Love this. I think you will too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyPBtExE4W0
Monday, November 12, 2012
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Tears, Tubes, Texts and Tunnels
Blog entry number two. I feel like the girl looking into the camera on Blair Witch Project snotting and snivveling while she tells about her goings ons. There have been a few mini break downs since Friday. #1 was while J and I were waiting for me to be taken back to the OR. I thought, am I doing the right thing? The right thing for me, you and our family? "If it wasn't meant to be it wouldn't happen," J said. He kissed me and wiped away my tears and I was wisked away.
Waking up, nausea was horrible, and the gas pain in my left shoulder put both c-sections to shame. My upper abdomen was terriblysore but nothing compared to those two surgeries. I'm going to spare you what I saw around me in the recovery room, but I was faring better than most of the people waking up around me. J was waiting on me to come back to the room, along with mom, James and my stepmom. If the gas pains and nausea were hell, Dilaudid and Zofran were heaven.
Friday and Friday night are kinda blurry. I was up walking like a champ, burping like a pro. (both of which are very important) My IV infiltrated sometime during the night, so I woke up to a very painful, swollen hand and had to be stuck again. I had my second mini melt down when it was just me and J alone in the room, again questioning if my choice had been the right one.. Again, j reassures me, and does it with a smile while in return asks me if there is anything he can get me.
Saturday, catheter out. Up and down, up and down, all day saturday. Feeling good. Blowing the other patients out of the water. All the while I'm getting reglan, zofran and acetaminophen (yep, Tylenol..GB patients can't have NSAIDS such as ibuprofen...) thru my IV. I felt like I could actually do this. Talk to the dr, surgery went perfect, labs look good. Saturday night, J goes out to the car to find a flat tire. Yay. He spends two hours in the dark parking lot patching my tire where I had ran over a nail....I can't help but wonder why these things keep happening..(I'm no Job) Again, I was reassured:)
This morning, IV out. More and more walking. Maybe to the point where I over did it. Home around 1:00 or so. Up down, up down. Now I know I def. over did it. Both boys come home and I can't really bend down to kiss them or lift them up to sit on my lap. Over 12 hours with nothing for pain, drain tube still hanging in there somewhere and now I'm wanting nothing more than to lay flat in my comfortable bed, but can't do that either. Stomach muscles won't let me. I ate my last full meal on Wednesday night, drank clear liquids on Thursday, and have survived on 30 cc cups of ice until I got home today, when I graduated to 30 cc cups of Protein shakes, water and broth. I'll be on liquids for a week. I'm not neccessarily hungry, but just from the short time I've been home I've come to loathe Poppa John's Commercials and hate baskin robbins and all their flavors. All that still looks really good. Mini melt down time.......again.....a lot of what ifs come up. Maybes come up too. If I had it to do over again based on these 3 blurs of days would I? I'm having trouble seeing past the now into the big picture. J always has the right words to make me feel better and to make sense of the moment....again I'm reassured. And I come to realize some things on my own.
Thru these three days, all the tears cried, drainage tubes, texts from all the family and friends I didn't realize cared so much, I'm not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, only seeing the long black trains coming my way. I have to look past the now to the future. Isn't that what I'm doing this for after all? Even though I probably won't get any sleep tonight, or tommorrow night or..etc, etc, I have to look at the long term, and be thankful for it all, because without all of it, I wouldn't appreciate where I'm going, or all the work it took to get there. One year from now, I hope to be blogging about looking back on my journalling and feel something I don't feel very often. Satisfaction.
I love you, Justin, with all my heart, soul and mind!
...and fellow bloggers, will blogging ever feel like anything other than alot of random ramblings?:)
Waking up, nausea was horrible, and the gas pain in my left shoulder put both c-sections to shame. My upper abdomen was terriblysore but nothing compared to those two surgeries. I'm going to spare you what I saw around me in the recovery room, but I was faring better than most of the people waking up around me. J was waiting on me to come back to the room, along with mom, James and my stepmom. If the gas pains and nausea were hell, Dilaudid and Zofran were heaven.
