Current Mood: Light and Breezy :thumbup:

At 8:30 yesterday morning, exactly one week since my surgery, I got an upper GI series to check the position of my band. I was worried about drinking the barium before I went as I'd had a bit of a difficult weekend with pain and the feeling that I had too much restriction. Phew! They don't give you the giant bottle after the band, just a little cup of barium and, I only had to take a few sips. It was really pretty cool watching it go down my throat into the "pouch" and then through the stoma to the larger part of my stomach, which appeared to be something like outer space the way the liquid sort of floated around. The radiologist said it looked exactly right (8 and 2 o'clock) and the restriction looked fine as well.

I feel much better today than I did over the weekend or even yesterday. Maybe it was swelling from the surgery that was causing me the trouble. It seems to be pretty much gone now although I still feel...something and, I am still getting winded from walking.

Besides the X-ray, I also went back to work yesterday. I've been very open about my surgery with a number of colleagues and to the last one, they all said I looked like I'd lost weight. I even showed a couple of them the incisions (they still had steri strips on them) and then...I got to work.

Work is going to be an issue -- too bad I haven't won Mega Millions yet. I don't have enough time in the morning to eat, make my lunch and my daughter's breakfast and lunch and get my daughter to school and then get myself to work on time so I decided to bring my breakfast with me and eat once I get to my desk. Of course, I want my coffee first, which takes at least 20 minutes to drink, then I have to wait 1/2 hour and take 20-30 minutes to eat and then wait 1/2 hour for more to drink. By the time I've actually finished breakfast, it's pretty much lunch time. So far, I've just pushed lunch to later but then, when do I have my protein shake and all that water? I know I just need to work it out but it's a bit of a juggle right now.

Update on the post op situation at day 8:

1) I pulled off the steri strips after my shower this morning and 2 of the 3 small incisions look a little red so I put Neosporin and bandaids on them. The other small one looks like a scratch that is healing well. The doctor buried my port behind my navel so, unfortunately, the largest scar is also where I bend and where my jeans hit.

2) My stomach muscles are sort of tender and I have to keep forcing myself to stand up straight instead of leaning forward when I walk - probably just a little residual pain from the surgery,

3) I have a raging yeast infection from the IV antibiotics (this was mentioned in the literature I got before surgery) even with a near constant diet of yogurt. OTC remedy in the works.

4) The band feels tighter in the morning and seems to loosen up as the day goes on. I wake up with a feeling of slight indegestion followed by uncomfortable burps and/or hiccups within the first minute or so of being upright.

5) After days of being ...uh, non-productive and taking colace for that issue, I finally, and with much struggle....um, produced last night. Yay! This took longer than I anticipated so I just bought some Benefiber to add to ....EVERYTHING.

6) I can eat a full 4 ounces of yogurt and 2 ounces of apple sauce without pain.

Good news on the scale this morning: I was down 11.3 lbs from my day-of-surgery weight. That's 21.9 lbs down from my consultation weight. I really can feel the difference and it's good.

You're doing great! Keep at it! -BG