Way too much TMI

I am warning you. TMI.

So, I am perimenopausal. That means that I have been having hot flashes since I was 43. I am now 50. I started having irregular periods about 5 years ago and several times I have thought that I crossed over...

...into full menopause (defined as having gone 12 months without a period), only to find a sneaky Ninja period catches me unaware and I am back to square one.

Last night my husband and I got frisky and this morning I awoke to a shark attack, which apparently occurred in my sleep.

Can I say that I am actually happy about this? I am 10 days away from my VSG surgery and the LAST thing I would want would be one of these things to hit me the day before or the day of surgery.

When you go months and months without a period you can count on it being ....

Well, intense.

I am glad that I have a chance for recovery here.

I am also damned glad that it's not what I thought it was. I was spotting a tiny bit the past two days and thought I had a case of hemorrhoids. Whew.

I think my body is trying to pull out all of the stops to get me to cancel my surgery. First by the cold that I got on Monday ----->  I kicked it's ass.

And now this.

Sorry, body, I will be dragging you, kicking and screaming, for your VSG surgery.

Get ready to suck on this...cause surgery is ten days from today.

All done with things on my list. Time for a new list.

I tend to keep centered by having things to do that are clearly set out before me, like stones in a river to step across. 11 days until my VSG surgery.

I had a list, which I kept to break up the amount of time that I have to wait until my surgery, but I have finished everything on that list, amazingly. So I am going to try to focus and make a new list.

I have eleven days until midnight the night before my surgery. Tensions are rising. I would not say I am afraid, but I am aware of the risks that I am taking. They are on my mind.

Strangely enough, the weight loss that will accompany the surgery is only at the very edges of my awareness. I am aware that my pants, my only pair of jeans is about falling off of me, but I won't buy new at this time. I stopped buying clothing back in November and I refuse to buy any clothing right now.

January 23, get stove installed, swim, Chuck's Sleep study, order cake for Rachel's birthday (small cake) DONE

shop for Rachel's birthday, get gift cards for Dave & Busters, DONE

January 24th take Jon to work and pick him up. DONE

Make a list for the hospital bag and foods needed for liquid stage DONE

Buy "liquid stage" foods and stock cabinet. Warn the kids not to eat/drink my stuff. DONE

Clean out the junk that's on the headboard and bedside table. Consider getting a new bedside table that has drawers (my drawer has no bottom)

Find liquid adult tylenol and liquid antacid DONE

January 26th  - Do not eat meat after today - Days that I have done this:  2

January 27th Send birthday cards to Andy, Erica and Ben DONE

January 28th Charlie and Rachel's dentist appointments.

Get suitcase packed.

Jan 30th Don't forget pink post op book. Pick up Rachel's cake DONE

January 30th - Rachel's Birthday - Fun day! Done 

January 31st - Take Jon to work and pick him up. DONE

Start using antibacterial pre-op soap - DONE


Feb 2 - Jon's Dental appt canceled


Feb 3rd -
Stop all foods and water after 10:00 PM, get water glasses out of the bedroom.
Put wedding rings in the jewelry box
Put CPAP mask and headgear into suitcase (consider taking machine)

Feb 4th - Surgery

Stepping stones.

Snow, swimming, taking your swim to a new level.

I am writing this to follow up on a video that I made this morning, which talked about increasing the intensity of the swim by changing your kickoff glide to a dolphin kick. I will post my video here, but also, I am going to link to a video which will show Michael Phelps doing the same kick.

 It has made my legs so strong. Start the linked video of Phelps and his competition at about 3:33. Pay attention to their turns and the kick that they do with each turn.

-----> Phelps Video:    http://youtu.be/Pe3I8NkR5oQ

Two weeks until Surgery ----> Nesting.

