Down 27!!!

Slow and steady I guess, and I can be grateful it is not a gain.........but I think things have slowed down because I can't walk like I want. My knee just locks up and it is further agrivated by this whacky weather lately. Arthritis is a nasty thing. I have gone and bought a couple aerobics DVD's....I just got them and so this will help, I don't have to walk. I may have to go to the ortho doc and see about getting some heavy duty anti-inflammatories for the pain. Sometimes I lay in bed and just hurt so bad!!!

I was a little disappointed in the weight loss, but doctor says I am right on track, 7 pounds in 7 weeks. He says "we like our patients to drop 1 to 2 pounds a week".........I know I can step that up to 14 pounds in 7 weeks if I just get moving and I will...!!! He also said that since I have only had 1 fill in the band that there will be "plateus" like this.

I should be getting my 2nd fill within a week, so things will step up.

I have a classmate from my High School class of 1979 who has been contacting me (Hi Elsa!!!) about a friend who is looking into the band.......I sent as much info along with this blog address and so hoping I can give her some valuable info.

I am sooooo glad for this band........the weight is coming off slow, but there have been NO gains......and for this I am grateful!!!

Thanks for keeping up with my blog folks!!!!

----Keely

Down 23!!

It's slow going, pound by pound, and some days not even anything down. I went to my regular Primary Care doc and she is pleased as she can be at my progress. I was down 23 from her charts. Right now all med levels will stay the same, but she expects diabetic meds to get decreased in coming months as well as BP meds and maybe even the cholesterol meds. My next lapband surgeon's appointment is on January 28th, and I will be getting another band fill around that time.

I went up to Lake Lanier yesterday with a friend of mine who knows the area as he grew up there, and let me tell you, the drought is BAD. I know some of you have asked me about our drought situation here in the southeast United States and I took some unreal pics. I will post them here. Lake Lanier supplies most of Atlanta and most of northern Georgia with water. It's a huge reservoir that encompasses 2 or 3 counties.

Me, December 30, 2008--Lake Lanier

First band fill.....weeee!!!

I know some of you have said I have had no updates to the blog in a while.........sorry about that, it is just that there have been no real changes.

I have been at a stand still on my weight for over 2 weeks now......it's been discouraging but at my doctor's appointment last Friday they said a "plateau" is VERY VERY normal and I was down 17 pounds. The doctor said that is VERY good. His words to me were "let's not forget you have lost this weight with nothing in your band"........There is something very psychological about the number "20" (as in pounds).........and my scale had at one point said I was down 20, but I was playing around with 2 to 4 pounds. Some days I was down 16, others I was down 20.

It was good to see Doctor "S" (as we call him) again. He used some lydocaine to deaden the area of the port, then stuck an 18 gauge needle in, he asked me to look at the screen (something like an ultrasound) and you could see the needle go in. He injected 4 cc's of saline and then they tilted the table up so the fun part could start. They handed me some barium to drink. YUMMM!!! NOT!! The doctor said to look at the screen and then take some sips. I got to see the barium go down the esophigus and into the "pouch" and he adjusted the amount of saline a little bit to make the band opening into the main part of the stomach the right size. The whole procedure took all of 5 minutes.

I am primarily on liquids until tomorrow, but I have had a few soft foods and some baby food bananas. It's all gone down pretty well. I feel fuller faster, which is what they are trying to achieve.

My next fill will be in 4 weeks. My next doc's appt. is in 5 weeks I believe.

Let's hope I am now over my plateau!!!!!!

Weeeeeeee!!!!!

After being at a small stall for a few days I am back on my way down..........19 pounds gone!! I am not really all that hungry and I am having a hell of a time getting my protein.........I have the whey powder that I mix with skim milk and I have to make a conscience effort to get it in!!

I am on pureed now and even chew some things. There have been a few times I forgot to chew real well and the food got stuck briefly in the band. It's a feeling of strangling and not being able to breathe, kind of terrifying. There is some pain with it too. Right now the band is not even filled, it is wide open and my first fill will be on December 10th......then it is on to liquids for a couple days afterward. Weight loss escalates in the days after a fill they say. WOOT!!

