Surgery day

I am up early - couldn't sleep for some odd reason - and getting ready to head to the hospital. Can't believe I will be banded in mere hours!

Here we go

Tomorrow at this time I should be in the recovery room!! 

I am not sure what the logistics are going to be.  I asked D not to take off work that day, to just drop me off at the hospital.  It isn't like there is much he could do anyway.  I might regret that decision as am being wheeled in to the operating room but will be glad he has an extra day off after my surgery to wait on me.  The good thing is I am the only band patient tomorrow so I should have the undivided attention of the nursing staff.  I have two new books downloaded on the kindle and season two of six feet under on the iPhone.  I have a feeling I will sleep all day and wont use any of it, lol.

I have read everything I possibly can and have done all the required research so I am as prepared as I can be. 

I have to admit, I am afraid that I will be one of those that doesn't lose much or has lots of complications.  Just trying to keep thinking positive and keep things in perspective.

Doubt I will be able to blog tomorrow because I have to be at the hospital at 6 for 7am surgery.  Please send good vibes my way.

bi-polar

So I am sure my feelings are 100% natural, but I am cycling through emotions at break neck speed....I'm excited, I'm scared, I just want to get it over with, I want to cancel.  All of this in the span of about 5 minutes.  I had my pre-op today and the nurse laughed and said it is all natural, everyone freaks out as the day approaches

Funny thing is, the one thing that I am freaking out about now is two weeks on liquids!!  I know I won't be hungry the first few days after the surgery but the thought of three weeks on liquids (the week pre and the two post) is not making me happy right now.  I am clinging to the hope that I can get move on to mushies earlier.

I think I got everything I need.  They told me to get some Phillips MoM for gas and constipation, the nausea meds were called in today and the percocet can't get picked up until the day of surgery.

According to my bff at the clinic I will be the only lap band patient that day so I will be very spoiled.

I really hope I am doing the right thing.

AAAAAAHHHHHHH

I AM REALLY GOING TO DO THIS!!!!

went to the bank today and got my cashiers check aka my retirement fund to pay for the surgery and will drop that off on Monday during the pre-op.

Liquid diet is going well, I am so nervous most of the time the thought of food is making me sick.  About the time I do get hungry I eat a Popsicle and I am all better.  D ate pizza a few minutes ago, it smelled good but it was making my stomach do flip flops.

I am going to eat some light soup tomorrow...it is on my approved diet for a change of pace, although I have found some very yummy protein smoothies. 

comments

Thanks to Ronnie http://bandumentary.blogspot.com/ for letting me know no one could comment on my blog in the template I had.  Hopefully the new simplified template fixed that....

Thanks Ronnie!!

What to bring

I am starting to mentally pack my bag for the hospital on Thursday.  So far the list consists of:

Comfy clothes
flip flops
medication - current and the ones they will give me at pre-op
my pillow
Kindle
toothbrush - I am guessing I will need to bring my own?
maybe my netbook?
cell phone charger

I need to check on buying:
a cheap non-underwire cotton bra
gas-X of some sort, I think the strips will make me gag...
scar cream stuff, can't remember the name of it right now - won't need that for a week or so anyway.

What else will I need?

officially nuts

I had a dream last night that I was at a seminar and I knew all the people there.  It was a mix of calorieking and lapband talk people.  At one point things went horribly wrong; as it normally does in my dreams, and there was a killer on the loose.  The only thing I was concerned with was if anyone had tasted the Unjury chicken soup flavored protein powder and if I should order more of it before my surgery.  Wow, only me.

Starting to get the stuff together for the hospital.  The countdown at this moment is 6 days 21 hours, 50 minutes and some change which means

AT THIS TIME NEXT WEEK I WILL BE BANDED

so many mixed fillings going through my head!!  I am excited one minute, nervous the next.  Wanting to get over it and at the same time thinking what the hell am I about to do to myself. 

I talked to the PA at the sleep center yesterday.  She worked for WL surgeons for a long time and she said this is hands down the best option for me. 

I really need to get some work done but I am having a really hard time concentrating.  I doubt that is going to get any better any time soon....

