Post-Surgery... 10 Days.

I don't even know where to begin. This has been the craziest and longest 10 days of my life.

Surgery day:

All was good. Weighed myself the morning of surgery: 331 pounds. Not proud of it but it was reality. 3 pounds less than the week before.
Surgery went great... recovery was painful. I kept wailing for my mom and they drugged me pretty good on Dilaudid. I love me some Dilaudid. I don't remember anything Thursday after surgery. I had really great nurses that night who kept up on my pain medicine. Tip #1: NO MATTER IF YOU FEEL GOOD OR NOT KEEP UP ON YOUR PAIN MEDICINE!!!!! One of my biggest mistakes. I would feel good and not get it and a hour later I was in miserable pain.

Tip #2: Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk! I was up and walking as soon as I got to my room Thursday after surgery (or so they tell me). I wasn't running marathons but it really help with all the gas pains I was feeling.

Friday is almost as blurry as Thursday except I remember some visitors I had and I remember I got my drain out. That felt so good to be out of my body. I also got apple juice. Oh, the small things in life! They did switch me from Dilaudid to liquid Loratab. Not happy. The Loratab wasn't responding to my pain as much as the Dilaudid did. However the doctor told me straight forward that they wouldn't let me go home with the Dilaudid (I guess it's just not something they do) so I sucked it up and got use to the Loratab.

Saturday I was nauseous taking the multivitamins. They wanted to keep me another night but I was determined to get home as soon as I could.


The next days were painful. Painful... sucky... depressing... I hated what I had done to myself. I wanted everything I couldn't have to eat. I had not had a BM so I couldn't start protein and I was in pain. I hated my husband and step-daughter for eating foods I couldn't. I cried. Life sucked.

My husband took me back to the ER Tuesday after more pain which Loratab wasn't touching and the lack of the BM. Tip #3: Don't worry if you haven't gone #2 until you are about a week out. In that department I was fine... the pain department they gave me some more medication and I felt much better. I had lots of fluid draining in my lower abdomen which the doctor said will go away with time.

It wasn't until Thursday after talking to one of my dear WLS buddies when things turned around. My advice was "You had the surgery. There is nothing you can do about it now. It won't be reversed. You need to suck it up and make life great now because you won't remember this pain when you are putting on your skinny pants and they are too big."

And she was right. I needed to snap out of this. I needed to start making myself do things around the house, taking normal times to rest and heal, and moving on with my  new life. Do I miss food? Yes. I'm on liquids for a month... who wouldn't? Do I sometimes still hate my husband for what he eats? Yes, but I also know he has to eat, is as skinny as a rail, and healthy.

So I've showered, walked more, gotten out of the house, done more housework, and today? I'm tackling the grocery store to make my family some homemade spaghetti and meatballs. And that is okay. The food head hunger is slowly decreasing and my energy is up. I've found a way to drink my nasty protein (more in a later post) and I am sticking to my guidelines perfectly.

And on the scale today? I've lost 17 pounds in 10 days. I am a little scared that I am loosing too fast... but I have heard that it will slow down and stall out here in a bit.

So, there's the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly... Hopefully my days upcoming are much more good than ugly :)