I've been EXPOSED (gasp!)!!!!!!!!

Of course, I'm just being silly, well sort of I guess. Now that I think of it I have "exposed" myself to more people this week than I EVER would have in my entire life before the surgery. My line lately has been, "Hey, wanna see my holes?" Ha! I'm a geek!

No, but what I was referring to in my subject line was that my humble little blog was put out there by what I consider a "famous" lap band blog. At least in my eyes ;) Lap Band Gal challenged people to quit lurking and start their own blogs. I had started one a long time ago, but didn't really do much with it. When I decided to get the lap band I decided to use it as an outlet to talk about what's going on with me and sort of a diary for myself or my kids in case they ever care to read it. So, Lap Band Gal put my blog on her blog today giving me the exposure! Doesn't she rock??!! And she is literally the blog I read from start to finish when I was doing my research. I followed her story from the start and it helped me in making my decision to pursue this path to become a thinner, healthier me!

I am still currently on full liquids. This statement shall remain true at least until Tuesday, June 5th with I have my follow up with my NP. Then I am quite sure we will be moving onto the mushie stage. Very much starting to look forward to that. But, I am doing really well. Staying on track. No real cheats. I did buy sugar-free fudgesicles today, but they are on my list!! Woo hoo! Excited by those (silly to get excited by fudgesicles.....nope, not when you have eaten soup with nothin' in it for over a week now!).

Tomorrow night, at my suggestion, we are taking our Girl Scouts on a Formal Fast Food Progressive Dinner. Have you ever been to a progressive dinner? It is where you go to one house for apps, another house for salad, another for entree and the last for dessert. Well, my very good friend who is the leader of our troop and I looked up what a formal dinner contains and it is SEVERAL courses. We veered from it a bit, but we are doing 8 courses with our girls (ages 11-17). We thought it might be a fun night. But, again, with this my idea, how smart is it of me to take all these girls to 8 restaurants over a 5 1/2 hours and I can eat broth at one place and applesauce at another?? The things we do for our kids!! Am I right moms? I'll tell you all about it after we come home.

Ok, so now I am a blogger. I hope to be witty. I hope to make you laugh. Our life here at our house is like most, just the day to day stuff, but I am hoping to throw in the funny things along the way in figuring out this lap band experience that is weaved into our regular life.

I am getting weighed for real (not on my scale that I don't trust until I go to the doctor and compare the two yet) next week, so I will announce my weight loss so far, etc. next week!

I will leave you with this (my husband is going to kill me). My husband think's Kristin Chenoweth is "cute". It's probably because she's a tiny, little thing with a great, big singing voice and she's hilarious. Anyway, she's coming to our area sometime in the future and I was telling him when. So I sent him a text that read, "kristin chenoweth at (where is coming to)(and the date)"***keeping it private, I'm sure you understand why***. His response, "It was so nice of you to set up a date for me with her but i cant cause im happily married. :)" Isn't he funny??????

Bye y'all!

Bandster Issues

I am blessed.  Yes, I am. Most people who are newly banded go through a period of time after just being banded called "bandster h-e-double hockey sticks", but, I am blessed. 

It's a time between being banded (surgery) and getting your first fill (having saline put into the port which then travels to the band around your stomach to tighten it, thus making your pouch smaller) when you have absolutely no restriction and feel just as hungry as you did previous to having the surgery.

Again, I am blessed.  I am having little to no hunger issues. That's not to say that won't change. Currently, I'm still on full liquids, and feeling pretty well satisfied in what I'm eating so far, but looking forward to the next stage, mushie foods and the last stage regular foods. At least on regular foods I feel like I'll be able to control my carbs better.  Right now on the full liquids, I'm eating a lot of soup, sugar free pudding, yogurt, etc. and my carb count is high, probably because it's a lot of processed food. 

My thoughts for today. 

I am blessed.

