Vacation time & a loss!

I had a week long vacation in Myrtle Beach last week.  Great vacation but involved some drinking & more carbs than I am used to!  I did however walk on the beach a bit too, so was hoping that would help out!

Well when I got home saturday night, I weighed in on sunday morning & had lost .6lbs.  Was happy with that!  Then the next day, after drinking lots of water all the previous day, I lost 1.4lbs!

Brings my total lost to 37lbs!

I am still loving my sleeve & so glad I went with Dr Kelly in Tijuana Mexico.  He is amazing & look forward to going back to visit some time... hopefully next year!

New clothes for me!

Thanks to a very nice sleever I got a huuuge box of new clothes, to me anyway!

Embarrassed to say I was wearing size 22 denim capris.  They were getting loose on me, but still was managing to wear them.  Well I am now wearing size 18 pants from my sleever buddy & they fit perfectly!

Yay, down a few sizes!

Also the weight is slowly coming off still.  I am down 35.2 lbs since May!

I went for my 3 month Dr appt yesterday at my regular Dr.  As I was sleeved in MX I go to her for everything else now.  She was happy with my weight loss, happy with the healing of the incisions & did bloodwork to test all my vitamin/mineral/thyroid levels.

So will know sometime next week how my bloodwork looks.  Hoping all my vitamins & everything else is all good!

As always, any questions just ask & will try to answer them for you!

Real food & stalls!

Well yes, I have started real foods & it is going well.  I find I can eat only 2-3 oz of meat at a meal, so don't normally have time for veggies or any carbs.  So definitely eating high protein diet.  I am averaging around 800 calories a day & getting in about 55-65oz of liquids a day.

If you are interested, this is so far, what a typical day looks like for my menu.

7.30am - Chike Shake made with 1 cup of skim milk
10am - Snack of 2 slices of ham or 2 cheese sticks.
12.30 - Gyro meat, about 3oz
3pm - Snack of half a magic pop with PB on it
6pm - About 3oz of fish or boiled egg mixed with a little mayo.

In between I am drinking gatorade G2 or water.
If you haven't heard of magic pops they are great.  They are very low in carbs & calories, not really much to them.  I found them in Shoprite, near the deli section.
http://www.deliceglobal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76&Itemid=150

Now my only problem I had is that I was at a stall for about 2 weeks, just hovering around the same number.  Quite frustrating!  But I think 2 days ago I broke my stall & now the scale is slowly creeping down again.  Yay!

So far I have lost 24.6lbs & feeling great!

Found that TGIfridays wings do not agree with me.  I had maybe 3 of them one day for dinner & suffered afterwards.  I think they were just too greasy.  I felt uncomfortably full & my tummy also felt queezy.  So I took 2 tums & that seemed to help a lot.

As always, any questions just ask!

Started Solids & 1 month since surgery!

Well today marks 1 month since my surgery in Mexico with Dr Kelly!  And I am doing fantastic!

Really I am!  I hear those who have problems eating certain things, have pains still, I have nothing!  Can't thank Dr Kelly & his team for what a fantastic job they did on me!

I am down 22lbs since my highest pre-op weight, so very happy.

Also started solids yesterday & so met my best buddy Meg for lunch at Applebees.  I had dijon chicken with some veggies & potatoes.  Ate about 1/4 of the chicken, little tiny bites at a time & one small potato.  It was all so good & had plenty of leftovers!

I have been managing to get in my 64oz of fluids every day, eating my protein & taking all my vitamins.

Oh & my incisions are healed, which means I can now take baths or go in a pool!

As always, any questions, just ask me!

Starting mushy foods!

Hoorah, day 22 yesterday and I started pureed & mushy foods.  Was so nice to have something other than water, gatorade & protein shakes!

I had a chike banana protein shake for breakfast, about 2-3oz of 2% cottage cheese for mid morning snack.  About 3oz of tuna with light mayo for lunch.  A boiled egg mushed up with light mayo for afternoon snack.  Then some more cottage cheese for dinner.

All the food tasted so good as I hadn't food for a while, so the tastes were overwhelmingly good!

I weighed myself today & had lost 1.2lbs, which made me happy!
Have kind of been at a stall for 8 or 9 days, so felt good to lose finally.  Hope it continues on.

2 weeks post-op

Just thought I should give you all an update on how I am doing.  I am now 14 days post op & have lost 15.8lbs.  A little slower than I was hoping for, but I seem to have hit a small stall this week!

I am thinking my stall is because I started adding protein shakes last weekend.  I think that extra milk & protein is taking my body some time to adjust to.

My incisions are healing super well, almost completely gone.

Been doing some walking outside, nothing too much though, only for about 15 mins at a time.  Hoping to get into the gym soon to try the elliptical machine.

