Filed under: Uncategorized
Well it is Friday and I have almost made it through my first week back at work. It has been a busy week and the stress, particularly in the first few days, was intense. Being a bankruptcy lawyer in the middle of a recession, even in a firm that is not a bankruptcy firm can be very stressful.
The first day was the worse, other than a food incident detailed later in this post. I was asked to be in work by 8am, though no one really got to me until late morning. I did not leave until 5pm and I was dog tired. Not sleepy tired but really bone tired.
The other thing I noticed is that my concentration was not great. I could get tasks done, but figuring out the really complicated deal issues for a distressed company and as part of the work out of a large multibank distressed loan was very difficult. I had to really go over things a couple of times to understand situations that I would have normally had no problem with on fist pass.
The second day back was a little easier, and we actually interviewed a bankruptcy lateral which brought my spirits up. Eating my little bit of tempeh or low fat chili etc was boring, and I felt cut off from everyone else who is eating what ever they want. That at least was the feeling.
The third day and the second day were similar, but Thursday was a reminder of the fact that I did have gastric bypass surgery. I tried to each a Boca Burger for lunch while trying to get work done at the same time. What a disaster. I ate too fast and was as nauseous, as I was on Thanksgiving after the turkey incident, for about an hour. I had nothing further to eat or drink until the evening.
It also took the wind out of my sails. I had to go home early and participate from home on a conference call.
Well it is Friday and I am really really tired in the bone tired sense, but functioning,. I am going to try a boca burger for lunch, but very slowly and using mindful eating techniques.
Another strange physical change is my new aversion to the cold. I always walked around without a jacket or with a light jacket even in the dead of winter. Now 32 degrees gets right into my bones. Thankfully, my wonderful wife bought me a the ultimate down jacket last year and it actually still fits.
I have also been experiencing muscle pains which may be from a changes in my posture or just tension.
I am also starting to lose weight again. For part of the week as I transitioned into more solid food I stopped losing weight at the torrential pace of the first two weeks after surgery. Now it is starting to come off again. As I have said in this blog my fantasy is that I will have had the surgery and the weight will not come off.
I do wonder how long I can endure the stress of work on 700 calories a day. I know that I am still on the restrictions on fruit and vegetables for several more weeks and hope I can keep up even a small level of my energy.
I am looking forward to the weekend. I need to chill if I can. Next week promises to be very stressful. Will try and write more about my phsycial changes over the weekend. Best Rich
Filed under: Hard Times, Loss | Tags: ambivilance, stage 4, ups and downs
I left the hospital two weeks ago Saturday and tomorrow I return to work. The journey so far has not been without its ups and down. As I have discussed in prior posts the entire adventure is not without some regrets. For anyone who has been so involved with food as a central part of their lives, the emotional loss of favorite foods and sufficient quantities is devastating.
I went for my post op visit on November 26 and it went well. My scars are healing well and I weighed in at 21 pounds less than my weight on the date of my release from the hospital. Also I was told I could progress to Stage 4 of the diet which includes some solid food and driving myself.
Of course the next day was Thanksgiving and we were off to a family Thanksgiving. I looked forward to my three ounces of turkey with fat free gravy. I drove myself for the first time in two weeks to the grocery store to get my fat free gravy.
The first bite of turkey was great. The second was equally great. Then came the third and the fourth and they were not so great. I felt nauseous for the first time since surgery. I had to get to the bathroom and while I did not vomit, it was half and hour before I felt like rejoining the party.
Also I was exhausted by the party itself. For your information I probably ate about an ounce or ounce and half of turkey before I had to give up. Nothing seemed very appealing after that.
I know that the lack of hunger is one of the good results of the surgery, but to me it was a very dark result of the surgery. Here I was surrounded by lots of food that just a few weeks ago I would have been dying to eat and now I couldn’t even look at the food without feeling sick. I felt like I had lost a old friend.
The next day I tried some fat free chilli and that worked ok. I have found that since i have to chew and chew until food is well chewed it doesn’t taste the same as when I could chew it a couple of times and then swallow it. Tempeh has turned out to be one of the few foods I can tolerate. Ground checken tastes horrible after chewing it for 20 times.
Also I am still tired. I really almost had a breakdown on Friday morning when I had to get a memo done for work and had to deal with an agreement for another client in distress. I realize that having now lost over 25 lbs in two weeks and living on 500-700 calories a day does not provide you with a lot of energy for work and other things.
