dawn of dibley

I was really glad that I had my lip balm and ear plugs. my neighbor in the bed next to me was VERY LOUD and all i wanted to do was sleep. i also had my slippers, so i was good to go.

I am on like my 5th day post op ( i think. i have been sleeping so much, the days just run together ) i am doing my very best to get all 64oz of my fluids in. i have been writing everything down and i can tell that each day i am able to drink a little more than the first day. i am even starting to get some actual hunger, which sucks because i still have 5 more days of liquids until mushies...but my question is, will i always have this PAIN in my chest every time i take a drink of something? i will drink a table spoon or two of whatever it is, then i have this huge pain, have to wait for it to pass before i can take another sip. it has been very, very irritating. i feels like i am having a heart attack every time i sip something. i feel at this point that i could drink more if it weren't for that stupid pain in my chest. please tell me that it is just swelling and that it will disappear eventually. pretty, pretty please...i hope it's not always going to be like this.

I am still on liquids that can go through a straw. 2 protein shakes per day and 64 oz of other liquids like broth, V8 splash...oh, and popsicles. i know they can't go through a straw, but they melt and i can get them down.

i am kinda having the same problem. when i drink my V8, it feels like it is getting stuck right in the center of my chest and takes a while to go down. I have been freezing my V8 splash and it has helped tremendously. i can eat the frozen things so much easier than the room temperature things. my broth hasn't been a problem, it goes down very easy. i'm still not getting enough down though. i am barely managing to get 32 oz of fluids down when i need 64. i am doing my very best though.

That's great about costco. We are members of Sam's club, so it's been nice to be able to buy stuff in bulk and have it at home. that way i don't have to spend a lot of money getting it in the little neighborhood stores. it is great to have others in the city that are going through the same thing. i hope that maybe in the fall, when most of us have had a chance to start eating again and be off of liquids and mushies, that some of us can get together and talk about our experiences. that would be neat. i went into pretty good detail here about my surgery day if you want to read about it. http://www.lapbandtalk.com/topic/60457-surgery-day-stories/page__view__findpost__p__1609862 i don't have the energy to type all of that out again anyway, by the time you have your surgery i will be on day 2 of my mushies...i would be looking forward to that, but as of now, i still have no interest in food and i am still having trouble getting all the liquids down. i was able to get a little more in yesterday than the day before, and a little more in today than i did yesterday, so slllooooowly but surely, i am getting there. i hope

I had my surgery at NYU with Dr. Fielding. I think i had to wait about a month to get a consult with him, but 3 weeks after my consult, I was in surgery, so it went very fast. anyway, I just had a shower! i almost feel human again. it took all of my energy so i'm heading off for a nap, but wow, a shower. who would have thunk it. the little things in life are so taken for granted. have a great day everyone!

Hey NJGirl, at first, i wanted to stay overnight because i wanted to make sure that if something happened that I was right there in the hospital and they could take care of it right away..but as the day went on and i was feeling better and drinking and peeing on my own,and walking....i knew i would be ok going home. i do work. i took a week off for what my office thinks is a "staycation". i haven't told anyone about the surgery, so when i go back to work next thursday, i hope that i'm not still in this much pain and i can keep it all under wraps. i am feeling better and better each day. now i just need to get all of my fluids down. that has been a problem for me so far.

I think it's completely normal. i had to do a 2 week pre-op diet and when i was shopping for all of those Protein shakes and fluids for my first 10 days post op, i had a breakdown in the store. i had to go to the bathroom and compose myself. my surgery was on wednesday, just a couple of days ago. i'm glad that i had to do the pre-op diet, even though i moaned about it, because it prepared me a little bit for what was to come. at this particular moment, i have ZERO interest in food at all. i can barely drink enough liquid, and am coming nowhere near the 64 oz i'm supposed to drink just because it's too much Fluid right now. i am hoping that it will get easier and easier. i too went through the eating everything in sight phase. i felt like i was on death row and i was having lots of last meals. i needed to do that, and i'm glad i did. i don't regret it. hopefully in about 20 more days, i'll be able to have solid food again, but for now, i'm just going to try to do what my doctor has told me to do. get all of my fluids in and try to get better. good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Hey Jonathan, I am muddling along I guess. I don't have a sensation of feeling the band or the port yet. i feel very sore internally in my lower belly, but i think it's because of the incision in my belly button. it just feels like everything is going to fall out when i stand up, but then the feeling passes, so it's only for an instant or two and then it subsides. I have zero appetite so far and it's been a struggle to get all of my fluids in because i just don't want them. i drink them because i know i need them, but i'm not very interested in eating anything or drinking anything at this point. they say that around day 6 or 7, your appetite will come back. i will just have to wait and see. i'm glad that you know someone that you can talk to about the LB. i have some people in the support group at my hospital, but i don't know them very well, and they have already lost most of their weight, so they had the surgery done more than a year ago. i'm kinda by myself in all of this which is why i'm so grateful to have this board. it has been immensely helpful and answered most if not all of my questions. good luck to you and keep us posted on your journey.

