jenn.nu

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jenn — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:02:36 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Today’s the day to be with family, stuff yourself senseless on turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and a variety of vegetables and desserts. Well, it’s that day for all of you. As for me, I’m celebrating my success with 1/8 of a cup of cream of wheat this morning, and hoping I do all right with a spoonful or two of mashed potatoes and some mashed up turkey. But hey, ’tis the season to be thankful of everything that we have, so screw food. I’m all about family, because that’s what matters most. ♥

Shower, laundry and litter! Oh my!

Jenn — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:05:14 +0000

Today was a much better day. Saturday was the roughest, Sunday had its up and downs, but today was pretty much okay. I think what helped is actually taking my pain medication during the day. I don’t like being drowsy and sleepy throughout the day, because then I’m not able to sleep at night, so over the weekend I was taking a full dose in the morning (around 11:00am), and another full dose at night (around 11:00pm)… and that’s it. Yeah, not such a good idea. So today I got up, showered, sat down in the living room because I felt dizzy and a bit weak, and had breakfast (chocolate shake, blech) and a half dose of Vicodin. It was enough to take away the pain and relax me without actually knocking me out. I felt so good, in fact, that about an hour after that I put away some of the kids’ laundry and scooped cat litter.
I took another dose of Vicodin around 6:00pm, but I accidentally took a 3/4 dose instead of a half dose. That extra one fourth worth of Vicodin had me feeling dizzy and lightheaded, but not quite drowsy. I went and laid down around 7:30pm and didn’t get back out of bed until about a half hour ago. I dozed a bit here and there, but I mostly watched House, Trauma and a bit of Jay Leno.

I went out to the grocery store this evening. Fun times. I was just so damn sick of plain chicken soup broth and chicken stock that I begged Dan to take me to the grocery store. I picked out several chunkier and more flavorful soups whose broths are bound to pack some more taste than what I’ve been getting. And I wasn’t disappointed… minestrone soup broth was AWESOME!

Have I mentioned that I am counting down the days until Thanksgiving? I am so over this shake and soup broth crap. Now that I’m home and feeling a bit better my hunger has returned. Spaghetti, fried chicken and French fries have all smelled mouth-wateringly good. Yet the sugar cookies I made with Alyssa this afternoon (and let her and Ryan decorate with leaf and pumpkin sprinkles) smelled and tasted (I put a dot-sized amount on my tongue just for a taste, because I was curious about many post-op patients saying that sweet things taste off and unappetizing — looks like they were right!) off.
Oh, and food commercials? EVIL. I have never craved Subway subs, Applebee’s appetizers, Pizza Hut’s pasta and Domino’s pizza like I am now! Heh. I can start to slowly re-introduce normal foods in weeks 5 and 6 (Christmas and New Year’s!), and man oh man I cannot WAIT.

Okay, enough of my food babbling. This must seriously be the largest amount of text I have ever devoted to food. So yes, enough. Right now I’m relaxing in the living room. Blanket over my lap and legs, dog nestled on the arm of the recliner and my left thigh, laptop conveniently positioned in front of me thanks to a Tablemate tray, no pain or twinges unless I move, starting to feel sleepy, down 12 lbs. since surgery last Wednesday… Life is good!

Pardon the whine

Jenn — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:30:14 +0000

Pardon the whine, but damn do I hurt. The pain almost seems worse since I’ve come home. Yesterday’s wheelchair ride down to the car and then the hour-long drive home was very painful. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I burst into tears when I made it into the bedroom. But at that point my stomach, intestines and god knows what else were burning and aching, and the gas pains were also quite painful. TMI, but they blew up my abdominal cavity with air during the procedure, and now that air is circulating around and oh-so-slowly making its way out. TMI again, but I’ve seriously never been so anxious to let one rip. These gas pains are horrendous. The worst was on Wednesday night, when the trapped air migrated up to my chest cavity. I’m laying there tingling from head to toe from the morphine (no nausea or vomiting, thank god, since I insisted on anti-nausea meds to take along with the morphine) and suddenly I feel a tight band of pressure around my chest and back, and I’m not only having trouble breathing, but it’s painful to breathe. I seriously started to panic, thinking I was having a collapsed lung or something similarly freaky. Thankfully, a quick vitals check, EKG and x-ray all confirmed that I was fine, and it was in fact trapped air. Since then some of it has dissipated, but there’s plenty left, and it presses painfully on my stomach and intestines.

