Back From Vacation

[JamieLogical 8,708]

I'm sure you all missed me desperately all last week while I was away on vacation. I know I missed you! I have so much to talk about, so I thought I'd put it all in one big post and you can read it or not. I just want to make sure I get it all out.

So for those of you who don't know, my parents, sister's family, aunt, husband, and I all went on vacation in Tennessee last week. In all there were eleven of us (7 adults and 4 kids) for the whole week. In addition, my sister's childhood friend and her whole family (husband and 3 kids) came for part of the week. We were staying in a 5 bedroom, 5 bathroom cabin in the Smokey Mountains.

The Drive

The drive down ended up being much more challenging than I anticipated. My husband and I drove about halfway down after work on Friday and there was a LOT of snow and ice to contend with. I live in Rochester, NY and I am no stranger to driving on snow, but the black ice was something I was less familiar with. It seemed like every single bridge or overpass was just a skating rink and my car fishtailed the second it hit each and every one, no matter how much caution I used. I think it may have had to do with how heavily loaded down the back-end was with all our stuff for the trip. We stopped at Wendy's for dinner where I had some chili and then I had a Protein Bar in the hotel before bed.

Saturday morning I had eggs and sausage from the free Breakfast at the hotel, then it was back on the road. Taco Bell for lunch wasn't great... I ended up just eating the meat, cheese, and sauce out of a taco. We got to the rental office to check-in by 4, but the rest of the family didn't get to the cabin until around 6:30. Then still had to go grocery shopping. Everyone decided on hot dogs and potato salad for dinner once we were finally back to the cabin for the night. I wasn't about to have that, so I just settled for a turkey, ham, and cheese roll-up.

The Plague

Overnight on Saturday, one of my nephews threw up all over the floor in their bedroom. Thus began the PLAGUE. Saturday we were up bright and early to get to Dollywood for the day. My sister had some diarrhea, but Brady was feeling better, so we all headed out to the park. It was chilly, but nice in the sun, so not too bad. As the day went on, my sister continued with her diarrhea, and their youngest boy kept asking to go to the bathroom. Then the oldest boy started throwing up (he threw up three times in the park). So we finally called it quits and headed back to the cabin. In the car, both the oldest and youngest boys threw up. The PLAGUE was spreading!

Monday my dad started getting sick. He stayed home while the rest of us went back to Dollywood. My sister and all three of her boys were feeling fine at this point. She called her friend, who was supposed to be coming up that night, and they decided to delay by a day and not come until Tuesday.

Tuesday we were all feeling good, except my sister's diarrhea was back. She toughed it out and we went walking around Gatlinburg, went into all the little shops, tried some free samples of moonshine, had lunch, and walked around some more. Sometime in the afternoon, my sister's situation took a turn for the worse, so we went home again. My sister's friend's family arrived and we visited and joked around and had some dinner. I went out to the grocery store with the dad from that family so we could get them their own groceries. I decided to get some ice cream.

When we got home, I ate some of the ice cream (a TINY amount) and then my ordeal began. At first I thought I was just having some dumping-like symptoms from eating too much ice cream. But no. It was my turn at the PLAGUE. I was up ALL night with dry heaving and diarrhea. It was soooooooooo bad. I haven't thrown up and pooped at the same time since I was a little kid. Sitting there one the toilet with the trash can in my lap..... OMG. It was awful. I never actually threw up, because my stomach was empty. So I can at least still cling to my perfect record of not having thrown up once since my sleeve. And, on the bright side, Wednesday was my seven month surgeversary weigh-in and I was down like 2.6 pounds from my Monday weekly weigh-in from all the Fluid loss!

That night was also my aunt, mom, and brother-in-law's turn at the PLAGUE, plus my sister's diarrhea continued. Thank God we had 5 bathrooms! Wednesday I stayed home all day, as did my mom and aunt. My dad took the older boys back to Dollywood. Later in the day, my sister and brother-in-law did the same with the two younger kids. My husband made two trips down into town to the store for me. The first to get me some red G2. And the second to get me some Gaviscon, because once my dry-heaving and diarrhea were over, I had TERRIBLE heartburn. SO BAD! I had taken my normal daily doses of omeprazole, plus TWO Zantac 150, and it still wasn't letting up. The Gaviscon saved me and I was able to finally get some sleep.< /p>

Thursday, we were all feeling better. My poor aunt and I had terrible soreness in our ribs from the dry-heaving/vomiting, so were were trying hard not to laugh, but everyone kept making us laugh! There were a few relapses of diarrhea, but we survived. My sister's friends family seemed like they were going to make it without getting sick, but before they left on Friday morning, the youngest boy complained he didn't feel well and skipped breakfast. From what I understand, he we throwing up and having diarrhea the whole way home, poor thing. I don't know if any of the others got sick after that.

I had one bout of diarrhea Saturday morning before we left, but felt fine for the whole drive home (we did the whole drive in one day). But then I had two more bouts yesterday morning. So I don't know if I'm done now or not. I also woke up yesterday with a head cold. Sore throat, sore ears, stuffy nose.

Fun Stuff

Despite the plague, we did manage to have a lot of fun on the trip. That first Saturday was mine and my brother-in-law's birthdays, so we got cake at the grocery store and everyone sang Happy Birthday to us. Then it was my oldest nephew's birhday on Friday, so my sister's friend baked him a cake and we sang for him as well.

