Today was finally the day of my surgery! After trying to get the weight off myself completely unsuccessfully I decided to do this for myself. I got married 6 months ago and was at my heaviest then. On top of that, I gained an extra 10 pounds after the wedding. Ever since quitting cheerleading in high school 6 years ago I have been at least 50 pounds overweight. I'm tired of it. I don't want to spend the rest of my life that way. So, days after my 21st birthday, I got banded.

It was pretty much the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. Well, beforehand anyway. I woke up at 5:45 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep to save my life so I got up and watched a little TV before my husband and I left to be at the hospital at 7:30. Took a pregnancy test, filled out some paperwork and then was taken to pre-op. I was doing ok at first but a little after I was given a pill, a shot, and the IV was put in place, I started to completely freak out and was wondering what the heck I was doing there. I started crying a little when my dad came in. My aunt and just had the surgery and my mom was in there at that time, so we had a nice little support system. That didn't help my feelings though. At some point, I took a little nap, and when I woke up, I was completely find and ready to go.

They took me to the operating room, had me move to the operating table... and then I woke up in recovery. I was very relieved. I'd never had surgery before and was terrified something bad would happen, but all was well as far as waking up and being alive. The pain was pretty bad, but they gave me medicine for that. Didn't help the gas too much. And I was completely exhausted. After doing the x-ray thing, they made me wait in my "room" in my wheelchair. I kept falling asleep and when my head rolled back I woke up. After doing this about five times, my sweet husband came and stood behind me so I could rest my head against him.

After I got home (Around 1 pm), I took some pain medicine and had some water and fell asleep. I slept in about 1 hour increments. I've been trying to walk to help with gas pains and I think I've been mildly successful. I'm pretty sure most of the pain I'm currently feeling is the tightness of the band. But I've been setting my phone timer to 5 min, then 6, then 7 and making myself pace the living room for that long. My husband wants to drive up to the coast tomorrow, which is completely fine b/c I can just rest when I'm there, but I'm not too sure about the 3 hour drive. I'll just have to wait until morning to decide.

I've eaten a little bit of the broth from chicken noodle soup, and I had my husband run and get me popsicles and jello (sugar free of course) and some hot and sour soup. That stuff is the best I'm pretty concerned about this next week on the clear liquids. I'm not any kind of hungry now, just eating a very little bit because I feel like I should have some calories in me. But I'm terrified that I'll get hungry and not be able to have anything. It's full liquids starting next week and I'll be able to have smoothies and protein shakes so that should be fine. Just have to make it the next 7 days.

But for now I'm going to take some more medicine and see if I can sleep through the night and hopefully feel better in the morning.

Love,

M