October 16, 2008 – One Week One Day Out

It’s one week and one day out since I had the surgery. This surgery has been so much easier to recover from. I was out today driving and walking. I’ve even done a little bit of cleaning. One week later – excellent.

Surgery day – It was a positive experience as far as surgery goes. The nurse in pre-op gave me a Novocaine-like pain killer BEFORE she put the IV in. I will never have another IV needle put in without it.

I was excited and scared. Emily and Tina kept me laughing. God was so merciful and gave me a couple of little blessings beforehand that calmed me down.

I awoke from the surgery in comfy bed! That was a miracle too.

Dear Tina spent the night at the hospital taking care of me every need, which was so sweet. I do think anyone who stays overnight in the hospital after surgery should have someone stay. She did things the nurses didn’t have time to do. For instance, when they left the power boots off, she got them to turn them back on. Those boots are awesome. They massage your legs so you don’t get blood clots. I wanted to bring them home with me!

When I awoke from surgery, the nurses brought me water to drink. One whole tiny one ounce cup of water. I was to take an hour to drink it. It was SOOOO hard to do! One sip and I was full. What a strange feeling.

The next day, they brought me 1 tiny cup of cream soup (1 oz) , 1 tiny cup of pudding, and one tiny cup of coffee (not that I drink coffee) but at least it was an option. I could hardly get any of it down.

Following the deluxe breakfast I was released to go home. My friend Brenda was able to take a break in her day to provide taxi service. I have such terrific friends and I am so grateful.

Every day has been a surprise in that I still can barely drink much more than 4 ounces of anything in one sitting. I had to set an alarm on the cell phone to remind me to eat! Who’d a thunk it, really!

A pain killing gizmo called On-Q was placed in my stomach with two tiny tubes. A plastic ball, filled with medicine pouring through two very thin and long tubes, were inserted into my stomach, apparently where the Realize band port was placed. I carried the ball inside a little strapped black bag over my shoulder. I was to remove the tubes as soon as the ball went flat and was empty. I watched the ball shrink a little bit every day. By Friday night, the ball was flat. While Emily was still at the house, I decided to pull the tubes out. I didn’t want to be alone when I did that.

It was kind of funny. Emily said it was like watching a magician pull the scarves out of the hat. You know the trick. The magician keeps pulling and pulling and pulling until there are a bunch of scarves lying on the floor. Well, pulling the tube out was just like that. I kept pulling and pulling and pulling. Finally, about a minute later, the tubes were out. I didn’t feel a thing. The pain killer in there was killer! Any future surgery – knee – hernia – I’m certainly asking for an On-Q. I am sure that made recovery much more pleasant too.

Sunday was the roughest day. Ketosis. That is the worst bad breath and yucky feeling in the mouth and stomach. I wanted out of myself. It started Saturday night and worsened Sunday. I thought a gray squirrel moved into my mouth when my tongue turned gray and hairy. Disgusting. Apparently Ketosis is when your body switches from burning carbs to burning protein and the fat already inside. Lovely. By Tuesday the balance seemed to be back and I was much, much better.

I do burp a lot. So feminine and demur. ha-ha.

Went to the nursing follow-up meeting Monday afternoon with Emily. The nursing meeting is a follow-up with the staff nurse and all the people who had surgery the same week I did. We asked questions and signed forms for research permissions. The nurse had a gastric by-pass three years before and lost more than 130 pounds. It’s always so inspirational to meet people ahead of me in the process.