1 Week Post-Op

Today I have been officially banded for one week. I'm getting to the point of feeling decent. Trying to help out around here. Still not bending over too much or picking up anything too heavy. My daughter has been a big help around here. I hope we tell her enough what an amazing girl she is! We also have been paying her, so hopefully that supplements her as well :)

It took a few days into the full liquid diet to get all of the days worth of liquids in and even now I'm still struggling to get them all. I'm missing the morning stuff. It says cream of wheat, of which I'm not a fan. My nutritionist said I could very runny sugar-free oatmeal, and I did for a couple of days, but I don't know. When I was doing that I was having a hard time getting my protein shakes in. So, I'm trying to drink 3 small protein shakes in the morning, 1/2 cup of strained cream of whatever soup and 1/2 cup of pudding or yogurt for lunch and 1/2 cup of strained cream of whatever soup and 1/2 cup of pudding or yogurt for dinner. If I then need any snacks, I have a cup of broth or a Popsicle. I've decided sugar free Popsicles are not worth it though, just my humble opinion. Seriously. Sugar free Popsicles have 2g of sugar. Regular Popsicles have 8g of sugar. The 6g of sugar difference, is not worth the GIAGANTIC taste difference for me. It's not like I'm eating 10 Popsicles a day and it's adding up to 60g of sugar. Also, I'm not capitalizing Popsicles. My iPad is recognizing it as a namebrand and doing it on its own......

I did have a little treat yesterday, sorta. Instead of my regular yogurt, a frozen custard place in town has frozen, sugar free, fat free yogurt. So, I replaced my 1/2 cup of that with the frozen stuff....blue moon flavor. Not bad.

One more thing, friends of ours invited us out after church for their son's birthday to Max & Erma's. This is the first time I've eaten out in a few weeks. I did well. They brought me the broth from the French onion soup and some apple sauce. I maybe had a 1/4 cup of each. A good time was had by all!

It's Friday!!!!

Today is Friday and my kids had no school today for the Memorial Day weekend. So, when I woke up this morning I lay in bed and thought through how I was feeling this morning. My very good friend, who is a hair stylist to my son, said she had an opening this morning, but I had told her earlier this week that I didn't know if I would be feeling up to driving on Friday.

The kid needed a haircut so bad, we made it! And it looks so good. She is so awesome with him. Patient, kind and man, she explains things so well to him. I love her!

Then we went to the bank to pick up my darling daughter's allowance. She has been a big help so much lately and was going to be today too, so I wanted to make sure I paid her in advance for her work. She appreciated it as did I.

We came home and did a bunch of stuff. Well, I sat on my bed coordinating and she did a bunch of stuff. Did I mention what a great kid she is?

I'm feeling better, still not even close to 100% yet. Got all my "food" in for the day and half of my water in. I may try to sneak in some more water before bed, but probably not too much as I would like to sleep through the night :)

This is quite an experience, this lap band. I told my husband the other day; I still can't believe I did it. I mean I've been talking about it for years and here I am. I've done it! Now it's the waiting game of the insurance stuff to go through so I don't have to think about that anymore, to see what the scales are starting to say and for the pain to start going bye-bye!!!!!

So, how was your Friday??

Post-Op Day 3

"Today is a new day."........anyone know what famous movie character said that? That's right, Chicken Little. Famous?, you say. Well, he's famous in most homes with children under the age of 12.

But, it's true. Today is a new day. And with that new day came the inspiration to get up! And go to Wal-Mart! That's right, I ventured out to Wal-Mart. With my trusty side-kick, Dad we headed to Wally World to pick up a few items to help me begin the next chapter in this new life I've begun. Today's chapter is full liquids. And well, since I can't pick up a gallon of milk, Dad was along for the drive (and he was the chauffeur).

Today I began to eat foods I have not had in a while. Cream of mushroom soup (minus the mushrooms), sugar free pudding, yogurt and the handy dandy protein shakes.

We ended up at Kroger as well because Wal-Mart did not have the chocolate flavored Body Fortress protein shake I wanted. Only chocolate peanut butter and well, we are a pb free home due to L's allergy.

I'm feeling better bit by bit, day by day. I have an awesome husband and family and friends who have helped out and pitched and called to check on me. It's so appreciated.

