swishbc

Good luck Tina! Can't wait to hear all about it and hope you recover quickly. :thumbdown:

OMG OMG OMG Donna you are a lifesaver! Thanks so much for talking to me tonight. I totally had a meltdown and bawled my head off after talking to you. On the way home from my parents we stopped at Rite Aid and I got the chewable tylenol ( I can't DRINK another sip of medicine...GAG!) and Gas-X strips. I took them in the car and when I got home I had the HUGEST burp like all the way from the bottom of my poor empty little stomach and I feel SO SO SO much better! I also bought the pepcid so I'm gonna call tomorrow and see if I can take that for the heartburn if it doesn't go a way soon. And OMG!! I had the most horrible constipation problem today, had to use a suppository and everything. I don't know WHY they don't give us stool softeners...so stupid. My insides are SO sore like I got kicked in the gut from all the work. My poor body. I'm gonna ask them tomorrow about stool softeners too. The whole huge differences between SSF/Richmond really piss me off, honestly. Social scenarios in early post-op really SUCK. Tonight was so hard and because I was feeling so uncomfortable already, but watching everyone eat that yummy holiday food was pretty close to torture! I can't wait to be "normal" and eat what everyone else does, just a lot less of it. Anyway, I'm feeling so much better now thank God for Gas-X. I would recommend everyone keep some on hand!!!

Recovery room time flies by cuz you're totally out of it and in and out of sleep. You won't even have a concept of time...at least I didn't! That included the time I went down to do the barium swallow. Basically I woke up from surgery around 9am and was between recovery and barium until I left at 2pm.

No kidding! All my pre-ops were either $5 or NO co-pays and surgery was $15. All my first year after care visits/fills are free. Good think hubby loves his job because I love the benefits! I don't know if I could've done this without our awesome insurance.

I paid my copay ($15!!! Crazy) when I checked into the surgery dept the morning of surgery.

Tina it's almost time!!! I didn't get nauseous at ALL, still haven't. Did they give you the anti-nausea pills to take tonight and tomorrow? They'll also put some anti-nausea stuff in your IV. Did you take your milk of mag this morning? That stuff is NASTY!!! I did almost puke taking that. I was in recover from when I woke up to almost about when I left. Probably about 3-4 hours.

WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!! As of today I weigh 249.4!!! I haven't weighed under 250 in YEARS. My total loss since surgery is 8 lbs in 6 days and since 12/1 I've lost 48 lbs!!! I'm so excited. It makes all this pain and frustration worth it! My next big goal is to have lost 50 lbs...at this rate I could be there by Tuesday! LOL. Beware of constipation, pre-op girls. It SUCKS. I think it's finally gonna happen for me today but it's hard work because your tummy is sore and you don't want to work too hard, if you know what I mean...

Dude, just tell 'em you have a hernia and have to have surgery. It's 4-5 lap incisions and 6-8 weeks of recovery. (my sis JUST had a hernia surgery in Feb.) If I was keeping it from someone it would've been the perfect cover, lol.

Geez, Nicole! I'm so sorry this keeps happening. Good to hear that you can go to a local Kaiser though if need be. All they will probably do is put a bit more dermabond on it to close it back up. As long as they're not putting a needle in the port (which they'd have no reason to do since you're not having restriction issues). I hope it stops ASAP. Now go lay down and don't get back up!!!

Also, food is a drug for ALL of us! That's why we're here, that's why we are having/had surgery, that's why we go to our support group. We will always be fighting this addiction, and we'll always be recovering. But we WILL fight and we WILL recover because we're worth it and we deserve it. Every single one of us.

Candy, you CAN do this! It's just food, and it's SO not worth the risk of gaining weight and being above goal. Just maybe let your self have one or two meals a week to splurge, that's what I did. I still lost, but it slowed down a lot. The "last supper" mentality is SO normal but just keep telling yourself that you can still have it someday, just a lot less of it! I think Nicole sent me this but I want to post it here, it may help with seeing food differently...it totally did for me: "Dear Food...I want a Divorce It is not that I don’t love you, but you’re not good for me. As they said in the movie…I'm just not that into you. I am sure you won’t take this news well and will fight the inevitable. Please don’t. We got together when I was young and stupid and did not understand what I was doing to myself. Yes, we will have to see each other on occasion, but I promise it won’t be awkward. We will have a more business like relationship. I wish you all the best, but it is time for me to move on and correct the mistakes of my youth."

I started to get really calm by Saturday night too. I think maybe it was the CD! Sunday I was just excited to go out of town and have a fun dinner and go hot tubbing at the hotel, I kind of forgot about surgery and treated it like a mini-vacation. I also cleaned my house like crazy and got all the laundry done. I knew I wouldn't be doing it for a while, and since being home Brian has really kept it up well and even did 2 loads of laundry yesterday. He's been AMAZING. I don't think that diet coke will enlarge your liver...I was 257.5 on surgery day and don't have a single spot of fat on my liver so I'm sure yours will be beautiful!!! I'm glad you're feeling more calm, that's very important. This is an exciting time and you should definitely enjoy every part of this journey!