We spent a lot of time at Dollywood, which is always a lot of fun. I think everyone made it there at least three days and some made it four. I was a little disappointed to not get to do do everything I wanted to there, but I'm going back in four weeks, so I can do everything I missed then.

Thursday were went to the Smokey Mountains visitor's center where they have a lot of nicely taxedermied animals, plants, and bugs on display and they have a couple small hiking trails. So everyone got to do that stuff. Plus, Thursday night we went to see a great vaudeville-style show with the two oldest boys and all had a lot of fun with that.

So everyone was able to thoroughly enjoy themselves when they weren't sick and aside from my sister, no one was really sick for more than 24 hours.

Exercise

I'd had grand plans to keep up with my strength training (brought my free weights) and try to get in some cardio while I was down there. It didn't happen. I walked a LOT all of the days I was there that I wasn't sick, but I didn't do any formal exercise at all. I didn't even get to do any yesterday, once I was back home, because now I'm fighting off this stupid head cold. It's a little better today, so I'll see if I think I can handle starting Week 6 of my Couch to 5k tonight after work.

food

My eating was nowhere near as structured as it usually is, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We didn't eat out as much as I expected, so that helped. The only really "bad" things I ate at all were that ice cream, some fudge, and some sips of my husband's sweet tea. I did a good job of putting Protein first with all of my meals and Snacks, except that one day I was so sick, I ate half of a toasted whole wheat english muffin with some Peanut Butter on it. Even at Dollywood, I found a place that sold little turkey meat sticks (like a beef stick, but with turkey) for some snacks. I also had a little packet of peanuts as a snack. And the two times I ate lunch there I had chicken tenders with most of the breading scraped off the first day and then the filling out of a chicken fajita (minus the tortilla, lettuce, and most of the salsa) the second day.

Thoughts on my Weight

Obviously, the subject of my surgery and weight loss came up a lot on the trip. I hadn't seen my aunt or my sister's friend since before the surgery. I hadn't seen my parents since around Christmas. And I've had some recent major milestones with my weight as well. I am now no longer "obese" and merely "overweight". Plus I am almost down to the weight I was at when I had my plastic surgery 3.5 years ago. So we talked a lot about that stuff. Also, the last time I was at Dollywood with my parents (last April), I couldn't fit on most of the roller coasters. So much ado was made of the fact that I can now ride all of the rides.

All of this, plus just my general body image now and how I felt about being seen and scrutinized by people who hadn't seen me in a while had me thinking a LOT about my weight and how I look and feel. 3.5 years ago, I was at this weight when I decided to go ahead and have plastic surgery to remove my excess skin after having lost 90 pounds. I had an extended Tummy Tuck w/ muscle repair, breast lift w/ augmentation, and all over Lipo. I felt GREAT about myself back then. This time around, I'm not feeling quite as great. Part of it is that I was in better shape back then. I had been exercising regularly for almost a year then, whereas this time around, I really only started exercising intensely a couple of months ago. Plus the weight re-gain and re-loss has taken its toll. My legs are a complete disaster. They look SOOOOO bad and I am very aware of it.

I still have 16 pounds to lose to reach my surgeon's goal of 165 and 26 pounds to reach my personal goal 155, which would put me right at the top of the healthy BMI range. On the one hand, it still seems so far away. At my current rate of about 6 pounds per month, it will take me another 5 months to reach my goal. On the other hand, I thought I was "done" with my weight loss at THIS weight a few years ago when I had my plastics. I didn't want to go any lower back then. And I'm wondering if I'll achieve that kind of contentment this time around and lose motivation to make it to my goal. And would that be such a bad thing?

[beachgurl84 456]

@@JamieLogical of course we missed you!

Many thoughts here......

Sucks about the plague! Glad to hear everyone is feeling better. Any idea where it came from?

Happy to hear you splurged and treated yourself. This journey is about a "normal" life and sometimes that involves ice cream

I don't blame you a bit on no formal exercise. It always seems like I'm so exhausted from vacations myself because there's always so much to do. I couldn't imagine trying to exercise on top of all the running around, site seeing, rides, sickness, etc.

Congrats on the recent weight loss. I use to joke that I could use a good stomach flu to lose a few pounds. Unfortunately in the past if anything like that happened I would only regain it right back. Now that we're on this healthy path, you have a good chance of keeping it off. I say that because part of it could be loss of fluids and I don't want to see you discouraged if it returns temporarily.

I definitely think you'll reach the stage of contentment. The sleeve is so much more permanent than any yo yo diet any of us have done in the past. Of course you could ruin the sleeve doing the wrong things, but we know you won't do that. You are fortunate in that you have an idea of what you will look like when you reach goal. I have been overweight since I was 6 years old. The last time I saw a scale under 200 lb I was 11 years old (and that was pre-boobs). I have no clue what I'll look like when I get under 200 now. I think once you get home a few days and start working out again, and see those 2+ pounds stay off, you'll start to feel better and encouraged again.You said it before, it doesn't matter how long it takes you to get there, it's just important that you get there. Keep up the good work, you are soooooo close.

Welcome back!!

[mykdzmom 387]

Wow! What an adventure. Welcome back!