Friday and Friday night are kinda blurry. I was up walking like a champ, burping like a pro. (both of which are very important) My IV infiltrated sometime during the night, so I woke up to a very painful, swollen hand and had to be stuck again. I had my second mini melt down when it was just me and J alone in the room, again questioning if my choice had been the right one.. Again, j reassures me, and does it with a smile while in return asks me if there is anything he can get me.
Saturday, catheter out. Up and down, up and down, all day saturday. Feeling good. Blowing the other patients out of the water. All the while I'm getting reglan, zofran and acetaminophen (yep, Tylenol..GB patients can't have NSAIDS such as ibuprofen...) thru my IV. I felt like I could actually do this. Talk to the dr, surgery went perfect, labs look good. Saturday night, J goes out to the car to find a flat tire. Yay. He spends two hours in the dark parking lot patching my tire where I had ran over a nail....I can't help but wonder why these things keep happening..(I'm no Job) Again, I was reassured:)
This morning, IV out. More and more walking. Maybe to the point where I over did it. Home around 1:00 or so. Up down, up down. Now I know I def. over did it. Both boys come home and I can't really bend down to kiss them or lift them up to sit on my lap. Over 12 hours with nothing for pain, drain tube still hanging in there somewhere and now I'm wanting nothing more than to lay flat in my comfortable bed, but can't do that either. Stomach muscles won't let me. I ate my last full meal on Wednesday night, drank clear liquids on Thursday, and have survived on 30 cc cups of ice until I got home today, when I graduated to 30 cc cups of Protein shakes, water and broth. I'll be on liquids for a week. I'm not neccessarily hungry, but just from the short time I've been home I've come to loathe Poppa John's Commercials and hate baskin robbins and all their flavors. All that still looks really good. Mini melt down time.......again.....a lot of what ifs come up. Maybes come up too. If I had it to do over again based on these 3 blurs of days would I? I'm having trouble seeing past the now into the big picture. J always has the right words to make me feel better and to make sense of the moment....again I'm reassured. And I come to realize some things on my own.
Thru these three days, all the tears cried, drainage tubes, texts from all the family and friends I didn't realize cared so much, I'm not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, only seeing the long black trains coming my way. I have to look past the now to the future. Isn't that what I'm doing this for after all? Even though I probably won't get any sleep tonight, or tommorrow night or..etc, etc, I have to look at the long term, and be thankful for it all, because without all of it, I wouldn't appreciate where I'm going, or all the work it took to get there. One year from now, I hope to be blogging about looking back on my journalling and feel something I don't feel very often. Satisfaction.
I love you, Justin, with all my heart, soul and mind!
...and fellow bloggers, will blogging ever feel like anything other than alot of random ramblings?:)
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Junior high was hard, high school was harder. Wedding was a breeze. Nursing school, wow. Kid number one, what was I thinking? Kid number 2...I wasn't thinking, lol. The past 8 years of my life has consisted of being a wife, mother and nurse. Who thought at 27 I'd be starting over? Literally.
A little over a year ago I started the process of gastric bypass. I went into the surgeons office in April thinking since I had my 6 months worth of documented weights I'd sign up, and set a date. Boy was I wrong. I've kept the prospect of the surgery on the DL because I didn't want to hype myself up or have a ton of ppl know about it only to be turned down or for some reason not be a candidate. To me, it feels like it has been a long road. I have a folder stuffed full of medical documents, receipts, diets, procedures, dates, etc, etc. Here is a pic of the sheet my time has revolved around since then. The last four months has been psych evaluations and counseling.
After all this was completed, I was able to see the surgeon for my "appointment appointment." October 24, J and I headed to Memphis to see when we were gonna take the plunge. Being the punctual folks we are, we were the first ones to sign in, and got first choice of surgery date. 16 days later! We are to be at St. Francis at 5:30 am November 9th. Never thought it would happen this soon. And once again, I thought I was prepared for what was to follow, but I was enlightened again! Lots of yall have been asking what the Liver Shrink Diet consists of, see below.