Tomorrow is going to hard. I have a 3pm conference call and I am not sure that I will be able to last that long. I am going to go in late and leave after the call to preserve myself. Also planning meals at work is still tough. I will eat breakfast at home, but lunch will probably be tempeh with chicken bullion.
Also I wake up each day with the irrational fear that I will not lose any more weight or that even the 50 pounds that I have lost since July really has not made any difference in my looks. All irrational fears, but I am a long term fat man. Weight loss has always been temporary for me and every diet has failed at some point even after I had lost 100 pounds.
I will blog on my first day tomorrow. It should be interesting.
Filed under: adventure continues, post surgery, Small Victories | Tags: diabetes, insulin, small victory, weight loss
Today was a day of small victories. It’s been over two days since I’ve taken any pain medication. I’m feeling pretty good other than a twinge once in a while where the surgery took place. Also I had my first visit to the Joslin Clinic to meet with my endocrinologist. I was most anxious about this visit, since I had not not seen her since May and this would be my first visit with her after surgery.
The other small victory was that when I left the hospital I gained some weight from fluid and weighed about 323 pounds. As of this morning my scale in the bathroom indicated my weight as 310 pounds a loss of 13 pounds in a little over a week. This in and of itself was a great encouragement for me to continue on what has become a somewhat dull menu of liquids.
When I got to the Joslin, I registered and waited for the nurse to take me in. When the nurse finally called me, she put me on the scale and said my weight was 303 pounds. I knew that was wrong, but I would take it. Actually I went back and re-weighed myself. We then went through my diminished amounts of medication and she took my blood sugar and my AIC, a measure of your blood sugarlevel over three months.
My endocrinologist came into the room and after a short discussion was very pleased to see that I had finally, after years of her encouragement, had finally gone through with bariatric surgery.
She reviewed my blood sugars and actually asked that I reduce the amount of insulin that I take for the 25 units of Lantus to 20 units of Lantus each day. That is a reduction from the 200 units of long-acting insulin I was taking prior to surgery. This is a great victory for me since having the surgery was primarily a way of controlling my diabetes.
The visit ended with an even better surprise when my AIC came in at 5.6 that is normal for people without diabetes. While Jodythinks that my diabetes will go away entirely because of the surgery, I am just encourage by the fact that I am now taking about 1/10 the amount of insulin that I took prior to surgery.
I’ve decided that weight loss surgery is a matter of small successes and small victories as you lose your weight and more importantly as I adjust my medications. Other than a lousy cold, today was a pretty good day.
Filed under: Being Home, post surgery | Tags: Being Home, issues, recovery
It has been a couple of days since I put an entry into this blog. It’s been a very interesting period of time as I adjust to recovery.
Sunday I had a number of very nice folks come over and visit, all of whom, other than my daughter, had not been to the apartment for many years. I’ve also gotten flowers and balloons and a lot of get well greetings from people who have been nice to me over time, but surgery seems to brought out the best in them.
I took a walk yesterday and had to rest the couple of times, but did about three quarters of a mile. I took a walk today, a and needed to rest, but did over half a mile.
The strangeness comes from not feeling very injured from my surgery. I still have some pain in my side where they stqpled my stomach and I’m still very tired, but I don’t feel disabled. My initial reaction was to be more involved in things that are going on at work. It is obvious that everyone at work has decided that I should take a break from work, and I think I’m not going to push the issue anymore.
I added low-fat yogurt to my diet today and that was a nice treat, and it seemed to settle well. I need to keep up my fluids, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem as far as getting them down. I think Jody is a little disappointed that I’m not struggling more to take down the protein and the fluids, since this was a large problem for her when she had her bariatric surgery.
Jody is trying to deal with upsets in her family and on the one hand I think she’s grateful that I have not required a level of care which he was prepared to give, but on the other hand, I think she’s disappointed that I’m not more dependent on her. In fact she went back to work today, and I know she wasn’t happy about that.
A neighbor of ours called today to say that she had had the same surgery two weeks ago and that her doctor had actually nicked her spleen and she was in surgery for the four hours. I had to tell her that I had no such complications and that I was already out walking and feeling relatively okay.