Hi all, It's day 3 after surgery, or day 2 depending on how you count it. I am feeling a bit better and I haven't had any of those gas pains in my shoulder or anywhere else, so thank goodness for that. most of my pain is in my lower belly, i suppose from the incision inside my bellybutton. it just feels like when i move everything is going to fall out. i have 3 incisions. one in my bellybutton, one near my breastbone (center of chest, it makes it difficult to breathe) and one on my left side where my port is. I haven't felt like doing much besides laying around, but i have tried to make myself pace around the apartment just to get moving. it gets a little easier every day. the thing that is the most difficult for me is getting enough liquids. i am supposed to have 64 oz of fluids per day for the next 10 days. I probably had plenty in my saline bag while in hospital, but yesterday i may have had about 25 oz of Fluid total. i am drinking things literally a teaspoon at a time. i was trying to make myself drink a teaspoon of liquid every 10 or 15 minutes, but it's very difficult. i was able to get down 1 and 1/2 bottles of a Protein drink, so i at least got some protein in. the chicken broth seems to go down the easiest and of course, i had my popsicle. my sweet husband decided to try an experiment with the V8 splash that i'm drinking. we have ice trays that make tiny pellets of ice, so he froze some of the V8 splash and it went wonderfully. i was able to eat a bowl full of them, probably 4 oz of fluid in just a few minutes. he made some popsicles out of the V8 overnight, so i'm gonna try to eat some of those today since they have more calories than my sugar free ones, and i need the calories right now. anyway, that's kind of where i am at the moment. just struggling with getting enough fluids down and lacking in the energy to do anything. i'm going to take a shower today, believe me i smell like i could use one, and then we are going to try to take a walk to the park at the end of my block a little later. fingers crossed that all goes well. good luck to anyone that has a surgery coming up soon.

Hey guys, I posted about yesterday over in Surgery stories if anyone is interested. http://www.lapbandtalk.com/topic/60457-surgery-day-stories/page__st__720__gopid__1609862#entry1609862 keep in mind that i am currently under the influence of vicoden....

