I'm Losing, I'm Losing, I'm Losing hoorayyyyyy

Ok so i had more food yesterday than I have had in ages-Frankly to embarrassing to post so I wont. lets just say there was chocolate involved and leave it at that (no wine or any alcoholic beverage as yet though!!). Anyway I was a tad bummed out with myself because the healing is obviously working too well and lo and behold I got on the scale this morning and dropped another 2 pounds!!!!!!!!!!!! So as I did a little happy dance around the kitchen I dug deep for a new found vow to be a good girl (for goodness sake i am less than two weeks out and I am already feeling the need to renew my efforts...How sad is that!!!)

so as of this morning-

1/2 rice cereal with apple juice
1 2" square of cornbread mushed up in 1 c of milk. (ohhh this cornbread is the leftovers of last night's sins-but note it is a leftover!!!)

urchhhhhhh my pound a day has come to an end

So although I am all good with the food level I have been eating for the last few days, sadly my weight loss has slowed. I am totally cool with that!!! I stayed at 12 pounds down today. but oh the joys of eggs and cottage cheese, and string cheese, and yogurt and rice pudding oh and other stuff that is good.


It is 11:22 pm and im popping back on for the food list-not so good

2 egg scramble with one string cheese and small slice of cheddar
1/2 cottage cheese
string cheese
tunafish with dill pickles and mayo
1 string cheese, 1 yogurt
small piece of fish, 1/2 mashed potatoes with lots of milk to sauce it up.
1/2 rice pudding
3 sting cheeses (one at a time over time)
1/2 cup of mashed potato

Man o man this is a ton more food than i have eaten up to this point The potatoes tonight were not milked up and kind of got stuck-I chased with a small bit of crystal light (i know not the thing to do and bad bad bad) but it worked this time. I do know my stoma is still wide open so i think this was more sticking on the sides on the way down than stopping. This is twice as much food as i had a couple of days ago-I am going to have to keep exercising or work on getting a grip on the quantity. I have to say i was hoping that the good times would last and that i was one of those rare few who never needed a fill---well somehow I dont think so.

My scars and holes are feeling pretty good now-I went for a 2.2 mile walk around our neighborhood and then went shopping tonight for back to school stuff. With no pain-

On the way around the neighborhood we stopped at two garage sales. I bought a built in ironing board (15$ what a bargain! They are over close to $200 brand new) but am going to save it for my next house.

I got a considerable amount of work done today (partially because my internet was down for 24 hours). I moved myself away from the TV and into the living room where I finally finished the paper i was having trouble with, edited another paper that i had been putting off and finally finished reading a book i am supposed to review.

Now i have two more reports to write and oh i don't know 5 flipping articles!!! I am banking a lot on staying in the town where my dd is going to school and working in the library everyday. Fingers crossed it is effective and I don't come up with ways to distract myself.

Day 7-Oh what wonderful mushies I had

So today I moved myself onto mushy mushies. My swelling has obviously gone down and the liquids are just not cutting it. In addition there was no way I was getting enough protein in. So today I explored the wonderful world of mushies. For breakfast I had my regular rice baby cereal with apple juice. Midmorning I had about a 1/2 cup cottage cheese. For lunch I took a can of tuna, sweet relish and mayonnaise and made a tuna salad. I ate about 1/2 cup of that. finally for dinner I had the tastiest egg on the planet. I took shredded mozzarella cheese and a little bit of cheddar and browned them in a bit of butter. When they are melted and bubbled a bit i added my egg and milk and scrambled it softly. then added salt and pepper right before i ate it. Yummmmmmmmmmm.

After dinner I went and played bunco fully prepared to eat nothing but they had really soft cheesecake. I had 3 bites (a sliver) and then went back to my crystal light. After that we went to a friends house and I had 3 squares of chocolate and finished my bottle of crystal light. I think I seriously damaged my pound a day plan but im good with it because I found food i think i can live with for a long time and have enough protein!

