A Day In The Life

So after being bombarded with a million people saying "OMG! Gastric Bypass surgery? You eat practically nothing, right??" I've decided to do a "day in the life" of my pouch.. The idea is pretty much stolen from , who often does a "Day In My Pouch" for her readers..

Breakfast: Nutty Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal - This oatmeal is made completely with milk- I don't do the water thing anymore as I find this tastes so much better! I added homemade chunky applesauce, and some walnuts and raisins. I sweeten mine up with a little bit of Torani SF Vanilla Syrup, and some splenda. Throw in some cinnamon, and you're good to go!



Lunch: Whole Wheat Protein Wrap - Since bread is a no-no and wrap breads are tolerated, I usually have a 6" wrap everyday.
Today I topped mine with 4 slices salami (bad choice, high in fat!), lettuce, onions, a teeny bit of LF mayo, and lots of mustard. Veggies and tzatziki dip (15 calories in one tablespoon! Good choice!) on the side.



Dinner: Turkey Sausage with Quinoa Salad - Don't be fooled by the word "Sausage." My turkey sausage has 130calories, 5gFat, and 18g or protein! A regular sausage can have 270 calories and 24GRAMS OF FAT. Phew, turkey it is!! They are definitely still tasty.

For those that don't know what Quinoa is, it's the highest protein grain that you can buy, and it's also a "complete protein" which means it has an almost ideal balance of amino acids. It's pretty new to me, but basically you boil it like a rice, and can mix it with a bit of lemon juice, herbs, and veggies, or add a little bit of your favourite salad dressing..

My apologies for an UGLY picture. I guess this is where being cheffy would come in handy. Attractive food is a skill I do not posses.




Snack: Kozy Shack Rice Pudding and Strawberries - Kozy Shack has a No Sugar Added rice pudding that has only 70 calories, so every once and a while I go for one. It's no british homeland rice pud, but it'll do!!



So, that's my food for the day, not "nothing", right?! It's pretty substantial! Along with lots and lots of decaf tea and water.

2010

So, how is your 2010 shaping up so far?
No different than last year? Yeah.. Me neither.

So my weight is still stalling a bit which I'm hoping is just some sort of body-equalizing type of thing, but either way I decided to step up the exercise today. Jillian Michaels (The Biggest Loser) has a few exercise DVD's which I nabbed off the internet (sorry!) and figured, hey, free working out? I'll give it a shot.

Well fuck, I forgot how much WORK working out really is. At first I thought, Hey! This DVD doesn't look that hard! Those ladies aren't even sweating! Well those ladies are buff 100lb beauties, and that sure ain't me. She has this whole "30 minutes of intensity", no breaks, no stops, no catch your breath mentality, and fuck me I was a bit shocked at how hard it turned out to be. Of course I had sent Mitch out to get a hair cut which was my ploy to do all of this without an audience, and I was pretty happy I did. By the end of it I was huffing and puffing flat out on my Yoga mat, cursing the day Jillian ever got into fitness, but we all know what this boils down to- I'm out of shape (duh?) So, hopefully after work tomorrow I can banish Mitch to the bedroom with his book and do it all again. 30 minutes of hell..

Ah well, it beats walking out in the cold and snow!
Although actually, it's +4 today and I'm pretty happy about that.

My flabs hurt.

I'm going to attach my first set of before and after photos, taken for a very persistant girlfriend! Love ya :)

Todays weight- 236.2 (ugh..)

The End Of A Season

Well Christmas is over, and HELLO 2010! This year was a quiet holiday, spent at home in Orono with Mum, and Dad. Mitch had flu-type symptoms and spent the entire Christmas day in bed. wooooohhh.... I did have a great time with Mum and Dad, but it just seemed like we were lacking other family members!!! With Neil off in B.C., Phil working nights, and Nana and Grandad not present, it felt very... Quiet I guess. But none the less it was a great holiday filled with great company and a few good pressies!

