The Video is up!

As promised here is my testimonial for Dr. Ameri.  Thank you again to Sue for recording this for me!
Happy Holidays everyone!

Track Marks?

I once again have a railroad on my belly.... or a zipper...or little bugs....I had ANOTHER surgery!

I was opened up again on Thursday, November 16th at 1:30pm and this time, Dr. Ameri took a souvenir...my gallbladder.  My Gallbladder was gross...super gross....so gross that it needed to be removed.  So gross that when it was removed my surgeon told me that I had "an ugly gallbladder".

Let me tell you, it was a horrible experience.  Most of the people I had spoken to had told me that the surgery was relatively easy.  That the healing time wouldn't be so bad.  That is SO not true. I spent 14 hours in the hospital in level 10 pain.  Unable to move, breathe, talk, pass gas, eat, or relieve my bowels without help or pain.  And when I tell you that my gastric bypass surgery was easier, know that I went back and watched the old videos, I read the old blogs, and it was still an easier surgery.  Not only did the gas stay with me for the entirety of my healing time so far, but so did the gas pain, the bloating, and the inability to do anything by sleep sitting up and drink water.  UG!

Highlight of the past 2 weeks....Thanksgiving.  I was able to eat, I was able to walk around, and I got to spend time with my family whom I love very very much. Wonderful day, I hope yours was fantastic as well.

Low-point....having my roommate come into my bathroom, while I sat on the toilet in almost blackout pain to save me from passing out and hitting my head on my sink.  For the record, I called her, well text messaged her, from my toilet because I knew that something was wrong and couldn't do anything on my own.  I needed help, or I would have been found the next morning passed out with my pants around my ankles on the floor of my bathroom.  Nothing good about that.  Thank you Gloria for helping me that night.

So tomorrow, Wednesday November 30th I will have my staples removed, all 10 of them.  And then we will see how I'm feeling.  There is a possibility that I pulled an ab muscle...but if that's the worst of this left, I can handle it.

Gallbladder surgeries are very common after gastric bypass.  My surgeon says that 1 out of every 4 patients will need to have their gallbladders removed.  A friend of mine who works at the hospital, and the wonderful nurses who helped me this time (Thank you A4 RN's) think those numbers should be half of every patient.  This is a common side effect, and it's a painful one..at least for those who are post-op.

How did I know I needed surgery?  I realized something was wrong with my gallbladder because my feces were white. That's right everyone....I had pastel poop!

Dr. Oz taught me to watch my poop...that was a great way to diagnose a number of ailments.  Mine was white...or almost white, which is NOT normal.  So I saw my Dr. and when he pressed on my abdomen, where my gallbladder was located, it was tender.  NOT PAINFUL, just tender.  An ultrasound showed that I had a single, LARGE stone in my gall bladder.  A 7 millimeter stone.  That is roughly the total size of a normal, health gallbladder.  The bile duct out of the gallbladder is roughly 1.3mm large....so my stone just stopped up the works. No bile could get out, and yet I could store it....hence the ugly gall bladder.  Watch your poop everyone.  If I wasn't, I wouldn't have discovered this issue until much later...and it probably would have been an emergency removal.

Next up....a testimonial.  Dr. Ameri holds monthly support/informational meetings for people thinking about weight loss surgery or who have already had one of the surgeries.  At each meeting he asks a patient to give a testimonial about how their surgery went, and how they have had continued success.  On Tuesday, December 13th I will be the person giving a testimonial.   I am honored to share my story with those who are thinking about or have had weight loss surgery.  I'm going to ask if i can record the testimonial for my blog, and for my boyfriend who has a work obligation.  So stay tuned for information on that.

Thank you for sticking with me...for sticking with my lack of posts...and for sticking with me throughout my vast number of changes. My commitment to the blog hasn't changed, but boy has my life changed.  I will continue to change, but hopefully it will always be for the better.

Throwing Up

Wow is that no fun.  What you can't see very well are the broken blood vessels around my eyes from throwing up yesterday.  I'll try to get a photo of this to post because it's scary.