Breakfast:
Protein Shake or Protein Bar
(you may use any shake or bar as long as it has 220 or less calories and 10gm or less fat/serving)
Mid Morning Snack:
1 small piece of fruit
Lunch:
Protein Shake or Protein Bar
MidAfternoon Snack:
1 small piece of fruit
Supper:
3 0z lean meat (the size of a deck of cards) like fish, chicken, turkey..and thats 3 oz cooked
steamed vegetables or salad with fat free dressing
6 unsalted crackers, 2 slices of low calorie bread or 1 small baked potato (size of a computer mouse)
1/2 c fruit or 1 small piece of fruit
Evening snack:
1 small fruit
Beverages:
only CALORIE FREE beverages
No ALCOHOL
examples: decaf tea, crystal light, sugar free kool aid, powerade zero, water (<---yuck)
Not only does this diet physically prepare me for surgery, it gives me a little "taste" (pun intended) of what my diet will be like after surgery. Post op diet will include clear liquids, followed by full liquids and then on to puree.... My new stomach (medical folks now call it a pouch) will hold approx. 4 oz of food at a time. No liquids 30 minutes before or 30 minutes after meals. 75-100mg of protein daily. 2 multivitamins, 500 mcg vitamin b12 and 1200mg calcium citrate daily.
I feel like I have been rambling for the entirety of this blog. And now I feel blank, thoughts empty. I just wanted to write a little of what this process entails. There is so much more depth that I would need hours to go over. Reading back over all this I am seriously wondering, how am I going to do this? What have I gotten myself into? Then I look up and see my boys playing outside. I'm not out there with them. I look to my left and see myself in the mirror. Someone I don't want to be anymore. And that among other things makes surgery a must, not an option.
A little over a year ago I started the process of gastric bypass. I went into the surgeons office in April thinking since I had my 6 months worth of documented weights I'd sign up, and set a date. Boy was I wrong. I've kept the prospect of the surgery on the DL because I didn't want to hype myself up or have a ton of ppl know about it only to be turned down or for some reason not be a candidate. To me, it feels like it has been a long road. I have a folder stuffed full of medical documents, receipts, diets, procedures, dates, etc, etc. Here is a pic of the sheet my time has revolved around since then. The last four months has been psych evaluations and counseling.
After all this was completed, I was able to see the surgeon for my "appointment appointment." October 24, J and I headed to Memphis to see when we were gonna take the plunge. Being the punctual folks we are, we were the first ones to sign in, and got first choice of surgery date. 16 days later! We are to be at St. Francis at 5:30 am November 9th. Never thought it would happen this soon. And once again, I thought I was prepared for what was to follow, but I was enlightened again! Lots of yall have been asking what the Liver Shrink Diet consists of, see below.
Breakfast:
Protein Shake or Protein Bar
(you may use any shake or bar as long as it has 220 or less calories and 10gm or less fat/serving)
Mid Morning Snack:
1 small piece of fruit
Lunch:
Protein Shake or Protein Bar
MidAfternoon Snack:
1 small piece of fruit
Supper:
3 0z lean meat (the size of a deck of cards) like fish, chicken, turkey..and thats 3 oz cooked
steamed vegetables or salad with fat free dressing
6 unsalted crackers, 2 slices of low calorie bread or 1 small baked potato (size of a computer mouse)
1/2 c fruit or 1 small piece of fruit
Evening snack:
1 small fruit
Beverages:
only CALORIE FREE beverages
No ALCOHOL
examples: decaf tea, crystal light, sugar free kool aid, powerade zero, water (<---yuck)
Not only does this diet physically prepare me for surgery, it gives me a little "taste" (pun intended) of what my diet will be like after surgery. Post op diet will include clear liquids, followed by full liquids and then on to puree.... My new stomach (medical folks now call it a pouch) will hold approx. 4 oz of food at a time. No liquids 30 minutes before or 30 minutes after meals. 75-100mg of protein daily. 2 multivitamins, 500 mcg vitamin b12 and 1200mg calcium citrate daily.
I feel like I have been rambling for the entirety of this blog. And now I feel blank, thoughts empty. I just wanted to write a little of what this process entails. There is so much more depth that I would need hours to go over. Reading back over all this I am seriously wondering, how am I going to do this? What have I gotten myself into? Then I look up and see my boys playing outside. I'm not out there with them. I look to my left and see myself in the mirror. Someone I don't want to be anymore. And that among other things makes surgery a must, not an option.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)