Update on me at nearly 2 weeks (Crosspost/LONG)

[Guest guest]

Hi friends,

Yes, I have been a little lax about posting since my surgery. I

just don't have the stamina for sitting upright for long periods

of time. And I am *dying* to catch up on all the posts and list

activity I have missed over the last couple of weeks and I start

reading and then run out of time for posting... yadda, yadda,

excuses...

In all actuality, I feel I am doing extremely well. My dh,

daughters and I had been staying with my parents until yesterday

and now we are home. It was nice, not to have to worry about

cooking or cleaning and just sit around and do nothing and let

people take care of me. I was free to focus on just healing;

what a luxury!!

So I have had some pain at 2 of my 8 incision sites that

painkillers really didn't touch. Kind of a sharp pulling

sensation about 6 inches above my navel that got more localized

over the days since surgery. It is worse when I bend at the

waist as in bending over before sitting down or trying to stand

up. I was thinking it might be scar tissue forming and started

surmising that if it kept up I might ultimately have to have it

surgically taken down. But, alas, today when I woke up (in my

own bed!) the pain in these areas has markedly decreased!! Yay!!

Hopefully it will become unnoticeable soon.

My eating has been terrific. My nausea went away after the first

3 days home from the hospital (about 7 days post-op). I have

had almost no problems getting in my protein and will usually

supplement with a 35g designer protein shake (about a 7 on a

1-10 taste scale). I have been able to eat a WIDE variety of

foods that probably aren't even legal on a " soft diet " though I

have been anal about chewing the tougher things thoroughly.

I fill up quickly at meals so I try not to drink anything unless

the meat is very dry, then I sip milk. I do not seem to have

become lactose intolerant (I wasn't before, either) which is good

because I LOVE milk and cheeses (but not cottage cheese, yogurt,

cream cheese, etc - go figure). So I try to drink at least

8-16oz of milk/day to supplement my Tums for calcium. I have

gone easy on the cheese, in general as I don't want to overload

the fat consumption so early on. But last night I had a whole

grilled cheese sandwich and this afternoon my dh made me a 2 egg

swiss cheese omelet and I ate the whole thing (nothing to drink,

though).

I do hope this is the relatively permanent size of my stomach;

that the swelling has gone down completely but I really don't

want it to stretch much bigger than it is now as I feel it is

just right at this size.

My only real post-op complaint for the last 4-5 days has been

the external leakage from my largest incision site. The incision

where I had the JP drain leaked for a few days after the drain

was removed. I put a maxi pad on it and soon the pads were not

being soaked anymore; now I just have a band-aid which I only

change daily. About the time the JP drain site stopped leaking,

the incision site 4 inches away started up; kind of a clearish

reddish color. It is more profuse the more I move around and am

vertical. If I apply pressure just above the site you can see a

steady stream coming out. But the stuff doesn't smell bad, nor

is the skin around the site red or hot, nor do I have a fever.

So I am thinking this is OK and that it will stop eventually,

right? Has anyone else had this at 1.5-2 weeks post-op?

So, all-in-all I consider myself very lucky to be doing so well.

My " 3 week " followup appt with Dr Pomp is Tuesday July 24th at

12:30pm - anyone else going to be in the Sinai area around that

time? I will be interested to see how much weight I have lost.

My dh kept telling me to weigh myself at my parents house. I

didn't have the heart to tell him I'd have to lose over 100lbs

before I could use their 350lb limit doctor's (balance) scale.

Just goes to show I carry my 456 lbs very well that my own

husband mis-estimates by 100 lbs! Someday he will know and

come to appreciate how much I was really able to do at double

*his* weight for nearly 6 years!

Guess that's all for now...hope to read and post more soon!

Terri Hassiak

BMI 61.8

http://www.obesityhelp.com/morbidobesity/profile.phtml?N=H980366398

Appealed " Out-of-Network " Ins. Denial - AND WON!!!

Laparoscopic BPD/DS with Dr. Pomp on 6/25/01

email(no spaces): bunsofluff @ hotmail.com