Mmmm... pureed meat!

Tonight, I pureed tuna. Not as bad as I thought.

On Friday, I went down to Barnes and got my drain and staples taken out. I felt about 200 times better with the drain out of me and it didn't really hurt getting the staples out. I also got to graduate from the horrible liquid diet to pureed food! I was never so excited to eat pureed food in my entire life. The liquid diet was so unsatisfying to my tastebuds and brain. 

I was weighed at the doctor and I am officially 25 pounds down! 16 post-op. 

I have pureed cottage cheese, turkey chili, and tuna. The tuna was like a tuna salad, so it wasn't too gross. I'm still not sure how I feel about pureeing a chicken breast or piece of pork... still sounds gross to me. 

I saw Les Mis tonight! It was great. Passing on the popcorn wasn't easy, but I'm learning that life will go on without eating certain foods. 

By the way...

I just got a new, reliable scale and I'm down 16 pounds from my highest weight. 9 of that pre-op and 7 post-op! :) Great Christmas present!

Trying to teach an old dog new tricks

Merry Christmas Eve! Admittedly, it has been difficult to get into the Christmas spirit given my current condition. But, my mom is here and my brother is in the way, so all will be well.

Last night and this morning were a little rough. The mot pain I am having is in my shoulders and back from the gas that they use to blow up your abdomen during surgery. The pain makes it difficult to sleep. I took two of my pain killers last night in hopes it would help me sleep, but that definitely backfired on me as I woke up with intense nausea. I'm learning that my body does not agree with hardcore pain medicine.

I got over the nausea and have had a pretty good day. I am trying to learn my body's new signals. Feeling hungry and feeling full are totally different now. I'm also trying to distinguish those between surgical pain and gas pain. The good thing is that the surgical pain is greatly decreasing each day.

My unhealthy relationship with food is becoming more evident. Even though my stomach is full, my brain desperately wants food that I cannot have. Right now I'm on a full liquid diet, which is very unsatisfying. Towards the end of the week, I will get my drain and staples out and move to puréed foods, which will give me more variety. I can purée low fat and low sugar foods such as turkey chili, which sounds much better than pudding at the moment.

Our Christmas morning tradition is eggs Benedict and homemade cinnamon rolls. Needless to say, I won't be having any of that tomorrow. That will be difficult, but it would make sick beyond belief and possibly damage my healing incision in my stomach. That's enough to stop me!

The way I understand it is that I will, eventually, be able to eat all foods again, though it will take months to get there. Some people still struggle with real sugar and high fat foods even long after surgery, but it all depends. No matter what, my portion sizes will always be greatly decreased.

I will continue to struggle, but continue to learn. I know that when the weight starts coming off this will all be more than worth it.

Ouch.

As I'm guessing you have figured out - I survived!

The procedure itself went fine. No problems. However, I did barf after they put the IV in. It had been a while since I had one of those and it was particularly painful! I had to sit in pre-op for quite a while. My surgeon and nurses were great and took great care of me. Mom and Dad came back to me while I was in recovery. Apparently I asked about Maggie multiple times. 

The pain when I woke up wasn't too bad - much less than I thought it would be. Really the pain in general was similar to my gall bladder removal. I was feeling pretty good by Wednesday night.

Thursday was horrible - I started becoming nauseous with the morphine and every other pain medicine. On top of that, I was having pretty painful gas pain. I was trying to get up and move around, but that just made me throw up. I threw up in the hallway while I was walking. To make things more fun, I had to do a barium swallow and x-ray when I was feeling so horrible. They took me off the pain medicine that night and put me on straight tylenol. I felt much better on Friday morning. 

My surgeon came in on Friday morning and told me I could go home! Of course, I didn't actually get discharged until about 4pm. 

Maggie was so excited to see me. She knows something is up with me, but she doesn't yet understand why she can't be on my lap and why I'm not playing. Dad stayed the night with me last night and Mom is on her way down right now.

Currently, most of my pain is at my incisions. I have 5 incisions with staples in them (ew) and one of the incisions has my surgical drain in it. My drain and staples will come out at the end of this week, which will be thrilling. The drain is just a pain and I have to be really careful that I don't sleep on it or yank on it. I'm also still having gas pain, but gas-x is taking care of most of that. 

Learning my body's new signals is tough. I am drinking my protein shakes and eating pudding, but I can't tell if I'm full or if it's just surgical pain. Sometimes I get intense pain after I swallow a pill, but I don't know if that's my new belly telling me it's full, or if it's just pain from surgery. 

