My First "Fill"

Okay, so when you have your lapband surgery, the band (which has a saline pouch attached to it) is placed around your stomach - attached to this lap band is a tube that links itself to a "port" I *think* the port sits just on your stomach and may or may not be stitched into place (don't thin it is - from what I understand, it floats freely)- this is the site where saline is filled from (or saline removed if you're not coping well with food) Anyway, normal procedure is that the band is put onto your stomach with no saline in it. The idea of the saline is to make the band tighter and therefore allowing less and less food in and also giving you a very full feeling for quite a while.

So I've had it reasonably cruisy for the past 3wks...no saline in my band, which meant I was limited in what I could eat and also to the portions, but I was feeling hungry around the 2 hour mark (after eating). Hunger is my enemy ! So today I saw my surgeon for the first time since my operation. He weighed me (was floored at my weight loss :-)) and then told me to pop up onto the bed and lay down........

So I'm laying there, he's pushing on my stomach (kinda in the middle between your rib cages) and he's having trouble grabbing the port...so he asked me to stand up and lean back over the bed (so as to push my stomach out). He found the port and then the needle went in. Then for 2 very long minutes, he jiggled that needle around trying to find the correct entry site in the port. FINALLY, he found it and 4mls of saline went into my port site, which then flows into my band, making my band tighter.

4mls is quite a lot....so here I was, white as a ghost from having a needle jiggled about in my stomach for what seemed an eternity, so he tells me to lay back down again...... all was good after I got over the shock of what had just happened LOL

I managed to drink some water before I left, which meant all was well.

I now am on fluids only for 24 hours, then return to mushy food with a gradual transition to real food. His only rule is "no crap food". That's okay, I don't "do" crap food much. It's all the good food that got me here (Just too much of that good food)!

I see the dietician on Monday to move me onto the real food stage. Gone are the steaks and white bread sandwiches, but WHO CARES...I've lost a hell of a lot of weight my friends !!!!

Weigh In #2......

so this weigh in comes:

5wks after starting Optifast

3wks after surgery



Starting Weight 107.0 kgs

2wks post surgery 98.3kgs (total lost 8.7kgs)
3wks post surgery 94.7kgs (total lost 12.3kgs)

12.3 kgs - WOW ! Feeling on top of the world. Lap Band has changed my life :-)

can't quite believe it!......

I am wearing a pair of size 16 (white) shorts today that I have not been able to fit into since November 2007. The last time I wore these shorts was when I visited Sheri in the hospital after having Sophie ! Happy day today :-)

Mush Week......

So after seeing the dietician last week, I have now moved onto mush food, rather than pure liquid. Wow, had no idea how much I was going to love mush!!! Vegies, meat, anything I want...as long as it's pureed. The plan is to eat bulky mush foods, but don't eat any less than every 3 hours. At first I thought this was okay, but I was getting hungry at about 2.5 hours. Upon the dietician's recommendation, I have started to chunk up my food a bit more and now I am quite happy with 4 x small (1/2 cup) meals per day. Usually for breakfast I have mushed up weetbix with hot water & a dash of milk. Then for lunch I either have smoked salmon with cottage cheese mushed in the whizzer or one of my pre-cooked chicken stick & vegie mixes. For dinner, for the first time ever, I am having what the rest of my crew are having. I feel freeeeeeeee! Last night I made chicken mango curry. In the past I just wouldn't have even bothered with this knowing it had coconut cream in it, as well as that I would serve it with rice. Well I had some...I whizzed it up and it was great!!!!! Gone are my days of calorie counting. As long as I keep to my 1/2 cup, the dietician says I can eat what I want - although she'd rather I didn't mush up a cheeseburger from Maccas ;-) I am satisfied after my 1/2 cup, but I know things will change this Friday when I have my first saline fill - I know I am heading for that really really full feeling.

I will be weighing myself every Wednesday morning - so stay tuned for this week's weigh in.

Then Friday, my first fill - WOW, lots of stuff to post this week.

See ya when I'm skinny (which may be sooner than I first thought ;-))

First Weigh In.....and the results are.....

Starting Weight 107kg
Weight today 98.3kg

TOTAL LOST 8.7kg (in just over 3wks)

Gotta be happy with that WOOHOOO!

11 days post Op......