I dont feel a lot of restriction anymore and I am not really supposed to have any as there is no fill at all just the band itself. I did feel it the first few days as i was swollen but I am not really having a huge problem (yet) limiting myself to 1/2-1cup servings of whatever i am eating (I know i am seriously motivated at this point). If I can end up with this feeling of normalcy but just not hungry that would be grand!!!

Day 6 of the endless liquids

so last night i stayed up late-had a long nap in the afternoon-I had a little tiny meltdown on the whole liquid thing (as I expected to do) I was about to crack into some cottage cheese when i spotted a bar of cadbury's from the UK. well i did keep some control on the break down (there is candy left). It went down ok but I was a little nausious when i finished. I drank a little of my crystal light and rested while watching the Duchess of Duke Street on direct view Netflix (my new favorite evening entertainment) I went to bed after a while and all seems to be ok now.

This morning:

I slept until 9am. Burst forth from bed and cleaned house (with extensive help from my oldest dear daughter) I picked up what i could from the higher places, swept the entry and hall floors and did a bit of mopping. My daughters got the stuff off the floor and vacuumed.

I had a conference call at 10am for work and corrected a few papers and had lunch. It is now 1:42pm and Im sleepy. I have a pedicure at 2 yay hooray my nails are getting long but i cannot reach them with my post surgery painful tummy. I am really looking forward to it.

Afternoon:

My pedicure was great-French tip is my favorite because you get to wear it for a really long time before it wears or grows out.

Afterward I went to booster juice and got a smoothie. They have one that has 45 grams of protein. I have been having a really hard time reaching the protein levels i am supposed to on liquids and i like this peanut butter, chocolate and banana one i have been drinking. So anyway with the 45 protein grams i can get an additional 12 grams if i add a whey booster. that is 57 grams. I figure if I have one a day until i get real food again I will be better than i have been up to this point. The amount of smoothie i need to ingest is way too much in one sitting (I have been having a 1/2 size one) but I figure i can bring a big one home everyday and eat it over three meals from the freezer.

Im having spaghetti in a blender tonight-I will let you know how it goes!

Day 5 kerfuffle

I woke up this morning worrying about work and how I am continually behind and am finding great difficulty in producing even half as much as I should be. I spent and hour trying to figure out how to write a report that has been due for a week (still dont have an answer for that one!) and got up. I used to be able to craft full papers in my head (much less two paragraph reports). Im not sure if its my heart that isn't in it, if I am just too tired or whether lack of solids is getting to me!.

i got up and attempted to make some cream of wheat-it overflowed all over the microwave. I tried again and put some mollassas (not sure how to spell and dont really care) and ruined it (i love gingersnap cookies but this wasn't even close!). My oldest daughter got up with the baby and tripped over a laundry basket almost falling with the baby that didn't sleep last night so she is exhausted. I took the baby and sent her back to bed. Then my dd turned the TV on (always a noisy distraction) and started kicking the babies jumperoo gym so that it rattled. I was trying to put him back to sleep but every time the TV made a screeching noise or the jumperoo rattled he jumped....auuuurghghghghghgh. I sent her to bed turned everything off and am now ready to go back to bed!

After a 15 minute break period my dd daughter is back out quietly working on a craft project with the TV off! The baby went back to sleep and maybe just maybe I can have a peaceful morning.

Day 4 and all is well

ok i am now down 8 pounds-that part is good! I finally had to put in a new nuva ring because the period bleeding was beyond acceptable. It has slowed down a bit since the ring went in but geeezz i'm tired today. I dont know if it is tired from the lack of solids or lack of blood.

I can bend wayyy better. the incision sites are healing nicely even starting to itch a little. I managed to sleep on my side for a little while last night.

todays food-

1/2 c cream of wheat of wheat with with soy milk, cinnamon and splenda
1/2 c cream of potato soup
1 c smoothie made with mango yogurt, banana, peanut butter, soymilk, hemp protein powder, and lots of ice (it made two cups and I shared)

Ill probably have some split pea soup tonight

and of course lots of water with crystal light.

we are off for a potluck picnic for my dd new school-oh joy! potluck when you are on liquids!

