How's everyone doing?

WRMSMILES · 10-12-2007, 01:36 AM

Hi everyone,

I was looking on this site last night for recipes and found you guys. Actually I found Lisa under a food post. How you doing Lisa? I was suppose to talk to you that one afternoon at Dr. Fowler's office, but we lost each other in the shuffle.

And how are you Miriam? I spoke with you at the September support group meeting. I think you were in our group when we split into groups. Your the one who wants to be able to sing again, yeah?

Well it's good a bunch of us are all in one spot. I've been bouncing from support sites back and forth. I'm usually on ObesityHelp.com or Bandsters group on yahoo. I have found that this site has much more information, especially about FOOD.......lol :biggrin1:.

Miriam, I think you and I are at about the same stage in the healing/eating phase as I was banded (final one) a day before you. My journey has been anything BUT normal as I had to be re-banded.

I went in for the first banding on Weds., Sept. 26. After surgery and when I was up on the floor I got out of bed and started walking immediately. Dr. Fowler came up and was happy to see me walking so fast, but the news he had for me was a little upsetting. He said that my liver was one of the biggest he's seen yet and it was 5 times the size that it was suppose to be. He said I'm lucky that I decided to have this procedure when I did or 5-10 years down the road I'd be in big trouble. He said my liver didn't like the food choices I was making and then he said that he put on the "medium" band and that it was VERY tight and that I'd be lucky if I could swallow my own spit. Boy was he right!!!!!! I think he meant it as a euphemism and not to be taken seriously.

All night I kept spitting into that pink emesis bowl. The next morning I went down with the lady next to me to get the swallow test and came back up to the room with a thumbs DOWN.

Jennifer came up to my room and told me basically that I was swollen shut and I had to try to wait it out for the swelling to go down. Talk about totally BUMMED. To make a long story short, we waited day after day until Dr. Fowler realized that the swelling wasn't going to go down and that the band needed to be replaced with a larger size. He tried to get an anesthesiologist to do it on Sunday, but his friend was off island.

When he said there wasn't going to be surgery on Sunday, I asked him if I could please try to drink some broth or tea and he said sure. I think it was more of like a "knock yourself out trying but nothing's going to stay down." Finally on Monday we headed back into the operating room. One good thing about being re-banded is that I got the new AP band that I wanted.....yippeee.

You have no idea how hard it was being in the hospital from Weds. to Tues. and 5 of those days being hooked up to liquid nutrition (IV). I had such a hard time trying to sleep in there too because every 4 hours was glucose stick time, every 5 hours was vital signs and every 6 hours was the "bruising" heparin shot. It seemed that every time I turned the TV on, I was inundated with fast food commercials. The Taco Bell cheesy melt was a KILLER.

I don't know how the rest of you ladies felt about the hospital, but I hope I never, ever have to be admitted to there again. While the nurses/aides were extremely nice, they (most) were not well versed in taking care of bariatric patients at all. I even explained to a few of them what it was that I actually had done. There was also on at least 3 occasions when they brought me food trays and I had to tell them that I was NPO and couldn't have anything to eat. The one aide said, "Oh your so honest." They finally put a sign above my bed on FRIDAY saying NPO so the others would know. Two different times I had to ask if my heparin was discontinued and they came back with my shot and told me, "thanks for reminding me." Geeeez, they sure have a long way to go if they're trying to become a Bariatric Center for Excellence.

Well, that's my saga so far. How is everyone doing on foods? I keep reading my materials from Mary and at times am confused on what I'm suppose to be eating. One handout says at week 2 full liquids and another at week 2 says pureed foods. Thank heavens for this support site to find out what I'm suppose to be eating. I made this recipe for black bean soup I found on here and it's really good. I feel I could eat the whole batch I made. I think the only time I've felt full so far is when I ate some cream of wheat in which I kept diluting it until it made I swear 2 cups.

Sorry the post is so long. Hope to hear from you guys.