April 18th Sleeve

[jillybeanRN 76]

Thought I'd give everyone a little peek into my life over the last few weeks... it's long, but I hope it helps anyone considering this surgery to look at all sides of it. Sorry I'm a rambler...

I went to the initial seminar right after Christmas of 2016. Was a bit wishy washy on whether or not I wanted to move forward with surgery, but did agree to set up my initial appointments: group nutrition, individual nutrition and history / physical with the nurse practitioner. Everything went well pre-op, though I wasn't terribly impressed with the nutritionist at my practice. Not that she wasn't a good resource, just her personality got under my skin a bit. History: I've been overweight my entire life -- my highest weight was about 275 lbs about 7 years ago, and I've gone up and down a lot throughout my life. I realized that I have an inappropriate relationship with food, and needed a drastic intervention to stop spinning out of control. Luckily I had not developed any comorbidities and aside from my weight I was relatively healthy. So I wanted to keep it that way.

So, decided to go forward with the sleeve. Everything moved along nicely, my entire process was less than 4 months. Pre-op liquid diet was only for the day prior to surgery.

Surgery day: Everything went as planned, spent a little time in PACU then went to my room. I was so wiped out and the pain was insane, but I was very well-medicated! I was less than impressed with a good majority of my nurses, some of them just weren't nice. As a nurse I hold other nurses to a high standard :-) But they kept me hopped up on morphine so that's a winner! I had a lot of trouble urinating initially. Got up to walk and go to the bathroom, and I was shocked that I couldn't go! I'd had tons of IV fluids. Finally about 10 hours after my surgery I was able to go. That first day, I was not allowed to drink anything ... I can't even describe how dry my mouth was, I had never experienced anything like that before. Anesthesiologist put a scopalamine patch on me to help stave off nausea which made the dryness worse. I was given pain and nausea meds IV around the clock the first day and a half, which was helpful. I never felt nauseous thankfully. With the surgical pain I couldn't have imagined the added insult of vomiting. Got up and walked the halls a lot, which felt good.

Went home 2 days after surgery with oodles of pills and the fear of failing! I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing but realizing the emotional challenge I was about to undergo. The day I was discharged home, I had family come from our of town for my daughter's birthday. I was exhausted, in pain and having to watch everyone eat all of the party Snacks and birthday cake! It was way harder than I thought. While I wasn't truly hungry, I had a lot of head hunger, and like many others, I never realized the food advertisements are EVERYWHERE! When my out of town family left for home, I found myself with a bit of an empty feeling. I had them as a distraction for the weekend, and while I still had the hubby and kids to distract me, I felt that was the first instance since surgery that I really needed to face what I had chosen to do.

5 days post op I developed a rash starting on my abdomen and eventually spreading everywhere but my face. Raised, welty, hot to the touch, I had never seen anything like it (which is saying a lot considering the work I do!). I called my surgeon who said to stop taking all meds for 12 hours and take benadryl. The rash worsened over the next 2 days. I went to see my allergist who took one took at me and said "WTF". So it was initially attributed to the omeprazole prescribed post op so they discontinued that. I had also stopped taking the Norco they prescribed post op as my pain was relatively manageable. And the rash started to get better.

9 days post op I was feeling pretty good. Then I coughed, felt something "pop" in my belly. The pain was worse than anything I had experienced thus far, the surgeon's office wasn't calling me back, so I went to emergency. They did a CT abdomen / pelvis to make sure everything was intact (it was) and sent me home with the direction to start taking my pain medications again. So I did, and a few days later the rash came back, much less severe, but back. So now I imagine that's what I was allergic to. As I write this I'm still trying to avoid setting myself on fire from the itching.

In the meantime, I have been working, walking just about every day, started doing yoga and trying to deal with the emotions of the whole thing. The regret, hormone dump and head hunger are very, very real. But I feel empowered when I stick with it. Thus far I'm down 18 pounds since I went home from the hospital. Clothes are looser and I don't tire quite as easily when doing physical things.

Tidbits and conclusion:

The surgery itself: Yea, it's laparoscopic. That just means they're small incisions... they really wrangle your insides. Give yourself time to heal. Don't be afraid to take the pain meds (as long as you can tolerate them and don't have to be anywhere).

Work: Take as much time as you can afford. I think for me 3-4 weeks would have been ideal, and I have a desk job. I can say a lot for the distraction that working provides: forces me out of the house and lets me forget about obsessing over food for 8 hours each day.

Libido: Absolute. Freaking. Zero.

Exhaustion: I have never felt so tired and useless. Netflix is my new BFF and I have watched about 400 episodes of Forensic Files... That adds to the emotion, as I feel guilty that I'm not doing more around the house, not doing more to entertain the children. But between my youngest and the dog ... I've almost always had a cuddle companion in bed!

Breath: Dragon breath. For real. Doctor says it's normal, but I'm buying stock in Crest because I'm brushing about 12 times a day.

I imagine I won't have long term regrets, I am already experiencing positive changes and know those will continue as long as I continue to do my part. Thankful to have this board to come to and look at others' experiences.

[briski 11]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm a nurse too. Happy nurses week! I am hoping to only be off for two weeks since I've only been at this job for 3 months and don't have a lot of time off accrued yet. I work in an immunization clinic so I'm hoping it won't be too hard. I just have to bend a lot but I have an awesome MA who will help me out. The worst thing would be a kid kicking me in the stomach, which does happen, but I'll have to be extra careful.