Well we went to the potluck. It was outside in a park and raining cats and dogs. The food part was really difficult. I took two bites of a plum and watermelon my dd picked up and ate about a tablespoon of hummus someone brought. I stayed away from the food tables but it was not much fun over all. We did get to meet my dd new teacher for next year. She seem nice at this point.

After the potluck I made my husband drive me to McDonalds for a strawberry milkshake (feeling sorry for myself). I drank some of it but it tasted like liquified sugar and was not really good. On retrospect I think I have 'treated my self' with food when I feel deprived, sad, proud, excited, tired...you name it!

Day 3 post op

Today is much better.

I got my TOM yesterday! I have been monitoring closely to make sure I don't need to go back on the birth control stuff but so far so good. Other than it being difficult to deal with at the same time my stomach still hurts it is behaving as a good period should.

I got to have full liquids today and Life is OK again. I had cream of wheat for breakfast with a little soy milk and cinnamon. My daughter made me drink down some nasty protein milk for a midmorning snack (what is with that protein crap! can they not manage to make it taste any good at all?) and then for lunch I had some watered down split pea soup. My husband was nice enough to make me a batch from scratch so it tasted as good as it could and then spent the morning blending it up to a fine pulp. It was really thick so I had to water it down quite a bit but it was tasty. I just had a yogurt that i guess was against the rules because it had sugar in it (my family the food police had a cow! but they bought the thing for me!). I am planning on potato soup for dinner and maybe a bit o milkshake for dessert.

In between i have been trying to get in liquids-usually water with crystal light lemonaide. I have to drink two bottles a day and Ive just gone through my first---

so i have a feeling protein and liquid are the themes for the week and I do not see my being a huge success at either!

Ill keep you all posted however.

I am banded

Well the deed is done.

I am not sure how I feel about it. I am in a lot of pain and I have to say the liquid stage is crap. especially the liquid out part!

They moved the day from Thursday to Wednesday at 1pm. My husband and I were planning on a trip to an area just an hour south of where i live to spend the night and do a bit of wine tasting. Well we did it anyway. We left Tuesday morning and went to Dundee. We sampled a few wines. had a nice dinner. and then spent the night at a nice bed and breakfast place. The down side-I had to wake up and wash with disinfectant soap to get ready for the surgery and of course no breakfast because they cut me off of liquids at midnight.

We got up and left by 9 headed into the hospital. I got there early so we took a ride on the tram down to the doctors office in an attempt to fill out the survey they wanted me to do. No one was in from the research study people so we went back up to the hospital and checked in. I was checked in by 10:30 and called into the pre-op area by 11:30 and then the waiting began. Supposedly the doctor was put behind because of previous patients. tick tick tick tock-finally at 5pm (yes that is correct i sat on a bed waiting from 10:30 am to 5pm) I almost chickened out several times! they did have wireless internet and cable so that helped a little bit. Plus I read a book for some of the time.

at 5pm i was rolled into the surgery, put under and woke up in recovery at 10:30 pm (Goodness knows why that took 5 and 1/2 hours either!!) My husband got one call after about 1.5 hours telling him my surgery was done and that they were cleaning up (he wasnt sure if it was me they were cleaning or the room!). The next phone call he received was from me at 11pm when I finally made it up to the ward. for the most part this team was great. The person who rolled me up to my room was a bit of a bitch as she kept moaning about how big the bed was and how she couldn't onto the regular elevators with it (not sure if that was a slam at my largess or not!) I got wheeled into my room and my roommate was a lady who had the same surgery just before me. It was nice to talk to her during our very short recovery.

We were not allowed anything to eat or drink until Thursday evening and I was stuck with my catheter in until almost as long (despite my begging to have it removed from midnight Wednesday throughout thursday). It was a bit of a shock to be hamstringed with the catheter and them boom in the space of a couple of hours the catheter was out, we had been fed a liquid meal and xrayed with barium light to make sure stuff was moving through our stoma. and then bingo bango they cut me loose by 5pm. my husband drove me home and I collapsed on the couch-Bunny! How in the heck did you tour Bruges the day after this surgery????? I am toast! stomach hurts and tired on the drugs.

I took some pictures of me before surgery and will attach them as soon as I can get them uploaded.