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...........