CubsWinCubsWin

I am less than 3 weeks from my surgery date, I start on the 15 day liquid diet on Friday. Over the past couple days I have been going on a farewell tour of my favorite foods I am saying goodbye to after our long and intimate time together. Yesterday I used the Cheesecake Factory gift card I got for Christmas and tomorrow my mom is taking me to my favorite pizza joint for one last Chicago style thin crust sausage pizza. She is a little happy she no longer has to share pizza with me, she hasn't had a middle square in decades (Chicago thin crust is cut into squares, known as a party cut). My weekday lunch time routine of going out to a local fast food joint will soon be replaced with a brisk walk at the gym or outside around my workplace. If I get really industrious I will go down to the nearby ice rink and skate through my lunch period. Change has come to my life. Welcome change, very necessary change. Change to bigger things with a smaller waistline.

It's been awhile since I've posted. Been busy with work and the like. I'm doing well. My weight loss has slowed down quite a bit but it's not bothering me. I'm more focused on gaining muscle and being "fit". As part of being fit I ran in Chicago's Shamrock Shuffle this morning. It was a crowded field of over 40,000 people. I finished in exactly 1 hour to run the 8K (5 mile) race. I was pleasantly surprised because when I did this race last time over 10 years ago in much better shape it took me only 55 minutes. It's something I could not imagine doing this a year ago before surgery. It's been tough keeping on track but it has been quite worth it. Keep on shuffling folks.

I lost all my hair a few years ago when I went through Chemo for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, it wasn't so bad. I looked a mess but in the end it all came back eventually. I don't expect my hair loss this time around to be as extreme but I am seeing a lot more hair on the comb than I saw before surgery. If a concern about heredity is a concern, there's not much you can do about. Shaved heads are all the rage and balding can be beautiful and has a fan club all its own. Please resist the urge for a combover, please.

I was hoping to hit the weight room as soon as possible to make things fall back into the right place where I had them 10 to 15 years ago but I was advised to wait. We didn't gain the weight in a few weeks or months so it won't hurt us to wait a few weeks or months to get back into a rigorous training regimen. Take it slow on the physical effort, it's not worth it yet. You'll lose most of your weight just from the fact that you can't eat as much as you used to. I walk briskly everyday from 3.5 to 6 miles everyday and I have slowly peppered in days where I throw in a slow jog to get the heart rate up. I had surgery on February 28 and have lost 63 pounds so far and I have yet to lift. I loved to lift, it was so much better than cardio but I know I need to wait until everything inside has healed and that will not be until month 3 or 4 post surgery. It will come soon enough.

That's the Vicodin talking, wait till that wears off I'm kidding, but seriously, keep moving. I will hurt like heck but it will help you recover that much faster.

You are correct. They are some great folks up there. It seems odd but it's probably because they are a BlueCross/BlueShield Center of Excellence they are required to have very standard operating procedures which may include prescribing everyone the same pre-op BA shakes. You're in good hands.

It depends on your doctor on why they are using BA exclusively. My doctor only used BA and I am in the NW burbs of Chicago. I thought it might be some kick-back scheme but it might just be a convenient way to stay consistent with previous results. It's all about shrinking your liver and helping you lose a few pounds to make the surgery a little easier for your surgeon and safer. I did my 14 days on BA and hated it but I kept in mind it was for only 14 days. I haven't touched the stuff since. It sounds like you are doing well, keep up the good work.

It was pretty simple really. I considered the band after doing some preliminary research and then after talking to my doctor and my Chiropractor friend, they told me to consider that the band is going to be in there for 20, 30, 40 years and do I really want a medical device implanted if I could help it. The sleeve just made more sense than a band and I was not extreme enough to go for full bypass.

I found after surgery I am not coming onto the site nor posting as much as I did before I had surgery. The deed is done and all I can do is live my life day by day. I have lost about 60 pounds since I started this process on February 12. My last uninhibited meal was a pizza from my favorite pizza place here in Chicago. We take our pizza very seriously in this town so giving that up has probably been my biggest challenge. Overall though I have not had many craving since I started. Every now and then, particularly when I am feeling down, I'll want to take on a Man vs food challenge and then I soon realize I couldn't even if I wanted to. This is for the best. The sleeve has been the best tool I have had to curb my old bad habits. I'm rambling, but a quick summation. I have begun to run again. Slowly by doing a 1:4 run/walk interval this week. That means after a 5 minute brisk warm up walk, I run for 1 minute and then walk for 4 minutes and repeat until I reach my 3 and half mile goal each morning. I will up the interval to 2:3, 3:2 and then to 4:1. I am getting flabby around the middle these days. I can see where I may have to have skin removal surgery but I have been told it may be 50/50 that it may resolve itself due to my age. At 40, everything medical is a crap shoot I have been told. That's all i got this month. I'll see you next month for an additional update.

You are right Grammy, I should try to do better at posting my progress to support those who come after me in this journey. I do not like to complain and a lot posts I see tend to be so negative at times. The encouragement I can lend to others is look at this process logically and less emotionally. I am a very analytical person being both an accountant and computer systems person I see the cause and effect of everything around me. I see the numbers and I by nature must analyze them to come to a reasonable decision to proceed. I found I was turning 40, survived cancer and gaining way too much weight to the point it was affecting my mobility. I calculated what needed to be done and found a tool (gastric sleeve) to get it done. In my opinion it has been relatively simple, I went in, had surgery, was in pain for a bit, had a very limited diet but now its all better. I always knew it would get better so I never really worried about it. I will do better at posting more positive messages on this board. This board was part of my decision making process and it is my duty to pass it on to the next generation of those seeking solutions. Thanks for reminding me.