VSG Nesting

Well, as of this writing, it is 14 days and 8 hours until my Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy Surgery. I have been doing a lot of stuff to prepare for being in recovery, such as:

1. Taking some $$$ out of savings to cover my $1,000 deductible for the insurance.
2. Electronically scheduling payments on all of our bills for the month of February, just so that I don't miss any of them.
3. Refilling my everyday prescriptions.
4. Making sure that I have vitamins/minerals (B-12, Calcium, Magnesium, Multivitamin with Iron and Biotine) that I can tolerate (being yummy is a bonus).
5. Cleaning out my vacuum. Yeah, I am not sure why. But it's clean.
6. Reading my books on the VSG surgery.
7. Watching my countdown clock.
8. Making lists.
9. Nesting

It's a lot like being pregnant.

When you are pregnant, you go to a lot of doctors appointments and generally, there are a lot of people there who are either pregnant or just delivered. You have a lot of other doctors to visit (ultrasounds, blood work, etc.) You read a lot about pregnancy and babies.

You select a hospital, you have birthing classes (bariatric support group meetings). You have to pack a bag and get a lot of things ready for the baby (or in this case, for your new sleeve).

You nest.

And a lot of times, the spouse just is NOT as involved in the preparation as you are. 

Who wants to be eyeballing dust bunnies when you are prohibited from picking up more than ten pounds? You clean. You dust. You throw out the old and bring in the new.

If you are a sleever, I wonder, are you nesting yet?

What Might Have Been.

I wasn't going to write about this, but I am writing about this. Friday was a day of ups and downs. It started out with Charlie having the day off. Charlie is my 14 year old son who has autism. We went swimming and played in the water and that was a great time and a great workout.

Then we drove up to see Dad at work, which meant that Charlie would get to ride across the Kensington Bridge, which he loves because of the way the bridge makes the tires sound. We went to lunch with Dad and the pizza place that we went to had an item called a Savage Calzone, which is a calzone with no bread. How cool is that? It was awesome, but I only ate a bit and brought the rest home.

On the drive home, I got a call from the surgeon's office that my insurance approved my surgery! YAY! And I asked if they had any cancellations, could I move that surgery up? Yes! They said I could do it next Thursday! YAY!

As soon as I got in the door, I got a call from them that they had not been aware that the cancellation time slot was not to be filled and I was put back to my original date. :( But I was ok with this. I really was. I sort of panicked after I thought I only had six days to surgery.

Just minutes after that call, I got a call from someone who works with The View. Yes, the television program. They offered me the chance to be a guest of The View in New York City! YAY!

God, I love Rosie!!

They are doing a program on VSG and want pre-op participants to question a surgeon as they talk about Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy. I am so passionate about this, because I believe in this surgery.

Being able to be on The View would have been so cool and I accepted their invitation with a surging in my chest. I told my husband, who said he could watch the kids. However, there were two things keeping me from being able to actually do it. Finances and the fact that traveling just five days prior to my surgery would expose me to a lot of bugs. I am laying out a grand for my deductible. That's a chunk of change. Airline tickets were $500 and then there was the cost of a hotel...

But the kicker was the exposure to illness just five days before my surgery. If I got sick, most likely I would be getting ill either days before my surgery or right after it.

Apollo 13: "Jim, that's a lousy time for a fever."

 So I bowed out of The View.

Man, that really hurt. I wanted to fly there, stay in a hotel and be on the freaking View. But you know what? My HEALTH comes first.

So. A lot of ups and downs. It has been a roller coaster ride. I am trying to center myself and go on with life.

But hey! My surgery was approved!

I just wish that this climax to my six month's of hard work was not so anticlimactic. It deserved it's own moment.

Getting off of Coffee

Today is the fifth day that I have not had any coffee. It has been a long weaning process. I used to drink it black and I would usually eat vanilla oreo cookies with it. Or toast with butter. Sometimes eight cookies or four slices of toast.

I wanted to stop the coffee because every time that I didn't have coffee in the morning, I would get a massive headache and since I know that I won't be drinking coffee immediately pre-op, I am stopping to coffee to avoid adding a headache to my list of post op issues.

