Crazy Tummy!

It’s Monday again. I seem to be writing these blogs on a weekly basis lately. I’m not sure why that’s happening but Whatever. I write when the mood strikes me. If I haven’t written in a while and you ever want to know what’s up, please post a comment. I do usually check for those even if I’m not in the mood to write.

Lately I’ve been having more bad days then good. Ok wait, I shouldn’t say that. They aren’t bad days exactly, more like frustrating and uncomfortable. Friday my tiny tummy was hating me. Everything I put in it made me feel nauseous. Even my protein water! I mean come on, it’s water with flavor and protein WTF?!?!?! So I would take two or three bites and feel the nausea starting and be done with my meal. I forced the protein water down just so I could get something good for me in my body. Then Saturday was great! Coach wanted to go to The Big Salad for dinner before we went to the Tiger’s game. I was thinking I would have soup but I thought a salad sounded so good that I decided to try it. I ate very slowly and chewed thoroughly and it was great! My tiny tummy rumbled in a way that had me thinking it was going “YUM!”. Now I only ate about 1/8 of the salad (They are called The Big Salad for a reason) but I took the rest home and have been picking at it for other meals. I also had a glass of wine at the game ( I didn’t really want one of those giant frozen drinks with all the sugar or a carbonated drink) and I drank it faster than I did my first glass a couple of weeks ago. I actually got pleasantly happy and slightly tipsy with just one glass. That certainly hasn’t happened in years.

Then Sunday came. I was worried about Sunday. Sunday was father’s day which meant time with the family (who don’t know about my surgery) I was afraid that they would notice I didn’t really eat. Just to fit in I did grab a potato chip and I sipped some Lemonade so I didn’t have a carbonated beverage. But the lemonade made my tiny tummy churn a little. I didn’t really understand why. I drank about half a glass and just carried it for a while. Luckily I ended up sitting with my Mummy-Dearest, her boyfriend, and Coach so no one else noticed how little I ate or how slow. I kept making myself take pauses and put down my fork so that I didn’t eat too fast. I had a slice of Turkey, two strawberries, a bit or two of cantaloupe, two bites of potato salad and two chips with spinach dip. My stomach wasn’t happy after that meal either. I felt a little queasy for a bit. I tried to get Coach to finish what was on my plate so it was a little less noticeable but he was full. So Mummy-Dearest saved me and threw my plate out along with hers and her boyfriend’s so no one would know that I hadn’t cleaned my plate. I knew I wouldn’t eat everything on my plate but I didn’t really put that much on it. Still there seemed like a lot left over. Later we had dessert and I wanted to try the ice cream cake that Aunt Superficial had made. I ended up sitting right in between her and her two daughters. Yikes. I had the first two bites and would have been satisfied but with them right there and with Aunt Superfical knowing about The Aunt’s surgery I didn’t want to risk them noticing I hadn’t finished my tiny piece. So I sat and slowly nibbled on it. I was just about to risk them noticing and throw the rest away when Aunt Superfical’s daughter said she wanted a second piece. I offered her the last of mine and she gobbled it up.

Later that night I tried to have a little left over salad for dinner and my tiny tummy got made. I had even less than the day before and it got gassy and queasy. So I had to stop. Today hasn’t been much better. My protein shake went down ok but the salad I tried for lunch didn’t. I think I got four small bites down before my tiny tummy was protesting too much for me to eat anymore. During my lunch hour I sit and read, taking bites every so often, so I’m eating slowly. I kept reading and then when I got up to head back to work my tummy was rumbling that it was hungry! I started back to the food court to find something quick to take back with me but the minute I smelled the foods tiny tummy started rebelling again! So I told it that if it couldn’t behave then I wasn’t giving it anything and I went back to work. Now I feel the lack of protein but there really isn’t anything I can do about that.