I always feel a wave of sadness when the Holiday season comes to an end. The pretty lights get packed up, the tree gets dragged outside to be carted off in a truck, and the Ho-Ho-Happiness seems to fade as we all get back to our daily lives. There's something about the holiday season that just makes things feel better... Sigh

The last post stated I had an appointment with a nutritionist, which was actually kind of dissapointing. You count on your Nut to put you in line and give you tips and ideas about what to eat and what to do- or atleast that was my expectation of her- and she didn't. I left feeling equally as un-easy as I did when I entered. But either way, I walked across to the hospital and had a good 10+ vials of blood taken. I was pretty sure that all of these tests would come back with alarm bells and such because I had been throwing up a lot and living off of cheese, crackers, and peanut butter. Well the results came back and they were completely normal. I had a low B1, and a low Vitamin D, so two tiny pills and aparently I'll be good as new. It's surprising how your body can cope when you deprive it of so many things.

I also had my first dilatation on Dec. 11th. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, I'll explain! Aparently post-op Gastric Bypass patients can be prone to get these things known as "strictures", which is a narrowing of the esophogus. So basically, your throat gets tight, and food can't pass down into your stomach. You can also get a stricture at the base of your stomach (which is what I had) which means food can go in, but can't pass into your intestines to be digested, which means a lot of vomiting. So they lay you on your side, knock you out with Propophol, and put a camera down your throat (gastroscopy) to see if you do indeed have a stricture. If you do, they position a balloon and blow it up to stretch out the area that has consctricted. Easy peasy. Literally the simplest and painless procedure I've ever had, and within days I was eating all of those things I hadn't been able to eat. It was great!

But..

I have another gastroscopy/dilatation booked for tomorrow. Over the holiday I had 3 or 4 really bad days of eating, so I called and unfortunately the only date available (because Fridays fell on Christmas and New Years Day this year) was January the 8th. Eating has been better since the holidays, with one or two days here and there that have been bad. I'm wondering if I should cancel it, because things seem to be going much better, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to go just so he can have a look down there! The best thing he can say is that I'm fine, and to just watch what foods I'm eating.

The weight is now coming off much SLOWER then it was in the beginning.. It's frustrating. I go days and days at the same weight, and that drives me mad! So I've started going to an indoor walking track thats local here in Alliston, and walking 5km a day (when I'm not working), in hopes that that'll help it drop down a bit.

Take care everyone, this is a boring post- my apolagies.

Today's weight- 238.4

I hit the big 5-0!

A New Leaf

Alright, so the last post was a bit of a downer..

I visited the nutritionist on the 9th of December, and told her about the troubles I was having with eating and vomiting. She pretty much called me crazy when she found out I'd been living off of cheese and crackers. She said that if it continued, to call the surgeons office about having a scope due to a possible stricture. I had suspected a stricture for quite some time, but didn't know if it was bad enough to really be considered. I thought I was just "rushing" things.. Pffffft.

I called the surgeons office the next morning (Thursday), and got an appointment for a scope the next day. Holy fast much?
So I started fasting as of midnight, and had to be at the Humber River Regional Hospital Church site at 1:30 the next day.

So we show up, check in, and almost immediately all the fire alarms start going off. Fucking wonderful. I ain't leaving now. We sit pretty for a while reading mags and chatting, and eventually I get called through to the day surgery room. There's people in robes and in beds everywhere- I felt slightly awkward just standing there looking at them all. I get ushered away to put a gown overtop of my clothes (WOOH! No embarassing open back..) and walk right into the procedure room.
I hop up on the table, and they start searching for veins for an IV. I oh-so-cockily announce "I have good veins, I never have problems with IV's!".. Famous last words, I tell you. Next time I'll shut up. They try me once in each hand, and finally settle on the inside of my elbow before it actually works. Not fun.
Next I bit down on a plastic spacer type thing, and in went the propophol. The doctor tells me that if you think about something great, you'll have a great dream, so I started chanting "Christmas, christmas, christmas" in my head before passing out.. I wake up with a nurse saying "Damn I forgot to get you a drool pad", not glamourous.
Basically I woke up feeling drunk, and had no pain at all in my esophogus or stomach..