My surgery was yesterday morning, 5/4/2011. We arrived at the hospital at 6:15 am and went into the Same Day Admission unit where i signed more documents a received my medical bracelet. The receptionist made me check the bracelet for any mistakes and after that point, every single person i cam in contact with made me read the bracelet to them and tell them what procedure i was having done. there was no way this hospital was going to do a surgery on me if I got any of this information wrong. It was annoying after the 15th time, but I guess it had to be done. At around 6:45 I was moved to a room where I was able to change into my gown, my gripper socks and my blue hair net. They allowed my husband to stay with me the whole time i was in there which was a big comfort to me. My surgery was supposed to happen at around 8:30, but due to the rain storm we had in NYC yesterday, my surgeon was unable to get a taxi. So, while I waited for him to arrive, I met with several nurses who weighed me one more time, and had me give a urine sample. The anesthesiologist arrived shortly after that to answer my questions and tell me what was going to happen. Soon after that, another girl, the one who actually put my IV in, arrived and with her was an intern who was shadowing her. Again, they made me check my bracelet and tell them what procedure i was having done. Eventually, clothing soaked with rain, my surgeon arrived in his street clothes. He apologized for being late and told me that we would be proceeding shortly. He answered a few final questions, shook my husband's hand and then left to get himself dried and prepared for surgery. Another nurse, the one who would escort me into the operating theatre stopped by, again made me read my bracelet, and brought with her another doctor who would be assisting my surgeon. It was kind of overwhelming, just the amount of people who kept popping in, telling me who they were, making me read my bracelet and asking if I had any questions. i wanted to say "who are all of you people??", but i resisted. eventually, the girl who placed my IV and her intern shadow came in again and said it was time to place the IV. I warned her that my veins like to hide and told her she would probably have better luck using my hand, so she listened to me and found one in my hand. I love it when they listen to me…..The IV and the initial burn of the Fluid felt like a wasp sting but was gone very quickly. before i knew it, I was up and walking toward the operating theatre. the nurse who was "my nurse" allowed my husband to walk me right up to the main doors to the operating wing. there he kissed me and said he would be waiting to see me when i woke up. a few more steps past the door and I was looking into the actual operating room. talk about being overwhelmed. there were all of these people dressed in blue with masks on. I didn't recognize half of them. I told my nurse "ok, i am about to freak out". she grabbed my hand and said "i'm not going to let anything happen to you". with that, she whisked me into the room. she was carrying my saline bag and as she handed it over to the anesthesiologist, it popped off of the line and saturated the operating table with saline. i remember thinking "Oh my Lord, what if they kill me" but soon, i was lying on a nice dry pillow. they placed a warm blanket on top of me, it felt like it had just come out of a microwave, and then they placed those anti-clot sleeves on my legs to massage them while i was out. those things were AWESOME, and probably the best part of the whole experience. they felt sooooooo good. anyway, the anesthesiologist asked me what i wanted to drink when i woke up. I told him that champagne or a margarita would be just fine then I laughed. the next thing i remember is dreaming about cowboys and indians, like in an old western. someone called my name and I woke up in recovery. Ok, I will say at this point that waking up in recovery was THE WORST EXPERIENCE of the whole day. My chest was hurting so bad and I felt like I couldn't breathe. when i tried to speak, I couldn't speak because nothing would come out of my throat. i was trying to tell the recovery nurse that I couldn't breathe and that I was nauseated, but she couldn't hear me and didn't even realize i was talking to her for a while. i was kind of shaking my head from side to side to get her attention. when she finally saw me she leaned in and said "are you ok?" i said "i can't breathe. i feel like i'm going to throw up" She said, you can't breathe because of one of the incisions. it's just going to hurt for a while, but take shallow breaths and you will be fine. then she JABBED me with a needle to give me meds to keep me from throwing up. I think i even said "just let me die" a couple of times. I felt like i needed to burp, but I couldn't. she asked me what my pain level was. I was so out of it I just said it was a 4. I just picked a random number that didn't mean anything, but she gave me some wonderful, awesome morphine that seemed to do the trick. again, my mouth was so dry. people on the board kept talking about having a dry mouth, but it was beyond dry, i can't even explain it. it was like someone had stored wadded cotton balls in my mouth for about a week. no moisture whatsoever. i asked for ice and she said i wasn't ready for that yet. soon after i became stable, they allowed my husband to come back to see me. he said he was there for 30 minutes, but it felt more like 5. i was just in and out. I did tell him that i couldn't breath and that my mouth was dry. he asked the nurse if they had a swab or something that i could run over my lips and she gave me two swabs. when she ran them over my tongue and gums it was like the most refreshingly delicious thing i have ever experienced. it felt sooooo good. my husband kept asking them to give me ice and they said they would. eventually, i heard them tell him that he needed to go back outside and he left. at some point after that, the nurse came with a cup of ice and though it was difficult, i sucked on that cup of ice until it melted. at this point it was nearing 1:00pm and my nurse in recovery had to take a lunch break, so someone else took over. he brought me a new cup of ice because what was left in my cup had melted. then he said "i need to change your sheet". i kept thinking 'how on earth can you change my sheet, i am not going anywhere. I can't get up, i can barely keep my eyes open. he asked me to roll to my right and he put the new sheet on, then he asked me to roll to my left. i mooned him a bit but he just yanked that sheet right under me and changed it like i wasn't even on the bed. apparently, all of this took place over 3 or 4 hours, but it felt like 1/2 an hour. i was in and out and in and out. the male nurse started calling my name and telling me to take deep breaths…i smelled the funny smell of morphine again and boy did i inhale that stuff. at around 1:30 or 2:00 they said that my recovery room was ready. they rolled me out of general recovery and up to a hospital room. there was another person already in the room and they wheeled me right by her. my eyes were closed, but i could hear her complaining that they were giving me the window view and she had wanted it. the nurse just told her that she was checking out that day anyway and that i was going to have the window. i couldn't have cared less about a window, i just wanted to sleep. when i finally did fall asleep and woke up again, my husband was sitting in a chair staring at me. i wanted to cry from sheer happiness, but i couldn't. nothing would come out. my back was hurting from just laying on it. i sleep on my side mostly, so not being able to be on my side was very uncomfortable. i tried to just get some sleep and not think about it. my room nurse showed up right away and said that they would bring me some broth at around 4:00 and then i had until 6:30 to pee on my own, otherwise they would have to figure something else out. The entire time, i had my cup of ice with me, i just kept sucking and chewing on ice and it still did not relieve that dry mouth feeling. my husband probably got me 2 more cups of ice while i was in my room. they finally brought me broth around 4:30 and i was able to drink a cup of it and 1/2 a cup of tea. some time later i told the room nurse that i would like to try and pee, so she helped me get out of bed. it felt like my insides were going to fall out onto the floor, but they somehow managed to stay put. i walked to the bathroom and urinated, then she said if i would like to, i could go for a walk. I did 4 rounds around the floor and then my surgeon walked in and said that if i felt ready, i could leave the hospital. this was the first time I had seen him since the surgery and he had 2 more surgeries after mine, so he was making his rounds on the floor. He told me that my surgery went well, there were no complications and then he signed the discharge papers. I went back to my room to wait for a wheelchair and the surgeon that assisted my surgeon came in. i asked him "hey, when they unhook me from this IV (which i thought were drugs) am I going to start to feel the gas pain that everyone talks about in my shoulder?" he said, "that's just saline, you aren't on any pain medication at the moment". i just looked at him. then he said" if you were going to feel the shoulder gas pain, you would probably already be feeling it, but you might feel other gas pains when you start to move around. walking helps" then he shook my hand, said it was nice to meet me, then shook my husband's hand and that was that. At around 7:30pm they showed up at my room with a wheelchair and they allowed me to leave. we had a very bumpy cab ride home and when i walked in the door, i was beyond exhausted. I took the drugs they gave me and tried to get some sleep. for pain, they prescribed the liquid Vicoden which I guess is doing a pretty good job as I am not dying. I have 3 incisions, 1 through my belly button, one just at my breastbone and the other on the left side where the port it. the one in my belly button hurts sooooo bad. when i stand up, it really feels like my insides are going to come crashing to the ground. so far though, my insides are still inside, so that is something. as of now, it is quite a chore to get all of my liquids down. i am supposed to have 64 oz. of Clear Liquids a day, but i haven' t had nearly that today. i am just trying to sip, sip, sip constantly. when i am awake, i am trying to drink 1 teaspoon of liquid every 10 to 15 minutes. i have had 1 cup of chicken broth today, 1 popsicle, and about 8 oz of other fluid, plus so far, 1 Protein shake. i guess i'm doing pretty well and i'm glad i haven't had any of those gas pains. i have been burping, but that's about it. i think that's all…i am on vocoder, so hopefully this was coherent. i hope that tomorrow is a better day, and not quite as painful.

