…Heart On Her Sleeve…

hi!

well, it’s been quite the adventure.  firstly, big BIG ups to dan for updating this thing when all that shit was going down.  i appreciate it.  he’s honestly the best boyfriend evar, and shall henceforth be known as dan, tbbe. i don’t know how i would have made it through this whole thing without him and my mom.  they just poured so much love all over me, even when i was being a superbitch.  what can i say, being in exquisite pain and not eating or sleeping for days makes me a bitchie kittie.

imma try to tell you how it all went down in full detail.  a lot happened, and i was out of my head a lot, so hopefully i’ll remember everything.

on tuesday april 21st, we left for ypsilanti at around noon.  got there in pretty good time,  found our hotel and settled in.  i was on only clear fluids that day, so i was kinda tired, weak and headachey all day.  i actually had been dealing with a week’s worth of sinus headaches at that point.  by evening, i was feeling pretty nauseated and really run down.  i tossed and turned for much of the night.

we went to barix for 8 am on wed april 22nd. they took me in about 10 minutes after i got there. weighed me, and i had lost 20 lbs since my initial consult in feb.  everyone was pleased with that. my weight that morning was 286 lbs. they took some blood.  i followed a nurse to the pre-op area, where i was asked to change into a lovely gown. they put in an IV, shot me up with blood thinner. they took my temperature, and i was running a low-grade fever.  my blood sugar and blood pressure were pretty high. i was pretty stressed out.  they gave me some insulin to bring down my blood sugar fast. they had me drink some foul acid reducing stuff. they hooked me up to a heart monitor.  my mom came in and gave me a hug and kiss, then dan too. i got a little teary eyed.

at that point, they gave me a sedative called versed, that along with calming you down, messes up your short-term memory.  so i’m not 100% on what happened next. i have no recollection of being taken into the OR, but apparently i was awake and talking. what i remember next is waking up in my hospital room, and my mom and dan were there.

my pain was about a 6/10 right out of surgery.  not bad, i thought.  but a couple hours after i started getting these stabby pains that would come quite frequently that would register an 8.  i mentioned it to the nurses, and they just told me to hit my morphine pump, which i did as frequently as i could, but it wasn’t touching that pain at all.  they even gave me an extra shot of some other type of painkiller, and it did nothing for it as well.  it took me a couple hours to figure out that i was getting that pain any time i swallowed. i mentioned it to the nurses. they said they’d mention it to dr pop when he arrived in the morning.  i gained about 10 lbs from all the fluids they were pushing in my iv.

thurs april 23th, he arrived at 7 am, and while standing in my doorway told me he heard i wasn’t feeling well and that they’d be working on it today, since they’d be doing my leak test. (where they make you swallow some die, take an xray and see if the staple line in the stomach is stable) that whole day was long and horrible. my sugars, blood pressure and temperature were all running high, i had crazy pain all the time, and still hadn’t slept.  they gave me ice chips to let melt in my super-dry mouth, but every time i had to swallow it i was in agony.  they did my leak test.  later, the tech came back because he said dr pop wanted to repeat one of the views.  something apparently looked a little off.  we did that.  i sat in the recliner most of the day, just kinda staring into space.

at 6pm, dr pop came by and told me that something looked “fuzzy” on my leak test. they wanted to get me back into the OR, get me back under and get the scope back in to have a look.  i started to cry.  i was scared that something was really wrong.

i guess i was back in my room in an hour.  the pain was gone, but dr pop said that they hadn’t seen or done anything at all.  i found this to be very confusing, because obviously something had changed dramatically, but was just happy that the terrible pain was gone.  my iv was taken out, and i was given sweet delicious water to sip on.  i tried to sleep that night, but was pretty uncomfortable.  my low back was sore from the way they prop you up in bed.  i think i dozed maybe an hour or two, max.

