Testing the Waters

Lately I have been doing a lot of testing the water per say. I have been trying a lot of different kinds of protein powders, trying to find a few that I really like, so that after surgery I am prepared and have the protein I like ready on hand. I ordered a few sample packs online which I have not received yet from Syntax which comes in 13 different fruit flavors. I am anxious to try those ones the most! Last night my sister gave me some sample packs of Medifast which she has been ordering since her Lapband surgery and I tried the Banana Cream today, it tasted wonderful!! Only problem being is they are frigging expensive! I have also tried the Vanilla Latte Click, that wasn’t too bad. I would doctor it up though next time I drink it. I love the Muscle Milk Light Protein drinks, but they too are on the expensive side since I was purchasing them drink by drink. I have been doing pretty good drinking at least one protein shake a day getting used to it before surgery when I will have to drink them all the time.

The day of my consultation is coming up quickly! I meet with the surgeon on the 23rd. I feel like I should be going in there with a whole list of questions for him and so far I have only come up with a few. For instance, since I was a kid, they have always had a difficult time taking my blood or placing an IV, most of the time they have to use a butterfly needle to take my blood and they usually end up blowing the vein. I am going to ask him if because of this, does that mean most likely I am going to have to have my IV in my jugular vein. Also I have edema, which is swelling in my feet and ankles and I want to know if surgery is going to help this problem. I hope it does because it is getting to be annoying since it has been going on since February. Then one more question is that I have fibromyalgia, will the surgery cause me to go into a flare up and take longer to heal? I know silly questions but they seem so realistic to me.

I am hoping and praying that with all the tests and appointments that they will be setting me up with that I can get my surgery by the end of summer. That is what I really want. I know that it is not up to me when they schedule it, but that is when I am really hoping for it. I know that I need to be off nicotine for 8 weeks before having surgery, and we only have 11 packs left between the 2 of us. I was using a quit date of May 31st, but it is definitely going to be before that. I am going to be so crabby and not knowing what to do with my hands is going to drive me insane!! But I can get through this, I just need to keep my eye on the final prize! 

Well I guess that is enough for now, just a quick little update!

New Here

Hello all! I am new here, and decided to start blogging my weight loss journey. I am 5’2, 266 pounds with a bmi of 48.7 which makes me morbidly obese. I decided a few months ago when I had an emergency room doctor tell me that I was going to die in the next few years of congestive heart failure if I didn’t take the weight off to do something about it. This is where my journey begins. 

Let me tell you a little about myself first. A few years ago I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. This causes a lot of pain, stiffness and extreme fatigue. Needless to say, it almost leaves me pretty much immobile most of the time. I also have bad chronic knees with arthritis in both of them. Going up and down stairs I walk side wards and it is pretty difficult to walk much at all and stand any long periods of time. I always say I feel like I have the body of an 80 year old trapped in a 41-year-old. I believe I have had the fibromyalgia longer then I have been diagnosed with it, but finally was nice to have a name put with all the issues I had been having. I just got married last November to my 20-year-old son’s father, we reunited after 20 years, he raised my son because of bad choices I had made in my past. This is my 2nd marriage and I have now a very supporting caring husband that supports everything that I choose to do and backs me up 100%! I do have 2 kids, a beautiful 22-year-old daughter and a soon to be 21-year-old son. I live in Spokane, Washington, have been here almost the past 23 years or so.

Now, onto the weight loss, when the doctor told me that, I have nothing wrong with my heart. I went into the emergency room because of edema with swelling in my feet and ankles. This doctor’s bedside manner was wrong and mean, he could have said these words in such a nicer way but blatantly said you need to get the weight off or your going to die in the next few years of congestive heart failure. Then he went on to tell me I needed to start walking up the south hill which is a HUGE hill and there is NO WAY I could ever do it and I told him so, so he looked and my husband and told him he needed to help me do it. My husband was dumbfounded. When I did the follow-up with my regular doctor I told her I wanted weight loss surgery and she was not on board with it, she prescribed me phentermine which is a diet pill. She told me of the high risks of suicide with weight loss surgery. So I kind of ventured out on my own…..

I knew about a group of weight loss surgeons here in town that require you to attend a weight loss surgery seminar before anything so I called them up in March and got scheduled to attend their next seminar for April 5th, 2012. My husband took 1/2 day off at work that day and went with me. That seminar was chalked full of information. They went over all 3 surgeries they perform from the lapband, the sleeve to the gastric bypass. I was semi considering the sleeve since I heard that you don’t dump on it, but then heard that my medical does not cover the sleeve only the banding and the bypass so I decided that I wanted the bypass since my sister had the band done back in 07 and she has put some weight back on and I know that she can eat some empty calories such as ice cream and I want to know that I will dump on that because ice cream is one of my weaknesses. Sure the gastric is the bigger of the 3 surgeries they offer, and they cut the stomach into a golf ball size and sew the intestine right to it. After the seminar I turned in the information pack so I could get back a call from the case manager. They said it would take a few weeks.

In the mean time, I had been watching many many You tube videos of peoples journeys from pre-op to post-op. I had also joined http://www.obesityhelp.com to get myself going there and get extra support. After I had finished with one person’s videos on http://www.youtube.com, I added her onto facebook, she sent me a message asking me if I was from the weight loss community and I explained how I found her and she accepted me. She also told me about this lady named Barb who was from Moses Lake ( a town 2 hours away), who had lost over 500 pounds from the surgery. I looked Barb up on Facebook and added her. I assumed she had her surgery out of Seattle or something, but the next morning when she popped up on my chat, she had it right here in Spokane by the doctor that did the seminar, I was in AWE! She seemed so cool!! She talked me into going to the support group the doctor’s office has the next week even though I was pre-op and signing up to do a Walk for Obesity April 28th. Keep in mind up above I said I have a hard time walking so when she said you can do 1/4 -3 miles I said I would try my hardest to do 1/4 mile.

The night of the support group was great, everybody was so welcoming. I kept looking around for Barb. My husband went with me support, he is so great like that!!! Barb came in late, she said she had dumped on water from drinking it too fast, yikes! The things I am hopefully learning early! The support group was informative. Meagan the Nurse Practitioner from the Bariatric group went over when you should call the doctor with belly pain, basically when it is something not earned from eating. Gallbladder problems and hernias are common as well as kidney stones. So as far as the kidney stones I will be DEFINITELY making sure I get 64oz of water in a day which is something I do not do now. Was so great to talk to Barb after the meeting, I am going to surely have a friend in her! Oh, I also got a call the next day, I have my consultation with the surgeon on May 23rd, that is not that long away!!!! That is an hour-long consultation! 🙂

Now, the Walk for Obesity, that was 2 days ago. I went with all intentions on walking only 1/4 mile. Once you walked around the track you got a ticket for a chance to win a prize. First time around though you got 2 tickets. Now, the tickets weren’t really my encouragement although they were cool. But I did 2 MILES! I had the husband walking it with me!!! He kept telling me that I was going to be over doing it and I wouldn’t listen to him! I kept saying I am okay, I can do this!! I was so proud of my achievement!!! Let me tell you though that night, yesterday and today I am feeling it but DAMN IT, I DID IT!!!! I figure this, next year after surgery I am going to be walking all the 5k’s I can find in town. I won’t say run because my knees are too messed up, but if I can walk this 2 miles pre-op I am damn sure I can walk 3 miles post-op!!!