I'm getting less sore and up more often, so I will try to keep updates more regular!

Last picture!

One last picture of the old me! Forgive the dress and crocs... It's the junior high concert tonight!

Just hours left.

Here we are... the day before surgery.

It feels a little surreal. I've been thinking and researching this for a year and planning for it for 6 months, so it feels strange for it actually to be here.

I am getting very anxious about the actual procedure. I am such a control freak that it's irritating me that I can't control this and how I'm going to feel afterward. The unknown is freaking me out. I know I'll be fine, I'm just such a pansy.

My surgery is around 8:30am tomorrow. I will blog as soon as I can make a coherent sentence!

Your thoughts, prayers, whatever you do are appreciated!

Oh my, December has been crazy! And we're only 6 days into it.

For music teachers and musicians, December is one of those epic months where you never really stop rehearsing or singing. A Cappella has been called to sing at many events, and we are slowly checking them off the list. I'm so happy that people want my choir to come sing for them - they are a really talented group. It just gets exhausting.

I am also singing in a small production of the Messiah on Sunday, so I've been in rehearsal for that. It is nice to be singing again outside of my classrooms.

The high school and junior high are in preparation for their concerts, and the high school cast list for Beauty and the Beast just went up on Monday. Casting was long, stressful, and difficult, but I'm happy with the results.

I have been so busy that I really haven't had time to focus on my upcoming gastric sleeve surgery, but that might be a good thing. I can't dwell on it too much, or I'll go crazy. Yesterday morning was my pre-op appointment and orientation. I can't believe the surgery is less than 2 weeks away. I had to be at Barnes at 7:30am, which meant I was up at 5am. My dad came down to go to my appointments since he will be the one in the hospital with me. I got the all-clear for surgery, as long as my bloodwork comes back fine, which I imagine it will. We had orientation with other weight loss surgery folks. Basically, the nurse went over what happens on the day of surgery and our life afterwards. I am trying my best to prepare myself for my new life, but there's only so much mental preparation that you can do. It's all very overwhelming.

I am most worried about a) the pain - because I am a great big wuss, and b) the recovery and lifestyle change afterwards.

I am supposed to be staying on my 1400 calorie diet until surgery. That is so hard for me, especially during the holidays!

Merry Christmas to me - here's a protein shake.

Today, I got a very important letter in the mail. 

My insurance has approved my sleeve gastrectomy! My doctor has now scheduled my surgery for Wednesday, December 19th. I have pre-op appointments scheduled for December 5th.

I have been out of school for two weeks now because of pneumonia. This worried me a little because they only operate on healthy patients. Luckily, the nurse said I should be fine for the surgery. They will check me out on the 5th and make sure I am good to go. 

Having pneumonia has put a strain on my sick leave at school, so I'm a little nervous about taking time off for the surgery. I have to keep my fingers crossed that I heal quickly without complications. I have to take 3 days off at the end of the semester for the surgery, and then I will have almost two full weeks off before I have to go back. 

Right now I'm supposed to be on a 1400 calorie diet. This is difficult with Thanksgiving approaching! The doctor wants me to take off just a little weight to help shrink my liver before surgery. I've taken off a few pounds, so I'm happy with that. This will be my last normal Thanksgiving ever! Definitely no holiday sweets, either. But, I know that it will be worth it to be healthy!

My journey begins.

It has been so long since I've written in here. I live a fairly normal life; there was never anything worth writing that I felt like the world should know. But, a quickie update.

I'm in my second year of teaching, and I'm absolutely in love with my job. I am so fortunate to have a career that I enjoy. I bought a house over the summer. I also got a puppy in May! She is such a bright spot in my day, but also such a handful! I love her dearly. My life is a very happy place.

I am starting a journey that may be of some interest to you all out there. Over the past year, I have been considering weight-loss surgery. During my first year of teaching, I put weight on. No doubt it was due to poor food choices and lack of time to exercise. 

My entire life has been a struggle with weight. However, I was never "obese" until I entered high school. I was always bigger than my tiny friends when I was growing up, but still very active and healthy. When I hit puberty, the weight started to pile on and never stopped.

Over the years I have dieted, but was never able to keep the weight off. I had lost weight, regained it, lost more, and regained more. I have metabolic syndrome, where my body does not process sugar correctly. I don't know entirely what that means, but I know my body just doesn't use sugar to its advantage, and it stores it, rather than using it for energy. I also have a condition called PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), where my body's hormones are just totally out of whack. Hormones do a lot of strange things to your body. There is no cure for PCOS, you just have to treat the symptoms. However, losing weight can make the symptoms of PCOS decrease.