Another weird thing about today. My stomach hurts. Like pain from surgery sore. It’s strange. A week after surgery I was able to lay on my stomach without a problem. My kitty could walk across my stomach and unless she hit just the right spot above my belly button there were no problems. When I went to see my surgeon for the first time he pressed on my belly button and I nearly flew off the table in pain. Then I felt echoes of that pain all day long afterwards. But that was pretty much it. Today I feel it when I move. It’s strange. I am wondering if it could have something to do with carrying my little cousin around at the party yesterday. He is five and I carried him around for about five or ten minutes. He was tired and needed cuddling so I picked him up and tried not to let him pull my shirt and reveal the scares on my belly button. It’s weird that carrying him would cause trouble though because I do lift weights and have no trouble doing that. I don’t know. My body just seems to be making trouble. Anyone else have these issues?

Party time

Day 27 - 25.6 lbs

So I had an interesting weekend. Friday night I decided that it was time to try some wine. I love wine and I have missed it these last six weeks (pre and post-op). Many on my online support group claimed that alcohol affected them much more strongly after surgery and I was looking forward to being a light-weight. I’ve always had a good tolerance for my alcohol so I was actually hoping that my sleeve would make me more sensitive. But it didn’t. Or at least not that I noticed. I didn’t want to go crazy. I just enjoy a glass of wine when I am relaxing with my boyfriend in the evenings sometimes. So I had a glass. It felt very weird going down, kind of like I had an air bubble going down with each sip. But I didn’t think that I did. I took the advice of my support group and drank it VERY SLOWLY. I think it took me two hours or more to drink one glass. I didn’t feel anything.

Saturday was interesting too. My mom’s boyfriend was having a birthday party for his son. I like her boyfriend a lot and while I am not close at all to his kids I knew it would mean a lot to him if I showed up. I brought Coach with me too. It’s a little awkward being at a family party when you aren’t really part of the family and you don’t know half the people there. But whatever, it meant a lot to my mom and her boyfriend that we showed up. I didn’t want people to notice my weird eating habits. There were appetizers that I could taste, some soft cheese, and some hummus with pita bread. So I had a bite so I felt like everyone else who was munching. But then dinner came. I had a choice between Pizza or sandwiches. I wanted the pizza so bad, it smelled divine (really there is no other word for that smell). But I am trying to be healthy so I took half a turkey sandwich. I have had good luck with pita bread as long as I chew it well so I thought that I could handle the little half sandwich. WRONG!!!!! I had two bites before I felt that bread hit my stomach hard! I didn’t know what to do then. I sat there looking at everyone else eating and just couldn’t. My head was also reeling because for some reason I felt like I hadn’t eaten all day and my head was acting a little fuzzy. I had some small bites of potato salad that went down fine. Poor Coach noticed me not eating and started to fuss and worry about me. I had to tell him I was ok and try to act normal. I ended up taking the meat and cheese out of my sandwich and eating that. It helped me feel better at least and then my plate showed some evidence of food missing. I hope I didn’t stand out too much. On a good note: I wasn’t even tempted to have birthday cake. There were chocolate cover strawberries and I had two of those but that was it for me.

After we left the party Coach was hungry. He wasn’t crazy about unhealthy pizza either so we stopped at a big boy and had a second dinner. At that point I was feeling light headed again and thought I could use some protein. So I had an omelet. It was good but I was a little embarrassed that I could only eat a small fraction of it. Normally I would have brought it home with me for the next day but I didn’t feel like Big Boy omelets were worth the trouble. Coach was a little concerned after that. We are probably going away with his family at the end of July and he was wondering what I would do when we went out to eat. I told him that by then I should be able to eat most foods and that I would just be bringing home leftovers. I’ll eat the leftovers and if I don’t I’m sure he or his brother will. Those guys have man size appetites.

Successes and a FAIL

23 days post-op

The last few days have given me a few things I consider accomplishments

1) I had coffee. I have been afraid of coffee since my surgery. Not for any good reason, I’ve just had this fear that coffee would upset my stomach. I had some the other morning. I didn’t have a lot but I had a few sips and my stomach had no problems with it.

2) I had a cup of berries. I have been sticking mostly to soup and blended foods but my mom had a big bowl of mixed berries in the fridge and it looked so good. I made sure I had chewed them really well and my stomach didn’t react badly.