I am not sure why I've been avoiding posting...time? energy? not sure. Here I am though, 11 days post Op, feeling better with every day! The first few days were pretty tough...esp when you have young ones. You want to cuddle them. You can't - it hurts! You want to pick them up. You can't - it hurts! You want to rest...you can't - it hurts!! The first week has been just concentrating on what liquids I could get down. It's hard to know how much or how little. I am still (in my head) calorie counting!! Once a dieter, always a dieter I guess. Obviously there is no need to calorie count. I am eating such small amounts that the weight HAS to come off.

So my diet has consisted of:

Sustagen
Up & Go (Energise drink)
Soup
Water
Icy poles !!!

All up I would probably have about 400ml of sustagen and half a can of soup (per day)...with an icy pole for dessert!!! Not much going in that's for sure!. I don't generally get hungry..but if I do, I just have some water or another icy pole. It doesn't take much to keep the hunger at bay. Thank Goodness....Hunger is MY enemy!!

Today I have had some reflux though and although I was quite concerned about it at first (thinking of a "band slip" - which would possibly mean another operation or even worse, removal of the band altogether!), but since having a talk with the nurse, she doesn't seem to think it's anything serious...that possibly I have just eaten something too quick or eaten too much of something...thinking back, I remember eating some soup at dinner last night and did eat that pretty quickly. If the reflux doesn't subside, I need to go back to the surgeon and have a barium swallow done. She assures me that reflux is quite common esp in the early stages of the surgery, so that has put my mind at ease (a little....for now :-))

Tomorrow I see the dietician again. This is to move me from liquids to mush - You have NO IDEA how excited I am about this. This will open up a whole new world of flavours for me! I can't wait to get some mashed vegies or some Weight Watchers Dark Choc Pudding (yummmmm) into me! Even just some weetbix for brekkie would be good.....however, in saying that, breakfast is the time of the day I am the LEAST hungry. In fact, I'm just generally not hungry at all !?! Weird. I do get famished occassionally at night time...I guess that's a direct result of not eating much during the day and my body saying "hey, toots, you're going into fasting mode soon, give me something to get me through the night"!! I have managed a few cups of coffee and a diet coke too, so I am gradually becoming more adventurous with what i'm putting in.

As for weight loss.....well stay tuned...tomorrow I am being weighed for the first time!

Starting weight was 107kgs
Weight at 12 days post op ..................................????????

See you all tomorrow ;-)

D-Day + 1

The next day was Friday...so thankfully my mum go the kids ready for school & drove them there too. I needed Geoff at home and obviously I couldn't have done it. Sad part was...I attempted to get out of bed to say goodbye to Jazzy and I fell as I was getting out of bed. She was quite upset by this...which in turn, of course, upset me. I did have fleeting thoughts of "what have you done to yourself", "why would you put yourself through this"....but then I realised it was the pain talking, that's all. On the day of my operation, I had been weighed on the scales and had lost a whopping 8kgs since starting the Optifast, two weeks prior. THAT'S why I've done this to myself !! I can feel the kilos falling off. I look in the mirror and wonder where I've gone. It has all become clear to me WHY I've done it, however, the day was hard to get through. It was painful, it was long and then there's the night! Panadeine has been helping.

D-Day

5th Feb - 5.30am...alarm went off and up I got. had to wash myself in special solution and then get dressed into clean clothes. said goodbye to my sleeping angels and headed off at 6.30am. It was quite a stressful journey cos we hit peak hour traffic. Managed to arrive at the hopsital right on 7.30am. Didn't have to wait long - maybe half an hour- until I was called to pre-op. I had to say goodbye to Geoff here though, so that was a bit disappointing. But from that moment on, it was busy times anyway.

Was taken to pre-op. Saw a nurse. Then had to have another shower. Dress in "the robe" and gown and sit & wait in the waiting area. It wasn't that long until I was called into the area where the beds are....it was about 9.30am I think. Then I was seen by a hundred different people. Nurses, anaesthetists, my surgeon etc.. Until finally at 10am I was taken down to the theatre. There would have been about 15 people in that theatre. I felt very important!!

Before I knew it, I was off with the fairies.

Next thing I remember was being woken in recovery by a nurse saying "Megan how are you feeling". I remember moaning and crying saying "the pain is really bad and I can't breath properly". She gave me morphene and that calmed me down a bit. It's not like me to have a reaction like that to anaesthetic. Lord knows I've been "under" many times before. I was told that this anaesthetic was quite heavy cos of the duration of the op. I really felt it !

