Tomorrow is 1 wk Post-Op.

I can not believe it has been almost a full week since surgery! I went in to the hospital on Wednesday November 14th, 2012 at 6 am got checking in to admissions, and then we headed to the elevators to head upstairs to the third floor. The elevator doors closed and then.... Nothing happened we (me and 14 other people) were stuck in the elevator for 35 mins. One guy called the fire department to let them know what was going on and they showed up and were very rude and wouldn't let us know what was going on. Eventually they got the doors open.

I couldn't help but think if this was they way the rest of the day was going to go, I wanted to walk right back out the front doors and not look back. But I have great support there with me Isaac drove me there, My mom, dad, little sister and baby Niece were all there before I went into surgery and were there waiting for me after. 

I went in to surgery at 7:45 am only 15 mins later than what they scheduled it for. I remember them saying they were going to give me some oxygen and to just breathe in and that was all. I woke up in my hospital suite and there was my family waiting for me. I took one walk with Isaac that night, and when my parents and sis and aunt came back to visit that night I took another walk. I was told Dr. Ben Meir fixed my hiatial hernia that was lot bigger that the upper gi showed. Which made surgery a little bit longer. But Im not quite sure how long the whole thing lasted or took. I remember being in me room and it was like 3 ish.

This was the view from my hospital room suite. Downtown Cleveland.

My second day there I thought I hurt my left shoulder lifting myself into the bed, so they took me to get an x-ray when they did my leak test, and everything looked fine. So I had to deal with the shoulder pain for another day, On Friday they came to removed my drain and Brook the PA said that sometimes the drain can get stuck on the diaphragm and can cause shoulder pain. and she said it would only take 3 seconds and she would be done removing the drain, it was going to feel like I was going down a roller coaster. I counted 1-2-3 and it was out and the shoulder pain was gone! Weird I know, but true.

I was in the hospital for an extra day due to my heart rate being a little high, funny how it went down as soon as they said I could go home. I came home Saturday, Nov 17th. Sunday was rough I was tired and didn't want to do anything I couldn't get my fluids down and I just wanted to sleep. The past two days have been getting better. I can shower on my own, but I still get extremely exhausted from it. 

Here are a couple pictures of my incisions:

This is my ugly belly, it has a told of 5 incisions I believe. The one on the very top is where the drain was place underneath the gauze is a open hole that will lose on its own. I have to keep it covered until it scabs over.
Second one with gauze and green wrap  is where they removed the round curvature  of my stomach, this is the most painful of sites, because it has the most traumatic things done to it. The other three are sealed up with internal stitches and glue on the outside. Now the lower dark spots you see are where I give myself Lovenox injections those are small bruises.

This is an up close shot of the incision where they removed the round curvature  of my stomach. I was able to removed the gauze on Monday. Its all closed and healed.

I weighted myself a day early this week I was planning on doing it every Wed. But I got on the scale this am just for giggles. And I weighed in at 267 lbs. My heaviest was in April at 309, surgery day I was 272, when I came home from hospital I was still 272. Today 1 week from surgery well 1 day away from 1 week from surgery I am at 267 lbs. a loss of 5lbs and  42 lb loss from my heaviest! I still am so happy I made this decision!