Had support group meeting last night, which is always nice.  It is held at a local weight loss center & is open to anyone that has had weight loss surgery.  They talked about alcohol sugars & how they are bad for you.  So have to look for sorbitol on ingredients now.  Nutritionist there said it can cause pain, dizziness & diarrhea.

Still feeling fantastic mentally & physically, so happy about that!

As always any questions just ask!

Pics from the hotel

Here is my room from the Hotel Lucerna.

Then my view from my balcony, it overlooked the pool!

It was a beautiful hotel, on par with a 4 or 5 star hotel & really recommend it.  If you are a WLS patient you get 1 bowl of free broth a day too.  I had so many drinks that Cecy gave me & with going out with them for broth both nights (saturday & sunday) that I didn't get a chance to taste the hotel broth!  But heard it is good!

As always, any questions, just ask!

Dr Kelly & his team!

Dr Kelly & his wife Cecy.  They took me out to dinner on the saturday night & I took a picture of them while there.  They were so very nice to me!

Sorry, this is sideways, can't figure out how to rotate it!  But this is Omar at the dinner on saturday night too.  Omar was a saint, answering all my many questions pre-op and now post-op!

This was one of the appetizers they ordered at the meal.  Shrimp, scallops & octopus.  Omar asked if I liked seafood & I said I loved it!  He said Cecy said it is okay if I chew some up & then spit it out!  LOL  I just skipped it & sipped on my chicken broth instead!  But that was very sweet of them.

Head hunger, does it get better?!

Well the main problem I am dealing with right now is head hunger.  I am full from all the liquids I am drinking.  But my mind is hungry for pizza with bacon or chinese beef chow fun!!!  It is so hard as I am on just liquids!

Today I could add in milk, so I made a banana milkshake using DaVinci sugar free banana syrup.  It is made with splenda & has zero calories, zero carbs, zero everything.  As my Dr okayed me to have splenda I am sure this is okay.  It tastes pretty good!

If anyone is interested in ordering the syrups go to this website: http://www.davincigourmet.com/
Then search for the sugar free syrups, there are a lot to choose from!

Oh & I took my bandaids off my incisions too.  Can't remember if I mentioned that in my last post.  They are all healing really nicely.  I have a huge keloid scar on my back, so thought for sure they would end up as keloids too.  But so far they are flat & healing nicely!  Just a little itchy, but trying not to itch them!

Start protein drinks on Sunday (May 20th).  Can't wait to add in something different into my diet.

And when are mushies?  Bring 'em on!  But unfortunately not until June 1st!

Life at home.. the first few days!

Well I am adjusting to life at home.  Almost a shame to be back to normality, having to do homework with the kids, cook the meals for them etc.  Miss just relaxing with the Dr & his team in tijuana!

But life goes on!

I have been taking my meds, which I don't like.  I can take them either crushed or cut up, so I choose to cut mine up.  But hard to get them down as I cannot gulp water, I have to sip.  They sometimes don't go down & then I gag.  Just yucky!

In the morning I am taking 3 depression meds, one antibiotic, one chewable multivitamin, one chewable B12, one chewable D3.  Then around lunchtime I start taking chewable calcium citrate, have to take 3 a day.  Then at bedtime one more antibiotic & 2 meds that are like prilosec.

Lot of meds!  But need to keep my vitamins up, so good thing to take them all.

I have to take a shower every day & when the steri-strips come off my incisions then they should be healed.  Today I had to change the bandaids on the incisions as they were coming off.  Incisions all are looking good.

Sipping lots of fluids all day.  I am allowed water, apple juice, orange juice, gatorade, clear broth.  So been sipping on drinks all day to keep my fluids up.

I did have a slight dizzy spell after my shower this morning.  Had to sit down so I didn't faint.  Omar, the coordinator of my Dr said to make sure I am getting lots of gatorade in.  So will up that a bit today.

Oh & also been cleared to start working out at the gym a bit.  Just maybe the treadmill or elliptical, just taking it easy, not too long, not too hard.  If I get tired stop & make sure to sip my fluids!  So may do just 10-20 mins later at the gym.  Will see how I feel & listen to my body.

Lost another 2lbs yesterday.  So lost 14lbs overall since my highest weight before my pre-op diet!

Thanks all for reading my blog & keeping updated on my progress.  Any questions you have, just post & I will try to get back to you!

Leaving Tijuana & flight home.

Cecy told me to be up & ready by 6am, in case we had to leave the hotel that early.  So I was up early, just watching TV & waiting.  Omar called me to let me know Cecy would be there around 8am.  She showed up around 8.15am & we left for the border.

The line was very long for the border crossing to the USA, very different to coming the other way, there was no line coming into Mexico.

