Well hello everybody! It has been a long while since I have been on the blog and since it has been 1 whole year since my sleeve I have decided to tell you about what has been happening with me.  

Picture 1: starting weight 254 lbs.  End weight:  155 lbs (Jan. 6, 2014).    Total lost: 101 lbs.  

Am I glad I did it:  Yes I am.  Has there been complications:  Yes there has.  Am I worried:  Yes I am.     

What is the problem that has me worried?   I can not stop loosing weight!  Right from the get-go I was an anomaly of sorts.  I threw up 3 times on the night of the surgery.  The day everybody was to go home I had to stay an extra 12 hours as my dye-test showed that my stomach was terribly inflamed and dye was not going into my intestines like it should.  When I got home, I had a terrible time with foods and was sick pretty much for a month, before I stopped eating everything that I had been eating to that point and started to introduce one food at a time.  That helped somewhat, I kept loosing weight at about 15-20 lbs a month.  I had 2 stalls that lasted for about 2 weeks each and since then have continuously lost weight. 

My family doctor told me at one of my appointments that I have to stop loosing weight. I left there crying my eyes out as I was/am not doing anything for this weight to be falling off!.  That was about 15 lbs ago and have not gone back to see him since.  Yes I know, I have made an appointment to see him again. 

Some of this is my fault as I am not keeping track of anything or even minding what I eat.  You see I can eat chocolate, cookies, chips, crackers, nuts; almost anything that is not good for me, with almost no difficulty.  To eat regular good food almost always makes me sick.  It almost seems like my system has completely turned around and everything that I should be eating, I can't or makes me feel bad and everything I shouldn't be eating doesn't really bother me.   I can't take too many protein shakes as they make me sick or nauseous.  Meats, especially beef, I can barely tolerate. Dairy causes me problems, fats, raw fruits and vegetables don't sit very well.  Cabbage and chinese food are an absolute do not eat at all!  Bread, pastas, spices, foods from a package or soups from a can also do not sit well.  Even water is very hard to drink.  I can only drink Evian water.  Everything else tastes like chemicals to me and Aquafina is the worst of all bottled water!   

Now I will tell you that I do eat, and sometimes I eat because I know I have to and I just suffer the consequences and other times I try to be careful about what I am putting in my mouth, but there are times when I think something is okay and I end up full of gas and burping, spitting up and standing over the toilet trying to throw up and usually there is a some type of pain involved with this, but not always.  When it gets this bad, I usually can't eat or drink for hours until the food has digested and, what I believe to be swelling, goes away.   

I am now scared to do any exercise or try to figure out what I can or can not eat as I think this will only make me lose more weight.  

I am going for a scope this Friday in Edmonton to see if there is anything wrong with my silly pouch. I hope I get some answers, but my gut tells me that I just have to be vigilant and work this out for myself.  I'm just not sure how to go about doing that.  Anybody have any answers for me??

Will let you all know how it turns out!    Be Happy, you deserve it!  Ange

    

MY CRAZY LIFE ALRIGHT!!

So this was me on May 13, 2013 presenting a cheque to the Treasurer of the Lloydminter Healthcare Auxiliary for $1093.00.   

I had lost 54 lbs then and have since lost another 10 I believe.  Since I don't own a scale, I only find out what I really am every one to two months when I get to the Dietitian or doctor.  

I'm still having some trouble eating (June 5 with be 5 months out) and now am getting myself worried.  (I do that to myself alot by the way, do all woman do that or is it just me?)  So this is my crazy worry right now and I know it is a bit irrational I don't think I am getting the right nutrients or enough protein, I think I am becoming unhealthy and losing too much weight to fast.   I tell you, first I'm too big and now I'm too little.  Driving myself crazy!!  Hopefully in a year things will be normal.  Please God!!

So on to the rest of my crazy life. 

I love to help charities, organizations, or most anyone in need of money to raise funds for their cause. As you can see above, I raise funds for this organization.  I worked at the hospital for 15 years before getting out and going to work as a CNC operator, machining metal oilfield parts.  Now this is something I would have never considered doing, working in a man's world getting dirty and oily and all cut up, but since my husband was the shop manager for this up and coming shop he asked me if I wanted to work for him of which I agreed.  (It was the bet decision I made, stress went down 100%, got to see hubby more and now work with 3 of my 5 sons.)  

