My applesauce sandwich

After my lap band surgery last Monday, I had to figure out how to take pills. Fortunately, several of the meds I'm on can be taken in lozenge form and I've gone off of most of my diabetes pills.  But the rest need to be taken and I've had to crush them.  Can you say, "ICK!"?

It took me a few days to come up with a solution to the problem that didn't leave me cringing.  Here's my applesauce sandwich:

• cover the spoon with a thin layer of applesauce
• layer the crushed pills on top of the sauce
• cover the pills with another layer of applesauce, kind of encapsulating it
• add a dash of cinnamon on top

I take the pills like shot of booze:  aim for the back of the throat and let it slide.  If you don't mix it with your tongue, you taste very little. Just the texture of the applesauce and the cinnamon.  The icky tasting meds stay in the middle and away from your tongue.

I'm not sure how long I'll have to keep crushing pills, but at least this has made it so I don't dread it!

9 days out and doing well!

It's now Wednesday, about 9 days out from my lap band surgery and all is well.  My rash has peaked and is still itchy, but starting to abate around the edges.  I'm starving quite a bit (huh?  I thought that was supposed to go away), but fear of adversely affecting my healing stomach and pork (port) is keeping me on track.  

I'm averaging about 800 calories and 70g of protein a day.  My stomach growls often, but it doesn't really bug me.  The rules are meant to be followed and they are more important than stomach growling. I am more pleased with the behavior of my blood sugar.  I've been diabetic for a few years (both parents are too, so it was a matter of when, not if I got it).  Prior to surgery, I was on 2 x 1000 mg metformin, 15 mg glipizide and two 10 ug shots of Byetta a day.  

My endocrinologist took me off everything and switched me to a sliding scale of insulin.  I'm not keen on being on insulin because it can cause you to gain weight.  However, I am glad I don't have to snort those huge metformin pills (okay, crush and take in spoon of applesauce) every day.  But I am on a low dosage:  4u is the most I've had to take yet.

I have to take insulin before meals if my blood sugar is greater than 151.  Great thing is, this is maybe once a day.  Not three times a day!  My blood sugar seems to be coming down.  If I'd get off my butt, it'd probably come down more.  When I walked with Jane on Sunday it was at 139 before dinner.  So even though the weight comes off slower with a band than the traditional RNY gastric bypass, I am pleased to already be seeing some positive changes in my health.  

I can tell a difference every day in how my stomach is healing. It is much easier to get up and down out of furniture, with less pain.  If it weren't for the persistent itching, sitting here right now, I can't even feel any pain.  I have only had one dose of narcotics since last Wednesday.  I'm very pleased.

Today Jane is coming by to help me cut the grass.  I could probably push the mower (though I'll be toast for the night after that!), but I can't yank the starter.  No way!  Don't want to dislocate my pork!  Least it's on a tether, ha ha!

I just had an Atkins Shake (LOVE THEM!) to beef up on protein and quiet my growling stomach.  For lunch I think I'm going to bake a small piece of tilapia and see how that goes. For dinner, I'm having another 1/2 cup of my homemade chili that I blended with an immersion stick blender.  I had that yesterday with 1/4 cup melted sharp cheddar cheese and it was the BEST thing I have had in about 2 weeks!  I'm not keen on the pureed diet, but only have about another week to get through.  Then I can branch out to chewable things.  Yippee!

The weather is cold and gray, but I want to do something outside.  I may run to Home Depot after I take a shower and buy some tomato plants.  I have a big pot I can put it in and won't even have to bend to dig.  Then maybe I'll take Ms. Tuesday for a walk.  She has been on her best behavior while I've been recovering and she deserves it.  The other 3 hooligans have been pretty good too, but Tuesday is my special girl. Plus, if I can get her to jump on the bench out on the porch, I could maybe brush her coat some and give the birds some great nesting materials.  I'll write more about the dogs on my other blog, like how the Dup jumped from the purple chair to the ottoman to the couch.  Yeah.  When I get some of this weight off we are SO heading to obedience then agility classes.  She's quite the leaper.