3) I had capsules instead of tablets. I ran out of my tablets (which taste like ass). I called my doctor for a refill and they didn’t call me back so I had to take the capsules. They went down fine and I was exstatic because I don’t have to take the tablets anymore. Those made me gag every morning because they started dissolving before I could swallow. Then I felt sick afterwards. So now I can take the capsules and not be sick in the morning.

4) I had a bagel for breakfast. My work has bagel Friday every Friday and gets bagels brought in. I decided to give one a try this morning. I only ate about 1/3 of it with a little cream cheese. It tasted great. I chewed really well. I couldn’t believe how big a bagel looked to me. After the small amount I’ve been eating, even the half a bagel I put on my plate looked huge. I didn’t eat the whole half because I didn’t want to over do it. The 1/3 was all I needed.

These things seem simple but they are successes to me. But of course, you can’t have successes without a FAIL or two.

FAIL: I tried some soft chicken for lunch. Big Mistake! I thought it would be ok if I chewed really well, which I did. But it wasn’t. As soon as I finished my stomach got naucious and I ended up gagging in the bathroom. I wanted to throw up but I didn’t. I think that there just wasn’t enough in my stomach to throw up.



So four successes to one fail, I guess that is not too bad. This whole thing is supposed to be trial and error anyway. I just have to keep doing the best I can. I just have to work to add in more work outs in my week. I’ve made it to the gym twice and I will again this weekend. But I need to add in workouts at home each night. Gotta start sweating off the fat!

20 Days Post-Op!

Happy Tuesday, (yeah right!)! My weekend was not very exciting. I keep trying to get back into my work out routine but things just keep happening to get in the way. Thursday it was a horrible headache. Saturday I had to dog-sit because we thought my dog was pregnant and going to deliver this weekend. False alarm, she was not pregnant. But while we thought she was she couldn’t be left alone. Then Sunday I had a lot of work to make up from the rest of the week. So I just started back on Monday. It felt really good to start back. I thought I would have trouble but I really didn’t. I put the exercise bike on a lower setting thinking that almost three weeks off would have hurt my stamina but apparently it didn’t. I could have gone harder and longer then I did. So I’m glad about that.

Yesterday I had my follow-up appointment with my doctor. It was pretty quick. I lay down on the table and he pressed on my incisions. Wow did the belly button hurt! I practically flew off the table. But he says it’s healing. I felt an echo of that pain all day after that though. It was weird. I talked to the doctor and told him about my hospital stay. He was already aware that the nurses at the hospital don’t know anything about the surgery and he says they are working to get them educated so hopefully other people won’t have the same trouble I had with the nurses trying to get us to eat more then we should after surgery. But he was very upset when I told him about the x-ray tech that made me cry. He says that the x-ray was not supposed to be done laying down to begin with and then the fact that she was so rude to me upset him. He said he was going to talk to someone at the hospital about that.

My surgeon also told me something important. He said that from this point on, it’s all up to me. He said that with the amount of calories I am taking I can maintain my weight but if I want to lose I need to be working out and pushing myself. He said that if I really work at it he thinks I can lose the weight it in six months. That would be so exciting! So I have set a goal for myself. I have to go back to see him in four weeks. So I’m going to try to drop 12lbs before then. I think that is do-able. I think that I should be able to lose that much. I need to in order to lose all of the weight in six months. I go to the gym with Coach three days a week where I am doing weights and cardio. My doctor gave me the green light on lifting weights. I am also going to try to push myself to do a half hour on my wii fit every night that I am not at the gym. That should be good. Or I can ride my bike or walk the dog. I feel really motivated and excited.

