That's what I'm calling it, anyways. I use the term 'mulligan' to mean a do-over. And that's exactly what I feel like I have.

I've been incredibly overweight since like the third grade. I'm going to be 29 in July. In the past, dieting hasn't worked for me. I needed a jumping off point to make the changes that I wanted to make and see the results that I want to see.

I recently had lap-band surgery with gastric plication (April 30th). I want to keep track of my post-op/recovery/progress and I figure blogging it will give me more accountability. This is copied & pasted from my personal blog, with some editing for language. I swear a lot. I use the word 'f**k' like it's a comma, so I'm trying to not do that. I didn't edit out the TMI.

Day 0 - Day of the surgery - 4/30/12 - arrived at the hospital at 5:45 in the morning, everything went quickly with the check in and I was in surgery by 7:30. I don't remember too much about surgery day.

Day 1 - Day after - 5/1/12 - I was supposed to be discharged on the 1st, because the procedure itself is an "outpatient overnight" procedure. I had the plication in addition to the band, so I had some additional nausea & couldn't keep any liquids down. I had an x-ray where I had to drink contrast material and it was the most agonizing ten minutes of the day. I should've been able to drink an 8oz medicine cup of water every half hour - instead, I was nauseous (the antiemetics didn't help at all), dry heaving & vomiting all day. One of the nurses was really nasty, like "You're not vomiting, hun, you don't have anything in your stomach". a - don't call me 'hun' in a condescending tone. I'll smack you with my giant hand (the IV line in my hand wasn't in the vein and the IV fluid went into my damn hand. It was comically oversized until the 3rd) and b - look in this basin. Tell me what that is if it's not vomit. It's stomach acid and blood. Which tasted just DELIGHTFUL coming up. The painkillers didn't do much except make me MORE nauseous. I couldn't watch TV, I brought a book - couldn't read it, I couldn't play around on my phone, I couldn't talk to anybody - not because those weren't options but because I was too weak and gross feeling to do any of them - all I wanted to do was puke and sleep.

Day 2 - 5/2/12 - I woke up around 9/930 after sleeping on and off - I was waking up every hour, pretty much. I'd try and drink water and just kind of swish it around in my mouth and spit it out if I couldn't swallow. By the time I "woke up", I was able to keep water down and the nausea had mostly subsided. The pain was minimal. Something to take the edge off is nice, but it's not like a 10 on the 1-10 pain scale. The doctor came in to see me around 11 and asked how I was feeling. I said that I was ready to go and he said that I could be discharged around 4. I asked if it could be around 2 instead, because I didn't want to spend one more minute in the hospital. Around 3, my dad showed up to pick me up (even though I told him I'd be discharged at 2 -- but my irritation with my father's inability to be on time, ever, for ANYTHING is another entry for another time) - my best friend (who I refer to as my heterosexual life mate - kind of like Jay & Silent Bob) was already there and we were ready to get out of there. We left the hospital and the drive home kind of sucked. I was still a little nauseated and I was still dry heaving. FYI - when you're a passenger in the back seat of a car and you feel nauseated; ask the front seat passenger to roll up their window. Otherwise the air blasting into your face will make you sick. I dry heaved up some water and stomach acid on the drive home and again in the grocery store parking lot. We stopped to drop off my prescriptions and my dad dropped us off at my house. I tried to smoke a cigarette and smoked about three hits before I didn't want anymore. I tried to drink some tea, but I really just wanted to go to sleep. My heterosexual life mate put the window AC in while I took a shower and after, we tried to sit and watch a movie but I just wanted to lay down. I slept most of the day and woke up around 10ish. After that, I'd nod on and off, still waking up every hour or so. But at some point, the nausea dissipated and I wasn't throwing up or dry heaving anymore.

Day 3 - 5/3/12 - Felt OK most of the day. I drank the required 64oz of clear liquids, showered, put makeup on and actually left the house. I had little to no nausea and a little pain. Zero problems getting up and walking around. I drank some chicken broth that night and my stomach started making the gurgling noises and it kind of felt like an assplosion was in my future.

Day 4 - 5/4/12 - Shitty day. Literally. Explosive diarrhea doesn't even begin to describe the poo river that's been flowing today. I called the doctor and they said diarrhea is normal and, oh, by the way, I might crap myself. Their exact words were "don't be alarmed if you go to pass gas, and you pass more than gas". SUPER! JUST WHAT I'VE ALWAYS ASPIRED TO DO IN LIFE! (false) So everytime I feel gassy, I haul ass to the bathroom. I think I could be a little dehydrated because I don't think that I have had enough fluid today to replace the mississhitty river that I've crapped out. I'm trying to get down a glass of tea now, so I'm hoping I feel LESS crappy. If not, at least Get-Go is open 24 hours and I can go get some gatorade. It's also humid & I'm sweating, so I'm not too sure that's helping me feel less gross. I want to take a cold shower but I feel shitty and weak and I don't feel like standing up in the shower. And I don't think a bath is a good idea just because when you take a bath, you're basically sitting in your dirty bathwater and I don't know if that's a good idea for incisions. I have a cramp in my right side and I just don't want to even move.

Day 5 - 5/5/12 - I woke up and still felt gross. I took a shower and that didn't help me feel any better, but one of the steri-strips fell off. I went and got some gatorade a few hours ago and my stomach doesn't sound like it's in a constant state of unrest. I still have the cramp in my right side, though. It's below where the port site is and I think it's just from the excessive bathroom activity of yesterday. Aside from the cramp and the pain at the port site, everything else is good. No nausea, no vomiting, no diarrhea - just a little sore and extremely bored. The pain medication says to take every 4 hours, but I really don't need that much of it, which is cool.

So far as the boredom goes, weekends are usually my clean house/run errands/do laundry time, and I cleaned the hell out of my apartment (and the common area hallway) the day before the surgery. I ran all my errands that I could possibly have to run for the next month the day before the surgery. I did all of my laundry the day before the surgery. So it's not like I have a ton of laundry to do or a ton of things to do, even, but I just want to be doing something...

I don't know what I'm going to do with myself for another entire week off of work...