I am neck deep in helping plan my High School class 30th reunion back in Sheridan, Wyoming. We are thinking it will be in July 2009 some time. I have done up a webpage and entered about 260 plus classmate names on the site. People are fired up and I am busily trying to scrounge info on the web on people in the class. It's tough!! I have appealed on my chat board site for places that I can go, and even pay to get more info on people. I have been using ZabaSearch.com and Intellius.com to narrow down locations and addresses.

This banding all comes at a GREAT time......my plan is to go to the reunion and "wow" them with at least a 60 plus pound loss. Maybe even more!! Gooooood timing Keely!!!

My scale better be right!!!

I am down 15 now!! I have a "Weight Watchers" brand scale and so far it has been within a pound or two of Dr. S's scale.........I am mostly on liquids still and of course I am a a realist, this weight dropping will slow down to 1 to 3 pounds a week right soon when I start eating normal foods.

I am going to make a conscience choice to eat less fatty things when this does happen. More fruits and veggies. Right now I am craving a veggie stew in my crockpot---probably without meat. Carrots, potatoes, corn, green beans, tomatoes. I could live on that stuff!!

I am also not doing any big walks yet......just really don't have energy to do so, and all the people on my bandster Yahoo groups say this is a time for "healing". I agree with them. :) I do park a bit away from stores and walk that little extra into the store from the parking lot. I am also in a size smaller jeans. These are jeans I put away some months ago because they were cutting into my waist. It feels GOOD!!!

I did get a call from my sister in Utah. She was just calling to see how I was. I like the fact that we have gotten closer since this surgery and I appreciate the fact that she sacrificed time from her really busy Mormon Tabernacle Choir schedule and her two busy kids who keep her hopping and her husband who took the reins while she was gone so graciously. I was glad to show her around work, and show her a little about Atlanta. it would be fun if she, Jeff and the kids could live down here!!!

Week One!!! 10 pounds!!! GONE!!!!

OK........it's a scale victory, or what they call a "SV" in my Yahoo group............10 pounds down today!! I also got the bandages off and the stitches out too. All 5 incisions look really good, some of the best on my body to date!!! I got to feel the port today,it's alot deeper than I thought. He wants to see me in 4 weeks, and then the day after he will do my first "fill".......meaning that I will be on liquids for a couple days following the fill.

I got to see my buddy Penny too at the doc's office, her appt was 30 minutes after me and she too lost 10 pounds.......actually, because she gained weight before the surgery, she is down 15, but they go by her weight on her office charts.

It's Halloween and I am grateful to be HOME..........time to go turn the porch light OUT and turn the lights off in the living room. I haven't passed out candy to the little beggers for years. Kids now days are just doing the mall, school, church thing..........and less of them are even going door to door, and those that do are TOO old to be doing it anyway!!!! Bah-Humbug!!!!!!!

That picture above was taken in April 2007 on the banks of the big river in Mississippi. That is me with two wonderful friends I keep in touch with!! We had gotten together, a bunch of us from my gun chat board to shoot. Imagine MY surprise today when I open the mailbox and inside was a package from those two containing a gift certificate to VICTORIA SECRET!!! I can only walk by and eye ball the store now........their card inside says: "Get well soon, Change is coming to YOU!!---Best Wishes, Enjoy!!"......Thanks M and R!!!! We gotta get together and shoot our guns again!!! You HOTTIES!!!!!!!

POOOOOO-DEUX!!!!!! (that's "two" to me and you!!)

Yep!!! You read that right!! Just when I thought my system had shut down, or gotten clogged some how, a MIRACLE happened!!! TWICE!!! Yep kids, SIX days without any form of "Number 2"....... (told you that this blog is NOT going to be pleasant and will talk about bodily functions----SORRY MOM!!!!) but I was getting kind of miserable. Now I am so hungry even a PIZZA BOX sounds good!!! ugh!!! Two more weeks of liquids!! ----BUT.......I am down under my pre-op weight now.....have lost about 15 pounds in the last 5 or 6 days (see earlier post about water weight gain and my part time job as a SPONGE!!) but 90% of it was WATER!!!