morning of saturday april 25th, i finally got released at about 11 am.  we went to a pharmacy to fill my sweet sweet pain killing prescription.  got on the road and arrived home around 5 pm.  i was EXHAUSTED.  all i wanted was to go to sleep. my mom made the bed up for me in the guestroom, and when i lay down flat, i realized that i couldn’t take a full breath in.  i was short of breath.  i tried to find a position where it wasn’t an issue, but every position ended up with the same results.  i moved around the house all night. from the bed to the couch. the couch to the recliner. the recliner back to bed.  this is some fucking bullshit right here. i am ready to grab throats and crush them.

in the morning of the 26th, after my 5th night with no sleep, i am desperate.  i page my surgeon and am all wtf.  he says i should get to an emerg and have them take a chest x-ray.

my mom and i head to the nearest urgent care facility. they take a chest xray. it is inconclusive.  they are concerned about a pulmonary embolism. they do a blood test called a d-dimer that is supposed to test for the pressence of thrombosis. the thing is, though.. that these tests are often positive in people who have had recent surgeries even if there is no thrombosis.  mine comes back positive, of course. this has all taken 6 hours. i have not eaten nor have i brought my pain meds. they want to do a ct scan of my lungs, but there is no ct at the urgent care, so they refer me to the closest hospital.

we arrive at the hospital, and are there for another 6 hours. i am bursting into tears a lot.  still nothing to eat, no pain meds.  they finally get the ct done, and it shows SOMETHING that COULD BE a pulmonary embolism, but maybe not.  the doctor is stuffing his face with cookies as he’s talking to me.  i have visions of stabbing him many many times. i need to come back tomorrow for a v-q lung scan and a doppler ultrasound of my legs.  he’s going to go call the dept and make those arrangements for me, just wait a moment… and the jerk disappears for 45 minutes.   he comes back and i’m just bawling.  i want to go home so bad. i’m nauseated from lack of food and in a world of hurt from no pain meds.  he assures us he’s made the appointments, and we should just arrive at 9 am the following morning and we won’t have to wait around or anything.

i get home, take my meds, drink some tea, take a benadryl, and pass out for 8 hours.  that was probably the worst day of all of them.  i was coming apart.  it was not pretty.

monday april 27th, we arrive at 9 am, and they have no idea who we are or why we are there.  there have been no appointments made for us for either test, but worse… no doctor’s order to be found for the tests at all anywhere.  so now they have to locate a doctor to review my file and get him to sign off for the tests.   this takes 2 hours.  the testing itself takes 45 minutes, then another 2 hour wait. the doc finally comes to see us, and thankfully, they were both negative.  no pulmonary embolism! i am very very pleased to hear the news.  he tells us that sometimes after a laparoscopic surgery, the c02 that they inject into your belly can irritate the diaphragm causing shortness of breath.  ok this makes sense. we get the eff out of the hospital.

i slept like a baby again that night.  tuesday was spent mostly sitting on my ass and relaxing.  i was SO TIRED. seriously, never felt exhaustion like that.  i guess all the days catching up to me. last night i went to bed at 9 pm and slept till 7:30 this morning.  i don’t feel nearly as tired today.  i’m working on getting my fluids in, getting in some protein, and just taking it easy a little.  i have mild pain in the one incision, and this morning it was better than yesterday.

so here we are on wed april 29th, a week out. i got on the scale today, and it read 273.5 lbs!  that’s a loss of 12.5 this week. i questioned a few times what i had done to myself during all the shit, but i know that this is going to have a happy ending.  it was SUCH a tough go, and i’m still not in love with my surgery, but i can see things getting better day by day.  i’m happy to be on my way over that terrible hump.

this was a lot to read. if you made it all the way through, you deserve cookies.

i installed some wordpress spam plugin cause i was getting slammed by spambots and somehow it deleted all my comments, which makes me sad like this:

i’ve installed a different, less aggressive plugin, so hopefully i won’t lose any more comments.