I have liquid Vicodin… an “elixir”, as it was noted on the prescription form. But I don’t like taking it ’round the clock, despite the fact that I can take 15 ml worth every six hours. I did take it every 6-8 hours in the hospital, after the morphine pump was removed (I was doing that ever 6-8 hours as well), but now that I’m home I’m easing away from it. It does wonders for the pain, but it makes me very sleepy and puts me out for at least an hour or two, and nothing sucks more than not being able to sleep at night because you napped during the day.

So right now I’m sitting here with what feels like an abdominal cavity full of flames. Then there’s the gas pains that add to the fun. And some random shoulder pain (migrated trapped air or agitated nerve from surgery) for good measure. I took a full dose of Vicodin this morning around 11:00am, and a half dose around 5:00pm. As soon as I finish up this post I’m taking a full 15 ml dose, and then I plan on snuggling in bed with Dan (as much as I can snuggle, anyway, since he’s afraid to put any pressure on my chest and stomach, and I’m not too comfortable no matter how I sit or lay) and watching CSI until I drop off. I’ve been wearing my glasses all day (yay laziness!), so I won’t even have to get back up to take out my contacts. Now let’s just hope I don’t have to pee. Nothing sucks more than being ready to nod off, almost pain-free, and then having to haul back up out of bed to go to the bathroom. Yes, I’ve been-there-done-that — last night, and I wasn’t very happy about it. Fortunately, once I did crawl back into bed I crashed hard. I slept for nine hours straight. But irony of ironies? I woke up ON my stomach. Go freakin’ figure.

P.S. I wrote about my surgery experience at That Fat Chick, where I’ve been blogging about my journey with weight loss surgery for the past two and a half years.

You know what are great? Showers

Jenn — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 03:19:51 +0000

I took a shower around 4:35am on Wednesday morning. I didn’t have another shower until Friday afternoon. While I didn’t do anything strenuous, break a sweat, get dirty, etc., I still felt incredibly gross by Thursday night, and couldn’t wait to get my IV out on Friday morning so I could get a shower. My IV came out in the morning, and I only managed to restrain myself from waking up Dan so he could help me shower because I fell asleep myself. But let me tell you, when 12:30pm rolled around and I opened my eyes, the first thing I did was wake up Dan and ask him for his help. He’s been so wonderful with helping me, from the very start. From getting things for me, helping me up in bed or getting re-positioned, to helping me shower by washing my back, helping me dry off, and, excuse the humiliation, helping me put on my underwear and pajama bottoms because it hurts so bad to bend over, he’s done everything I could possibly want and then some. I know I need the help and it’s good for me to rest so that I can recover, but I still feel weird depending on somebody else so much, even if that somebody else is my husband.

Anyway, I took a shower this evening. I used Big Sexy Hair shampoo and conditioner, and Amazon Rainforest Brazil Nut & Vanilla body wash. The body wash, by the way, smells like cupcakes. Alyssa picked it out for that very reason. Fabulous, I know.

So there’s my night: I took a shower and feel awesomely clean.

It feels SO good to be home

Jenn — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:41:10 +0000

I was discharged this afternoon. Actually, the official discharge was timestamped at 9:55am, but I had to try and eat some breakfast, and then I had pain meds, and then I fell asleep, and then I wanted a shower, and then we had to wait for a wheelchair to arrive, and before I knew it the clock said 2:00pm, even though I was first woken up around 9:00am. Actually, I was first woken up around 4:00am for a blood pressure check, and again around 6:00am by my surgeon, and yet again at 7:30am by another surgeon. That is one thing about the medical program I’ve been participating in — they have been very vigilant with me from the start. And while it sucks to be poked and prodded at on an hourly and bi-hourly basis, it’s good to know that they’re looking after me. Blood pressure, temperature, oxygen level, pain level, do I need anything to drink, any pain meds, etc.