Sorry got off topic just a bit....okay so just before I left the hospital I had a dream of starting my own auction site where I would be able to auction off items and give a large percent of the sales to charity.   Thought about this for a year before I actually said to myself, "Self,(hehe, just kidding),  how are you ever going to know if this works if you don't just dig in and try it."   Well I tried it, loved it and made almost $10,000 for various organizations etc in approximately 8 months.    I found out I had a knack for this kind of a thing.    

Unfortunately or fortunately,  depends on which way you look at it, my life was about to change quite a bit, so closed down my little auction site until life settled down a bit.    Just to give you all a hint of what I am talking about: quit my job, got a new one, sold my house, bought a bigger one, moved from Sask to the Alberta side, sold pretty much all of our possessions  including my car and bought all new things, after being empty nesters for quite a few years, 3 of our boys moved back home, I had the gastric sleeve surgery done and hubby and I were having a bit of a time adjusting to it all.  (This all took place from June to January this past year).  

Again I digress.......okay so when things started to settle down a bit and I had learned a whole bunch about life and love etc, I realized that I still had my dream of helping raise funds and having an auction site.  (Did I tell you that I absolutely love auctions and people's old stuff and garage sales and trade shows.  LOL) 

So I became a member of the Hospital Auxiliary and started an auction site (Facebook group really) just for them.  The Auxillary tries to raise as much money as they can during the year so that they can buy extra things for patient care and comfort.   So this year, we bought 3 wheelchairs with IV poles, 2 big screen TV's and DVD player for 2 palliative care rooms, 2 computers and software for the palliative care rooms.  Now with this extra money I brought in we can now purchase more items!!  This makes me sooo happy!

Well now the crazy part; I get ideas all the time of how I can help somebody promote their business  or their craft etc. This is something else I love to do, to promote something that grabs me, be it somebody's art, business venture, something I have used or seen, that is unique or different in some way and I can get quite excited about it too!!  LOL. 

So it's not enough that I have a full-time job where I work 10 hours a day AND have an auction group that is quite popular AND a husband, house and kids (although they do take care of themselves most of the time), I have also decided that I need another auction site(group) more for me, charity and the people who donate.  I am trying out different ways to do this so I can turn it into a business venture.   Not done yet, one more thing to add to my overflowing plate - I have become a comfort specialist with Jockey clothing.  

Remember above I said that I get excited when something I find grabs me or raises a flag in me about how unique and awesome it is, well Jockey is one of those things!  The minute I tried on their clothes I was like oh my good gracious, these are awesome, the most comfortable, wearable and versatile clothes I think I have ever tried.  I bought them first when I was big and felt very stylish, pretty and comfortable in them.   Even though I was feeling crappy about myself, these clothes DID NOT  make me feel frumpy or fat.   Now that I am much smaller, I love them even more; I feel stylish, beautiful, colorful and confident.  

I believe WE DESERVE to feel fabulous in what we wear! 

So this is my crazy life thus far.   Stayed tuned you never know what fabulous idea I will come up with next!!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/484701238219520

Auction for Lloydminster Healthcare Auxiliary

http://www.myjockeyp2p.ca/web/angehotchkiss/home/overview.do

My personal Jockey website

We DESERVE the best!!

   

  

TWO MONTHS OUT

Well it has been two months since my vertical sleeve gastrectomy.  I am down 41 lbs so far.  I must say that these last two months were not easy!  I have had such a sensitive little sleeve that it has been a struggle trying to find something that I could eat without feeling swollen, full and ready to throw up most of the time.

I was eating a lot of dairy products and all meats mixed with veggies etc or else was eating too fast and too big of bites.  None of it was doing my little sleeve any good.  So I decided one day after suffering for about 4 of 7 days of the week that I had had enough and stopped everything I had been eating, stopped all my medications (except for the regular ones I had been taking before surgery) stopped drinking tap and water from a water cooler; and decided that I would introduce one new food at a time.    That started to do the trick.  I still had a problem with the eating too fast, not stopping after the first couple of bites and waiting to see how my sleeve handled it before I went on.   I drank only Evian or Dasani bottle water and not much of that as I don't like water much anymore.  That is all I used to drink before.  Now I can barely get a bottle down in a day.  I drink juice a little more but only can take so much of that sweet taste as well.  A lot of things taste different to me now.  I end up with a chemically bitter taste in my mouth a lot of the time.  

