery is hard.  I'm back at work this morning and I'm tired as hell. 

Wednesday morning went off without a hitch.  Pete was the one by my side, waiting with me until I went into surgery.  The nurse informed my mom that only one person was allowed to wait with me.  I was anxious about surgery, but I have to give much credit to the anesthesiologist.  He was very attentive to my concerns and assured me that it would all go ok.  I was wheeled into the operating room and don't remember anything until I woke up in recovery.  Awesome job!

I got up to my room and I don't remember much about getting there, except that I was tired.  I do have to say that my lower abs hurt.  The port is attached to your left ab muscle and with every moment, your ab screams at you to let you know that it's not happy it's there.  I felt a lot of pressure in my abs and my left rib area where one of the scopes was put in.  I spent much of Wednesday afternoon dozing on and off.  I know that Pete was there and my parents were there for a while.  I also know that I was asleep for the night by 9pm.

Thursday morning I woke up and they wheeled me down to xray to drink the fluid and have scans taken to make sure that nothing was blocked.  I have to admit, after having nothing to drink or eat for 48 hours, I wasn't hungry, but the flavor of the bitter drink wasn't that bad.  As soon I I got back to my room they started me on water.  2 tablespoons every 15 minutes.  I drank and recorded all morning.  When Dr July came in I asked about being discharged.  The issue was that my bladder had not woken up.  Because I couldn't go to the bathroom on my own, I had to stay until that happened.  I ended up not being able to go home until 5pm.

Over the weekend, I spent a lot of time resting.  I'd get up at 8 am, eat "breakfast" of jello and broth and nap.  Get up and eat lunch of jello and broth and nap.  Get up and eat dinner of broth and jello, watch some tv with Pete and be asleep again my 9pm.  Every move of my abdomen made those abs scream at me.  Every time I sat down, sat up, rolled over in bed, walked fast, stood up too quickly...

I did meet my goal of being below 220 before surgery.  I was 219 in the hospital.  When I left the hospital I was up to 227 from all the fluids they pump you with.  But each day I weighed less and today I am at 217.  I expect to be about 212 or so by my appointment on Wednesday.

So that's all the stuff.  I have photos from before surgery and afterwards that I'll get up this week. 
Any questions?