Surgery in 2 days
Congratulations. It was the best thing I ever did.
Thinking back, this next year is kind of an odd one. Your body is going to do what your body is going to do and you are along for the ride. It's weird to be so passive in the face of something so momentous. Realize that the next year is going to suck, although it will have some beyond thrilling wonderful times as well. But mostly, you will be recovering, either from the surgery or your sense-of-self from losing the weight. Keep telling yourself "You can do ANYTHING for a year!"
And all you have to do is develop a Fanatical Devotion to keeping yourself healthy
- After you wake up, walk, walk, walk and then walk some more. It will feel good once you get going.
- Hydration is your first challenge to solve
- Eating is second, Prioritize protein. It will be harder than you think. If you don't eat you will feel sick and not want to eat. Something that tastes good today might be horrid tomorrow. Just roll with it all and keep trying new things.
- Phase in your vitamins and supplements. A healthy person really has about 2-3 months before this will remotely become an issue.
- You may or may not have poop issues, if so, fix them. Do not ignore constipation, it can put you in the hospital.
- Get your blood tested at three, six and twelve months, adjust vits as needed.
That's all. I tried to postpone other problems and things in my life because I didn't think that skinny me would necessarily make the same decisions as MO me. My gift to skinny me was a solid foundation of health and then let The Rebirth begin!!! :-) First thing I did after really taking up the mantle of skinny me was get my hair died rainbow hues!! It is awesome and I wouldn't have ever thought about doing it before.
OH, one last thing. There was a study that said that people that were involved with support groups, on-line or in person, for their first year did better. They had less health issues and lost more weight. So, I added a commitment to be a daily visitor to the groups and that helped quite a bit. I miss it quite a bit this year as I get too busy sometimes to even check the boards more than once a month.
Best of luck to you and feel free to reach out to me, or anybody really -- it is a very friendly community, if you need anything!
August 2014 - DS @ Mexicali Bariatric Center / Ungson.
It took me one and a half years to lose 165 pounds.
Weight: High=314, Goal=155, Current=131
Hi, everyone.
Well I made it through. Surgery went perfectly according to my doctor but recovery isn't easy. Immediately after surgery I was feeling pretty good. No pain, naseau or vomiting. The day after, however was a bit tougher. That was when all that amazing anasthesia from the surgery was beginning to wear off. Still not too much pain but the gas inside was pretty bad. I did get up and walk some to try to help the process of passing gas along, but it's been a slow process for me. I was supposed to go home on Friday, but to be honest I wasn't feeling all that great but was anxious to get home because I got so little rest in the hospital. Just when you get to sleep someone comes in the room and wakes you up to take your BP and temperature or something and if it's not you it's your roommate. However, late afternoon Friday my nurse informs me that my metabolic doctor noted that my phosphorus was low and wanted to give me an infusion before going home, which would take 4 hours. So I decided to stay another night instead of going home at 8 at night. So I was feeling better on Saturday and looking forward to going home. Around 11 am my nurse tells me the metabolic doctor wants me to have a 2 hour infusion of magnesium. So after that I finally went home Saturday afternoon.
I'm very blessed in that my family is very supportive of me and the decision to do this and are doing anything they can to help me during recovery. Right now I'm focusing on taking in my liquids, which is not easy at all. I have a little gas pain when I sip and I can feel the liquid land in my stomach. I'm looking forward to upgrading to full liquids like cream soups and yogurt because I'm just not feeling satisfied now. I went yesterday morning to get an upper GI xray in preparation for my post op follow up visit with the doctor this afternoon. Hopefully the surgical drain will be removed will help me feel more comfortable.
At some point I will post some photos when I have some results to show. Thanks to everyone for posting their advice and support.