I am seeing an awesome dietitian who is helping me get what I need in right now as I barely have been getting in 500 cal a day.  I have a bowel movement about every 2.5-3 weeks and urination is maybe 3-4 times a day from the time I get up to the time I go to bed and is very orangy/brown in color.   So I will be working on getting more protein and fiber in the next couple of weeks.

I will also be working with a psychologist in LLoydminster who has created a program to work with bariatric surgery patients and people who have lost a lot of weight.   My homework for the next week is to write down every emotion I connect with food.   These emotions can then be disconnected from food.  Hopefully this will work as I have many triggers with food.  Some of my strong emotions to food are happiness, boredom, its something to do,  enjoyment.  

My head hunger kicked in the other day when I went to a Farmer's Market.  To me this is where you go to buy home-made goodies.   Very tempting for me.   So yes I had to buy some cinnamon thingys knowing full well that I could only have a tiny bite.   As soon as I had that one bite I was done for,  I so badly wanted the whole thing but new I couldn't eat that much.  But my head would not quit telling me that I absolutely had to have it.  I almost went bonky trying not to eat that much.  I ended up having 3 small bites and the third bite was almost too much.  So was forced to stop.  But the rest of the night that is all I could think about.   So much to learn about getting rid of that feeling!

My little sensitive sleeve is finally not so sensitive anymore. So am having a better time eating and have started back to work working 10 hour days so that helps with the metabolism.  I can eat more when I'm at work, guess its all the moving I do there. Just need a bit more strength and energy and will be ready to tackle the gym.  I have a mental picture of what I want to look like when I'm at my goal so need to get there and get busy becoming 'The New Me"!  

Until next time.  Don't give up on your dream!!

CARE VERSUS MONEY

Well I have been thinking about this post for some time.  I had a few people contact me about the procedure, where I had it done, how much it cost etc. etc.   When I tell people how much I had to pay, they are taken aback. " Wow that is expensive, if you have it in Mexico isn't it cheaper?"  This line really gets me, why, because YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!

This procedure is not about money, this is about your health!  This is a major surgery, you are having most of a beneficial organ taken out of your body.  Do you want just anybody doing it? Do you want the procedure to be done in a clinic or a hospital?  Do you want round the clock monitoring or to be sent home within a few days of having your procedure? So many things could happen and if you are by yourself, you don't know what is normal feeling or what isn't.  What if you are staying in a hotel by yourself?  As I have said in one of my previous posts, I don't know how anybody could do this on their own!!

Now there are many that I have read about or heard about that have done just that and I guess they seem to be fine, but I bet they could have cut down the stress and uncertainty if they were with others that had it done at the same time and were monitored continually.   

I went through a company here in LLoydminster called Beat the Odds. The owner Pam relayed to me that she wanted to provide the best care she could for her clients and that her experiences of going through the procedure in Tijuana, would not be repeated in her company. I can attest that her and her company has exceeded my expectations!

The care that the 5 of us received was more than exceptional, right from the minute of arriving in Puerto Vallarta to the very last minute we left! Firstly we had a facilitor with us pretty much every minute we were there. She was with us at the hospital, when the doctor was seeing all of us, when it was our turn to go to the operating room and when we came out of the operating room. All three days we were in hospital   We all stayed together in a condo for the remaining five days we were there. Facilitator stayed there as well in cause there was any problems and to just keep us company.  This is where it was nice to have others that had gone through what you were going through.  We could tell each other what we were feeling and find out if it was normal or not.  We could talk about how we felt emotionally and bat ideas around with each other.   

The doctor, Dr. Jose Antonio Castaneda Cruz was amazing.  Explained to each one of us before we went down to surgery what he was going to do in the OR, asked if we had questions or concerns and genuinely cared about our feelings.  He would check in with us each day at the hospital and when we were at the condo, called everyday to see how we all were doing.  If there was anything he didn't feel right about he would bring us back to the hospital to see us again to make sure we were all doing well before going home. (most of us are friends with him on Facebook ).  He also comes to the Beat the Odds Christmas party every year. :)  

Pam made sure that we all had rides to the hospital and back, she had wheelchairs for us at the airport there and back, hotel the night before we left and that we had time for site seeing the day before we left.    If we needed anything we got it.    