One thing I didn’t get a lot of in the hospital is sleep. I think the best sleep I had was the six or so hours I was basically out of it after surgery. I went in for surgery around 8:45am, and according to Dan I was done by 11:30am or so. I remember being woken up in the recovery room and asked if I wanted to be moved to my room so I could be with my family, but I said no because I was in so much pain (serious pain/tightness in my diaphragm, which was from the surgery as well as a small hernia I didn’t know I had — the surgeon fixed that while performing the gastric bypass) and felt so out of it. I vaguely remember being wheeled to my room, being transferred to my bed and being given the remote to press if I wanted pain meds, and feeling my mom touch my head and Dan kiss me, but that’s about it. Next thing I know it was evening, and I was asked to get up and walk down the hallway and back, and then sit in a chair — where I promptly fell asleep for two hours.

Dan was with me the whole time. He left me for just a few hours last night, and that’s only because he needed to drop off my credit card with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend, L. L and I planned to see New Moon last night at 11:59pm, but then my surgery was scheduled for the 18th, so obviously I wouldn’t be able to go. She needed my card because I purchased the tickets online, and the theater needed my card to print out the tickets. But I wasn’t alone, because Jason arrived at the hospital before Dan left and stayed until after Dan came back.

I’m so looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep. I dozed this afternoon for about an hour, after a painful ride home and a very painful walk into the house. It’s weird… I felt a little better this morning. But the ride in the car and the walk in the house did me in. I’m ashamed to admit that I burst into tears from the pain once I reached the bedroom. I did my best to calm down though, since Alyssa and Ryan wanted to see me (I can’t believe how much I missed them! Alyssa made a get-well card that Jason gave to me, and I teared up when I looked over her adorable illustrations of us hugging each other), and then took an overdue dose of liquid Vicodin (such awesome stuff).

Now I just want to finish up this blog entry and take out my contacts. I plan on taking some more pain medicine and watching CSI until I fall asleep. I’ll be able to rest up for as much and as long as I need, because Dan took off of work until November 29th, Jason has off next week and will come over to help out, and my mom said she could come stay with us next weekend to help.

I’ll try and blog more details about pre-op and post-op tomorrow… right now I’m just feeling really sore, achy and fatigued. But I do want to say: thank you so much for the outpouring of support on my blog and on Twitter. It means a lot. I really appreciate knowing you guys are thinking about me and wishing me the best. I know this is a BIG decision that I made, and yes it’s scary, partially because it’s so final and pretty much not reversible, but I don’t regret it. So again, thank you for the support. It’s very comforting, encouraging and reassuring.

The weight is over

Jenn — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:41:47 +0000

In case you haven’t been following me on Twitter, I had gastric bypass surgery yesterday morning. It’s something I have been planning for months, and researching for several years.

Right now I’m sore and achy, and my pain pump is my new best friend. It isn’t touching the gas pain though, which is rather sucktacular, because it freakin’ HURTS! (The gas pain is from where my surgeon filled my abdominal cavity with air, since the procedure was done laparoscopically)

Anyway, I’m still in the hospital, and will be discharged tomorrow or Saturday. I’m going to go nap for a bit. I’ll try to blog again tonight.

Exploding at the seams

Jenn — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:49:31 +0000

I’ve got something really big coming up. I’ve talked about it here and there over the past few days, but I still want to keep things on the down low until the Really Big Something has actually happened. Grr. Don’t you hate that? You want to talk about something, but yet you don’t. So then you’re squirming and chomping at the bit with impatience, anxiety and excitement.

It’s funny. For the past few weeks I’ve been bitching left and right about time going too slowly, that the Day of the Really Big Something would never get here. Now it’s less than ten hours from happening, and suddenly I have twenty billion things I’d like to get done first. Not least of which is the sudden influx of work that a few companies heaped on me (thanks guys! Just in time for the Black Friday shopping I won’t be doing, because there’s no way in hell I’m venturing out that day.).

And speaking of Black Friday… I’m so happy! Dan and I figured out the rest of our Christmas shopping list. Now we just need to get the moolah together to buy everything, but still, determining what we’re getting for everyone is always half the battle, so having it all figured out is well worth rejoicing over!