Here is the funny thing: My carb cravings for bread and cookies has dramatically reduced!

That was unexpected!

I guess it's because eating cookies and toast was so tied to drinking a cup of coffee. Man. I am really happy about that.

I had a headache for three days. Now I am not even thinking about having a cup of coffee.

Here is how I weaned off of it:

1. I went from three cups of full strength coffee to one cup full strength and two cups of Green Mountain Half Caff
2. Then I went to all Half Caff.
3. Then I reduced to one cup of Half Caff and two cups of decaf.
4. Then I would use my kuerig on the small setting to fill a large cup half way. I would dump out a little of the half caff, I would then top off with a small setting of decaf, creating 1/4 caff.
5. A week after that I went to decaf for a week
6. I weaned back to one cup of decaf.
7. This Monday I had my last cup of coffee.

So this has really worked for me. It's like titrating off of medicine.

UPDATE From the Post Op Me: I ended up going back onto coffee full bore pre-op. I was afraid it would screw me up post op, but maybe it was the morphine or something...I have had no headaches and no withdrawals and it is nearly three weeks post op and I have not had any coffee. Why bother? I can't drink with meals anymore anyway. 

Getting Excited! & Some info about baby utensils

It is now 28 days until my VSG surgery. I got a call this morning from the doctor's office and they went over everything that they have and what they still need from me. They needed my endoscopy study and they wanted me to do an online anesthesia orientation, which I completed yesterday.



I called my GI surgeon and had them fax my endoscopy to the doctor and I received the rest of my instructions:

• They asked me to move my history/physical and pre-op bloodwork up, seeing as though my surgery was moved up by three weeks. I have now scheduled that for next Tuesday.
• I am to stop taking NSAIDS (which I stopped after my endoscopy, when the GI doc said to never take them again).
• I am to stop taking any vitamins which contain Vitamin K, which can change the body's clotting process.

So, that really pumped me up. I did forget to ask if I meet with the doctor before the surgery for an appointment, but I am 99% sure that I don't see her again until I am wearing the paper gown.

So, 28 days.

Next week is a busy one with my last insurance mandated weigh in on Tuesday, then my pre-op workup on Tuesday and my last bariatric support group meeting before surgery on Wednesday.

Busy is good. Keeps my mind off of things.

I was scheduled to have a tooth cleaning on January 28th, but I have decided to cancel that. I have that mitral valve prolapse and there is an ever-so-slight risk of endocarditis with a dental cleaning and they used to pre-medicate with antibiotics prior to appointments. They no longer pre-medicate and I am just jumpy enough not to want to have even a slight risk of a heart infection.

It's getting close, peeps!!

By the way, I did buy myself a tiny set of flatware. I did not want to eat, post-op, off of plastic baby spoons and forks. Especially since the forks tend to be spork-ish.

So I bought this set online. It really does slow me down. I have been eating with it every day and also using the smaller bowls and plates that I purchased and it does, indeed, slow me down and make me take smaller bites.

Now, when I look at typical forks, I think, man, that looks like a shovel!

Four + weeks until surgery!

Hi everyone, which is probably no one, because no one ever comments.

Anyway, I am past the five week point and now at four weeks plus change until my VSG.

I see a sleep doctor on Monday to adjust my CPAP settings, I have not been sleeping well since I asked my family doctor to change me to the auto pap setting.

When am I going to learn not to self-diagnose?

I bought some supplies for after my surgery and the anti-bacterial soap for before the surgery. I am getting excited, but it is not close enough for me to be getting scared yet. That will come, I am sure.

The thing that has gotten me through my previous surgeries has been faith in God. I know that if it is my time to die on the table, that I have trusted Christ as my savior and I am saved. If I survive, then I am a fighter and I will do the very best I can, with His help, to get better and whip this weight battle.

I am feeling much better about the diet that will be my life, since lately the six month diet is coming easy to me. I rarely have days over 1400 anymore and some of my days are closer to 1200. That is good news in that I have not eaten a lot of the crap that I used to eat.