Yesterday I also ran into Aunt Superficial. I love her because she is family but sometimes she bugs the crap out of me. She said that I looked like I have lost weight. I told her I have been dieting. I found out afterwards that Aunt Superficial knows about The Aunt’s surgery. My grandfather was in the hospital during the time that The Aunt had her surgery and was in the hospital. So Aunt Superficial was calling and getting frustrated that she couldn’t get a hold of The Aunt. Finally Mummy-dearest (with The Aunt’s permission) had to tell Aunt Superficial what was going on. I’m not thrilled. She didn’t seem judgmental and said that she wouldn’t tell anyone else but I don’t believe it. She always has to be better than everyone else and this is just one way she is better; she never struggled with her weight and still looks good. She is also a gossip and has to put others down to feel good about herself. So I am sure that she will at least tell her husband and her daughters. This attitude is what annoys me so much about her. Of all my family that part is the one I didn’t want to know about my surgery. Mummy-dearest asked what to do if Aunt Superficial puts two and two together and asks about my weight loss and if I had surgery. I don’t want to deal with it so I told Mummy-dearest to tell her that I am working with my doctor and am on a strict diet. I hope she doesn’t put everything together. She may be self absorbed but she is smart. I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

I am a little worried about The Aunt. She is only six days out of surgery and she is trying to eat food already. I should have known better then to tell her I started adding in pureed foods at ten days because now she is adding in foods even earlier. I understand hating the shakes, I really do, but she needs to give her stomach time to heal. She had a bit of mac and cheese the other night and soup today. I hope she takes it slow. I just don’t want to see her get hurt. I know in some ways I’m the pot calling the kettle black but I just don’t want her to rush it. At six days I wouldn’t have imagined eating. I might have wanted to but my stomach was not ready. I plan to stick on pureed foods for the next two weeks and that will put me back on track to following the diet plan and starting with soft foods in two weeks. I probably could start them now but I want to be careful. I’m still afraid to drink coffee. I did have a couple of sips of a blended iced coffee drink the other day. I had a little gas but that was it. I am really going to move slowly with that one.

But so far I’m doing pretty well. I’m never hungry. I can only manage ½ cup of soup at a time but I’m glad for that. I don’t want my tiny tummy to stretch so the small amount doesn’t bother me. I do need to get into my head that I don’t need more food. I do sometimes look at my leftovers and think; I really should get more nutrition in to me. But really that’s not true. I really have to work not to take one more bit. I don’t want to make myself sick. I have to adjust my brain to this new reality that I need much less food now. It will be a challenge I think. But I will do it!

Day 16 Post-Op

The Aunt had her surgery on Wednesday. She's home now and doing ok. She had a lot of pain from the surgery. Where my pain was mostly from the gas she said she didn't have much trouble with that, she had surgery pain. I found that interesting since we had a the same surgeon but I guess everyone is different. I've been having soup for lunch every day this week. Some times I get really bad gas afterwards. It's kinda embaressing at work. Funny, but today I didn't have that problem.

Yesterday I think something got stuck. I stole a french fry from someone at lunch. I figured if I chewed well I would be fine. But I must not have chewed the last bite as well because after that I felt like something was coming back up. It was very uncomfortable but it went away eventually. I guess I will have to be careful when I start eating more regularly. Today I had soup and a little bit of tuna salad. I only had about a fourth of a cup (maybe more) and about two tablespoons of tuna. I was not sure how much was too much since I have never felt full. So I stoped after that. Once I started walking around I started feeling full. I felt like I had eaten a little too much. Just enough to make me uncomfortable for about a half an hour. But my stomach wasn't upset by the tuna. Which is a good thing. This weekend I think I'll go to the store and get the stuff for veggie soup and put it through the blender after it's cooked. It will make good dinners next week.

I'm happy because my pants are feeling a little bigger. This morning my mom told me that she can see that I've lost weight. I haven't weighted myself though. I will tomorrow. I've set days that I am allowed to weight myself so I don't do it every day and drive myself crazy. I'm hoping to see a good loss tomorrow. The scab on my belly button incision fell off. My incision looks so much better. And I feel less afraid of it. I don't feel like I'm going to split my stomach open anymore. The scars are a little bumpy and hard but not too bad. I'm going to buy some scar cream at the store and try that out.

Another interesting thing is that I have had my period this week. I usually have crazy chocolete cravings but I haven't this time. I also usually get very hungry and I haven't felt hungry at all either. So I guess that means that the surgery worked.  No cravings and extra hunger is definately nice. But it's hard to tell some times if weird feelings in my stomach is from the period or my new tiny tummy. LOL

First Twenty Down!