I know disappointment sounds very odd in this context, but I think Jody had certain expectations of what I would be like after surgery. She doesn’t think very highly of my ability to deal with pain or any sort of complicated physical issues. I think disappointment is the word that comes to mind because she feels that she has a place as a caregiver tand that my role is the helpless patient. I’m very glad that is not the case, but it is a strainanyway.
Thank goodness I’m finally starting to lose the few pounds that I gained in the hospital from fluids and have even lost little bit more than that.
My fear is that when I get back to work I won’t have any work to do, since everyone will of taken over everything that I was working on. I’m not sure this is a rational fear or just my usual level of paranoia about work.
I also feel bad for this blog in that I don’t have more dramatic scenarios that have resulted so far from eye surgery. I feel pretty good, I am in a little pain and I am also tired, but I am getting my liquids down and I’m looking forward to transitioning from a liquid diet to a soft food diet. In fact most of the foods of that part of the diet are favorite foods including black beans, kidney beans, no fat refried beings, ground meat and round seafood.
Well I will continue to blog. If you have any questions about the peocess please send your comments.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Friday night was a nightmare. I was up half the night as the staff tried to adjust my bi pap machine. Saturday morning dawned or at least started at about 6am.
No doctor appeared but little by little it became clear that I was going to be released. I got my Diet Jello and Chicken Broth at about 7am and Kelli came by to make sure I was doing ok.
I was told that my drainage tube was not coming out until almost the last minute and the iv was the same timing.
Jody came by and started to lobby for the removal of my tubes. I took a couple of trips around the floor to keep myself moving. My roommate Fred got the word that he going home from two doctors who thought he would be out by noon. He called his son for a ride.
By around 10am they had informed Fred that he needed to meet with physical therapy before he could leave and the he needed to call his son and reschedule his release. Fred and I had a great conversation about investing and our family.
Finally a young doctor came by and said he was going to remove my drain. I did not realize the length of the drain that was in my body, He told me to exhale as he removed it and about 10 inches of tubing came snaking out of my body, It felt like he was pulling a worm out of my body and little freaky, He put on a gauze dressing and off he went.
Another doctor came by and said that I would have to have a meal of Carnation Instant Breakfast before I could leave and that it was ordered automatically for lunch.
Jody pursuaded Kelli to remove my iv and I was off to my first shower since Tuesday. I was told not to rub my incissions, which I was not tempted to do. I patted myself dry and put on underwear and real pants and a shirt for the first time since Tuesday.
Then it appeared–my lunch tray with a bag of Carnation Instant Breakfast and skim milked and I mixed what will be my source of protein for a numbe of weeks. I got the vanilla and it tasted great. They also gave me jello and broth.
A feast.
I then had to swallow some cut up pills and have my last heperin shot. After going over my releases orders and prescriptions. Kelli then said that the ride home would be painful.
We then waited around while transportation came by with the wheel chair which you have to use to get out of the hospital. When it did arrive, it was the extra large wheel chair just my size. The transportation person wheeled me right to the car in the garage and I was able to get into the car easily,
Jody gave me a pillow to hold over my belly under the seat belt but due to her great driving no problems.
I was then home. My adventure really has begun
Before getting back to my personal adventure, I really need to tell you about my hospital roommate. Fred came into my room on Thursday night after my surgery, He was a little out of it when he arrived having spent a day or so in recovery facility and major surgery on his leg. He was most worred about getting his tv working and told anyone around that he was legally blind.
By Friday I started to speak to Fred ona regulat basis. He is 85 years old and lives on his own in the house he raised his four kids in. I found out that his wife died 4 years ago and that his most social moments are going to the localk YMCA three times a week. He worked for the telephone company and was a supervisor before he retired in 1984.
His two sons live close to where he lives and his two daughters were elsewhere with their husbands. His oldest is 62 (about my age) and his youngest is 50. We talked a lot about family and I revealed most of my life as well.
We were speaking one day about getting married and having kids. I told him that my parents got married after the war and that my father has served in the navy as a clerk. He then told me that he could not get married when he wanted to becuase he was a naval air cadet. I asked him what he flew and he then told me that he flew dive bombers off a carrier in the Pacific during WWII. I was floored. This 85 year old legally blind and hobbled by surgery had flow dive bombers into Japanese ships during the war. He also told me that he was a carrier based pilot.