Dr.Huynh came over and let me know I had "quite a tight stricture" at the base of my stomach, meaning I could get the food in but it couldn't go down, thus the vomiting. He also said I had "visual evidence" of heartburn, and provided a kicker of a heartburn med.

Two days after the dilatation I was eating things I daren't eat at all before. Fruit, ham, shrimp, chicken. You have no idea how much your life can improve when you stop throwing up and can actually eat again. Wooh! I feel like a whole new girl, and hopefully this is the start of a decent life after WLS. For a while there I thought I had made a ridiculous decision.

My weight isn't much different then last time, but I'm okay with that

Weight today- 246.3

1 Month, 5 Days

Part of me doesn't write because I am frustrated, the other part because I am overwhelmed and also lazy.

The last month has got to be one of the toughest food-wise.

After the two weeks of liquid diet, I went on to two weeks of pureed. I will say I definitely cheated, as I didn't puree EVERYTHING! But all in all, the pureed diet went pretty well. Lots of yogourt, lots of soup, lots of eggs and cheese.

So, being the gutsy lady I am I decided to try and dabble in a bit of solids.. I tried out different meats in different ways; chicken was cooked in liquid for hours in the oven until tender, beef was cooked with potatoes until tender, fish was cooked until just done to ensure it wasn't dry or chewy, ham was cut thin, shrimp were barely cooked.. And after all that effort, I'm not sure if I've been able to keep ANY of those down.

Because the connection to from your "pouch" to your intenstine is only the size of a dime, meats have to be finely ground up (by your teeth) to make sure they even pass through that hole.. I'm fairly certain I've chewed and chewed and chewed until I've probably developed TMJ, but none of these meats go down at all. Now if I put some fish on a cracker, ta daa! I can swallow it!!
Saltine crackers are my drug of choice. Most things I put ontop of a saltine cracker tend to end up going down, but there's only so many things you can put ontop of there!

And to be truthful, after a while you get pretty sick of experimenting, and then vomiting away all of your hard work. So for the moment, I've pretty much given up until I see my dietitian. I live off of crackers, cheese, eggs, protein shakes, milk, more cheese... oh, peanut butter, sugar-free jam (both of which just go ontop of crackers), and sometimes bananas..

I am disinterested in food, and completely disinterested in eating.. Which at the moment is bad, because this soon after surgery you are never hungry- meaning if you aren't interested in food, you don't eat, and I can go a very long time without eating!!

Yesterday I ate:

5 saltines with peanut butter at breakfast- 9am

One bite of pickle (which got stuck), and a few spoons of soup -vom'd up because the pickle got stuck- 3pm

one shrimp from a shrimp ring- vom'd -6pm

5 crackers and cheese- 8 pm


This is why I haven't written much. I have nothing nice to say. I have an appointment with the dietitian tomorrow, and hopefully she kicks my ass and tells me to work harder to eat.

Todays weight- 247

Two Weeks Post-op

So! The big scary day is over with, and it's been exactly 14 days since surgery. Where the hell do I start?!?!

So we woke up surgery day (Nov 3) at about 4:45am to shower, pack the car, and start the drive. I wasn't feeling too nervous, but I think that my denial soothing me. My brother and Mitch were driving me to the hospital, and I felt it pretty inappropriate to lose it and break down in front of them both. I held it together, but barely.. All in all surgery day didn't work out too badly. We had a laugh and a joke about the ridiculous gowns, and one particular nurse who was the most frustrating person we'd ever met. She hassled us, lectured me, and couldn't even tell me what meds were in the little paper cup that I was handed. All in all the stupidest nurse I've met.
I got driven down a few floors in my flashy wheelchair, and surgery was halted because I hadn't been given a mandatory pregnancy test. G-sus. Ridic. We all stood around waiting for the results. Considering I have never done a preggo test before, and even though I knew I wasn't pregnant, it was kind of nerve wracking anyways. The Nurse came in with the "Congratulations! You're not pregnant!", we all had a few cheers, and off I went into the operating room after a few kisses and hugs. I got my IV, and without even as much as a heads-up about the meds, I felt pretty woozy and said to my nurses "I guess this is it, see ya soon." That's about it.

