Holy Shiz-nit

Today was my one month post-op visit to my surgeon. (Don't the rest of you just loooooove your surgeon?). Well he said I'm doing fabulously. My one stubborn incision has fully healed and has drained properly. He says my weight loss is just lovely (I was worried it wasn't good enough).

I told him I was having problems getting in the 100g of protein and he said it was ok as long as I didn't go under 75g. He also approved me to swallow my smaller pills. No more chopping up my synthroid! Which also means I can swallow my senokot to make my butt get into gear!

Anyway since I can't be bothered with tables at the moment here is the gist of my measurements.

Bust -1"
Waist -4.25"
Hips -2"
Thigh -2
Arm -1

Which makes a total of 10.25" less of me.

Yay!

307.5

So definately a good week.

I'm not going to make it to my overly hopeful goal of being under 300 by the end of the month. There is no way in hell I can drop 7.5 lbs off in just 5 days.

Tomorrow I go to the Surgeon's office for my one month post-op appt. I'm very curious to see how he feels about the progress I've made. (I have fears that it's not enough, too slow, etc).

Then within the next week or two I need to schedule an appt with the Nutrionist I don't like. I'm sure she will be displeased to find that I haven't been getting all my protein in, but I'm not sure what to do when the minute a shake or protein bullet hits my lips that I immediately gag up what I've just swallowed.

I'm going to buy some more chocolate protein powder, because I have found that I've been able to do a milked down shake... one cup of milk to a 1/2 scoop of powder, with a 1/2 banana in there to cover some of the nasty taste. But doing it that way means, you don't get as much protein in. Still better than nothing.

I looked back at my food journal for the past week and I average about 500-600 calories a day. I'm honestly not sure if that is too low, high or on target, since the NUT never gave me calorie ranges to try to aim for. Just what size meals I should have. (1/4 cup serving of pureed protein 3x per day). Hmmmm

Big Day

I've had such an incredible day.

Today I resigned from my job. I have been with this company for over 10 years (this is a feat when you consider I only turned 33 this year). I actually really, really enjoy my work and love the bulk of my coworkers.

Why am I quitting? Because after 4 years of dating, I'm finally ready to move in with my BF! So I'll be moving about 1.5 hrs south of where I am now. I'm hoping there is an opening at our sister company in his neighborhood, but if not that is ok. Everyone needs someone to count their beans and I've never had a problem getting a job.

My supervisor was very supportive. She says it will be impossible to replace me, but she and her husband have done things together with us (christmas parties, accidentally showing up at the same restaurant so we sit together), and she is really happy for me too! I'm also going to stay until mid-August only moving until right before school begins that way there is plenty of time to take care of business.

Hell, even my mom is excited. Yay for me.

Tomorrow is my weigh in day and I'm super excited about that too now, since today my undies were baggy on my butt. That can only mean good news!

Little Dishes

More Little Dishes
Originally uploaded by Incredible Me.

This was in with the birthday gifts from my mum. These are 4 little plates that are probably at most 4" square.

Perfect for WLS lunches and dinners don't you think?

I also got the cutest little silverware too.

(Please ignore the ever present chapstick for my eternally dry lips).

Wow

I weighed in today at 312.5

That's a lovely 34 lbs less than I was a month ago today! I'm very excited.

It's been wicked hot, and the a/c has been out at work (apparently there is something very broken in there because the parts aren't due in until Thursday). Needless to say - hot means I don't want to eat anything at all.

I'm also out of my anti-naseua meds without a refill, and I'm actually feeling pretty puke-y. Am hoping to get a refill tomorrow from the surgeon. Because let me tell you it's almost impossible to choke down protein drinks when you are feeling gaggy.

Other than that things are going nicely. At the office I am *almost* caught up with all the work that sat around the two weeks I was out. Though I have 3 seperate meetings tomorrow so I'll probably just fall behind again.

Yay for me!

Toxic Friends?

I have been very private about what I have had done. I've only told my closest family and friends, hoping that if I kept the group small, that everyone would be supportive of me.

This has turned out to not be the case. I've gotten great fabulous support from everyone except for one person. This one friend I think is trying to be supportive; she calls me every other day to check in, makes sure I don't need any errands run, and I think "Wow! How nice is this?"

Then there are other moments. For instance she was hear when I came home from the hospital, but then the first words out of her mouth were "Now you are going to be prettier than me", or today when she stopped by she told me "I was sure you would have lost more weight already".

I honestly don't know how to respond to these comments. She gets overly sensitive about things, so I know if I were to say "hey, that shit hurts my feelings", she would be the one to get upset.

Ugh, I don't want to have to deal with this.

Food Glorious Food!