My first post-op appointment is June 5th. Can't wait to see what the scale says then!

TTFN!

Now you can literally ask me me about my band

So, yesterday was the big day! I got up early. Took my second shower in 6 hours with antibacterial soap, woke up my husband and got ready for my day. I slept surprisingly well for the night before. He didn't. My mother-in-law came in, we got our daughter up a few minutes earlier than normal. Then I made lunches for the kids and my husband started dinner for that night for them in the crockpot. While all this my parents had come and brought my husband breakfast.

Now we were out the door. The drive was about a 45 minute one. We arrived and got into a little scuffle regarding what the security/valet guy had said (apparently loud enough the whole lobby heard, this is somewhat unusual for us ;). We went upstairs and they whisked me back to pre-op.

They weighed me and according to their computer and BMI calculator (which put the notes in my hospital notes for the insurance) my BMI was EXACTLY what it needed to be to be covered by insurance. Thank the Lord! I was worried I had lost too much weight. Which will be the last time you will ever hear that from me.

They put this gown on me that hooks up to this air hose that blows warm air into your gown. I'm not a fan of warm air as it makes me sick. They started my IV. My family finally got to come back to see me. They gave some relaxing meds and offs I went.

The procedure itself was only about 35 minutes. The doctor told my family it went great.

I'm rather sore, more so than I was prepared for honestly. But I've been trying to get up and get around a bit here and there to help my recovery and prevent blood clots. I'm also staying on top of my pain meds and ice packs are my best friends. It feels like a really bad muscle tear.

So far, I've had one nausea event with chicken broth. I'm trying to stay as hydrated as possible as well.

Now that I've blogged I should go back to bed. I did all of this from my phone at 3 am.

Night all!

Day 5 of 10 Pre-Op Diet

It is the afternoon of Day 5. Days 1 and 2 were awful. I'm not going to lie. I had a headache that just would not go away!! But, day 3 was a turnaround day. So far, I haven't felt too awfully hungry. I'm having my moments. That's for sure, but it's actually not too bad.

What I am also not a fan of is the protein shakes. How in the world do body builders do these things all the time? I am assuming a bunch of people drink these things constantly because they are everywhere! The market for them is big, so people are buying them. Yuck! At least try to make them taste better.

So, I march on. Today I have already drank my 3 protein shakes allotted to me. I have left for my "meals" are: 1 fat free yogurt, 1/2 cup of fruit, 1 lean cuisine and 1 cup of salad with 1 tbsp of lite dressing.

I feel like I'm obsessing too much about the food part of this. Maybe I am. I don't know. I'm on this road that has been in my mind for a few years now and I can't believe I'm only 5 days away. I'm not excited anymore. I was. I'm nervous. I'm not nervous about the success. I believe this will be successful for me. I really do. I'm nervous about the surgery and the aftercare of the surgery.

Ok, that's it. My thoughts for today in blog form. Bye!

Day 2 of 10 Pre-Op Diet

So today is day 2 and well, although I'm not too incredibly hungry (which is good), I have a wicked bad headache the last 2 days!!

For those of you that don't know, I am having Lap-Band surgery in 9 days. I believe I am getting the Realize Band. Not sure how big of a band it will be, meaning how many cc's it will be able to hold.

To be honest, I've been super upbeat about the whole having surgery thing, but today had a slight meltdown. With tomorrow being Mother's Day, I can't go to dinner with our families to celebrate, right now, it's just a bummer. I know it will pass and this will be a good thing, but I did way too much research on side effects and it not working for some people the other day and well, it all got into my head.

The good news is, I'm sticking to the very strict pre-op diet. So far since starting at the bariatric clinic, I've lost 19 lbs in about 2 months and hope to lose at least 6 or 7 more before my surgery. Seeing how we have only a few days but a very limited menu and 2 days being only liquid, I'm thinking I may be close. We shall see.

Also, I belong to an online message board and made a declaration today.....I HATE PROTEIN SHAKES!! Yuck!! I'm trying to mix them up, flavor wise, but yuck, yuck, yuck!!!