OK, so I don't have and likely will NEVER have a "bikini body" I wanted to share with you a stomach picture of the bandages. I have 5 small slits that were cut, the biggest is where the "port" is where the doctor will inject saline to tighten the band. Also, because I was given some sort of a blood thinner I guess I had a hemmorage when they took the IV out.......lovely eh????? That's my left arm on the right. The port is under that large bandage on the left there.

Well here I am........5 days post op..........

It's October 28th, 2am and I am trying to get myself turned around for the graveyard shift coming this Thursday through Sunday nights. I just hope I can make it.



I had my band put in on Thursday October 23rd at Dekalb Medical at 2pm. I loved the staff there and I really like my doctor too. I had to go on a clear liquid diet 2 days prior to the surgery, so nothing but chicken broth, popcicles, water, kool-aide and apple juice from Tuesday at midnight till Thursday at midnight. I felt weak and starved the whole time and thought I would die. I even lost a couple pounds in the process!!!



I had to be at the surgical center at 11:30am, and went into surgery by 2pm. I was awake from what I can gather by 3:30pm. My mouth was like cotton and I was dying for ice....anything wet. My good friend Penny who I met in the waiting room on Monday at the pre-op blood appt. was across the way from me and she yelled to me "Hey Keely!!....wake up!!".......I could barely focus on her. She was a couple hours prior to me with the same doctor and was getting the band too. Mary from Dr. Steinberg's Yahoo group came by to see Penny and I on Friday. BLESS YOU MARY!!!! You really are an Angel!!!! Thanks for caring for all of us "newbies"!!!!





My dear sister Karen really was a trooper through this all. She stayed with me through the operation and finally left to go back to my house at 8pm. I am grateful she took the time from her family to come to my aide for those 5 days. I could never have had the surgery if she wasn't there for me.



I apparently was retaining water like a sponge in the hospital because I went through THREE bags of saline IV and 3 or 4 pitchers full of ice, as well as two bowls of chicken broth and some Jello. All I could give in pee was so yellow and strong it burned me bad. It hurt. They threatened to cath me saying I wasn't giving enough. It's didn't dawn on me that I likely needed a water pill or something. I also had been given something for insane itching from the Morphiene IV.....the nurse told me it was real common to have this reaction. I was nauseated a couple times too and got something in my IV for that too. It seemed the poor nurse, a sweet little gal from India was in there with me all night long. The alarms from the IV stand were going off all the time, and the alarms from the leg squeezers (to prevent bloodclots) were going off all the time too, so I got little to no sleep Thursday night.



I got home Friday October 24th about noon and for shits and giggles got on the scale........boy was I in shock!! I was UP 12 pounds!!! Yes!!! UP 12 pounds from my pre-op weight. It was after that, that I started peeing like a racehorse..........and it was clear!!! I plan to tell the doctor about all this this friday when I see him for the first post op appt. It has to be NOT the first time this crap has happened.



All day on Friday and part of Saturday I was sooooooo sore. Apparently not getting up and walking more in the hospital is the culprit because the gas (Co2) they pump into you for the surgery settled in my arms and legs. I have never hurt so bad in all my life, my WHOLE body ached......I felt like someone had hit me with a Mack Truck!! So Saturday I decided that since Karen was going back to Utah on Sunday that I needed to take her to CNN and show her around. Thank God I did, because not only did she get to see the place and get some nice t-shirts for the kids, my pain disappeared and I was able to fart some and get some of that #$%^& gas out of my system!! A few folks from work couldn't believe I was 2 days post op and there at work!! But other than being tired and really fatiqued I really felt ok..........



I took these pics of Karen in front of the Domestic weather wall and with the Humvee in the lobby area...........