PAIN!!!!!

WOW!  I don't even know where to begin with this post.  Today was a horrible day!  Let's start at the beginning.

I went to work, as I have been everyday.  I've been feeling really fantastic, today I was tired, but otherwise it was no exception.  At 11am I had about 1/4th of a cup of cottage cheese.  I've been eating cottage cheese daily and having no issue at all. 

So, the day goes on and at about 2:30pm I was helping out the weather kids in the control room, the shoot was going really quite well, and all of a sudden a pain shot through my system.  It buckled me immediately so I excused myself and ran to the bathroom.  I thought that I was having gas pains, so the bathroom made the most sense.  After about 5 minutes of sitting with nothing going on, not even passing any gas, I decided it was useless sitting in the gross school bathroom and headed back to the studio.  I told my boss what was going on, went into my office, shut the door and curled up in a ball on the floor. 

Before I go any farther, I need to explain the pain.   It didn't feel like I was being stabbed or anything, I had an intense pressure, like something was sitting on top of my stomach inside me.  Almost like my stomach was in a vice....I couldn't curl up without being in pain...but I also couldn't straighten up.  All in all it was a pretty horrific feeling.

So, after I ignored one of my members knocking on my office door, I realized that being on the floor wasn't helping me any.  It was time for more drastic measures.  I got up, as best as I could, and headed for the bathroom in our office.  By now I was convinced that a piece of cottage cheese had gotten lodged into my new stomach/intestinal area.  I went into the newly cleaned "bathroom" that is in our office space.  It is never used so I know that it would still be clean.  I closed to door and wound up the courage to make myself throw up.  (I HATE throwing up.  But if something was stuck, it needed to come out).  Nothing....not even bile, which is the weirdest thing in the whole world.

After laying on the floor for what felt like an eternity.  I realized that the pain wasn't as horrible as it was.  I ran into see my boss, told him I was going home, and promised to call him when I got there. 

The pain is gone...but I have a severe ache...kind of like when you can feel a horrible migraine coming on.  The calm before the storm.  Unfortunately I still feel horrible 6 and a half hours later.  I called my Doctor and unfortunately they couldn't get a hold of him.  They told me to call in the morning if I still didn't feel well, and to go to the emergency room if the pain came back.  I'll keep you posted....

So Tired

How tired am I? I'm so tired that I haven't been able to blog. UG! I hate that.

I've returned to work part-time working 10 to 3 each day and have found that I am having an extremely difficult time keeping my energy level up enough to do much of anything when I return home. As soon as I get here, I instantly pass out. In fact, on Wednesday, my first day back, I got home from my 5 hour day at work and slept....for 3 HOURS! Each day, my sleeping after work has gotten less and less, but my exhaustion has not subsided.

Working has been interesting, I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but I'm having a hard time remembering things on a regular basis. Daily I'm doing things like walking into the back room at the office only to forget what I needed. At least 3 or 4 times a day....and I'm only working 5 hour days!

I feel useless being there. I can't lift any equipment, I can't bend all the way over to pick things up off the floor, and I can't sit for super long periods of time without getting either gas pain or pain in the area of my scars. Never mind the bathroom runs. See how much YOU need to go to the bathroom, when you are on a liquid diet. Yeah, you go a lot. I also feel really bad. I want to be able to help out at work and be there 100% but I just can't do it. I don't have the ability to stay awake after working so hard, I have to ask my members to move equipment for me, as I cannot. I'm lucky that my boss is so wonderful and understanding or I would be in quite a pickle.

Maybe one day soon I'll be more complete and able to work. Let's hope that day comes sooner, rather than later.

OH, on another note, I think I've become lactose intolerant since the surgery. With that being said, I am so sorry to anyone out there who is lactose intolerant. Having never having to worry about this before I had NO idea how horrible it was to go through this process. I'm telling you, my bum has seen many better days. Sorry for the TMI.

Sick and Tired!

And now I have killer heartburn!  Tommorrow should be a much better day.  Stay Tuned!