So here's my first blog post on the site. I just had my surgery on Friday, May 24, 2013 at OHSU in Portland, Oregon. The surgeon told my boyfriend, Will, that the surgery was textbook, and everything went very well. I woke up with a foley catheter and no drains, which I was very happy about. My pain has been manageable as long as I take my pain meds on a regular basis. I'm on liquid Tylenol and oxycodone for my pain. I was lucky in that my surgeon was able to call in a prescription for the tylenol to my local pharmacy so that I didn't have to buy a bunch of the smaller bottles over the counter.

A little background on what I went through leading up to surgery. I made the decision to get WLS in November 2013 after a second endoscopy showed that while my ulcers in my stomach and esophagus were healing, I had a hiatal hernia and needed surgery to fix it. Oh and I needed to lose weight, which would help with the acid reflux. I was at the point where I would wake up in the middle of the night choking on stomach acid that I was aspirating into my lungs. By December I was at OHSU going through their WLS orientation. It didn't take long for me to get all the testing done. I needed a pap and a parathyroid hormone test, and I had already had all the other tests completed in the last 3 months, my PCP just needed to send over the results to OHSU. I also completed a psych review.

One of the requirements from my insurance company before they would approve surgery is that I needed 3 consecutive months of visits to a dietician. I was travelling for work and ended up missing out on my February appointment and had to start over in March, April and May. My last appointment was on May 1st which is when OHSU submitted for approval. We heard back on the approval in a week and I was scheduled for surgery for May 24th. I think my journey from when I made the decision to have the surgery to my surgery date was a relatively short period of time with few hassles.

I had to make a lot of changes in a short amount of time including quitting smoking, soft drinks, and becoming more mindful of what I ate. I think the hardest thing for me was to slow down my eating. I am used to quickly eating and moving on to something else. I didn't like the idea of chewing for long periods of time and really didn't enjoy what the texture of food in my mouth after chewing it for a long time.

I have two kids, Brieanna is 15 -- she turns 16 in another month and Sylar, who is 11. I was lucky to have my children when I did because right after I had Sylar in 2001, I went menopausal.

Brie is a typical teenage girl who has ups and downs almost hourly. It's a roller coaster ride with her at times. She's finally figured out that her grades in high school are very important and has turned herself around academically. Sylar is very different from her sister, but just as smart and enjoys being athletic. I'm sure I'll mention the girls a lot if I continue blogging.

Let's see, I also have two cats. Mr. Mushy face is a lynx point himi and Zim is a black domestic short hair. I love my cats so much. I never thought of myself as a cat person yet four years ago my best friend suggested that I get a cat as a pet since I live in an apartment. I got both cats at the same time and they were such a welcome addition to my family.

I have a boyfriend, Will. We've been dating for a little over a year. We've had a lot of drama since we started dating. Brie really doesn't like the fact that I am dating again. I chose to stop dating in 2008 and focus on my children. Before that I was in serial relationships from the time I was a teenager. It was a good period of time for my family. Just me and the girls. When I decided to start dating again after 4 years of being single, Brie took it very hard. Every day we still are having to work through her passive aggressive tendencies with regards to Will. Though she's improved greatly over the year we've been dating. I'm just taking it one day at a time right now with the relationship. I don't know if it will last, but I'm going to give it my all while I have the chance.

I got home from the hospital around 11 am yesterday morning. I was really looking forward to being able to sleep through the night in my own bed. Yet here I am writing my first blog entry. Since it's Memorial Day weekend, I'm going to have to wait until Tuesday to call my PCP and get a follow-up appointment made for after the surgery. If I'm still having trouble sleeping, I'll bring it up with my PCP.

My anxiety level has dropped significantly since the surgery. Most of the things I was worried about were the unknown aspects of the surgery. What was my pain level going to be? Would I be able to tolerate anything in my pouch after the surgery? What about drains? Luckily I didn't have any drains when I woke up and I'm tolerating everything I've tried so far. I haven't had any nausea to date. Though I did get a little spell of it after I had some liquid colace (a stool softener) at the hospital. The surgeon was quick to change out the stool softener to senna after that.

I'm going to give blogging a try for a bit to see if it helps me organize my thoughts for the day in addition to chronicling my post-op experiences.