HELEN:

 

   Whew...what a long two weeks :)  Surgery was two weeks ago today and I'm back to feeling like myself again at least mentally. That first week I was in a fog with the pain meds and all.  I was pretty uncomfortable sleeping half sitting up and feeling loopy most of the time.  But I got my staples and drains out the day before yesterday and I'm feeling much much better and able to sit straight up long enough to post and email. 

  I counted 128 staples from hip to hip and I had 3 drains in that I had to empty and measure 3 times a day. I felt like I had bees stinging me all the time where the staples were, and I was always afraid I (or my little boy) would accidentally pull a drain out. Boy it feels so good to be rid of those!

  Surgery went well. I was in surgery for four hours. I came out from under anesthesia faster than I feared I might. I'd guessed to come back to around 2:00 PM, but it was 12:30 when I woke up and looked at the clock.  The doctors and nurses and staff were all great and I have no complaints (other than a security guard or maintenance worker giving my family who were waiting a hard time).

  They removed 12 pounds during surgery and my plastic surgeon told me that I won't see the final result for another 8 weeks or so as there's a lot of swelling yet. But already I'm down a size. I had just gotten into a size 26 jeans at the end of the year and I got into a size 24 the other day when I came home after having the drains pulled out. They are snug, but they came on and zipped and that's overtop the abdominal binder I have to wear for a while yet.

   The first few days I could only eat ice chips and that was fine by me as I was only thirsty anyway (they say from the anesthesia) and then I advanced to gelatin and popsicles (which it turned out was sugar free...nasty stuff and sugar substitutes don't agree with me). But after I came home I slowly advanced to a normal diet.  The ladies from my Women's Bible Study group organized a group to bring us dinner every other day. That's been SO helpful and so appreciated. Everything has been wonderful (though so far every one of them has brought chicken lol), but I'm truly thankful and grateful for their generosity and it's made even chicken every day taste nice :) I'm blessed to have such a great group of ladies looking after us.

  Right now my restrictions are no lifting more than 5-10 pounds for another 5-6 weeks and the only exercise I'm allowed is walking. The pain has subsided a great deal and I'm really shocked at how much easier the recovery is than what I'd read about and anticpated. The only real pain I have now is when I bend over or cough or move just right. It feels tight where the horizontal incision is (from hip to hip) (there's a vertical incision from the hernia repair that's healing nicely) but that's improving too.  At one point it felt like I had a belt on that someone was pulling as tightly as they could while a hundred bees were stinging me :) But now the stinging is gone and it just feels a little snug. As the swelling goes down, I'm sure that will subside.

  My hernia repair surgeon (the bariatric surgeon) said he tightened me up a lot in the upper abdomen before he put the mesh in, and I'm thrilled that that top roll of fat is way way down now and of course the lower fat roll is gone. So I have one roll now instead of two, but if I get back to working out again once I'm able, and back on track with my eating, I can work that off.

   Some of my tops are too big now (I didn't expect that..just pants) and the others fit much better and lay nicely already. I'm better proportioned already now. I used to be a size larger in pants than I was in tops, and now I'm the same size top and bottom. I'm looking forward to the final result and really happy with the results I already see. No regrets :)

  I've spent a lot of time reading since it's been painful to sit upright to be online, so I've gone through about 4 books already. My favorite being "Dead Heat" by Joel Rosenberg (my favorite author). It's the last in his "The Last Jihad" series.

  I hope you're all doing well and I've missed reading your progress :)

  I watched the BL finale the night before my surgery. Congrats to Marcus and Amber on winning the Million Pounds Match Up! And of course to Ali for being the first female Biggest Loser! You all did SO well and really inspire me.

  God bless,

 

Helen