Nearly there!!

[Leebie3]

another appt in 4 weeks (on my birthday no less so he better have cake for me! I always take baking to them ) then another appt 6 weeks after that then another surgeon consult in Townsville with a view to surgery a couple of weeks after that!! EEEEK so we're looking at .... approx 12 - 14 WEEKS til surgery!!

[purpleandteal]

the time will absolutly fly by!! when i was given my offical date, it was 7 weeks away and ithought it'd never get here and before i knew it i was being taken down to theatre thnking "where the hell did the time go?!" use these last 3 months to eat as much as you can!! i had my surgery 8 days ago and al i can think about is food haha. good luck with your surgery :0)

[Leebie3]

thanks p&t! How are you doing??

[purpleandteal]

im doing ok thanks, the pain is starting to receed now and i should be having my bands loosened and my stitches out tomorrow, which will be good as i can only open my mouth about 3mm. its my first appointment with my surgeon post op (well, i saw him while in hospital, but this is my first official check up) im hoping everything is as it should be, except for the darned loose screw. im settling into the diet restrictions, its hard cos im big on crunch, but the edge is taken off with the fact the meds kill my appetite, so no doubt its going to get a bit harder once they are reduced, but by then i should have got a few imaginative ideas on how to keep hunger at bay and meal times exciting

[Leebie3]

lots of fats and protein! coconut cream with protein powder is really good for calories I can't have coconut cream/milk so I'm going to ask my gp for liquigen to add to other stuff..

loose screw!?!?

[purpleandteal]

im currently eating pureed egg mayo, not my ideal breakfast food, but ram packed of everything i need and a lil drop of mustard makes it a little more interesting.
whats liquigen?
yea i have a loose screw, my op was on the friday, i wasnt treated very well in hospital, on saturday night i got upset because of the pain and hunger, the nurse told me off so i broke down in tears, but in getting so upset, i made a screw loose. i felt a pop, had my routine xrays the next day and it confirmed what i already knew. a screw had come loose on my left side.

[Leebie3]

Why weren't you treated well!? How long were you in for in the end? I've been told to expect the first night in OCU and then another 3-4 days in hosp depending on my pain levels (my pain threshold is pretty low LOL)

Liquigen is an emulsified fat.

[purpleandteal]

i was told 2 nights in hospital is the norm, but i ended up having to be in 3 nights, i should have stayed longer but i couldnt handle it. the nurses were rude to me because i couldnt eat solids and therefore i wasnt fed, until the 4th day when my blood presure dropped really low and someone took me seriously and brought me food. i left early so that i could eat even though the pain was still unbareable

[Leebie3]

OMG!! they should have KNOWN you wouldn't be able to eat solids!! You're elasticed shut for crying out loud! They should have at LEAST had sustagen etc.. Will you send a formal complaint?

[purpleandteal]

yea the way i was treated regarding food was disgusting. i was sobbing, begging for food as i was so hungry. one nurse said we have quiche. when i said i cant have that, she replied its not their fault. i ordered chcken soup, but it didnt come, instead i got offered a roast dinner. i asked for mash and gravy and was told no. iv voiced my disproval already and made it clear thats why i left early and ll be speaking to the surgeon tomorrow to see what he suggests. im not going o forget about it though, i dont want anyone else to be treated the way i was

[Leebie3]

was it a small town hick hospital!? jeez! idiots :s

[purpleandteal]

no, thats the part that makes it worse. it was a big city teaching hospital, where they teach students to be medical proffessionals, and they allowed this to happen to me, while knowng im recovering from an eating disorder

[Leebie3]

WOW. I can't stop shaking my head!

[purpleandteal]

hey, how are you doing? i thought id drop by and tell you a couple of things i really wish id listened to pre surgery. im now 19 days post op and healing well, im allowed to start taking my bands off for short intervals starting friday, scary!! its always so strange taking them off. anyway...
make sure you get some form of fibre source and start drinking it within a day or 2 after surgery. i went 10 days without going to the toilet and believe me, it sucked!! with so little bulk in your diet and all the painkillers, you really need the extra fibre. i really wish id listened to that piece of advice!
rubber tipped baby spoons are absolutely brilliant for eating, it doesnt matter if you miss your mouth because they dont hurt you like metal ones do, and they are small enough to fit through little gaps. i got the youngest ones i could, kinda flat spades rather than spoon shape, really small but makes eating easier.
lip balm, lip balm, lip balm!!! really good quality ones as your lips will really split and i started to develop the starts of a cold sore on each side, got some occasional cold sore/serious chapped lip treatment and it helped so much. when you start changing bands yourself, you really have to pull at your mouth the first few times, so making sure as much as the split lip soreness has gone is invaluable. it would have made those first few changes so much more pleasant.
a V shaped pillow really aids in sleeping upright and on your back, and believe me, you dont want to roll over in the night, even after almost 3 weeks, it still hurt like hell when i rolled over last night, i must have stayed on my side a while as i woke up in agony and had to get up to get painkillers.
which leads me to my next note, when you're home, if you're able to (im sure your bio says you have children, but i cant remember how old) obviously you dont want kids to get hold of them, but taking a syringe ready filled with painkillers to bed for the first few days you're home helps loads because if you wake up in intense pain the last thing you want to be doing is messing around trying to measure medicine or wait for someone else to. the good thing is the intense pain doesnt last forever, and the worst of it will be while you're in hospital then it really does get better day by day. i still get a whole lot of pain on one side but thats because my jaw shattered so id really expect it to hurt a whole lot longer, the rest is now a managable ache and throb.
lastly, get a decent blender, i got a mid range one and it broke the other night, when you're starving and unable to eat, your one means of eating breaking really feels like the end of the world. you will be relying on it for a while, so invest a little extra money into it so tht it lasts well and blends whatever it is you're craving.
hope this helps :0)

[samoorelaw]

What purpleandteal said is true: the time will fly by. I just had surgery yesterday and I'm so glad I allowed myself to cheat the week before with most of my favorite foods. It's probably the only reason why I'm not hungry despite having only one Boost Calorie Smart and one Starbucks drink yesterday, for 490 calories. I need to have more today, but throat is still very sore from the breathing tube so drinking is difficult: this pain is worse than the jaw pain! Oh, and I should add my surgery was done outpatient and I went home right after I woke up from the anesthesia.