Hello everyone!

Wow - it has been quite the eventful past almost 2 weeks. This blog is dedicated to those who are pre-op Everyone is different, but I hope if I give you my story, it will help some of you to be a little more prepared for what you're about to undergo!

1st, I did my surgery in Egypt - so far away from most of you...but the surgery is the same, albeit the administration a bit different...

Soooo....(drum-roll!) I started my surgery at approximately 253.9 lbs. May be a bit less than that, but I was too nervous to go wandering around trying to find a scale! The operation was last Sunday... Everything was smooth in the operation - they knocked me out peacefully and happily and although the operation was only 45 minutes in total, I was out for around 5 hours. The torture happened the minute I was being transferred to my hospital room. I was screaming in pain (still out of it from the anesthetic), and vomited blood 4-5 times. Warning!!! For those of you who have sensitive stomachs to medicine, especially hard-core medicine like Morphine, be ready to have to make a tough decision....you will be in an incredible amount of pain..and will NEED strong pain-killers...but if you tend to throw-up fairly easily, taking those strong pain-killers may mean that you end up in even more pain. Throwing up after a gastric-sleeve operation, as you can imagine, is not fun. The doctors had to torture me with medium-strength pain-killers to avoid my throwing up to prevent further bleeding. OUCH! I was quite embarrassed of myself - I was in so much pain over these 2 days in the hospital that I created quite a scene. I don't remember most of it, but I remember getting the nurses and doctors all flustered with my carrying on. Oh well, not much I can do now The actual surgical pain - is more than manageable. Hopefully (touch wood) all of you will be just fine with that. I had two issues - 1) the gas issue - this pain was ridiculous. You have this constant feeling of just wanting to "deflate" and the pain that goes with it is indescribable....but, par for the course. It took me 6 days to "deflate" enough that I wasn't walking around looking 7 mos. pregnant and the pain was mostly gone. 2) the drainage site - you will have a drain for 2(ish) days. This is extremely painful and unfortunately I had developed cysts internally around the incision of the drain, and this was also an incredible amount of pain. I couldn't sit, lay down, stand from pain. When I went back for my 7 day post-op appointment, I yelped enough that they gave me an ultra-sound and CT scan and found multiple cysts formed in this area. A 5-day course of anitbiotics/anti-inflammatory cured this - I am now feeling almost normal.

Writing this, I feel like I was such a baby...but I've delivered normally 3 babies (2 without an epidural, so I KNOW pain), and I was up and changing the babies the same night and taking my mom on a tour of my area the day after..in pain yes...but I was proud of my pain theshold. In my opinion, that means that this is one seriously painful operation (but hopefully none of you will develop the cysts which was the cause of at least 50% of the pain).

So, now - I am now at 236.0 lbs (17.9 lbs less), 12 days post-op. Great!!!!! I am feeling very weak and I feel like I've done 5000 crunches and the incision areas are drying and itching like crazy, but I feel great compared to just a few days ago. I'm back home and back at work. It's hard figuring out how much I can drink before I'm full - the feeling of fullness doesn't exist in me yet - but when the juice starts bubbling back up (a weird feeling), I stop drinking for 10-15 minutes or so. POPSICLES rock!!!!!! I feel SOOOOOO much better after munching on a popsicle.. I've started putting all my juices in the freezer. It makes me feel like I'm eating, but it does nothing but soothes my aching tummy. Stock up on popsicles!!!

I'm still on a full liquid diet - soups, jello, juices, and popsicles Working my way up to the thicker soups, protein shakes and will transition into mushed food. My tummy/esophagus controls me on this issue...I get a really yucky uncomfortable feeling and it lasts quite some time when I try eating something I'm not ready for yet....

ohhhh - one thing I had read up on before I went for surgery.... My doc requested my husband crush all of my meds. YUCK! When I was a kid, my mom had to chase me around with the medicine syrup...imagine how I was with crushed tablets? Super yuck! So, after suffering for around 5 days, I googled around on the internet and finally broke the tablets in half and swallowed those as normal. No issues whatsoever. Now I can swallow them whole (probably could the whole time, but I was being careful).

So guys - there you have it. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer!!!

Looking forward to the days to come!