Took a little walk today.

Well, since my surgery I haven't had a a chance to go for a "real" walk because of the rain. It's been raining for almost 3 weeks straight and when it wasn't raining last week, I was sick with a sinus infection. We went for a walk around 6pm since it had cooled off. We went to the park, the lake, and then back home. We walked about a total of 1.5-2 miles. I want to start trying to walk a minimum of 4 days a week and work my way up to 7 days a week. When I lose some more weight, I will try and start doing some exercise at home. I have a few exercise DVDs, but right now, it's too hard on my body right now. I really have to figure out what I am going to do in the winter. There is no way in heck I am going for a 2 mile walk in freezing temps!

Lots of severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flash flooding over the past 2 days. We've heard the sirens twice tonight and once last night. I hate severe weather. It was so humid outside tonight on our walk. We knew we would get storms again tonight because of the high humidity.

Just a quick update.

Fair warning. I am exhausted tonight and have already taken my sleeping meds, so this will probably be all jumbled up.

There really isn't much going on right now. Just trying to get Jayda finished with summer school for this session. Jayda had her allergy shots today, so I had a chance to weigh myself. Last Friday I weighed 350.5 and today I weighed 347.2. Today makes 19 days post-op and I have lost a total of 19 lbs. Not too bad if I do say so myself. I know I am losing weight because the scale shows it, but I just don't feel like it or see it yet. Tomorrow is Jayda's last day of summer school for this session, so we will be getting out and doing a lot more walking. We will have to do some walking and playing outside to get her worn out so she will sleep at night!

She's going to go stay with our cousins again in another week or so, probably after the 4th of July. I really want her with us for the 4th because I love watching fireworks with her. She gets SO excited! We're also going to try and go to the zoo before the end of the month because we have free passes and only have to pay $5 for parking. That will be A LOT of exercise just walking around the zoo. It will be Jayda's first time, so we are excited. We haven't told her about it yet because then all we would hear from her is, "Are we going to the zoo today?" She's been asking to go play with her cousins a lot since coming home. We told her about a week ago that she would be going to stay with our cousins again in a few weeks and that's all we've heard day in and day out.

Jayda's last weekly allergy shot is next Wednesday. She goes to see her asthma and allergy specialist on July 13th and then she will start having her shots every other week. She's getting so good about her shots too! At first, she had to sit in my lap and I had to hold her arms down so she didn't move and she would cry a lot. Then she got to the point that we didn't have to hold her arms, but she would still whimper. Then we got to the point to where she still sat in our lap, but wouldn't cry or move. The last 2 weeks she has sat in the chair all by herself, and not moved or cried when she got her shots. I am so proud of her! I hated seeing her cry at first, but we're really hoping the allergy shots will help her. Matt and myself have REALLY BAD allergies, so it was inevitable that she would have them as well.

That's about it for now. Sorry my thoughts were all over the place tonight. It's time for me to get in bed and just sleep! I can't believe I am going to bed before 10pm! I'm normally awake until at least midnight.

UGH! Sinus infection.

Well, I haven't updated in a few days because I have been sick. I started feeling like I was getting a sinus infection on Wednesday night and Thursday morning I felt like a truck had hit me in my sleep. I have felt like pure crap. I went to the Dr yesterday and sure enough it is a sinus infection, again. So, the Dr put me on an antibiotic. That sounds easy right? Well, not so easy when this antibiotic looks like a horse pill! It's HUGE!!! Well, I can't really swallow things that large right now, so I talked to the pharmacist about cutting the pill, which is what I have to do with all my other meds right now. She told me to ONLY cut it in half because if I cut it down even more, it may get into my blood stream too quickly and cause diarrhea. Well, at this point, I can deal with a little diarrhea over the consequences of taking something too large to pass through the pouch opening. If something isn't small enough to go into the pouch, that will cause vomiting. Well, coughing hurts my insides right now and I've vomited a few times since my surgery and it hurts WAY worse. So, I cut the pills down and so far so good, there have been no ill effects from cutting them down. Anyway, at my post-op appointment I had lost 13 lbs since the day of surgery. As of yesterday, the scale showed me down another 3 lbs. That's a loss of 16 lbs since the day of the surgery (14 days exactly since surgery), which averages out to be a loss of a little over a pound a day. I am so excited! I don't think I look like I've lost 16 lbs, but it gives me a big boost in confidence. I haven't been able to do a lot of walking since my surgery because it's been raining almost non-stop for 2 weeks, but I think the rain is just about over. I will be able to get out and start walking a mile or two a day and the weight will continue to drop. Jayda LOVES to go for walks, so it will be good for all of us. It will help me with weight loss and it will wear her out so bedtime is easier on Matt and myself!

Thank you to everyone for supporting me through this journey. I still have a long way to go to get to my goal weight, but I've had a great start which will help keep me motivated.

First post-op appointment.

I had my first post-op appointment yesterday. I had the staples removed and the incisions were NOT infected like I had suspected they were. YAY for that!! Infected incisions are not nice at all. My c-section incision was infected and the staples hurt SO bad coming out, but the staples only stung in a few places yesterday. The nurse thinks it only stung because they had been in for 11 days and the skin had begun to grow over the staples. The nurse also told me that a lot of people don't lose weight in the liquid diet phase due to fluid retention. I was SO happy to see that I did indeed lose weight. I lost a total of 13 lbs since surgery day (366 surgery day and 353 yesterday), so that's just a little over a lb a day! I am now on the pureed stage of the diet as of yesterday. I am so happy to be off liquids only. It was getting so hard to be on only liquids all day long. I had been on a liquid diet for 21 days! That's a lot of time on JUST fluids. My next appointment is in a month, July 13. I will see the dietitian and the RN again.

