100 Pound Post!

Well, here I am for the 100 lb post. Actually 102 lbs as of last Monday!  I had a few more health problems this month but they have all been resolved now.  And I feel like a million bucks!!!  Here is a brief update I posted on my other blog.  Skip the next paragraph if you read my book blog.

Health crisis.  The previous week I'd had exploratory surgery on my abdomen and they didn't find anything, PTL, but that meant was I was still in excruciating pain. Went back to see surgeon on Thurs. He was pretty confident the surgery ruled out anything serious and that I probably had an ulcer so booked me for a gastroscopy which I had on Friday.  I have a terrible gag reflex, so that was totally not fun, but I was overjoyed when they called out that they had found a "big ulcer".  Yeah!  I know what's wrong with me!  Yeah! It's big!  That explains the unbearable pain.  So I was put on very strong ulcer meds the day before the gastro and now that it is Sun. the pain is starting to diminish.  Prognosis is that the meds will completely heal me.  Thank God! 

So without any further ado.  Here are my current before and after photos:

                    Sept.  2011                                                                Sept. 2012 ~ 102lbs lost

And here's my hubby having a little fun with the camera afterwards {blush}

Complications

Things had been going well for me. I've been happy at my new size, regularly wearing a size 14 and an L (sometimes an XL depending on brand). The actual weight loss has slowed right down but when I go for my monthly weigh-ins (with my own Dr.), we find that the inches are steadily giving up the ghost. My body is forming a figure with curves (in the right places :-)

However for several months I've had pains in my upper abdomen, almost my chest really, just under my ribcage on the left side. Made an appointment with the surgeon at the Bariatric clinic and he scheduled me for a CT scan. Took some weeks for me to be contacted by the lab, but I received a letter with my CT scan appointment approx. 3 months later. Well waited my turn and went for my scan, by this time my pains had become somewhat more frequent. Annoying but not severe. As prep for the scan I had to drink 3L of some yellow stuff over a period of 1 1/2 hours, this really bloated me. After the scan my pain became more constant and not as localized spreading across the entire front, not just the left side anymore. I had the scan on a Thurs., received a call from the clinic on Mon. that the surgeon wanted to see me the next day, Tues. Well I couldn't make the 1 1/4h drive to the city that day so had to wait until the following Tues. for my appointment. We are now talking July 17.

Over the weekend my pain became intense; I had one day where I curled up into a fetal position and found an old bottle of Tylenol w/codeine to cope with pain. Called the clinic on Mon. discussed my options and decided to just hang in there until the next day for my appointment. I tried to get them to tell me what was wrong with me but of course they wouldn't say. This was very frustrating. "The doctor must interpret the results for you". "We are not allowed to give information over the phone."

So, I went to see the surgeon and I did pack a hospital bag, just in case. Well, he told me the CT scan showed I had a twisted bowel and this was a possible indicator that I had an intestinal hernia. They should due exploratory surgery as soon as possible to determine and correct if found. I agreed that I'd like it done asap, as I couldn't put up with the pain anymore. So he admitted me then and there!

I had surgery around about just after lunch. They found a hernia, pushed everything back inside and sewed up the hole, first of course untwisting the bowel. I then stayed in the hospital from that Tuesday until I was discharged at 5 o'clock Thursday evening. Everything went fine with the surgery, completely successful and my recovery has been fine. No problems. I was up and walking around within hours of waking. At this point 5 days post-op I'm tender, get sore after a bit of walking and not allowed to lift things until my surgeon gives me permission. My follow-up appointment is Jul. 30 where I expect to be given the all clear. I have six lapriscopic incisions which is rather annoying as I had just recently been noting that my previous incisions were just at the point where they were virtually disappearing and now I've got six new shiny red ones! Of course they are under steristrips at the moment but those will fall off during the week to come.

This is a potential complication from the Gastric Bypass Surgery, Roux-en-Y which I had preformed on me in Nov. 2011. It is not unusual but it is relatively uncommon. It happened to me. Could it happened again? Yes, but very unlikely. How has this affected me? Not at all. I consider this only a small bump in the road. If I had stayed at my previous weight & size, I was a time bomb and would have been dealing with any number of health issues by this time that would be life and death matters. If anyone had told me I would have to deal with this complication before I had the surgery I would have still gone ahead with it!

One defining moment for me was when I was laying on the gurney before the op. and the anesthetist came out and asked me a bunch of questions. The he says "well, besides this your a healthy woman. I say we're ready." Nobody and I mean nobody has ever told me I am healthy, that was a life affirming moment. Consider this, about four years ago I went to see a new doctor for the first time and almost the first thing he said to me was "Whoa, you're a mess!". Needless to say, I never went back to him.