And then there was the complication

I always get some kind of complication.  And not the kind of complication they discuss with you prior to surgery.  The stupid kind that 0.01% of the population gets.  That's me!

It took me days to find out what it is called, but the surgical saran wrap they cover you within the operating room is called adhesive-backed surgical incise drape.  I don't like it one bit.  Nor does my ridiculously sensitive skin.

I worship the person who came up with that stretchy cling wrap they use at labs when you get a blood draw.  That stuff ROCKS!  Prior to its inception, there was the band aid.  Band aids are worse for me than the actual blood draws.  They peel at least 18 layers of my skin off, even if I wait till they get funky after several showers and fall off.  I hate band aids.

Adhesive-backed surgical incise drape is about 1000X worse than bandaids.  Yeah.  It sucks.  Most people don't even know about it as it's put on the surgical site after you're knocked out.  And most people don't have some kind of wicked crazy reaction to it (or its adhesive).

It started with a little itching on my belly Tuesday and now I have a full blown, raised, red angry rash that runs from side to side, chest to legs. Niiiiiiice.  And it itches like the dickens!  What is it now? Saturday.  Friday I got a note from the nurse to just take some benadryl.  Yeah.  We're past benadryl at this point.  Long past.  It's more like I need a huge dose of steroids.  But that screws up blood sugars and slows wound healing, so it looks like I will just have to suffer in scritchy silence.

And now I smell like Old Lady.  I reek of Gold Bond Powder.

But there is a flip side. The weirdest thing is I can breathe through my nose now!

Since the surgery, I have not had any problems breathing through my nose at all.  Matter of fact, Monday night I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and realized I was breathing through my nose, my mouth was shut and I was not drooling.  DEAR DIARY!  It's been that way since.  Even being home with the 4 dogs and not feeling up to sweeping.  Go figure.

My friend Jes thinks it might be due to a gluten allergy.  And that I haven't had any gluten containing foods since surgery.  It might be, because my mother has celiac disease.  But the Vanderbilt ASAP clinic told me I had no food allergies.  I'll have to double check that. 

However, I'm not going to question it.  If I can breathe, then good for me!  I'm just going to enjoy it and the lack of post nasal drip that comes along with it. Yippeee!!!

Here are two of my incisions and you can see the boxes of no-rash around them.  The rest is my fun, itchy rash!

I actually had lap band surgery!

Boy, that sounds weird!  

It feels weird to read because I feel good, too.  Well, not normal good, but good considering my innards were messed with a few days ago.

All in all, my hospital experience was very good.  After waiting on pins and needles for my parents to show up, we headed to Vandy.  At some point they said they changed my surgery time from 9:30 to 7:30.  But I never got that message.  DOH!  They were able to take me back immediately, though and get things rolling.  

My IV was relatively painless, I enjoyed my fluffy hospital socks and the giant paper gown. They have these new gizmo gowns called Bear Air or something like that.  You can plug a wall mounted hairdryer thingie into it to warm you if you are cold.  I never got to get plugged in.  I bet it's funny looking--you poof up like the Stay Puff't Marshmallow Man.

My nurses were nice, as was the anesthesiologist.  I like my surgeon, he's loosened up a bit after multiple meetings.  By the end of the day he was pretty much ready to shove me out the door.  I tend to be an amusing patient.  Goofy.  Which I would think staff would like much more than the bitchy, complaining ones.  Ya know?

I've only had one surgery before--that was on my sinuses in October of 2007.  They pushed the happy juice into my IV before we headed to the OR, so I never saw the inside.  They didn't give me the knockout meds this time until I was on the OR table, so I got to see inside the room.  Lots of big screen TVs (playing how to videos?  ha ha!) where they displayed information about you, what they're gonna do and so on.   And unlike most TV operating rooms it was . . . how you say . . . well LIT!