So did I pay a lot of money, yes I did.  Did I get what I paid for? YOU BET I DID!!    

IF you are thinking about getting this surgery done out of country, please think about your health and the care you will receive.  |Not about how cheap you can get it done for, it could make all the difference in the world!    

Till next time.   Ange

SINCE BEING HOME

Hello,
Well it took some adjusting to get back into the real world when I got home.  I was very tired and weak and didn't really want to do a whole lot of anything. Tomorrow will be a month since surgery and although I feel better everyday, I am not 100%.  I still do not have a lot of energy and I attribute that to not getting in enough fluids or protein, although I am trying my best.

As we had an eating plan to follow when we got home, I tried to stick to that, although it was not spelled out for me as I like, (and why would it be, everybody is different), so I had to try and figure out what I should be eating.   I knew I needed to have up to 70 grams of protein a day and at least 8 -8 ounce glasses of water a day.   I had bought two different protein shakes from Shaklee before I left so that at least I could drink those for my protein when I got home.   I was on full fluids for the week we got back and for the last two weeks could have anything that we could eat if we had no teeth.   So pureed anything.

So off to the store and bought myself regular yogurt, cottage cheese, drinkable yogurts, thick soup and my husband made this awesome soup with stew beef, barley, onions, carrots, potatoes and garlic of which I pureed.

As each week progressed, I realized that I was not getting near the water in I should, I would be lucky if I got 3 glasses a day and maybe 25-30 grams of protein a day.  My stomach was becoming more unsettled, full-feeling, and I was burping constantly.  Last week I was so frustrated because I was eating less and less and seemed like the minute I put anything into my mouth I was full and didn't want to eat another thing.  I had gone to the doctor for my check up and told him what was happening and he prescribed Maxeran a medication that helps empty the stomach quicker.  I thought okay this will be good.

I had been talking to some other ladies at this time who had had surgery and I think they were perplexed as I was as most were eating normally,  within the guidelines and doing well.  I though okay it must have been because of the inflamed stomach I had to stay an extra day for in hospital.  I was just taking longer than the others to recoup.

Finally after spending about 4 of the seven days last week in total frustration and not wanting to eat anything; to being so uncomfortable to the point of pain, I decided I had to do something.  So I stopped everything that I had been eating before including the protein shakes and introduced one food at a time.

Well, low and behold, I got better!  These are the items I know I can not have right now:  ALL DAIRY products or stuff with dairy in it.  No chicken, beef or pork.  No soy or whey protein shakes.  No orange juice or anything acidic,  no spice or anything from a can or box.  The items I have tried and can tolerate right now are:  fish of any kind, fried or boiled eggs(tried scrambled, no good).  Yams, tried a tiny bit of t-bone steak and was okay.  Cantalope and grapes.  Potatoes, no skins yet and veggies.

So I have to be vigilante in my eating ways for a little while longer until my stomach is completely healed and settled.    Oh yes I forgot to mention that I stopped the Maxeran as well and also the water we had at home.  I hardly ever drank the tap water, but we do have a water cooler that we always buy either distilled or reverse osmosis water.  I can't drink it, it tastes chemically on my tongue and gives me the same full feeling and burps that I felt with all the food I couldn't eat.  So have been drinking Evian water and it seems fine.

I know that this won't last forever and it will settle down once everything is healed. So I just carry on day-by-day knowing that this trouble will be over soon and I can get to the business of looking like the image I have in my head of myself skinny.

Tomorrow I have an important post that I want to put up, so stay tuned.  Until tomorrow.  Pay It Forward!            

Ange.

SHALL WE CONTINUE

Hello, Hello!  I am alive and well!

My apologies to those who were following my journey.  When I got home I didn't really want to do anything, as was quite weak and tired, so put everything on hold until I was feeling like I wanted to do something again.

I want to thank everyone who sent me messages, and well-wishes and wondered how I was.  I appreciate you all!

I feel that I have a lot to say and one item in particular is very important to me, so that will be a post in itself.  I will just carry on as far as I remember from the day we got our drains out.