It was fun though as there were different people walking in between the lines of cars, trying to sell products.  Either newspapers, churros, fruit cut up.  Even someone running around, taking orders for coffee/tea drinks!  Cecy ordered a latte from one & off he went running, then brought it back, about 20 minutes later, when we had moved down a bit closer.  There was also men cleaning cars on the way, so Cecy got the van cleaned off & gave them some money for that.

Finally we got to the border & pulled up to the guard.  Had to show our passports (was not necessary on the way into Mexico!), and he asked if he could look in the van.  Saw my bag & asked if I was coming back from a procedure, so I said yes.  Asked if I had any prescription drugs & I said yes.  Then asked what kind of drugs I had, so told him antibiotics & he told me "and you have paperwork for all of that right?"  So I told him yes.  Then we got our passports back & off we went.

From there it was a short drive to the airport.  Got there at 10.30pm, so took just over 2hrs to get across the border to the airport on a monday morning.  Normally if there was no traffic it would only be 30 minutes!  Just long lines at the border.

So said my goodbyes to Cecy, she was off then to pick up another patient from a San Diego hotel.

I went in to check in for my flight.  Was hoping there would be room left in business class to upgrade, but no such luck, it was a full flight.  I would recommend upgrading if there is room & it isn't too expensive. 

Security check was fine & easy, then off to my boarding gate.  Flight was a little late taking off, but once we were up in the air it was a smooth flight.  I got apple juice on the flight to drink, but only drank about 2/3 of a cup altogether & my tummy felt full!

I will say I do find it hard to tell when I am hungry & when I am full.  But it started to feel a tiny bit uncomfortable, that when I took a sip it was just hurting a tiny tiny bit.  So figured it meant I was full & stopped.

As a guide Omar told me you should drink 2-4 oz.  If you are drinking 6oz then he said you have to start worrying.

Landing just had a tiny bit of turbulence, coming into Philadlelphia as there was light rain & lots of clouds.  But landed fine.

Then spotted my hubby & my 2 girls waiting for me!!!  Girls ran up, they were so excited to see me!  Of course hubby was happy to see me too.  Was nice to be reunited.

Drive home was easy & was in my bed by about 11.30pm EST.

Shopping & the beach!

My last day in Tijuana was on sunday May 13th.  Cecy & Omar showed up early afternoon & had bought me a lovely mothers day present, which was very sweet of them.  A cuddly toy lamb holding a rose and a jewelry set (watch, necklace & earrings).  I was so taken by their kindness & will wear the jewelry & think of them often!

So then we went of out & Cecy drove me to the beach.  Nice area with vendors & Cecy bought me a coconut water to drink, which was really good.  Cecy had cut up coconut with hot sauce on it!  Bleuch!  But Omar said they put hot sauce on everything in Mexico, so guess they think nothing of it! LOL  So we walked down steps to what I would call the boardwalk.  Walked along for a fair way, then back up some steps to the street. 

Oh one thing that was cool was you could see the border between the Tijuana beach & the US beach.  It was thick tall metal railings.  So funny to see how close the US was to us.

We then got back in the van & drove to go shopping.  We stopped first at I guess the main shopping area in tijuana.  There is a pedestrian 'road' with lots of local vendors selling their goods.  I found 2 nice bracelets for my girls $10 for the 2 of them.  Then a beautiful purple cotton bag for me, which I LOVE, for $18.  Whatever they tell you, you can bargain them down a bit!  So don't pay the first price they name.

Then Cecy picked us up again & we went onto a supermarket as I mentioned I wanted to buy some Mexican candy for my 2 girls.  I found barbie kinder surprises for them!  They love kinder surprises & as they are illegal in the USA they only get them when my mother comes to visit from England.  Yes, my Mum smuggles them in & I smuggled them back home.  Shhhh, don't tell customs!  Also found iCarly gum with stickers in it.  The girls love iCarly, so picked that up too.  Richie (Dr Kelly's 7 year old son) came with us & I did offer if he wanted to choose a kinder surprise egg too, but he went off with his mom & found some other candy he liked.

Then it was off to dinner, to another local mexican restaurant, that is right across the street from the hotel.  They specialize in different kinds of mole.  They brought out a sample small plate with 4 kinds of mole & Cecy said I could dip my spoon in, just to get a taste of each.  They were all good, I think the cilantro mole was my fave though.  Then cecy ordered soup broth for all of us too.  The broth was nice.

After that they dropped me at the hotel.  I said my goodbyes to Omar & little Richie as I wouldn't see them again.  Then went to my room to pack & relax.

At the hotel!

Next I was taken, on saturday around lunchtime, for a leak/swallow test at a different bigger hospital.  That went fine.  The stuff really wasn't that bad tasting.  Would I drink it every day?  No, but it wasn't bad.  Got films from there of my swallow test results.