I was scootched over to the operating table after a roller coaster ride from my room.  I can tell it was a Vandy design job.  They have really bad architects.  They prefer form over function.  It took a 20 point turn to maneuver my bed out of the preop room.  I give the nurses an A for effort!  Pretty much once I got on the table, I got the mask and the knock out juice and was out of it.

From there, I remember waking up in the recovery room.  There was a chick nurse there who was humming to the piped in radio.  I remember her putting on my elastic binder garment--the distinct sound of velcro.  I think they wheeled me in the bed to a second room where my parents were chilling out.  Remarkably, they weren't arguing!

Once I got in the room, things pretty much went back to normal.  My pain wasn't too bad, but I was pretty thirsty.  I got to suck on some ice chips, sat up and chatted, then in short order got up and walked the halls.  They won't let you leave until you can get up and move around.

Funny thing:  a few weeks ago I was in the hospital tunnels running to my pre-op appointment.  I ran into this gurney guy.  He was pushing a bed through the halls back to the hospital.  He asked me where he knew me from.  I said probably from 18 years of hall wandering.  We chatted for a bit before we took separate halls.  Turns out he was doing his thing in Day Surgery that day and we ended up chatting again.  Ha--I just chatted with you in the tunnel last week!  Small world!

I remember being very chatty and humming a lot.  The doc was cracking up at me and figured I was competent (relative term) enough to go home.  Since it was pushing 3 pm and traffic was about to start getting thick, we made a break for it after picking up some prescriptions at the world's worst pharmacy.

I'm still half contemplating if he did anything aside from cutting me open and sewing me straight shut again!  I can't feel anything lumpy up in there, and I have no nausea or vomiting or problems getting stuff down.  So far, so good.

Liquid Diet--still hanging in there!

I am on day 3-ish of my liquid diet and doing surprisingly well.  I am having no issues at all about being tempted.  Actually yesterday, I didn't even drink all my shakes.  YIKES!

Yesterday was challenging, though.  I have to say my bowels are not used to being empty. Not one bit.  I felt a tad queasy at lunch yesterday but swilled my two shake combo meal and some Crystal Light Peach Tea.  About an hour later, my colon started doing the cha-cha!

One of the things you hear about weight loss surgery:  never trust your farts.  I haven't had the surgery yet, but yesterday was a day not to trust them.  I went to the bathroom twice after lunch (mad dash!) and the second time I was sitting there laughing out loud because the bathroom was full (all 3 stalls occupied) and every time someone else would flush, I'd pass gas. LOUDLY.  It reminded me of the episode of Family Guy where Peter Griffin and Michael Moore have a fart off in the bathroom and end up performing dueling banjos.  Anally.

Except when it's just you in the stall stifling gas and laughter.  I lasted about an hour and then went home.  I was extremely tired, suffering from a headache, nauseated and had questionable bowel activity.  Being able to concentrate on work was not an option.  Nor was having my sanity questioned by fellow bathroom users.  You know they were doing a shoe check--who's the nut in stall 3 who sounds like she's trying to play a didgeridoo???

I went home, put on jammies and went straight to bed-bed.  No purple chair.  Bed.  Toddled back and forth between the bed and toilet for half an hour, then fell asleep.  Miraculously, even the dogs were quiet.  Usually they act like nuts playing or sit by the door and bark for me to come play.  But they were good for a change!

I didn't drink all my quotas for yesterday.  I only had 4 of my 6 shakes and had half a packet of cream of chicken cup of soup instead of my broth.  And I'm down 6 pounds of water weight since Sunday.  Yippeeee!

And it's funny.  Food just doesn't even feel like an option right now.  I was told I can't eat. Eat = no surgery.  No problem. I'm a very good rule follower, especially when they're brief, to the point and have a consequence.  I know people cheat on the liquid diet all the time, but, so far, I haven't felt a need.  I think I'll get through this phase okay.  Nausea sucks, but my headache is nearly gone and my colon is sulking quietly for now.  Whew.