Yep that’s right! I got past my stall and am now down twenty pounds! I am so excited to hit that mark. I don’t really think I look like I’ve lost weight but I can feel it a little in my clothes and knowing that I’ve lost that chunk feels good. One of my aunts commented to my mom the other day that I looked like I have lost weight. So that’s a good thing. When I hit minus fifty I’m going to buy myself a small pair of diamond studs for my second earring hole. They are only around 100$ so it’s not a crazy expensive gift but a nice one. Maybe I’ll shell out for the bigger ones for my first hole when I hit my goal weight. We’ll see. I am very excited though.

As for the dieting, I had a really nasty boost the other day and now I am afraid to drink them. The idea makes me want to be sick. I’ve been drinking other protein shakes but I need to get to the store soon cause I’m almost out of the other brands. So after that horrible experience I decided it was time to move on to pureed foods early. My first try was mashed potatoes and gravy. I took two bites and then I waited. And waited. And waited and nothing happened. When I started on the tomato soup my tiny tummy gurgled and gased a bit. But I got nothing from the potatoes. Since so many people said that they were stuffed after two bites I continued slowly. Taking two small bites at a time and then waiting. I ended up eating a whole half cup in an hours time. I was shocked that I could eat that much. My stomach didn’t have any trouble at all. So that night I got egg drop soup and tried that. I was able to eat a whole cup of that in an hour. It was so yummy! I just ate it slowly. I never felt full which worries me a little. What if I can’t tell when I’m full? I’m afraid I’ll bust a staple or make myself sick or something. But I haven’t felt full, just satisfied. So I’ve stopped when I hit that satisfied point. Sunday I had more soup and then for dinner I tried some Easy Mac. I didn’t eat the whole package but I did well. My stomach didn’t seem to mind that either. I chewed that to mush so I wouldn’t have so much trouble.

But I did have trouble later in the evening before bed. Mummy-dearest has been buying strawberries lately and they are my favorite fruit. Seeing them in the fridge has been torture. I could almost taste them every time I saw them. So I decided to try one. I took the smallest one I could find and chewed and chewed. One tiny strawberry can really last a long time when you take little bites and chew will. But right after I ate it my tiny tummy got upset. I just churned a bit and felt like I had a few little balls of led sitting in there. So I guess I’m not ready for strawberries yet. But that uncomfortable half hour might have been worth it. That strawberry was so DELICIOUS!

This morning I choked on my pills. I swear I can’t wait until I get to go back to taking capsules instead of tablets. They start to dissolve in my mouth and taste awful so I start to gag. My stomach got upset after that. It just didn’t feel good. That kept up all day. I thought having lunch would help, maybe having something more then a protein shake would do my tummy some good. WRONG! I ate some soup and after that I really felt sick. I was even thinking about going home for the afternoon. But I took a Tums and after about an hour I felt much better. I’m not sure what caused that but I’ll have to be more careful I guess. Dinner tonight will be the last of the egg drop soup which will not bother my stomach. I was supposed start back up at the gym tonight but I’ll have to see how I am feeling and if my stomach has trouble after dinner.

So far I’ve been doing pretty good I think. I am looking forward to getting back to my gym routine and to eventually going back to the weights too. And now that my stall has come to an end I’m going to get on a better schedule for weighting myself so I don’t do it every day. I got a little obsessed when I stalled and couldn’t seem to stop myself from jumping on the scale every day. But now that the stall is done and I’ve passed that big twenty pound mark I think I will be able to control myself better. My incisions are looking good. The belly button is almost healed. The other two are very red and super itchy but I guess that just means that there is healing going on inside. One thing I miss is coffee. I know I can drink it but for some reason I am very afraid of what it will do to my stomach. I can’t really explain why. But I miss my caffeine big time. I can barely stay awake without it. Hopefully I will get brave enough to try it soon. Tomorrow is the big day for The Aunt. She’s going to get sleeved! She is excited and very scared. I’m surprised because she has had other surgeries before. But Red says she gets like this before all the surgeries. I’ve given her the breakdown and warned her about which nurses to look out for at the hospital. I’m going to go see her after work tomorrow. I hope she has less gas pain then I did. I’ll let you all know how she does.