Tuesday 24 July 2012

4 weeks post op and 12.4kg down in 6 weeks.

Thought it would've been more but happy with this nonetheless.

Slowly but surely I'm getting there :)

Monday 23 July 2012

Officially 10kg down...on the surgeons scales

Went and saw my surgeon today for my first post op check up. First up I was weighed. I questioned as to whether I'm going to like these scales compared to mine, as this morning I weighed 115.5kg and his scales showed 116.5kg, which I am still happy with, as he said these scales always show heaviest. If I heard correctly, my pre op weight was 127.?kg, so if that's the case, I've lost 11kg in 4 weeks, plus my 5kg pre surgery on Opti. My official at home weigh day is tomorrow, so see what that shows.

He cut down 2 stitches that were poking out and I mentioned I still get the occasional bit of pain from the wound where the stomach was pulled out from and he said it was due to the muscles being pushed around.

Overall he is very happy withy progress and he could visually see that I had lost weight! Yay someone has noticed, but I guess that is because he hasn't seen me since hospital and my family see me everyday, although my mouse and sister seem to think my stomach doesn't look as big anymore.

I will see my surgeon again in 6 weeks time, at which time I'll be on a normal diet. I start soft food stage later this week for 4 weeks.

Tuesday 17 July 2012

3 weeks post op and only 300?

WTF? Only 300gm? I'm so not happy this morning. So pissed off that I've lost such a little amount. I'm barely eating and that is the end result in a week.

I don't know where I went wrong.

I could cry.

This sucks.

Thursday 12 July 2012

Size 20 jeans!!!


Thought I'd give my old pair of size 20 jeans a go and lo and behold...they fit!!! I haven't worn these for about 3 or more years.

I've been wearing my beloved Levis to death but now they are slipping down. I bought them for $15USD each last time I was in Honolulu in 2010. I got a 22 and 24 and both fit me.

At least now I'll be able to buy Levis here in the future, albeit at an inflated price. 

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Yay onto puréed foods

Saw my dietician this morning and she is very happy with my progress and she has given me the go ahead to go onto puréed foods!!! I'll still have soups, just now I can eat more foods albeit in purée form.

On another note, I have a fecking cold. I'm not happy. Hopefully it doesn't linger long as I'm going back to work at my Saturday job this week. It's only 3 1/2 hours and it gets me out of the house for a bit.

I've also been a bit bad on the Internet shopping front. MasterChef last might made me buy the 2 Greedy Italians cookbooks and last last night I bought the season 3 box set of White Collar...I need my Matt (Christian Gray) fix lol.

Tuesday 10 July 2012

2 weeks post op and 2.2kg down

Another 2.2kg gone, making it 9.8kg in total.  I don't know if these little numbers (3kg one week post op and now 2.2kg) are normal or not.  I know I should be grateful that it's a loss, as I'm sure I would not have been able to achieve these numbers without the surgery...in fact I know I would not have been able to.

I also have 4 weeks remaining of my leave and I'm bored.  I think I couldn't returned to working from home earlier, maybe have another week off, but I made a few appointments during the time which I thought I was still off, so instead of cancelling, I just extended the leave.  Might as well, I have about 45 weeks of sick leave.  Gotta use it sometime, right?

I haven't even noticed any changes in my body either.  Mum seems to think my stomach is a bit flatter, but I don't see it.  I suppose I will in due course, just have to give it more time I guess.  I'm just impatient.

Tuesday 3 July 2012

1 week post surgery, passing out and hallucinations


Yay!  I've hit the 1 week post surgery mark.  To date I have lost 8kg in total.  On the 2 weeks of Optifast, I lost 5kg and since the surgery another 3kg.  Yay me!

Food is still a trial and error process.  Things like water goes down without an issue, but the soup I struggle with, even blitzed until it's thin enough to eat through a straw (but not use a straw) causes pain.

I've been walking for 15 mins a day going at a slow pace.  I'll slowly increase as things begin to heal inside more.

Speaking of healing, last night I thought I'd take off all the Duoderm dressings, so I waited until after I had a shower so they were a bit softer to pull off.  Mum was in the bathroom to help, but I managed to pull off the top port site dressing (between the boobs).  Looking down I could see it was still a bit open, so I just put a steristrip and a light gauze so there's a bit of air.  One down 4 to go.  On pulling off the far left dressing, I started to feel a bit dizzy and woozy and my hearing was going funny, which for me is a sign that I'm about to pass out.  I had to walk out of the bathroom and sit down until it passed.  Few minutes later, mum cleaned and covered that site with gauze then we proceeded onto the next one, but didn't get that far.  I felt so nauseas and dizzy again that I had to sit down.  My hearing once again went funny and it sounded as though everyone was in the distance and I broke out into such a sweat.  I couldn't put my head between my legs as you would normally do in these instances.  I had to get mum to get a bucket as I was on the verge of throwing up, but luckily that passed.  The last thing I want to do is throw up on a still healing stomach.  Dad took my temperature and it was 37°C, so I didn't have to be concerned about my stomach leaking (thank God).  I went straight to bed as I still felt nauseas.

This morning I lay in bed and mum replaced the remaining 2 dressings with gauze.  The port site on my far right is still a bit open, but the other 3 are just like a scratch now.  The gauzes ended up coming off the other 4, so I replaced them with the only bandaids I had on hand, my nephew's Transformers one LOL.  Hope I don't have to present to the ED with these bandages any time soon LOL.

Onto hallucinations.  Whilst in hospital, the old lady next to me (yes, I was sharing a room with an 82 year old woman) every so often would pipe up and say something as if someone was there.  She mentioned this to several of her visitors and the nurses and they put it down to possibly being her medication.  I didn't think anything of it at the time, but thinking back over the last few days, I think the meds affected me slightly.  I was lying in bed and I swear that the bed was shaking.  I thought for a moment that Geelong was having another earthquake.  Just the bed was shaking, nothing else, cos I checked if the water in my glass was also moving, but it wasn't.

Freaky.

OK, so I think that whilst the sun is shining, I shall go for a stroll.

Monday 2 July 2012

Day 6 post op and the dreaded before and early after photo



Thought I'd share a photo with you all so you can get an idea of why I underwent surgery and as time progresses, better photos of a smaller me.

This photo on the left was taken a week prior to my surgery.  I'll tell you now, I'm not a fan of having my photo taken and avoid being in the frame wherever possible, hence I'm always behind the camera either at events or on holidays (where unfortunately I'm not in many photos there either).


The photo above is the last time I will ever look like that.



WARNING: Please so not eat whilst viewing as it may put you off your food.


The photo on the right was taken day 4 post op, with my 5 ports sites on display.  I was worried that I would not be able to wear a bra post op, as I had read people had port sites right on the bra line, but thank God my surgeon seems to place ports in a more convenient location.  You can't really see, but the port site under my phone to the far right is the largest, which is where my surgeon pulled the cut away stomach from and which currently is the only port site that really hurts now.










Every day is an improvement.  I'm taking daily walks of only 15 minutes and less than a kilometre, which I will slowly build up as I recover.

And tomorrow, one week post surgery, is the all important weigh in.