| Journal Continued |
| 7/23/03. Well its been a good week; I now have a confirmed surgery date and already registered at Lake Mead Hospital for Aug 13th with a co-pay of $250 due that day. I could have had surgery as early as today, however did not have my co-pay or additional paperwork completed for STD/FMLA. So I opted for Aug 13th which also works out great for my current classes, it seems that week is a reading week and no assignments due that week. Both Dianna and I enjoyed 4 days in southern California at the Purpose Driven Conference in Lake Forest. Dianna won a trip to this conference and a chance to meet Joni & Kirk Bovil who sponsored the trip. They are Christian singers, who were also at the conference and sharing their music with everyone with three times that day. They are also planning on a trip this coming weekend to put on a performance at the Victory Christian Center in Las Vegas. The first night they had a concert with MercyMe and Darlene Zschech it was a great show. The group MercyMe was very uplifting and I enjoyed there music so much that we went out and bought there CD. Our drive home back to Las Vegas we listen to MercyMe the whole trip all 4 hours. The only problems that I had was with my legs they are swollen and have been since the trip, mainly my left leg and tingles a lot which caused us to shorten our stay at this conference. I believe it was meant for us to be there the first day and the concert with MercyMe, It also gave us a chance to spend a few days with family in Temecula. The reality to the downside of this surgery has come to light recently with messages from a variety of source such as email groups with 2 deaths from infection and an embolism. Locally they have had a patient who has had complications with infection, and now is in a comma. After reviewing this weight loss surgery, going to the seminars, joining the various support groups and to see all of these messages in one month, does open your eyes to the seriousness of this journey. These are the risk that we face with but I still need this done and willing to take on this risk. The plan now is for a 2 night hospital stay and out of work for 6 weeks. The count down begins 20 days. 8/12/03 "Pre-op appointment" today with Dr. Atkinson, my starting weight is at 487 pounds with a BMI of 61. My measurements are waist 68, chest 611/2, neck 19, Left arm 181/4, and left leg 38.A before picture was taken and of course, more forms to be signed by my wife and me, then the discussion with Dr. Atkinson on what is to be expected with the procedure and the risk involved. Surgery tomorrow I will need to be at hospital at 6am, surgery scheduled between 7:30 and 8am, the operation will take around two hours and an hour in recovery room. This will be the start to a new beginning to better and healthier life as long as I follow the nine rules and attending the support groups. 8/13/03 Surgery day arrived at hospital at 6AM everything went well, recovery room sounded like I had some problem with excess moving and thrashing about. Not sure when I was finally moved into my room, I do remember being told about breathing exercise and walking the hallways. So this first day was spent sleeping for a couple of hours then getting up doing the walking in my room and just into the hallway and doing the breathing exercising every couple of hours. The first 24 hours you are not allowed anything to drink or eat, my mouth was like this Nevada desert hot and dry, not even ice chips were allowed. Thursday morning had an x-ray done and given the ok to eat, all I wanted was water, food at this point was not on my mind yet. A short time after arriving back to my room my first breakfast arrived 2oz. of apple juice, 2oz of Jell-O. Lunch total of 6oz consisted of 2oz strained creamed soup (tomato), 2oz skim milk, 2oz sugar free pudding and was only able to eat half of this. Dinner total of 4oz consisted of 2oz pureed chicken and 2oz-pureed carrots ate about half of this. During the evening I started with a fever unknown why but it lasted until Saturday early AM. My pain was not as bad as I thought it would be, I still have some draining from the main wound and will be checked at Mondays appointment. Both Doctor did there tag team visit each day and did a wonderful job and are very caring about the issues at hand. The remaining meals each day consisted of 4oz each and all the water you wanted. Friday morning was the visit from Dr Fisher he discussed the nine rules, explained there meanings and recommended attending the support group, I gave him my guarantee to both matters. Now I am able to sleep through most of the night without waking every two hours now that I am at home in my own bed. Thanks again Surgical Weight Control Center of Nevada for my new beginning, I dont want to forget Lake Mead Hospital they were wonderful and overall very caring, my special appreciation would go to nurse Karen a very dedicated and caring person (they need to clone her). 8/22/03 Doctor Appointment today to remove staples, everything still going fine and feeling great. My weight as of today is 460 a lost of 27 pounds in 10 days. Like I promised to the Doc I made it to my first support group meeting on Wednesday night and enjoyed it very much, but not a large turn-out as I expected. Both Doctors were in attendance as well as other post-ops and many seem to be surprised that I was already attending group or even being as mobile as I am. I am already doing limited driving with no discomfort, the only time that I do have some discomfort would be during the evening will laying down other than that I am fine. Comparing the two surgeries that I have had over the past couple of years; the first was for my appendix the second this surgery both done by LAP, the appendix surgery was more painful than the RNY surgery. 8/29/03 This past Monday one of my incision sites opened went in to have it checked and cleaned by the PA Brian everything was fine. Today was a follow-up appointment with the Brian for a wound check and the wound is healing fine. My weight after 16 days is now at 446 pounds, I am still lacking energy from time to time but they say this will go on for a few weeks. 9/15/03 Time to bring everyone up to date on my recovery, for the past 5 weeks things have been going well. Last Friday was 30 days and weight loses of 53lbs and starting to show in my clothes. Over this period there have been a few bad days but more good days. The biggest problem that I have experienced is the lack of energy or stamina, every week Dianna and I would go out to some store or mall walking, but halfway through and I am ready to go home. We are working on increasing activates to improve my stamina and energy levels. Overall my food intake has not been a problem since surgery, pretty much still on purees foods. I have tried solid food this past week with no problems except for last Friday, we went out to eat, and I order clam chowder and a salad. Well I ate only a few bites of the salad and chewed it well, stayed with the liquid part of the soup and a few potatoes then off to the restroom. I brought home the remaining soup and heated this up the next afternoon and repeated the process, so that brand of clam chowder did not agree with me. The other major thing that has been going on in my life is college classes which I did fall behind because of the surgery and my computer crashing. My laptop had to be rebuilt which had taken them almost a week to get back. We still need to replace our home computer which has also dumped on us recently it was six years old, when it rains it pours. Classes have been going well and pretty much caught up with all my projects, now its time for finals next week. My next term starts Oct. 6 with English I and business law courses, English I will be the challenging class this term. Today I find out that my remaining vacation time was taken away, it seems that the first 5 days are not covered by short-term disability insurance. This is different from what I was told during my research with Human Resources, but it is in writing. I will be returning to work at the end of the month, back to the grind and looking forward to it. |
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