Anyway, I began my weight loss surgery journey on my 27th birthday in July of this year. Through many discussions and a reference from a friend, I looked into the weight loss surgery program at Washington University in St. Louis. You have to complete many steps before you'll even be considered for surgery, but I find that comforting knowing that they want you to be fully committed to a new lifestyle. On July 18th, I attended an informational session where I learned about the three different types of weight loss surgery, as well as insurance, side effects, and many other aspects of the surgery. It was incredibly informative. 

Washington University offers three different surgeries for weight loss: gastric bypass, gastric sleeve, and lap-band. I did not know anything about the gastric sleeve procedure prior to attending the informational session. The gastric sleeve is simpler than the bypass - the surgeon basically takes out about 2/3 of your stomach, leaving you with a stomach that is roughly the size of a banana. In the bypass, your bowels are re-routed. I decided, given my previous issues with bowels, that the sleeve would be the best for me. It has nearly the same success rate as the bypass - just a slightly lower weight loss percentage weight. In the first year, it is expected for you to lose about 60% of your excess body weight. 

After the session, we were able to make appointments with the nurse practitioner to move the process ahead. I saw the nurse practitioner on August 17th. Basically, she evaluated my physical health and then gave me the paperwork to complete the next steps. After the appointment, I had to make an appointment to see a nutritionist, a psychiatrist, and a physical therapist. I was really lucky and was able to schedule all three appointments on one day. Those three appointments happened on September 24th.

The nutritionist went over what my diet would be like post-op. It is very shocking. I will be full on 3 tablespoons of food. The most important thing about the post-op diet is getting your required protein per day. It's about 60 grams, which can be difficult when you're full on 3 tablespoons a meal. If you don't get your protein, you will likely lose your hair, as your body begins to reserve protein for organs. I don't like my hair, but I like it better than no hair.

The psychiatrist was interesting. I had to answer about 500 questions on a computer that were T/F. They were all basically situations. For instance, "I often hear voices." False. Definitely false. I think it's to make sure you can psychologically handle this procedure. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but I people have told me what an adjustment it is for your brain after you lose a large amount of weight. 

Physical therapy... well, they told me I'm fat and out of shape. Big surprise. They want me to keep walking Maggie every day and work on my posture. I carry so much weight in my stomach that my back is suffering and I tend to tilt my pelvis forward because of the weight. They also prepped me for physical activity after the surgery.

Then I had to go a support group meeting. Lots of inspiring success stories, but also lots of questions raised. I am trying to prep myself as much as I can for this surgery, but some things you just won't know until you have it.

So, when am I going to have this surgery? Well, I am tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, December 19th. This all depends on my insurance. If they drag their heels with getting approval through, then I may have to delay until next summer. I really don't want to do that. I want to start feeling better as soon as possible. I don't want to go through another musical season being so overweight and tired. If I'm losing weight through that process, I think I will feel so much better. 

Why am I doing this? Why can't I just lose the weight? 

Obesity is a disease. It really is. I would liken it to depression. You don't understand it until you have to deal with it. Some people say, "Well, why can't you just be happy? Why can't you fix that?" Depression is a chemical imbalance in your brain. I believe obesity is also an imbalance of the brain stemming from other events in your life, and family history. I have dealt with depression and anxiety, and eating food has become an emotional event. Eating food will literally make me happy. Not that I'm sad to begin with, but it makes me excited. 

Weight loss surgery will NOT FIX YOUR BRAIN.

I have to tell myself this over and over again. I have to become committed to the lifestyle. But, as I have talked to people who have had the surgery, you see the weight coming off and that helps your brain break that emotional attachment with food. Your confidence level rises and you start to lose those cravings for food. 

It's not a quick fix. 

This is also something that I have to tell myself over and over again. Sometimes you become blinded by the excitement of losing weight and that's all you see. You forget about this epic journey you have to take to get there. Never again will I be able to eat sweets in normal amounts. I will always have to monitor my protein intake. I will also likely need plastic surgery to remove excess skin after I lose weight. 

Why do it? I need to be healthy. Sure, I don't like looking fat, but my priority is my health. I want to be able to be active like a normal 27-year-old. I don't want my feet to ache like they do now. I don't want my joints to ache anymore. I want to feel normal.

Right now I'm on a 1400 calorie diet. I have to lose some weight before surgery so that my liver will shrink. That makes it easier for the surgeon to get in there. 

Here we go!