Now the post-op part begins.
No one explains to you before surgery, that they use some sort of dye in your stomach to test for leaks, that will eventually make you dry-heave yourself into oblivion and make you think that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. No, they neglect to tell you that. My first memory of the surgery being over, was reaching around with my eyes closed for something to wretch into. I never want to experience that particular moment ever again.
The other thing I didn't expect was the phenomenal amount of pain I had in the middle of my chest. Now I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but fuck me, I thought I was having some kind of heart attack or something. The nurse happily informed me I was maxed out with 4 units of morphine, and that she'd give me something for heartburn. Eff-off missy. This is not heartburn. If this is heartburn then I think I may actually be on fire.
The drive up to my room was pretty hilarious. I remember not being at all awake, but having to hold a door open for the nurse because she kept crashing me into every single object in the hallway.. They should have to take a course on that, because obviously it's a struggle. I got to my room and ta-da, was given more morphine (thank heavens), and struggled to keep my eyes open while my family sat around me. I felt kinda horrible that everyone had driven so far, and all I could do was mumble incoherently every-so-often. Ah well.
Eating didn't go particularly well on Day 1, as there was a lot of discomfort, and after a few spoonfulls of jello, I decided to abandon ship for the day.
I don't want to say "those were the only bad things," because it sort-of sounds like a lot, but it's true. I wouldn't want to relive any of those feelings, but it was only for a dayandabit, and everyday that followed things got better.

Let me say, the best thing I did in the hospital was order the tv package. I read something another GB patient said about "don't bother bringing books, you won't be interested".. I thought it was bullshit because I love to read, and had brought three books in case I got bored of one, but I had literally no interest in sitting up and using my hands to entertain myself. For the first two days it was pretty nice to hang out in the motorized bed with Mitch and catch up on all the tv that we miss, but by day 3 I was DYING to get out of there. My back was sore from the stupid bed, my pain meds had been cut off so I wasn't sleeping very well, my IV was sore and I was sick of pushing around the stupid thing anytime I had to pee, dress, or walk anywhere.. My prayers were answered when Dr. Neil made a quick call to Dr. Huyhn to see if I could be discharged, and woohoo, I could- but on one condition. I had to stay in Alliston for 2-3 days after surgery just incase anything would go wrong.. They believed Orono was too far to drive to the hospital if I was having any kind of complication. Fack.. Everything I needed for recovery was in Orono at my mums.. We had no food, no clothes unpacked, nothing.. So we spent the minimal 2 days in Alliston and rolled on home to Orono for some down-time and relaxation.

And I guess here we still are! Week one consisted of a "full fluid" diet, where I could only have things that are dairy based and strained of all chunky bits, and today is the start of my pureed diet, where I can eat foods from all food groups and blend it all up. Thank god.

So, it has been an eventful two weeks, but a pretty good two weeks all in all. I sleep a lot and watch a lot of movies, and too much exercise makes me super tired, which is to be expected. When they say "do nothing for 3 weeks minimum", it's kind of hard to do that!! I've been cheating with that probably too much, but oh well. Such is life.

So, onto the weights I guess!

Nov 3/09', surgery day- 272.2
Nov 9/09'- 263.4 (first logged weight after surgery)
Nov 13/09- 261.2
Nov 17/09- 259.3

The Eve

So.. Tomorrow, eh? Holy shit this has crept up fast.
I guess tomorrow will be the start of a new life, pretty much. New rules, new outlook, new me. That's kinda a lot to take in.. Oh well. I'm trying to be optimistic and happy about this, but the worrying portion of my mind takes over sometimes..

I know that everything will go fine, and tomorrow I will be happy and dandy. I just have to get through tonight, and then tomorrow morning (which I anticipate as the worst part!!! too much waiting...)

We're about to take a "before" picture, as photo 1 in the journey.

Fingers crossed.

Weight Nov. 2- 272.0