If I go out for food, I am having salads with low cal dressing or chili. If I have chinese, I am having veggies and chicken with no rice or noodles.

I have not had a reese cup pass my lips or a double or mega stuffed orea in two months. That is really saying something.

Watch my surgery date tracker. Prayers are requested.

I am off to swim. Gotta get that swim in!!!

Surgery Date Moved UP!

I am now scheduled to have surgery on Feb 4th, instead of February 18th. I had told them that I was available earlier, if possible.

Shit just got real.

Working on some short term goals.

Here are the goals that I am working on right now, prior to my surgery:

• Decaffeinating myself. Did you know Green Mountain makes a Haff-Caff? Yes. After a week or so, I will take that down and do a, what? Quarter-Caff?   I fear the caffeine headache, but worse would be to have that bitch the day after surgery.

•  Continuing to lose on the pre-surgery diet. I need to lose or at least not gain with every visit. Next month is my last one!! YAY! Unless I gain. Then I go to hell forever.

Maybe Hell wouldn't be that bad? He's cute, right?

•  Getting my CPAP changed to a BI-PAP. I am swallowing air, probably from too much pressure, so they will be changing my machine.

•  Continuing to swim every day. It is so fucking cold right now. It's really hard to get myself up for going outside and dragging all of my crap to the pool. The locker room and pool area are simply freezing. It's all glassed in and it's just a nightmare. But most of the time, I swim alone, so there are perks. I just keep repeating to myself, "I always feel better after I swim." And it's true. I want to go into this surgery in the best physical shape that I can possibly be in.

• Not scaring myself by googling horrible things like, "VSG Complications" or "Weight Loss Surgery Horror Stories". Enough of that already. I need to start googling success stories. No, there is no long-term track record for the sleeve, but I know enough people who have been there and done it that I know what to expect.

 So, that's about it. Trying to get through these last ten or so weeks without going mad. My mind has been so focused on this for so long. And before the sleeve journey, I was pretty heavily focused on my diverticulitis.

You know, strangely enough (knock on wood), I have not had a flare of diverticulitis since I started this diet. I am trying to be very careful of what I eat, but I have done pretty well. I am also getting much better at spotting flares before they become flares. And I take a stool softener every day now, as per my GI guy. Constipation is the enemy to those of us with gut potholes.

No shit, Sherlock, something is helping. And I have high hopes that after the surgery, my diverticulosis will continue to improve, although only a bowel resection will really put it into remission.

Passed the Nutritionist!

I am offically done with my pre-op testing. I had my dietician consult today. Man, they put me through the ringer. I was there for three hours. I was weighed and then they tore apart my food log.

Apparently, if you are not eating what the dietician eats (mainly dairy) than you are doing something wrong.

I was able to get through it. She zinged me on my oreo habit, but I told her that I had not had a Reese cup for a month and I was down to two oreos a day with my one cup of coffee and they are the regular one, not the mega and not the double stuff ones.

Baby steps.

She told me twice how she weighs 100 pounds.

Really?

But I passed their tests and I am on my way. I weighed in at 267, but I had not eaten all day and had not had much to drink. I didn't want to weigh my bladder and colon and get yelled at.

Now I have to keep it between the lines for the next two months until my surgery and then the deed will be done and the hunger will abate. For a while.

I had to buy new underwear today. My 12's were too big and they didn't have 10's, so I bought a size 9 and they fit without pinching.

:)

I also had to buy another pair of pants and a stretchy size large fit me just fine. I am really about a 2x, but my legs are thin and muscular. It's just the belly that is so big.

How many have been turned away?

The room was full when I went for my bariatric introductory meeting. We met in the hospital auditorium. There were many heavy people. We were given information and encouraged to fill out a form to be screened to see if we were eligible for surgery.

My GI Surgeon had contacted the bariatric center on my behalf and the lead surgeon had already decided to take me on, as a patient.

