04/20/10 - Seminar (Weight 269 pounds)

04/29/10 - PCM appointment for referral

05/03/10 - Insurance submitted after I had to call the my PCM's office again to make sure that they did it.

05/05/10 - Insurance approved (Tri-Care)

05/13/10 - First consultation with Dr. Keith and surgery date scheduled

05/17/10 - PT, Psych, and Dietary consults

05/20/10 - 10 day diet class and first support group meeting

05/24/10 - Pre-op diet started (266.8)

05/27/10 - Final pre-op appointment

06/04/10 - Surgery (255.4)

Well, today is my first blog ever. I got home from the hospital about 6 hours ago. The ride from OKC was pretty rough. Longest 3 hours that I've had in awhile. Surgery was yesterday. Weighed in on their scales at 255.4. Got there around 6:45 yesterday morning. Lab drawn, physical assessment done, IV started with a 20 gauge to my left hand x 1 stick. (She was good. Didn't feel a thing). Didn't get wheeled back to surgery until 10:30 and got out of recovery at about 12:30. Was VERY, VERY nauseated in recovery. (I always am and that was with a Scoplamine patch on). Pain meds given and then I was taken to the floor. Had very nice, attentive nurses. Could not have asked for a better bunch to take care of me. Hubby stayed by my side the whole time and even slept in one of those horrible geri-chairs. Was very groggy for the first several hours. Around 4 pm, I finally decided it was now or never if I was ever going to wake up an walk. I walked the length of the hallway a couple of times and sat up for about 30 minutes, then back to bed I went. They were giving me 30 cc of ice chips every 30 minutes for an hour then 30 cc of ice chips every 15 minutes for an hour. After I tolerated that, they brought me some Jello, crystal light with a bottle of water, and some de-caf tea and was told to drink/eat 30 cc every 15 minutes of that. (Took me forever to get it all down). Took my sleeping medicine and some more pain-medicine and off to LaLa land I went. Was awoken several times through the night for different things. Woke up at 4 am to urinate and was in a lot of pain. So I took more pain meds. Doctor came in and discharged me around 8 am. We stopped in Shawnee to get my prescriptions filled and so that my hubby could get him something to eat while I sat in the truck (he didn't want to eat in front of me and I didn't want him too either). I took some more pain meds when I got home and off to bed I went for a little while. As long as I take the Gas-X and Lortab I am doing okay. Hurts like hell to lay on my right side (where the port is). Shoulder pains from the gas. Keep telling myself, you just have to walk. I'm not really hungry. I ate a 1/2 cup of low-fat cream of chicken soup when i got home and that filled me up. I drank 1 can of Vanilla Slim-Fast carb control. It was okay, but took me like an hour to get it drank. I waited the 30 minutes then got me a bottled water and had my first experience with something not wanting to go down. It was like the water was stuck in my throat. Not like choking, but like it was stuck. Any how, I cleared my throat and down it went. Got on the scales and found that I had gained 10 pounds from those darn IV fluids and all the swelling. Overall, it has not been a bad experience. I could have done without the pain, but it is surgery afterall.