I was wondering why I didn't see many people posting right after surgery. I am known for live-blogging my life as it happens particularly when I travel. This time around, I had no interest in telling anyone anything. What a weekend!!! I arrived at St Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates (burb of Chicago) and found a very friendly staff and on my bed I found a bear named Bari. The room was green which I guess is calming but they were running late so I am not sure the paint had the right affect. Various doctors and nurses would stop by and I told them all my life story, if you looked official I talked. Finally I was taken back toward the operating room. The injecting the first part of anastesia to make me loopy and at that point everything was "awesome" and I had to point it out to everyone who would listen. Once in the OR they put the mask on me to shut me up. I have no idea if they ever asked me to count backwards from 10. The last thing I remember was when they blew up the bag I was laying on to make it easier for them to transfer me to the surgery table. Next thing you know I was somewhere else. I don't remember much from the recovery room other than moving over to a recliner from the bed and also being in quite a bit of pain. After a couple hours in the recovery room they wheeled me over to my hospital room for the remainder of my stay. I liked my room, there was a tree outside my window that was a gathering place for a couple hundred small birds tweeting away about their day. I found out that they leave the tree at sunrise (go to work, run errands, etc) and return right before sunset. It did not look like anyone worked from home. I really enjoyed the birds every evening and morning. I thought they'd might be a little annoying but at some point they collectively decided to all be quiet. The first night was rough. I could not sleep for various reasons but mostly because it was quite loud, bells and whistles going off on random intervals waking me through the evening. The most annoying alarm was all my fault the first night. We discovered I have inherited a heart abnormality from my mother that drops my resting heart rate to below the alarm threshold. I'd doze off and that damn alarm would go off. The nurses were confused so they called the doctor on call and had the alarm threshold lowered. They were impressed with my resting heart rate, they said that will benefit me as I lose weight and get back into marathon running shape. Day 2 and 3 were about the same, the 3rd day was better than the 2nd. The nurses were quite accommodating and I became a bit of a fixture due to me doing laps around the 2nd floor every few hours. I became progressively better as the hours went by and by Sunday afternoon I was ready to go home. My home sickness was not due to being away from familiar surroundings or even the cuddling power of my 2 cats, I wanted to go home because the cable channels were anemic. I got home Sunday night just in time to watch "Live from the Red Carpet" and then the Oscars. Was it funny, I'm not sure, I was pretty hopped up on pain meds so everything was funny to me that night.

I've been laying low for the past couple weeks after surgery. I have not had much to complain about. I have the occasion bout or twinge of pain or discomfort but they did just remove a vast majority of a vital organ in my body. You gotta let it heal and let your body bitch and moan about it just a bit as it adjusts to this new reality. Anyway, since I started this entire process with liquid diet on Feb 13 and Surgery on Feb 28th, I have lost a total of 40 pounds thus far. I do not have the energy I'd like and I have been lucky enough to have time off from work to sleep it off as best I can. I currently eat 4 times a day a diet of greek yogurt, tuna and eggs (not all mixed together, that might be gross). At some point I may add a vegetable in the next week. That's all I have for now, keeping it simple because after the surgery you have no choice. I will continue to heal and lose weight as I eat properly and exercise.

I did not make it down to AZ for spring training, too busy with this sleeve thing this year. I'm looking forward to Opening Day this year and making it to a few games. Perhaps I can fit better in the seats this year. They were getting pretty tight, Wrigley Field is 100 years this year and they had smaller butts in 1914.

I went on a eating tour of Chicago before I started my liquid diet. I had and enjoyed everything I could but I also analyzed what I ate and why I ate it and learned quite a bit. I enjoyed the pizza and Italian beef sandwiches but I admit I was over consuming. The thing is I never really abused those on a regular basis, those were every now and then choices. When I did my last McDonald's meal I had quite a revelation, fast food is crap I shove in my mouth because it's easy. It's easy to get away for lunch and spend time mindlessly eating during the short time I have. When I sat and really thought about the quarter pounder, fries, coke and apple pie, nothing really had any taste other than the salt from the fries. I was glad I went through that process because it made the 2 week liquid diet that much easier.

Goo packets? I think Gel is a better term for these. The one I have is call "Muscle Gel" It has 22 grams of protein and no sugar and it is only 90 calories.

That sounds like a lot of fun

I'd be a little concerned about the nitrates and other non-fresh aspect of pre-packaged meals like that. But I guess if you are in a pinch it couldn't hurt every once and awhile.

If you are asking on whether to skip the calorie count in order to eat more, I'd say that's just a bad idea. But to truly track the amount of calories successfully going through the digestive process than those you throw up can't count.

As a 9 time marathon finisher, pre-superfat and surgery obviously, I find that long-distance running is nothing but a mental game (barring any actual physical injury). It is not easy but anyone can run and run far. You don't have to be at the front of the pack and your goal shouldn't be to win but to finish and have fun. My best marathon time was Chicago in 5:07:04 and my worse was probably my last which was Los Angles which took over 7 hours to get through but I finished. I hope to start running again real soon, maybe not this upcoming running season that starts this month but perhaps next year.

All the emails seem to come about 20 minutes after I go to bed. I'm just to lazy to cut them off just yet.

I'm a CPA and 200.5 is close enough, call it a rounding error and be done with it.

After the 14 days of nothing but Protein shakes I'd rather not see a Protein shake ever again. In a pinch I have a bottle of Isopure in the fridge and I have these "goo" packets that have 22 grams of protein that I can take to get in the require amount. Also, keep in mind, if you don't get it in today, there's always tomorrow.

The fact that we are more aware of what we eat and do not eat the same junk we did before surgery can only help our overall health. Once I get further through the recovery process do I expect my mental alertness to increase and my productivity to only get better once I go back to work. It is no coincidence.

Awesome

Congrats