i’m happy to report that all the tests they ran at barix came back satisfactorily.  they were happy that i lost the 10-15 (12) lbs i was supposed to pre-op, and i was cleared for surgery!

i really have to applaud barix for being the finely tuned machine that they are.  i arrived at 7:15 in the morning, and was seamlessly passed from station to station for all my tests and my meeting with the nutritionist. i was out of there by 11:15, without being made to wait more than 5 minutes between stations. the staff are friendly, helpful and professional.

the only complaint i have, and i know barix’s forte is the Roux En Y surgery, but they need to update their staff, literature and nutritional counseling to be inclusive of the VSG.  the eating plan and nutritional info i was given was all about RNY.  i found that to be a bit annoying.  hopefully they will get up to speed on the VSG now that more and more people seem to be going this route.

today i’m on a mission for post-op necessities. protein powders. vitamins. little tiny dishes to make my little tiny meals seem not so tiny.  i’m 8 days out. i’m not nervous or scared, but holy shit, 8 DAYS!

once you have approval from OHIP, this stuff sure does move with the quickness!

my very nice and lovely parents came with me for my consult last week.  the consult itself is of two parts.  they have a group info seminar (8 people altogether, 4 of which were from ontario, jeez.) dr poplawski talks about the different wls types they perform at barix, (rny, vsg and lapband) pros and cons of each one of them, what life is like post-op, etc etc.  then you have a one-on-one consult with him afterwards so that he can answer any questions you may have.

i am jewish. funnily enough, so is my mother. have you heard about jewish mothers?  they worry. they worry like it’s their job.  so i knew that if my mom sat in with me for the consult and the one-on-one, that perhaps she’d learn a lil something, be able to ask some questions, and perhaps feel a little better about the whole procedure.

after arriving, i filled in a lengthy health history form. i handed that in and a nurse took me into an exam room, weighed me, measured my height and blood pressure, and asked me a few further health history questions. a little while later, the group of us were directed to a meeting room where we’d have our seminar.

after about 10 minutes, dr poplawski came in and introduced himself.  i found him to be engaging and honest.  he didn’t sugar-coat any of the information or make it seem like post-op life would be any kind of walk in the park.  he spoke for close to 45 minutes, and at no time was i bored, even though i already knew a lot of what he was telling us.  my mom kept saying “wow” and “oh my”.  she learned a whole lot during that seminar.

a little tip for you if you are planning to have surgery at the barix clinics.  they arrange the one-on-one part of the consult on a first come/first served basis.  meaning if you arrive only a few minutes before your appointment time, that you will be at the bottom of the list to be seen for your one-on-one.  usually the groups are about 8-12 people with the one-on-one lasting 15-30 minutes long each… so yeah. arrive early. it’s better to wait around before than after, if you ask me.  especially if you’re hitting the road to drive back to toronto afterward

during the one-on-one, dr pop was a bit surprised to hear that i had opted for the sleeve.  i guess with most people being familiar with the RNY and the lap band, those are the two that patients opt for most of the time.  he then went on to tell me that if he were going to choose a bariatric surgery for himself, that it would without question be the sleeve.  upon hearing that, my mother got up and kissed him full on the mouth.  ok, not really, but i think that statement alone gave her a lot of relief.  honestly, it was very nice to hear from someone who performs wls for a living.   i asked some questions, my mom asked some questions, we laughed with the hysterically funny dr pop a whole lot, we both developed little crushes on him, and we set off back to toronto feeling very satisfied with my choice of clinics, surgery types, and surgeons.  a great experience on all fronts.

today i received a phone call from the barix scheduling department, and we booked my pre-admission testing (PATS) and surgery dates!

april 7th- PATS

april 22nd- I GET SLEEVED!

i am SO stoked to finally have this date written IN PEN.  i feel now like i can close this hurry up and wait chapter of my life that has been going on since sept/08, and finally allow myself to become excited about this life-changing surgery!