This guy was truly one of the real American heros of that “greatest generation” that Tom Brokow wrote about,
He then told me that being the dive bomber was not as hard as flying topedo planes which came in at 100 fee off the ocean and were sitting ducks for the anti aircraft gunners on the Japanese ships, He said that part of the job of the Dive Bomber was to come directly out of the sky and keep the Japanese gunners busy while the torpedo planes launched their torpedoes. He was completely calm in discussing this. This was a job that a nation had asked him to do and he did it and then he returned to the US to work for the telephone company.
He then remarked that more of the flyers died learning to fly then in the war itself. He said that the training was so rushed that many of his comrades died learning to land and take off on carriers. He thought that landing was the most dangerous since they had to hit the hook just right or they were off the deck.
His story is of a generation we are losing one by one, When I told him that my Dad had gotten out of combat because he passed a typing test at the end of boot camp in the Navy. He said that guys who did this in the army usually ended up on the front line carrying messages from post to post.
Fred was still very sharp about his investments and his life. He said that he was considering going to rehab rather than home so he could get a ride from the hospital. He also told me that his one son was head of advertising for a very large car dealership around Boston and that he had a demanding owner/boss. His other son sold carpeting and was struggling with the recession.
He was greatful for the pension from Verizon, medicare and Social Security and clearly was going to be on his own as long as he could. He was very proud of his grandfather who was born in the 1850′s and refurnished furniture for a large department store. He also told me a lovely story about his parents. He said his dad was “practically an orphan” and when he got married he wanted his wife to cook a nice meal every night, His dad told his mom, who was not much of cook when they married, that if she cooked a dinner that did not turn out right, she could just throw it out.
He also was very proud of his grandson in Medical School and a grand daughter who was a social worker but was looking for a job that paid better.
I have had several roommate during my various hospital stays in the last few years, but none as interesting and as sharp as Fred. It made the stay much easier. I just wanted to make sure that I added him to my blog. A true American Hero.
Filed under: post surgery, Taking Medication slowly | Tags: adding food, surviving the hospital, taking meds
Thursday was stage one of the actual eating program after surgery. My meal plan consisted of thimble sized cups of water, period. I still had the iv until the evening and the delightful foley catheter. The took that out mid day on Thursday.
The thing was I was not hungry at all. The water filled me up, and I really didn’t miss food. I was also still pretty groggy from the pain meds. By the end of the day I was off the pain pump and on percocet. Since I could not swallow a whole pill the percocet and all of my meds had to be cut into small pieces or crushed and mixed with water.
The taste of crushed meds in water is ghastly. I had to chug them and that filled up my pouch immediately.
The other strange question of day two was “have you passed any gas”. The reason is that they want to make sure that what you are taking in is making it to the bowels. Well most of Thursday went by and no gas. That would change big time.
I also tried to walk as much as possible. Most of all I hate being in a hospital bed and the couch in the room was very uncomfortable. There is pain and I was exhausted, but a couple of circuits around the floor were helpful. Jody was a great task master on Thursday and got me moving.
By the end of Thursday I was off my intravenous fluids and on to stage two. Chicken broth and Sugar Free Jello. Fortunately green sugar free Jello is one of my favorite foods and combined with a serving of warm broth it seemed like a gourmet meal.
My Thursday dinner was the first meal on stage two. It was great, but I soon learned that I certainly was passing gas. Also after finishing the broth and Jello, I was finished for the day. No hunger.
My other meds were cut up in fine pieces and served with ice water, and it took some time to get them down. Not much sleep on Thursday night. I had a weird feeling that my bi pap machine was a odds with the machine I was hooked up to for my oxygen level. Also more blood tests, blood draws, blood pressure and just poking and prodding took up a fair amount of the night. When they woke me up from my first deep sleep it was only 11:30am. Also they had me up at 12:30am and were worried about my oxygen level, so I was walking around until 1:30am and was not back in bed until close to 2am.
At 5am I had had it with trying to sleep and I was up for the day. Friday made me miss the poking and prodding of Thursday.
Friday was a day of being ignored. My surgeon had gone on to a conference in Florida and the resident and staff folks were dealing with patients who had more problems after their surgery than I was having.
TV at hospitals is terrible. The screens are small and the remotes make you go through all of the channels if you want a channel you have already passed. Also the selection of channels is not very good. Fortunately Jody came to visit and we did a fair amount of walking. By 3pm on Firday I was peeing on my own and had passed a lot of gas. I was also exhausted and bored and decided to take a nap.