But there are hoops to jump through. The first of these was that we were given a food log and told to set up an appointment for our first dietary class with weigh in. There were eight of us at that weigh in.

Now there are other times to come, three times per month, but to date, I have not seen any of the others in any of my weigh ins or at the support group meetings (which are not mandatory).

But I do know that parts of the process are discouraging:

1. One of the dieticians has a rotten bedside manner. She lords her position over the fatties and discourages them. I have been in her crosshairs. It is no wonder that she works for the doctor who does not do surgery, but gives pills. She disdains our process, I believe.
2. The diet itself is so hard. Five or six months of hunger. That's if you tell the truth, as I have been doing (99.5% of the time). God forbid you gain. God help you if you don't lose.
3.  Dieting for months is hard enough, but it pushes the goal of having the surgery so far away. The diet and exercise are so fruitless and I have been down this path so many times, and I have to stay on it for at least another two months. 
4. The cost is hard to bear: copays ($40 a crack for me) and the deductible ($1000 per year and I will squarely hit two years in my process).  I have spent $1005 this year on deductibles and copays and will spend at least $1000 right out of the gate in January -- on this process ALONE. Just on the diagnostics, the evaulations, the sleep studies, the endoscopy, the GI appointments, the chest xrays, the EKG, the dietician co-pays, the lifestyle classes and the psychologist.

So, those who bomb out of the diet, as I have so nearly done so many time and those who can't afford the out of pocket and those who are discouraged by the meanness of the professionals, where are they?

I hate thinking about all of those that are lost to this process because the insurance simply makes it too damned hard. Maybe the length of it is not so bad, at least we have time to think it through, but man, the approval process is one of the hardest things I have ever done, shy of being pregnant and giving birth.

76 days until my "tentative" surgery date.

Guess who passed her psychological evaluation - Part 1

psych evaluation part 2

Star Jones & Rosie O'Donnell and even Me.

Start from about 12:00. The truth that Star Jones has to say about her journey just floored me. She has such insight now.

This was really inspiring to me.

Here is Rosie. She had the Vertical Gastric Sleeve and briefly talks about her mind shift and how it is still strange to her. She sometimes does not see herself as she is.

When I lost a lot of weight, I felt out of body.  I was excited, but it didn't feel like me. I know to expect that now and to realize that even now, I don't feel like me. I guess because I am not constrained to this body.

What I mean is that, in my head, my brain, my mental voice, I am all that I have always been forever.

I am the little girl, the teen, the pregnant woman, the beaten woman. I am the sum of all of my experiences.

This is me today. This is the worst of me.

This was me last month.

 This was me in July, marrying my son and his wife. Wearing a purple tablecloth, essentially.

 This was me in 2007, sick, thin, and ready to relapse.

Whom am I, truly?

I guess we will just have to see.

I feel good! Eating better.

My dietician had told me to go back to eating like I was in the month that I had the most success. So I have done that. I printed out my logs from My Fitness Pal (username: imawaterbender). What surprised me is that the biggest changes that I made from the month that I lost vs the month that I gained were:

1. I was concentrating on really, super chewing.
2. I was not drinking with meals.
3. I was drinking a lot more water daily.
4. I was not cutting out all carbs.
5. I was eating about 1600-1800 cals a day, rather than 1400.

So, that is what I have been doing this week. As a result, I am more energetic, less lethargic and less pissed off, in general.

So I am off to get into the pool now.

I may have bad days.

I may want to quit.

It may be hard.

I might get scared

BUT

I am here to do this thing.

I am more than a number on a scale

and I can do all manner of things.

I might not get it done the way that everyone things I should

But I will do it in my way

In my time.

Big Girl Panties ON!

13 weeks and counting to Vertical Gastric Sleeve Surgery.

My week so far.

I weighed in at the beginning of the week and had a startling gain, which made me question everything. I wanted to put it off as just water weight from a sneak attack period or the fact that the weigh in took place in the evening and I had been eating all day.