Then onto the hotel.  Cecy brought me to Hotel Lucerna in tijauna & it was beautiful!  I had room 429, overlooking the pool & was very happy.

Saturday evening Cecy came back to change my dressings on my incisions & put bandaids on them.  Then we all went out for dinner together!  Yes Dr Kelly, his wife Cecy, their 7 yr old son, the anaesthatist & a former patient who was visiting & had lost over 100lbs.  Was so good to get to know the whole team & chat to them.  They are liking a big family, it is great!!!

It was a nice mexican restaurant & all the food looked so good.  I ate a delicious chicken broth there.  Great atmosphere, good food & the best company!  Got back to my room by about 11pm that night!

Cecy gave me a bag that said WLSC on it & on the other side, I left my stomach in Tijuana, MX!  It was filled with drinks I could drink while in the hotel.

Now I am waiting for Omar & Cecy to come pick me up & go shopping!

Tomorrow morning (monday) I leave to go back home.  Looking forward to getting back to my NJ family, but will miss my new found tijuana family!

Welcome to the start of my Gastric Sleeve Journey!

I decided to start up this blog so those close to me can keep up with how I am doing!

A bit of background on me is that I am 38 years old, married to my husband Paul, have 2 beautiful twin girls that are 7 years old & live in New Jersey.

I began my journey in February I think, when I had researched a couple of hospitals local to me & found out I would not be covered by insurance if I wanted to have gastric sleeve surgery.

It was then March when I decided I needed to do this operation for myself & my better health, so started looking at Mexico.  I decided on Dr Kelly in Tijuana Mexico.  I e-mailed several times asking questions before I decided on him.  Omar was always helpful in getting back to me right away.

My start weight of this journey was 252lbs & I am 5'6" tall.

I then booked my surgery for Thursday May 10th with Dr Kelly & also booked my flight from Philadelphia airport to San Diego.  I would be picked up from SD & brought to Tijuana.

2 weeks prior I started to eat a little more healthy with smaller portions, less carbs, less fat, less salt etc.
I didn't really lose much weight on that diet, maybe 3lbs.

Then 3 days pre-op I had a modified liquid diet.  I say modified as some people can only have clear liquids when getting this kind of surgery.  With Dr Kelly I could have chicken broth, water, yoghurt, pureed veggies (like stage 1 consistency), sugar free jello.  So wasn't too bad & lost about 5 more lbs on that diet.

Finally the day was here.  My girls & my husband drove me to the airport & I was off to san diego!
Flight was a little rough as I couldn't drink anything, since midnight the night before.  I was having surgery that day!  So just refused all drinks offered, which was several times!

Arrived at sunny San Diego airport about 40 mins early, so texted Omar to let him know.  Cecy (Dr Kelly's wife) was apparently just leaving to pick me up.  So just a little wait.  She arrived in a white van that said WLSC on the side (weight loss surgery center it stands for), so was easy to spot.

First Cecy took me on a tour of downtown San Diego, stopping for a couple of photo ops! Fun!

Then it was down to business.  We went across the border, which was easy & didn't even need ID, to get to Mexico & Tijuana.  First we went to a clinic where I had my bloodwork done & also had to pee in a cup for other tests.

Next onto the Oasis hospital.  It was a nice new hospital, small, but nice.  Nurses were very friendly.  Was greeted by the hospital coordinator who spoke fluent english, so that was nice.  Then taken to my room.  Room 211.

Got in my gown, hooked up the IV, then off to get chest x-ray & back to the room.  IV hurt a little bit, but nurse was nice & got it in first time.  She also spoke very good english.

I then had an EKG, which was easy, didn't hurt & was normal results.

Dr Kelly came in & greeted me & so did Omar, welcoming me, then Dr Kelly had to go get scrubbed up for surgery!

It all went very quick then, was transferred to a bed & wheeled into the operating room.  There I met the anaesthatist & about 3 other nurses or Drs, I don't even remember who they were!

I remember laying on the table, having to put my arms out to the side, then thinking, am I making the right decision & I was out!

Next thing I remember I was waking up in my hospital bed in my room!  They pulled the tube out that was down my throat which was a little uncomfortable.  But everything else was fine.  I wondered if he had really done the operation as I was in no pain!

Next 2 days consisted of resting, walking the halls with my IV & resting some more.

They put compression stockings on me, gave me slippers to put on & also a small ball machine thing, that I had to periodically blow into, to make the balls go up & down.  This was to clear my lungs of mucus & prevetn pneumonia.

Also nurses would come in regularly to change my IV & give me pain meds & anti-nausea meds & some meds to protect my stomach.  I did have some minor nausea the first 24 hours, some dry heaving, but nothing that bad.

Now onto the hotel!