"Whoa, you're a mess." to "You are a healthy woman". Thanks! I've come a long way, baby!

Surgery and Two Days in Hospital

Time to start blogging again even though I"m not really feeling up to it it but if I don't get this last week recorded it will soon become ancient history instead of recent past!

I'll add pictures later.

Monday morning I arrived for my surgery 7 minutes late but that was ok because they were taking people by the number system and I got number 10 and they were up to number 2, so I figure they got a little late start as well.  Of course there is just drop-off parking at the Surgery Unit so dh went off to park the car, when he arrived back I had been admitted, waited and just had my name called to proceed through to surgery with three other people.  Dh couldn't come in until I was all bedded down, but everything went quickly.  I was asked the same questions over and over, poked, prodded, temp. taken, gowned, iv'd and bedded then dh came in and about ten minutes later the nurse came to say it was time.

Remember this is my first time having surgery of any kind as an adult, and certainly my first "major" surgery.  I wasn't nervous at all; I was excited and pushed through the corridors, seeing all the surgical scrub centres and thinking how cool this was, just like ER.  Then we entered my room, which was filled with my "team".  There were little tv sets all over the room and the wall in front of us was one big TV screen.  Everyone then came up to me and introduced themselves to me and proceeded to do something to me until I was on the table and being told to breathe in and out.  Next thing I knew I was groggily opening my eyes and I was in my room.  My dh appeared briefly.  I remember smiling at each other and saying "hey".  Then my next remembrance is pain and agony!

Brief time out here for some reflection.  After various conversations with nurses and relatives, I realise now that I had never actually contemplated the surgery part of this procedure.  Having never had major surgery before, I had no clue what to expect.  Yes, I was told it would take 4-6 weeks to recuperate but I thought that meant until I was like I'd never been, incisions fully healed etc.  I had literally thought I would be able to walk out of the hospital.  I guess I thought it would be like having a baby, yes you are tired and weak and sore but as soon as you get home you get back into living your life and taking the baby for walks and trips to the doc, right?  You take naps but you suck it up the soreness and get on with it.  Not so with surgery!  I soon found out.

Well, here I was in the hospital, awake, hurting and I couldn't move my stomach muscles!  I couldn't adjust myself in the bed without help.  I remember now, I woke up in the recovery room needing to pee and they would only let me have a bedpan, not allowed to get up in recovery.  Well I can't go on a bedpan, no matter how badly I have to go, so I ended up being a mess crying and wailing about having to go pee and would some get me to a toilet please!  So I was taken up to my room and they had to literally take me arm in arm to the toilet to do my business.  This is all very blurry but the relief of peeing was about as great as the pain of moving.  I guess this is when I fell back to sleep and remember the other wakening described above.

The surgery was a success.  Everything went according to order, smoothly and on time.  My sutures are neat and clean.  The surgery was done laproscopically so I have 5 small incisions with a couple of stitches each and covered with steri-strips which will eventually fall off.  A couple of post-op complications included some original troubles breathing.  I was only getting 80 on this machine that they said I should get at least a 95 on for them to be happy so I was hooked up to the nose oxygen things and that night my C-PAP machine (for sleep apnea) was set up so they could add the extra oxygen.  Also upon awakening I couldn't open my right eye at all.  It burned and stung and watered.  I eventually got it open a crack but couldn't see properly.  Things were blurry with black around the edges.  There was some crusting in the corners of the eye as well.  That night I asked for a saline wash and it felt really good but didn't really help it much.  Gradually over Tuesday, my eye opened, with blurred vision, and eventually got all better.  They say it was a reaction with the stuff they had taped my eyes closed with during the operation.  Nobody could tell me why they taped my eyes closed though and I had other stuff on my mind when the big-wig honcho dr. came around.  And lastly, I had a short bout of low blood pressure; it went down to 56 over something.  I basically slept through this so don't know what they did but when a dr. came to address this with me she found my bp had gone back up nicely and no further follow-up was needed.

The hospital I was at is a teaching hospital, so there was no shortage of staff.  There were nurses, student nurses, interns, residents, doctors, surgeons and specialists who all came to see me at one point or another.  Everyone was very nice and I was treated well.  You get the best care from those lowest on the ladder, though, which I think is always the case with these things.  My surgeon was the leader of the team himself, who I met once post-op and probably would not be able to recognise in a police line-up.  There were two student nurses who worked together, who took wonderful care of me and all the nurses were very nice, especially a young 23 yo male nurse who was fairly new to the job.

On the technical side of things, I was still on a clear fluid diet Mon and Tues which meant my meal trays consisted of appetising delights such as decaf tea with sweetener, apple juice and unsweet. jello.  Wed. was my last day in the hospital and will be the focus of my next post.