Anna Skamarakas

For a very long time, I have needed to lose AT LEAST 100 pounds.  It was a number that was incredibly overwhelming to me.  With every diet I’ve been on, knowing that I was going to lose a pound or two a week made losing 100 pounds seem like something I could never do.  Then as I gained weight, and I needed to lose more like 150 pounds, keeping motivated on a regular diet where the scale moved so slowly was virtually impossible.  Yeah, it was nice to lose 2 pounds here or even 5 pounds there, but in the grand scheme of things, looking at it taking 2 or even 3 years to lose what I needed to lose seemed impossible.

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I saw Dr. Nusbaum today for my one month post-op check up.  It was a fairly uncomplicated trip up there - since my last two were horrible.  The first trip I made up there, I got hopelessly lost and ended up 2 hours late.  Last time, we got stuck in traffic, and it took us nearly 3 hours.  I packed a cooler with sandwiches, snacks, and drinks for the kids so I didn’t have to stop at fast food restaurants to feed them, and that worked out well.

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Day One and Two

Brighid is planning to spend a week with her grandparents at their home in Florida.  An airline ticket is bought, and she is excited and ready to go.  And then a terror plot is discovered in the UK that causes chaos at airports all over the country.  I am really nervous about her flying alone now, and worried even more that messages might get crossed, her plane would be delayed, and her grandparents will be worrying as much as I am. 

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Here’s my complaint of the morning.  Protein sucks.  Not the kind most of us eat every day - like steak, shrimp, lobster, even eggs - but the kind that healthy people drink to be healthier and people who have had weight loss surgery drink to stay alive. 

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As of this morning, I am down 21.5 pounds.  I am sure when I see the doctor this evening, however, I’ll get a more “official” weight.  I am going by what I weighed the morning I left for surgery on our bathroom scale.  I may need a new one soon, because ours changes how much you weigh based on where on the floor you put it (always withing a few pounds).

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I’m doing my best to take it fairly easy, while still walking around a little each day.  I’ve stuck mostly close to home, but we were invited to a pool party today at the home of Barry Wassinger and his partner, Joe.  Barry is from the support group I joined, and has been very successful since his weight loss surgery.  They have an absolutely  BEAUTIFUL home, and if you can get past how beautiful their home is, you will be completely bowled over by how MAGNIFICENT their backyard and gardens are.  I was so envious of everyone who got to enjoy the gorgeous pool and wonderful food, but it was such a nice party, even without the fringe benefits of food and swimming.  Barry and Joe went out of their way to make everyone feel at home and welcome.  Jim got to enjoy some snacks and some nice conversation before the heat got the best of me and I had to go.

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Okay, so obviously Jim posted the last few entries.  There is no way I would have told you I had to pee into a Dixie cup, nor would I have spelled Dr. Nusbaum’s name wrong.  I might have even spelled anesthesiologist correctly. 

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3:00 AM up and getting dressed
4:00 AM out the door and on the turnpike
6:00 AM Arrive at the hospital
6:30 AM Seeing the intake person filling out my paperwork
7:00 AM In a room, getting into a paper gown, peeing in a dixie cup, meeting the nursing aide, nurse, Dr. Nausbaum and the anestesiaologist
7:45 AM Being wheeled into surgery. This should take 90 minutes for surgery then time for the post surgery testing to make sure there are no leaks.
9:30 I just got called to the information desk. One of the surgery nurses told me Anna got held in line. They had a surgical emergency and she got bumped.
10:12 AM I just got called to the information desk again. Anna is done surgery. everything went well. The doctor is now doing the testing and it will be a a while for that to finish. After that. if there is no leakage. she will go to recovery
3:30 PM Finally got settled into the room. It is a step down unit, Anna is banging away on the morphine pump and has some back pain. On the scale of 1 to 10, 1 being it hurts a little, 5 it hurts a lot and 10 it is hurting Jim in any way shape or form, she is saying it is a 5. But she keeps dozing back to sleep. The orders for today are bed rest, nothing to eat or drink, bed pan no getting out of bed, and blowing into the ball game toy thing 10 times every hour.

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