The struggle is real

Sorry I have been MIA.  It is now 2 weeks since surgery and I have been struggling with figuring it all out.

This is definitely not an easy process or journey.  Of course, the struggle is worse because of a stomach virus I have.  When the scale is stuck, you want it to move, but you don't want it to move 6lbs overnight because of diarrhea and vomiting.  So my current focus is hydration.  Last thing I want is to be dehydrated.

Going to start taking Motive Pure and a probiotic.  Need to make sure my electrolytes are replenished. 

Food intake is tough.  Today, I made it to 70 grams of protein.  Need to work my way back up to 100 grams a day.  So hard when you get full so quickly.  I am also doing better with liquid intake.  Up to 50 oz today. 

Because of my bug, I am going to step back on the progression of food stages and stick with liquid and pureed.  But I have to admit, it SUCKS!  I am tired of drinking my food.  I tried egg salad, which I used to love, and now it makes me nauseous.  Today, I did discover, sugar free hot cocoa and Inspire Butter Mint.  OH MY!  It was like have a forbidden treat.  It helps me get 20 grams of protein in pretty easily.

If anyone has any other ideas for getting in the protein, I would be grateful! 

As of today, I am down 21.5 lbs since surgery and 4lbs away from my first weight loss goal of 349.  My goal is to be weighed on the scare at my PCP's office. 

Crazy journey.......I know it gets easier....but right now, I am struggling with waiting for that to happen.  My emotions are getting a little wonky and I am tired of drinking stuff.  I will push forward and look towards all the people I have met, along this journey, that have been successful!  You are all an inspiration and will keep me going.

Hard work paying off!

It happened, I had WLS!  I still can't believe that 2/3 of my stomach is gone forever.  I thought I was going to be really nervous the morning of surgery, but I wasn't.  I knew that I had made the right decision.

Dr. Bello said it would be around 90 mins from the time they rolled me from the pre-op area until he came out and spoke with my parents.  My parents said it wasn't even 90 mins and he told them it went better than expected.  He was in and out in no time!

I was stuck in recovery for 6 hours while Unit 48 was waiting for a clean room.  The theory in recover was, they didn't want to add a new patient until shift change because the nurses didn't want to have to write a report.  Well......although it would have been nice for my parents to be able to spend time with me, being in recovery allowed me 1:1 attention to help me walk as much as I wanted AND to actually get some rest.  We all know that once you are on the unit, there is no resting.  They wake you up every hour to get your vitals and ask you to pee.

From the moment I woke up, the only thing I could concentrate on was the damn gas pains.  I used a few expletives to describe the pain.  The pain from the incisions was minimal and still is.  The gas pains lasted about 5 days.  I finally pooped on day 6.  I actually drove yesterday as well.  I am down to only taking pain meds at night.

I was able to go out shopping for a few hours on two separate days.  Walking definitely helps with the gas pains and with getting things moving on the back end of things.

I definitely have an amazing support network.  Without them, this journey would be a much more difficult one. 

I had my one week follow up today.  I am down 9.3lbs since surgery and 49lbs since the start of my journey, my incisions are healing as they are supposed to heal, I am close to getting in all my liquid and most of my protein and I was cleared to travel to Boston next week.  I just need to make sure we stop so I can walk every 2 hours.  I also got a script so that I can use my medical cafeteria plan to pay for my vitamins!  Good day.

I do have to hide my scale though, because I don't want to focus on the number on the scale.  I want to focus on how my body feels, my inches and how my clothes are fitting.

I also hate that all scales read differently, so I will just focus on the scale going down and not the actual numbers.

So......this new chapter of my life is in full swing......looking forward to seeing where it leads.