HI all, i just posted this in another thread, but thought i would post it here as a general update. so, this is a copy and paste; Hi all, it's me. My old account wouldn't allow me to log in for some reason, so I'm just going to post under this temporary one until the situation is rectified. I thought I would just give a basic update before I go back to bed. it's just after midnight here and I"m pretty exhausted. So, the short answer is, I'm alive. The longer answer is that I am in pain from one of the incisions. He went through my belly button and it literally didn't start hurting until about 1/2 way home from the hospital. I, so far, haven't had any of the gas pains that people have been talking about. Nothing yet in my shoulder or anywhere else. I can see that my belly is all swollen and I have been burping and burping and that has been a huge relief. Anyway, I just wanted to say a very brief hello. I will post the longer, more interesting bits tomorrow. Thanks guys for all of the information I have gleaned so far from this site. I felt like i was uber prepared for today and that really, really, really, helped a lot with the anxiety of it all. you guys are awesome.

Hi Jonathan. There are quite a few of us here from NYC. I just had my procedure done this morning at NYU. I am kinda loopy right now, but wanted to say hello. You will find TONS of info here that will prepare you for the big day, so make use of it. it really helped me out big time.

Hi all, it's me. My old account wouldn't allow me to log in for some reason, so I'm just going to post under this temporary one until the situation is rectified. I thought I would just give a basic update before I go back to bed. it's just after midnight here and I"m pretty exhausted. So, the short answer is, I'm alive. The longer answer is that I am in pain from one of the incisions. He went through my belly button and it literally didn't start hurting until about 1/2 way home from the hospital. I, so far, haven't had any of the gas pains that people have been talking about. Nothing yet in my shoulder or anywhere else. I can see that my belly is all swollen and I have been burping and burping and that has been a huge relief. Anyway, I just wanted to say a very brief hello. I will post the longer, more interesting bits tomorrow. Thanks guys for all of the information I have gleaned so far from this site. I felt like i was uber prepared for today and that really, really, really, helped a lot with the anxiety of it all. you guys are awesome.