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.