I have now happily moved from "liquids" to "purees" which just has put me over the moon happy.

Last night for dinner I made a chicken dish from Eating Well After Weightloss Surgery.. it was a Chicken and Apricot Tangine. It was quite good even all pureed into ugly babyfood consistency.

Today I've had pureed cottage cheese for breakfast and lunch.

The addition of food is making it much easier for me to come closer to my protein target (I don't care what you say... I'm just not good at getting all 101 grams in every single day).

Tonight, I'm pureeing some chicken salad.

Who knew baby food could be so exciting!

Itchy and Scratchy

Not sure what is going on. I thought I just had dry skin, but now I'm breaking out in a bit of a rash. I itch so badly I can't sleep and when I do sleep I scratch hard enough in my sleep to draw blood.

I finally called the surgeon to ask what it might be and what I could do. Turns out the answer is Benedryl. Yay! That stuff makes me drowsy so I'll be getting some good sleep....
... however it seems to have another side affect... one that leaves you running for the bathroom every 20 minutes.

Today was G's school play. It took everything I could do to sit through it and race back home to the bathroom.

I'm not even bothering with work!

1st day back at work!

Only kind of sort of though. I'm part time for now because I am still so tired all the time.

It was nice to be missed. Even though everyone was supposed to be covering bits and pieces of my job, I still came back to fat stacks of work.

I think everyone must have missed me because they were very happy to give me my work back, even though they still need to do some stuff for the next couple of weeks, while I focus on the things that aren't able to be handed out to everyone else.

But... 1st day, 4 hours, not too terribly bad!

Yay

Today was my one week (slightly delayed) post op appointment with the surgeon.

He was pleased with my progress, said I'm healing up nicely. Was pleased I was weaned off of the pain and nausea stuff.

I have on incision that seems to have a bit of drainage blocked behind it, he said that if it gets worse (which it's been the same this last week) to call him, and if it is there at my 1 month appointment, he will drain it there in the office. I'm of course hoping it's a good incision and just absorbs into my body like it is supposed to.

I was released to drive and to go to work. Yay on the driving, not so much on the work!

Protein....

This is what I've found.

It tastes like ass.

It tastes like Jello shots (gross!).

However, it delivers the most protein in the smallest amount of goo.

That's 42G's of protein per 3 ounce "test tube". That's pretty much two shakes worth of protein in a tenth of the liquid.

They are not cheap. They are roughly $3 a shot (with shipping). I'm hoping to find them somewhere local. But I guess $6.00 a day when you don't eat anything else is ok.

It still leaves me about 17 grams short of my nutritionists goal of 101 grams of protein per day, but this is at least do-able until I can start adding some solid stuff into my diet.

Progress

Or really lack thereof.

Today feels like such a set back. I basically slept all night and was up for maybe an hour or two during the day and then I would turn around and take a 3-4 hour nap.

I've been up for 3 hours; it is now 8PM and I'm looking forward to going to bed tonight.

Sis made me a shake today with only 1/2 the powder, but I was actually able to finish it. Which is much better than anything so far. Full scoop shakes I can't even get a 1/4 of the way through as they upset my stomach too much. I've also been a good girl and choked down my vitamins today.

I really do feel like shit today. Tired, run down; I realize this may have much to do with my inability to choke anything down so I am trying no matter how barfy it makes me feel.

I'm Home

I've actually been home since Thursday, but have felt too much like a train wreck to do anything.

The hospital stay was pretty much a blur, the first day was really hard, I was heavily doped up so I was pretty out of it. The 2nd day was a bit better, I was able to walk a bit with help. My catheter irritated me a bit and I ended up with blood in my urine for a few days, and my IV leaked into my hand a bit and is pretty swollen. Other than that I was a fairly model patient, walking, doing my breathing, and sleeping. Can't beat that I guess.

Thursday and Friday had been pretty bad for me, I was still sleeping pretty much all the time, but due to the morphine withdrawals I was having really severe nightmares (I kept waking everyone else in the house up with my screaming). The bf came for the weekend to give my sister some nursing duty relief and he was an absolute peach of a nurse, helping me get up and down, helping me walk around the neighborhood, pouring my medications (and keeping track of what has to be taken and when). Hell he even helped me shower and horror of horrors helped me with bathroom duties!

Yesterday was the first day where I was awake for the bulk of the day, and today I'm starting to space out the pain medication a bit further as well. That definately feels like progress.

I have had a lot of problems getting my protein in, the shakes have been making me really naseous even with the anti-barf medication, so I had switched to a couple of days where my fluids were lentil soup thinned out to a watery consistency in the blender with chicken broth. This at least got me some protein.

Today, I will try a shake again.