A week from today...

Chris and I went to my group pre-op yesterday. Aside from the fact that it was about 4 hours long, ;) it was nice to hear a review of things to come next week and for the first three weeks after the surgery--the liquid diet. We've heard so much information over the last three months, that it tends to all run together, so hearing just about the next month in isolation was very helpful. Plus, I definitely learn best by repetition.

I feel more reassured about the hospital stay. Since the WLS wing at Durham Regional has been recently renovated, the rooms will be nicer, and I will have my own room. They talked about the whole process from checking in when you get there, until discharging. The psychologist, nutritionist, head nurse, and surgeon all spoke, and gave us packets to go over, so I feel very prepared for the procedure itself.

After surgery, the biggest thing to adjust to will be the liquid diet. I will be consuming about 2 oz. of liquid (about a 1/4 cup) every 15 minutes. I will have a protein liquid at the top of the hour, a water type beverage at the 15 and 30 minute intervals--like crystal light, sugar free popsicles, no sugar juice, etc., and then broth or strained soup at the 45 min. mark. At first they said I will be feeling so full it will be hard to get it down, but eventually I'll be able to work up to the 2 oz.

One thing that made us all chuckle a little was when the psychologist told us of a few don'ts during the three weeks. (she said that people have actually done these) 1) Don't chew food and spit it out. Apparently, some people miss the taste of food so much that they think it's okay to have it in their mouth and taste it, but spit it out versus swallowing it. 2) Don't "blend" regular food in the blender and then drink it. I'm not sure anything would taste very good like that, but she said not to take a chicken soft taco, blend it up, and think it is okay to eat it. I think in general, people just miss the taste and flavor of regular food, but I really don't think either of those are very wise after surgery. Mainly they can mess with your mind a little, when you are trying to change behaviors along with what you're physically eating.

One page in the packet that was fun to read, was the list of suggestions of things you can do to relax after surgery, but also keep your mind going (and off of the food you can't eat!) There was a list of about 30 suggestions. One of them was "play the piano". I think I'm going to take that up again. Currently, I only have one real song I play from back when I took lessons, and I think it would be a nice time to learn a few Christmas songs I can play this year during the holidays. Obviously I'll be working on stationery orders, and I have a bunch from people who don't need them until Christmastime, so I can work on those. I plan to read and watch movies, and I will need to be walking about 6 times a day for 10-15 minutes, so that will take some time there too. (and window shopping at the mall counts!) It was good to see that they included some of those ideas in there.

I FINALLY got rid of my "no caffeine" headache today! After weaning myself off caffeine for the past few days, yesterday and today I haven't had any. I had a dull ache in my head for about 36 hours straight (yup, even when I was sleeping ;) but it's finally gone. Let me just say that Tylenol is like taking baby asprin compared to Ibuprofen. I've usually taken 4 Ibuprofen for all of my headaches, etc. for the past few years, so Tylenol basically didn't work at all. I hope I will start feeling the effects of that later on when I have pain. I won't be able to have any NSAIDS (things like Ibuprofen, Aleve, Motrin, etc) after surgery ever again. I guess that's probably good to start now anyway, since I know you can't have those during pregnancy either.

Well...I'm off to make some dinner for Chris and I. We're going to have turkey sandwiches on whole wheat rolls and a salad. They said it would help skrink the liver to have a low carb diet before surgery, so I'm starting that today.

One more thing....I TRACK OUT TOMORROW!!!! I am super excited about this, can you tell? :)