As you know we had drains put in, as above; one on each side of our abdomen.  The tubes were long and attached to the bottom were bulbs that collected the fluid that drained from our abdominal cavity.  The left-side drain was usually fuller than the right-side, as left was the side that most of the stomach was taken from, although they pulled the useless stomach from the right-side incision.

Anyway, the day we were to get our drains out, which was the day before we were to leave, I stood up after getting out of bed and noticed I had blood running down my leg from the right-side drain.  The bulb was fuller than the left side and darker in color.   What in the world was going on now??  I re-enforced the drain site with more gauze and bandages and waited to see the Doctor.  It didn't really hurt  more than usual and it wasn't spewing blood out, so I figured I could wait.

When it was my turn to get my drains out, I explained to him what had happened, that I had more drainage etc and he didn't seem to think it was a big deal.  So out came the drains.  It didn't hurt, just felt a couple of flutters from inside the abdominal cavity and just like a lubricated tube sliding through a hole.   That's how I would describe it.  But once those drains were out, I felt wonderful; no more shoulder pain, no more pain anywhere really.  I would say that two of us had a vasovagal response from getting the drains out.  I had mild heart palpitations (of which I get from time to time anyway) and the other lady got light-headed. Neither reaction lasted that long.   Then we were off to the Malekon (sp)(Boardwalk) for sight-seeing, shopping and to watch the sunset.

Sitting at an outdoor cafe on the beach waiting for sunset.  Boy do I look big.  Don't look like that anymore!

Sunset I was waiting for!

That night when we got home as we were sitting around watching TV before bed I developed a terrible pain in my right-side.  It felt that my muscles in my side were cramping and I couldn't take a deep breath.   I started to walk around and it seemed to dispel a bit, so went to bed.  In the morning when I went to get up it happened again and I thought how am I ever going to sit on a plane for 4.5 hours home.  I had stopped taking my pain medication the day after we got home from surgery so didn't want to start taking it again.  It seemed that if I stood upright or walked around it helped, so did that until we got onto the plane.  Fortunately, I didn't suffer on the plane, but unfortunately after my husband picked me up and we went to have supper, even touching the spot that hurt made it go into severe spasms.  I had to sleep on my left side all night.  By morning it was a little better but was now right under my drain incision site and a lump was forming.  The cramping was subsiding somewhat.

I had a idea that since the drains were taken out and I had been draining more on the right-side that day that there was no place for the fluid to go or it wasn't being absorbed into the body fast enough, so sat in my tissues and muscles causing cramping.  This was confirmed by my doctor here in Lloydminster.  I am fine now no pain or lumps, incisions are healing nicely and there was no infection of any kind.

Again, this is my experience only, the other ladies did not have this problem.  Everyone's body is different and everyone experiences different circumstances.  Some experience NO symptoms, as another one of our ladies did.  She was ready to go home the day after surgery!  (She is still doing well and has 22 lbs gone so far).

I will leave this post for now and continue tomorrow with more posts.  Be kind to one another!  Ange.

MY THOUGHTS SO FAR

PLEASE NOTE:   as you are reading these posts, please remember that this is my personal experience. Everybody's bodies are different and we all react to different circumstances.   This being said there are  many similarities that we all experience with this process.

One of the items that may come up with your experience is feeling like you have done the wrong thing or is this worth it.  This is what happened yesterday to me.   I woke up extremely tired, feeling out of sorts, tired of the gas pains, tired of water, juice, broth and wondered if I would ever feel better.  I feel that it is important for people who are going to have this surgery that you MIGHT feel like absolute shit for about 3 full days.    Today was a new day.  I feel  quite good today, gas pains are almost gone, I can drink more liquids, doesn't hurt when I drink.  We had a good day sitting by the pool, walking around the neighborhood, went to there version of 7-11 and bought the most yummy Popsicle  that I got pretty much all of it down.  It was coconut and pineapple.   Fabulous.  I feel that I have energy today.  I feel that I definitely did the right thing!

Tomorrow we get our drains out, ya, ya, ya.  We go back to the hospital and as Dr. Castaneda will be in Guadalajara  he picked out another surgeon that he trusts to take out our drains.  This to me is very comforting as he has been nothing but caring and has our health foremost in his mind.   We then get to go do some touring, go to Costco, more shopping and see the sunset at the beach.  Home on Friday.