Then I was taken back to my ward where Geoff was waiting for me. The poor luv didn't know what to do. He stayed by my side all afternoon even though I was in & out of consciousness ! He did tell me that the surgeon said if I was up to it, I could go home. The nurse had other ideas and said until I could "prove" myself to her, I would stay overnight. I was determined to go home..to my own bed, to see my babies....so I tried really hard to stay awake and become more coherent. I fooled her enough to then be sent home at 9pm that night. I don't much remember the trip home, but I do remember being greeted by my mum, who then lead me into my bed (that had clean sheets on it, god love her) and then remember snuggling down and nodding off. I was up again at 4am the next morning cos I had such bad gas pain, but I did feel fairly well...until the next day. That's when the pain really started in.

So.....tomorrow's the day

Today has been interesting to say the least. I had a bad day on the "bars" yesterday and was in & out of the bathroom all night !! Today I did what the dietician recommended and that was to eat normal food...i.e. protein, salad & veg....that's what I did. It was like my last supper(s) !! Felt good to actually EAT some protein, even though they were only eggs and some salmon....just the same, knowing I won't be eating anything like that for a while, felt good to get some food into me that was not being sucked through a straw!

BAD THING THOUGH.....I still have the runs !!! eewwwwww !! What is wrong with me???!! I am quite concerned about my stomach and have visions of the surgeon opening me up and then closing me back up straight away, saying "wow, all these years of over-eating, you've done some serious damage to your body Megan, there's no way we can do this op".

Yes, I will have a sleepless night tonight, just thinking about that. What if I wake up & they HAVEN'T banded me !! Argh, that would be the worst feeling in the world.

I went & bought a book to read while I wait for admission. Looking forward to reading that. Got a facial today & some waxing....that felt good. Who knows when I will have time to get either of those things done in the coming weeks.

So, here I am.....sitting here, organising all my bits & pieces, waiting for 6.30am to arrive, so I can get in that car and head down that road to the new ME ! And as I sit here, wondering how on earth I let my body go like I've done, I remember all the good things that make me the person I am. My weight does not define who I am, but I need to love every part of me..not just the inside. So tonight I will say goodbye to my outer shell & look forward to a future with a new one !

See ya when I'm skinny !!!!!!

what to do, what to do?

After speaking with the dietician yesterday she informed me that "some people just can't handle the Optifast and do end up having upset tummies".....with that she then also suggested I go off the Optifast for the last few days and have a diet full of salad, vegies, protein BUT NO CARBS !!!!

HOWEVER, this is my cross road....

Even though my liver would still be small enough for the operation, my weight loss won't be as much if I was to go on the "normal eating diet".

The Opti Bars don't seem to upset me quite as much as the shakes/desserts, so I think I'll just stick it out...I only have 5 more meals !!! to go before the operation anyway.....

I've had terrible visions of me having diarrohea on the operating table...HOW EMBARRASMENT :-)

I had to laugh when the nurse at my pre-admission interview the other day said "now, after the op, you can have some ice, then some water, then we'll get you back onto the Optifast shake as soon as possible" - ummmmm, not gonna happen my friend LOL

So as of Thursday, it's a liquid diet for 2wks..this means mostly Sustagen (gawd, imagine if that upset me too !!!), but anything I can possibly get down that "would go through a straw" is fine too...again, that doesn't mean wine *sigh sigh sigh*

Stocked up on soup, drinking yoghurt, et yesterday..kinda wish it was winter...the soups don't excite me much in this weather.

Okay, off to have another bar - that will bring it down to 4 MORE BARS until the op !!

YAHOOOOOOO !!

sick sick sick

Okay, this Optifast is making me so sick. I have put up with it for almost 2 wks now, but the constant trips to the toilet, the lethargy etc... I now have come to the realisation that I will be going into surgery in fairly poor condition. I'm weak, I'm tired and nothing stays in my stomach. Have called the dietician and she is ringing me back this arvo. Do I just ride through it or actually bother doing something about it for the last few days? All I know is that I'm heading into a major surgery and I'm not in tip top condition :-( Bring Thursday on I say !!!!!

That is all :-)