Has anyone heard how becw is doing?

Just curious in how things are going for her..  If anyone chats with her let her know we're thinking of her...

I saw that she posted the other day.  I haven't heard from her though.

Thanks for asking! I am doing well . . . I have been a little reluctant to post a direct update I guess because I did have some issues and I don't want to be unfair about them, but I guess I was a bit underwhelmed by MMC . . .

First, I had my surgery on 1/20 as planned. That was a snowy day and they called as we were enroute because the person before me was cancelled for some reason. They wanted me there sooner than I would be, and once I got there they wisked me. That would have been okay, but it was kind of overwhelming. Then they tried to tell me I had gained weight on the pre-op diet and I am not sure how I didn't cry. I was so perfect about it and agonized how slow the weight loss was, but they had transposed my pre-op as 327 instead of 372, so they thought I had gained 38 pounds in two weeks.

Next, I had a discussion about a bladder catheter and was told it would be put in after I was asleep.Well, someone forgot (and then there seems like there may be some fudging going on about that), but I awoke with extreme bladder pain in recovery. When my bladder gets over-full, I get extreme pain across my lower abdomen and middle back. I was in agony and they did the cath in recovery and it was over a liter of fluid (so more than 25% more than uncomfortably full). So most of my pain has been from that, and my bladder and back are not fully recovered yet but I am close.

Next is that they release folks after 24 hours in Portland, and the drive home was painful. But I also had to send hubby home to bring portable oxygen. On Thursday my saturation was only 80 at rest, but no one looked into it. I took every pain pill I could because of the bladder/back pain, so other than talking to the nurse a couple of times I didn't really push. She said I probably just didn't know I needed to be on it all the time, but I have been checked inside out and backwards because of my pulmonary hypertension.

Well, apparently that was an error too and I should have been checked for a pulmonary embollism before I left. But that didn't happen, so after various calls on MY part to make sure things were okay on Friday, I was called back to Portland to go to the ER there to be checked out -- I got that call at 3:50 p.m., so we spent Friday evening in the hall of the ER to find that my O2 saturation was fine there, but we did a chest x-ray to see why it may have happened, then the 3rd time someone said the only way to be sure was a CT scan, I signed on for that as well as I didn't want to go back. That was clear, so we got to leave at 1:30 a.m.

I've been checked by pulmonary and primary care this week, and am doing pretty well post-op. I wish I could say I am off insulin, but I am not. Maybe as I lose weight that will happen, but either way I am happy to be under 350 for the first time in years and I am looking forward to losing lots more weight!

Bec