But I had to come to terms with the fact that my eating had really sucked lately. Every since the week before Halloween. Darn these holidays.

So I have mentally kicked my own butt and gotten back in the game. My dietician told me to eat fruits and veggies instead of sweets and that is what I have been doing. I am also really working much harder on keeping myself to 1400 calories than ever before. I have not made it every day, but I am way closer.

Tuesday I blew it, Wednesday I was under 1400, Thursday I was at 1500 and Friday I was on target again. Today I am doing well.

I have been packing my lunch daily, even if I am staying home. It helps me eat better during the long part of the day. I also bought some PB2 - google that stuff. Man, it is good when dipped into with baby carrots.

I know it's not a Reese cup. But it satisfies.

Not me. Do some squats today!

I have started doing some squats in the day - only 20 in the am and 20 in the pm, but I can REALLY feel the burn.

I am not doing squats that go very low, but I am getting my butt down parallel to knee level. My swim was interesting, because I could really feel the thigh burn. I felt stronger even though it hurt a bit.

My sleep is better, I am loving the CPAP. It has really worked for me. Sure, things bug me about it, but overall, I am not having headaches, I am sleeping better and I am sure that there is a lot less stress on my heart. I have dreams now that do not haunt me into the morning.

So that is where I am today.

After the Endoscopy

I had my endoscopy today. It was ok. I was afraid. The guy who started the IV really jabbed me hard, but he got it on the first try, thank God.

Everyone was nice, and when the drugs wore off, I thought they had not started yet. I didn't have any nausea.

I was out of it for a while and was glad that my husband was there to listen to the instructions and results, because I was gorked.

• No sign of Barrett's Esophagus
• No ulcers
• No large hiatal hernia
• Some fundal polyps, which he said were nothing to worry about, usually caused by protein pump inhibitors, such as nexium
• Some stuff in the small intestine, but I don't remember what it was. He biopsied it and I will find out on Tuesday what the deal is. He said something about, "it is probably not lymphoma" and that was what my mother died of.

So, this is over with and I am off to bed. I have a minor sore throat and I am very tired. Oh and I had dry mouth like crazy. Still, this was an easy appointment.

A new Pool & an upcoming invasive test

Pardon my typing today, I decided to get acrylic nails, which was probably stupid, since I have an endoscopy scheduled for Friday. Halloween. They may make me take one off for the pulse oximeter.

I am afraid because:

• It's in a surgery center, not a hospital (think Joan Rivers)
• I am a chicken
• It involves an IV -- fainting from the needles here.

But I have to do it, so I had better just think of the positives:

• At least they sedate us now, it used to be that we had to do these awake, "Swallowing The Bicycle Chain" is what my mother used to call it.
• And...I can't think of any other perks.

So that is Friday and this is Monday and I am all in knots.I thought of changing it, but the only thing they could do was to change it to December and I am more afraid of driving into the city on a winter morning than I am of the actual procedure, so I guess that says something about me.

I hate winter driving!

I was due to renew my pool membership at the hotel where I swim, but due to a possible child molester there (who I called the cops on), I am afraid to swim there and it was adversely impacting my swim. I realized that I am completely vulnerable in the water, because there is no lifeguard and usually no other swimmers. Someone could come in and throw a TOASTER in there with me!

Electricity AND water!!!! NOOOOOO!

I got a membership to LA FITNESS instead. I still have issues over changing in the locker room, but since I know that it's very common, now I just grab my stuff and change in the bathroom and shame on them for not having private rooms.

15 weeks and three days until my surgery, if I counted right. The winter will be nearly over. That's a good thing.

I think when I go for my next weigh in I will be down by about five pounds. I had to buy a new pair of jeans, they were a 22W, down from a 24. The 24's where falling off of me. I made sure to get belt loops on these ones so that I can wear them longer.

I have not gotten my CPAP yet. The insurance company is dragging it's feet.