Tina, DRINK THAT DIET COKE! I had my last sip of Diet Coke at 5:59pm on Sunday and am so glad I did. I woke up feeling SO much better today! I don't know if day 5 is just my good day, or if it's cuz I caught up on my Vitamins and thyroid pill yesterday...AND I weighed! I was 257.5 on surgery morning (my scale and theirs) and was 251.4 this morning! So I've lost 6 lbs since Monday and have lost a total of 46.1 lbs!!! The most I've ever lost is 45 lbs so this is HUGE! I'm only 1.4 lbs away from beint 250, and 4.9 lbs away from being at 50 lbs lost! My next big goal will be to get UNDER my pre-pregnancy weight from frickin' 2003 and that was 234. I'm hoping to be at that goal by my birthday June 5th. I know I'm feeling better because today was the first time that as I was waking up I thought "What should we do today?" and all week as I've woken up I've just thought "Oh crap...I'm awake." LOL. I don't want to overdo it and regress so I'm still gonna take it pretty easy today, but maybe we'll go to the park behind our house and have a mini-egg hunt. Have a great day everyone!

Oh, I totally will blame it on the vicodin! I've been OUT OF IT. That would be so awesome if I feel lots better tomorrow!

That's a good idea, Riley. I'll set them out instead of having them in the cupboard. I feel so dumb for forgetting them. I've always had such good pill taking habits! I'm gonna set my alarm too so that I won't forget again. Hopefully I'll be feeling better soon! I wonder how long it takes for those vitamins and minerals kick in?

Crap, I actually forgot my multi AND thyroid for the last 3 days. I just took my thyroid at about 3pm and will take my multi at 5 (have to wait 2 hours) and calcium before bed. I just slept SO much and was totally out of it and off schedule and totally forgot about my pills. I NEVER do that either, so you know I was feeling pretty bad. I didn't even think about the Iron, Riley. I bet I'll be feeling lots better after I get that back in my body.

I'm so glad the fill went so well, Riley! It sounds like a good experience, I'm sure I'll be excited for mine. I haven't had ANY meds since 4am this morning and I've been okay. I just had to realize that the dizziness and weak feeling isn't from the meds, it's from the LACK OF FOOD! lol I didn't do too well with liquids yesterday because I slept a lot and I'm trying to do better today. I think I was a bit dehydrated yesterday. MAN--a shower sure takes everything out of me! I thought I was gonna pass out after taking my shower this afternoon. I can't wait to get a bit more food/protein in me and start feeling more normal now that the pain is less. I want to WANT to go for walks and run errands and not feel like I'm gonna fall down just while walking around my house.

Nicole is still home, and is still oozing through the gauze. I don't know if she'll be going in, I think she's waiting for Richmond to call her back. Tina, I bet you'll need to be there at 6:45 too...if not 8am for sure. I can't wait for Monday to be here, I bet you can't either!

Thank you for the advice, Riley! I think I'll get the chewable ones today. You're right, the liquid tylenol is NASTY and so thick and sweet, I almost gagged yesterday when I took it. So you just got the chewable kids' Tylenol? (acetaminophen) How many did you take? I'm due for medicine now but I really don't want to take Lortab anymore. Good luck at your fill! I can't wait to hear all about it. Please let us know all the details when you have time!

RILEY--how many days did you take Lortab for? Did you use all of it?

The Lortab makes me feel VERY relaxed and at ease (like my CD, lol) and they give you a big container of it, although I only have about 1/4 of it left. Hopefully I won't need it after Friday or Saturday...that's what I'm hoping. I know some of this advice is yucky stuff about the complications and not feeling good, but at least you'll have an idea of what to expect just incase it happens. I DO know that this will all be worth it, and I'm already down almost 4 lbs since Monday. WOOT!

Ok girls, so this has been a pretty bad day for me. It's been about as bad as yesterday and I think I tried to get off the Lortab too early. PLEASE--take it as long as you feel like you need to! You're body will tell you when you're ready for regular Tylenol. I had my first crying episode today, I was in SO much pain and am getting tired of needing help 24/7. I'm very independent and this is hard for me. But then I took my Lortab and passed out for 2 1/2 hours and I feel MUCH better now, lol. So just a word to the wise: Take the hard stuff as long as you need to! Don't try to be tough. I just had applesauce sprinkled with cinnamon for dinner and 1/4 and I was full again. Very weird but kinda cool! And holy crap! It kinda hurts to burp and hiccup, watch out for that.

I can't even BEGIN to tell you how bizarre it is to be totally full after eating 1/4 c. of lemon yogurt. It's SUCH a weird feeling!

How much liquid tylenol did you guys take when you stopped the Lortab?

Work and friends are DEFINITELY 2 different things! Abd surgery is fine, just tell them it's a hernia. My sister had hernia surgery Feb 4th and she has 4 lap incisions that look almost like mine! And her healing was about the same too. Liz will give you a bunch of stuff at your pre-op classes and the CD will be one of them. I'm not really a meditator but the CD really worked for me. I didn't laugh during it, I kinda liked that parts that referred to the surgeons as having "caring, respectable hands" etc...made me feel safe. I didnt' take any drugs from 10:40pm last night until 7:45 this morning...BAD IDEA. DON'T do that. I'm hurting big time now and just took more of the stupid Lortab. I really wanted to be off that by today. Bri went to get liquid Tylenol last night and bought the crap that's for colds and coughs. FAIL. He's heading out to take Soph to preschool and he's gonna go get the right stuff. Hopefully it'll be strong enough to wean off the Lortab so I can start feeling more normal! Ok, I'm rambling...pain does that to me.