I told Jody to go home and put on my bi pap and tried to take a nap. The biggest difference between Thursday and Friday was my ability to get in and out of the hospital bed without significant pain. On Friday I could swing my legs and pull myself up on the bed. I was exhausted but I could do it.
My wonderful day nurse Kelli allowed me to rest. By 6:30pm it was up for blood sugar, blood pressure, oxygen level. Then a meal of broth and jello. Unfotunately the jello must have been at least a decade old and did not melt in the mouth but oh well. I also had to take a number of pills cut up into small pieces. It was a task.
Friday night was a trip since my blood oxygen level dropped every time I was on my bi pap machine. After about an hour of consultation with the respitory therapist, oxygen was added to to my bi pap and I was off to sleep for about 4 hours. Unfortunately I had terrible nightmares but sleep is sleep.
Adding the oxygen got my oxygen blood level up near 100% for the rest of the night. No percocets were offered all night and when I woke up in the morning I was very very sore and needed to search out Kelli and get some help.
Kelli also informed me that I ws going home Saturday as soon as they could find a doctor to remove my drain. More on that later. I was ready for my release. I missed not seeing the dogs and the hospital certainly is not a good placce to get any rest.
Well more on my release and my very interesting room mate in the next post.
Filed under: post surgery, the adventure begins | Tags: in the hospital, post op
I can’t believe that I had bariatric surgery last Wednesday. I was not able to do any blogging from the hospital as you will see from this blog.
Wednesday morning we were at the hospital about 8:20am and I merrily filled out a lot of forms and met with admission. At about 9am I was in my johnny and was in the surgical waiting room.
After about an hour I was taken in to the pre op room and put on a gurney and promptly ignored for a while. After about half an hour I finally got my iv inserted (thank goodness not a problem) and finally my surgeon came out and said that he has just finished up his first surgery and I would go in in about an hour.
The anathesologist came in and took one look at me and asked me why I had not shaved off my beard that morning. My heart sank and I told him I was not told to shave my beard. He then consulted with another anesthesiologist and a resident on the merits of shaving my beard in order to get a good fit for the oxygen mask.
Of course in the middle of this my anesthesiologist informed me that, among other things, there was always the possibility of death due to my size and the possibility that I might become aware of the operation during the operation. I am not sure what scared me more. He also told me that they would be putting a breathing tube down my mouth and that my throat would be sore (He was certainly right about that).
Finally he and his colleague and a resident came in with an electric razor they use to remove hair before surgery and I got a shave. I did tell them that my wife was going to be angry about my losing the beard, but that should not stop them.
After a shave and the hanging of a drip I was wheeled into the operating room, hopped on the table and that is about all I remember of the actual operation.
The next thing I remember was being in the recovery room and about three hours of my life had disappeared. No dreams, no memories also no heart attack or awareness. I was groggy but thrilled to be in recovery.
After another five or six hours in recovery I was finally wheeled up to a room on the fouth floor of the North Building of Tufts Medical Center, but it might as well have been on the moon,
I was very weak and very groggy and the entire process seemed less real then a fantasy. At this point I had not had anything to eat or drink for almost 24 hours and was being sustained on a drip.
I also had the handy dandy button for the intravenous pain pump that I was told I could use when I needed it.
Actually, I decided before surgery to use as little pain meds aa my body would let me get away with.
Wednesday night was a blurr of people poking and prodding me. People looking at the six incisions on my body and taken my temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar and just plain blood.
They tell me that I slept some on Wednesday night but I could not vouch for that. I actually kept dozing off and wondering when I was going to have my surgery. I could not tell you the name of my nurse or even the time anything happened. Every once in a while the pain would be sufficient for me to click the button for the pain pump, and I would hear a chirp and feel relief. Actually is was not until Thursday that it struck me that my surgery was done.
It is good to be home and I will be posting about the rest of my hospital stay and beginning my adventure soon. Thanks to everyone for their comments and good thoughts.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I have received nothing but good positive energy from all of my friends and cannot thank all of you enough. I am actually looking forward to starting this journey in the morning.
I have set up wordpress on my iphone and will try and do some blogging from my hospital bed when Jody brings in my iphone.
Keep up you positive thoughts and I look forward to my adventure.
Best Rich