Getting closer

I talked to Roberta, my bff from the surgeons office today and got all the in's and out's of what I need to do/bring to my pre-op and for the actual surgery date.  I find it harder and harder to concentrate on everything the closer I get to the big day.  I have been lurking on every lap band blog I can find, going back to the first post to read about the early stages and then looking at the latest post for a "where are they now".  The blogs have been so helpful!!  I think they have calmed my nerves a lot. 

While I was out of town last week I took before pictures.  I know I need to post them; I haven't given the link to my blog to many people and I am mainly writing this to calm my nerves and to see how far I have come.  However, I find it very hard to even look at them right now.  Maybe I will be able to post them after I see some progress.  My plan, for now, is to take another set of pictures when I go to Jackson MS at the end of July.  I don't have a full length mirror in my house (for good reason) and hotels are just perfect for seeing all the things I have been trying to hide.

I actually told a friend of mine at work how much I weigh.  That is unprecedented, no one knows my weight except me and my doctor(s).  It didn't help the old ego that she is 8 months pregnant and weighs less than me but you have to start somewhere.

Tomorrow is supposed to be my last day of real food for a week, but I am going to do a horrible thing and postpone it for a day.  The few people at work that know about my surgery want to take me out for one last lunch and I have an appointment tomorrow during lunch.  In a way I am thinking to myself "seriously it is just one day, what can it hurt" but another part of me is thinking I am already a failure. 

One thing I need to do this week is break down and try the Unjury chicken broth protein powder.  I can hardly type that without gagging.  I don't think I will so much need it presurgery since I will be able to make protein smoothies, but if it is OK tasting I need to order some to have post-op. 

I have taken my goal jeans out of storage...brand new True Religion jeans I paid full price for (which I hardly ever do) that still have the tags on them, since I outgrew them before I had a special occasion to wear them.  Once I lose this blubber I am going to buy more nice designer jeans and wear them to work!!  Heck I might even wear them to bed!!

oops

So reading my last blog should give a clue to how nervous I am starting to get.

I went to GNC yesterday and bought 12 bottles of apple melon Isopure for $1.25 per bottle. They were on clearance because they expire in August.

Lots of personal stuff going on right now but I am trying really hard to stick to a mostly liquid diet; even though it doesn't officially start until Thursday.

I bought some PJ's' for the hospital yesterday. The shirt (which is too small) says "kinda on a diet) and the pants have tape measures, scales, bikinis and little sayings all over them. I just had to have them.

Also need to remember to call the hotel I will be staying at the friday after surgery to make sure I can get an early check in. It will be here before you know it.

2 weeks from today. My pre-op has got a call from the hospital to set up my pre-op on Monday June 27. Here we go

minor hiccup

So I called to have the money for my surgery transfered out of my TSP account. It turns out that I am only able to take out a little over 7K right now. D told me he would pay for half of my surgery when I first started talking about it and I told him no that is is something I felt I needed to do on my own. So today I had to call him (I am out of town) and ask hime if he was still willing to loan (give) me money for the procedure. I told him that if he didn't want to I have more than enough to have the band done in Mexico. He wasn't too keen on that idea and told me he was sure we could work something out.

So, hopefully sometime in the next 10 days I will have the money together to pay for everything.

Thursday the low calorie diet starts. The week after the liquid diet starts. It doesn't feel real yet.

16 days and counting

I sent off the paperwork to get the loan from my retirement account today. It is kinda starting to feel very real. I guess once I start the diet it will really hit home.

I ate funnel cake at TT yesterday and C asked me if I was really ready to give that kind of stuff up for the rest of my life. Honestly, I ate a few bites and it wasn't as good as I remembered it being. I am sure I will forget that again once I can't have it.

The next two weeks are going to be pretty busy thankfully. I am going out of town for work tomorrow for the rest of the week. So glad I don't have to do a two week liquid diet!!

It is an exciting weekend in T-Town, time for the Tulsa Tough bike races. Pretty much the only thing about summer that I look forward to. Imagine a thousand professional bicycle riders from all over the world walking around in bike shorts. I won't go into the one rider from Team Jelly Belly that came up to me last night and asked me a question in his Aussie accent. I think I might quit my job and be a full time groupie....swoon.