A little background about the surgery center where I had my surgery. 95% of the staff (nurses and office staff) have had bariatric surgery of one kind or another. I really like that because instead of just telling me this is what I have to do, they KNOW what needs to be done and have experienced EXACTLY what I am going through! I was talking to the receptionist yesterday before my appointment and I mentioned how I didn't feel like I had lost anything. She then showed me a picture of her before her surgery and then 6 months out from surgery. It was such a drastic change! I really pray that this will be a good thing for me and that I have as much success as she has had.

Thanks again for all the support and words of encouragement. I really appreciate it. The more support I have, the better!

Super busy lately!

Sorry I haven't been updating daily. I have been super busy this week. First we had an appointment on Wednesday that we were at from 8am until nearly 6:30pm! We woke up at 5:30am, left the house by 6:30am, and didn't get home until after 8pm! That was NOT a nice day being 5 days post-op. Lots of sitting and waiting wasn't easy on the body. Wednesday was also the day we picked Jayda up from Magon's house. She had a blast with Savanna and Kayla! I had missed Jayda so much, but she didn't want to come home. Then yesterday we had a few appointments and had to go shopping for my 2nd phase of the post surgery diet, full liquids. I am on full liquids starting today and will be on this until at least Tuesday when I go in for my post-op check-up. I will also be getting the stales out on Tuesday and I am so ready for that. They are beginning to pull some and that hurts a bit.

Bullhead Days are this weekend.  It's a town founding celebration. We will get in LOTS of walking while visiting the carnival and letting Jayda go on the different rides and play the different games. Tonight they are suppose to have fireworks as long as it doesn't rain. We are looking forward to that a lot because Jayda LOVES fireworks! We're hoping it doesn't rain all weekend because that would really suck!

I guess that's about all for now.

Small update

There isn't a whole lot to update right now. I have been trying to relax and heal since getting home on Sunday. Jayda will be home tomorrow, so things will have to get back to "more normal" starting Thursday, so I just wanted to try and relax for these few days. So far, so good. I'm on a clear liquid diet until Friday and then I start a full liquid diet until my appointment on Tuesday. From there they will decide if I can go on to pureed foods or if I need to stay on full liquids a little longer.

Tomorrow is going to be a LONG day. We have a meeting we have to be at starting at 8am that could possibly go until 5pm tomorrow night. It's going to be a hard day on my body, but it must be done. Sorry I haven't updated more since getting home. I have just been sore and tired and trying to relax and heal. I looked in the mirror today at my stomach and I am so bruised up. My belly button area is totally black and blue. I have a total of 11 incisions and 27 staples.

Home from the hospital

I'm home. Got home about 3pm today. I'm sore and tired, so I will update more tomorrow. Thanks for all the support thus far.

Before surgery pictures

UGH!!!! I HATE HATE HATE taking pictures because when I look at them I get disgusted at the way I look. Here are the before surgery pictures. Sorry for the blurriness. They were taken with Jayda's VTech KidiZoom camera.







This is a picture when I was in high school. You can't really tell a whole lot about my body, but the weight I am in this picture is my "final goal" weight!

Liquid diet Day 9

Today is the last day of protein drinks until after surgery. Tomorrow is only clear liquids. I did weigh myself today after being on this liquid diet and I didn't lose very much weight at all. I was sad to see I only lost about 5 lbs. I know I have been drinking a lot of milk, so it has to be the calories from that, plus it's been raining for the past 5 days which means no walking other than the one trip to the park. We will be leaving the house about 6pmish tomorrow evening (Thursday) and heading to Magon's house. Jayda will be staying with Magon from Thursday night until Wednesday afternoon. We will be spending the night there so we don't have to wake Jayda up super early on Friday and it's also only a 30 minute drive to the hospital form her house and it's 2 hours from ours. Magon has offered to keep Jayda until Wednesday to give me a few days of at home recovery without Jayda crawling all over me, plus she would be watching her on Wednesday while we are at an appointment from 8am until at least 1pm. That makes it where we don't have to be up even earlier to drive into the cities and drop Jayda off at her house on Wednesday morning. Thank you Magon, for always being here to help Matt and I out. We love you!

I still haven't had a chance to get the before pictures on the computer yet. We're using Jayda's VTech KidiZoom digital camera that we bought her for Christmas, since our camera is DOA! Well, her batteries died tonight, so it is charging over night and I will try and get them on the computer before we leave tomorrow. No promises though because tomorrow is going to be HECTIC!!! I still have to pack for all 3 of us. I need to do a few loads of laundry before I can even do that packing. I am going to go through Jayda's toys in her bedroom tomorrow, I think, and throw away all the broken things and get rid of the toys she doesn't play with any more. I went through her toy bin in the living room tonight and got rid of a bunch of broken things. Jayda's skills counselor comes tomorrow afternoon for at least 2 hours as well. So yea, tomorrow is going to be hectic!!

Thank you to everyone who has been supporting me this far in my journey. I couldn't do this without the support and encouragement everyone has shown me. I love y'all!

Liquid diet Day 8

Day 8 of the liquid diet went well. It's getting so much easier everyday that passes. One more day of the liquid diet the way it's been (carnation instant breakfast with milk, broth, and no calorie liquids) and then Thursday I have to do only clear liquids. Thursday I also have to drink the magnesium drink to "clean my system out". I am SO dreading that! I am going to weigh myself tomorrow when we take Jayda in for her allergy shots and see what I have lost by being on this liquid diet. I haven't been able to do much walking at all because it's been raining. Three more days until the "big day" and I am getting even more excited, but also even more nervous. Thank you to everyone that's been supporting me and giving me encouragement.