But I digress, One of my friends is heavily into the volunteer aspect of the event. I promised her I would help her out so I spent a good part of my evening handing out ride packets. This friend, I will call C has trained in "my" running group for a long time and has done several half marathons. Like me she is very slow; she is also a bigger girl. She wants me to do a half marathon in Memphis with her in December and she asked me if I had been training. I opened up to her and told her that I had been walking but haven't been running because I was being banded on June 30. I thought she was going to flip her lid. It turns out her roommate was banded in 2008 and has had a horrible experience. She made me promise I would talk to the roommate before I had the surgery. I told her that was fine because I really want to hear both sides; most of the people I have seen/read about have had a very positive experience overall.

In the course of the conversation it came out that the roommate is not following any kind of a diet or exercise program and pretty much eats nothing but chocolate "because it is all that will go down" This girl is also losing her hair. DUH!!! I told her that I call BS. If she can eat chocolate she can drink a protein shake or eat some sort of protein. It is her own fault her experience is so horrible. According to C all of roommates restriction has been removed and she still can't even get water down first thing in the morning. I asked if she had been back to the doctor because something is obviously wrong, of course she hadn't.

I am pretty sure C decided she hadn't dissuaded me from the procedure so she asked me if I was prepared to only eat 5 bites of something for the rest of my life and I can honestly say that if that is what it takes, yes I am. C said that she just couldn't imagine living the rest of her life like that and would rather be heavy. I told her it is obvious that this wasn't for everyone and I am prepared to eat small healthy meals the rest of my life if it means that I will finally be able to be at a healthy weight.

Interesting night.

Horrible picture of me taken on the beach in Florida about a month ago. No I am not wearing a floatation device, that is just a fat roll.

20 days 11 hours

I have gone from panic to being very excited about getting skinny. If I could I would totally have my surgery tomorrow.

I have read a few lap band blogs and it has made me feel so much better about my decision to have the lap band.

One week before my pre-surgery diet starts. Since I am at a "lower" BMI I have to do one week low cal (1200 calorie) and one week liquids. So in preparation of this I went to a chichi cookie bakery I have heard about and asked them to box up on of each kind of cookie. They though I was nuts. I honestly just want to taste all of them and throw them out but those were some damn expensive cookies to waste!!

Copy from old blog

38 days

The surgery date has been set for June 30. I really wish I could have it sooner but I just can’t get the money together in time.

I go see the dietician Tuesday to discuss diet after the band. I told the doctor that I really have a mushy food phobia, so she is supposed to help me come up with something I can handle.

D is worried that I am just wasting my money; truth is I am a little worried about it too. I see so many positive posts about lap band and I have really been avoiding trying to find the negative. I finally broke down and looked it up today. According to Dr. Oz’s website the band doesn’t work for 1/3 of the people who get it and about half have it removed in the first year. I have to keep in mind that the surgeon really thinks this will work for me and I have to keep up with the positive thinking. That and half marathon training might help keep me on track.

I am also scared because food will no longer be a “go to” for stress and anxiety. That is a really scary thought, my whole way of thinking is about to change in a little over a month.

Before

I have battled my weight all my life, literally my entire life. As a kid a was the fat little kid in the dance recital, the fat sister, the fat (and slow) marathon finisher….you get the point. I have had brief periods of “thinness” but never felt thin until I looked back on the pictures

After trying everything under sun the I have decided to have lap band surgery. For those people who think it is the easy way out (God I hope so) I am very certain that it isn’t. I have told very few people because I fell this decision is a personal one. I need support right now not people (like my ex-trainer) to tell me that I am pretty much a failure. Believe me, I have felt that way when it comes to my weight all my life.

Enough sniveling….I go to the surgeon tomorrow for my initial consultation. I am on the cusp of the low end of the BMI range so I power ate today and feel very ill. I should have no problem meeting the weight restriction after that load of pasta!!

I hope to have surgery by the end of June. Much more to come.