35yrs, 6 Children, Highest Weight 266lbs Excited About Surgery on 5th July 2016! - New Zealand, NZ

Hi everyone, I love this website as I prepare for my gastric sleeve in just over 2 weeks. I am on day 6 of my pre-op liquid diet and I am still excited and still going. I am allowed to have any 1 of the Optifast range of foods/shakes 3x per day and 1 small fruit and 2C of veges per day. Plus I am allowed atleast 2Litres of liquids including water, broth or diet drinks. Luckily I love to cook so I have tons of different ways of changing up my meals. My sister inspired me to have gastric sleeve after she got it last year. Her surgery weight was 222lbs and now she is 143lbs and living life to the fullest! I can't borrow her clothes anymore so I thought, why don't I just join her? lol I am paying for it myself and my sister will help me and we don't have compulsory medical insurance in NZ as we have a public health system. It is free under the public health system but you have to be severely obese and with very serious health issues which I do not have. Otherwise, I am very very excited. It's very hard to be restricted on the liquid diet but after much research and reading on the different websites, I have realised it is really for my own good. I have a wonderful husband who I want to get the surgery, but he is going to try his best to support me by losing weight himself. Not long to go! Good luck to all of you and thank you to all the contributors to this site, it has helped me alot!

So last night I went to bed thinking about all of the yummy foods there are. Meat pies, desserts and my favourite pork roast! I did cheat on day 3 but I was silly to have the food ready at my meal time. I have to make sure I drink my shake before my cooking is ready! I also went back and read some reviews and did some research on how important this pre-op diet is and decided I wanted to exercise some discipline and make sure my liver was ready! So the last 4 days have been fine, I eat every 3 hours, 8am shake, 11am shake, 2pm fruit or soup broth, 5pm shake. It works for me since I'm at home and water in between. I get the mild headache in the morning which goes away when I eat breakfast. I go to the gym still, I walk for 20mins and bike for 10mins and then do a few weights for my worst areas like my thighs and upper arms. Not too much because I don't have much energy on this low calorie diet. I lost 11lbs in one week on this diet. Pretty awesome and a good reward for the sacrifice!

Honestly, the pre-op diet hasn't been too bad. Mixing my shakes with ice, has been a heaven send. I only bought the vanilla flavour and then got a bunch of different flavoured essences/extracts. My favourite flavour is strawberry with a few added frozen berries and then blended. Banana extract is my other favourite. I also have peppermint when i have those days where I feel like a bit of a cleanse. I have made it through though, but I really need to work on drinking more water because, it's not always easy to remember. to combat this, I am going to buy a case of water bottles and leave them next to the front door so I never forget when Im doing my errands! I also have to pack for surgery and I have a fair idea of what I am going to take but I still have to pre-pack kids lunches, do all of our washing so that my family have everything they need while I am in hospital for 2 days. At the moment, Im thinking, lipbalm, pads, pillow, slippers, some of my very baggy clothes, an extension cord and charger to charge my phone, a book and some breath mints. I have also been on all of the sites to try and decide on the best way to take this journey. I will probably be focusing on a low carb diet as well as not too much cardio and lots of weight training. Im not 100% sure but I will see how I go! Otherwise, my current weight is probably 114kgs. I started this journey at 120kgs so a 6 kilo loss in three weeks is what the surgeon asked of me and Im happy I achieved it! Yay me! Im super duper excited!

So Im home now. I arrived at the hospital on Tuesday 5th July at 6.30am and I had my pre-op obs done..just the usual, blood pressure, pulse etc. My surgeon came to check on me and then the anaesthetist gave me some meds and had a chat with me about allergies. My surgeon is very straightforward, not really caring as such but the anaesthetist was great and very reassuring. I don't think they really worried about me because I don't have any health problems so I think some were wondering why I was having the surgery??? lol. All of the nurses and staff were wonderful and made me feel just great. Afterwards, i weighed in at 112.4 with my clothes on and I got dressed and made my way to a warming bed to get my blood circulating and then I walked over to the theatre were I don't really remember much other then confirming my details. I was woken up at around 1230pm by a nurse and for a few hours, my recollection is a little blurry. I just remember at different times, my back was really sore and my sternum as well as asking people to rub my back but nobody did lol. I was given different medications but I was still out of it at that stage. to be honest, I felt miserable. Infact, my hubby came to visit me at around 1pm and the first thing I told him at the point was not to have the surgery. haha...I had another round of visitors around 2pm and I was still miserable. Thank Goodness my hubby rubbed my back, it just made me feel so much better. But a heat pack did the job. At around 6pm the nurse came and told me to get up and go for a walk. As I sat up, I started to cry....and cry....and cry...and cry. I think I just needed to get it all out. My walk was really good, it actually made me feel so much better. When I got back to the room, my back didn't hurt as much. I thought in my head that gas pains are in my tummy so I didn't associate my shoulder pain with the gas instead I just thought it was the way I was lying down. After repeatedly telling the surgeon my shoulder hurt, he never said it was the gas pain! So when I realised it was gas pain, I decided to walk again and again in between naps. and it surely did help. The next morning I woke up feeling 80%, what a change and a realisation that I was doing fine. By the end of day 2, I was pretty much 95% fine in terms of pain and I was enjoying all of my little naps, going for walks in between and doing my breathing exercises. I was discharged this morning, I am home now. I have already had two naps since I have come home and I am doing well with my liquids. I am taking great lakes collagen and just putting it in my warm water as well as protein shakes. I ate this morning at the hospital, I just had a teaspoon of yoghurt then i wanted to go to bed. I am a little anxious about over eating so for lunch, I didn't feel full having one teaspoon but I just decided that it was enough. I pre-froze some of my favourite dinners after I pureed them but when i went to eat them, it just didn't taste as good. I figured, I would rather eat a proper piece of meat and chew it right down and swallow and see how that goes. I am allowed to eat a teaspoon of meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I need to drink two protein shakes and 1 litre of water a day. I am finding the water going down pretty good, although I can feel it, it is not painful. So that was my last three days including my surgery and post-op. I am glad I am home and can have a full nights sleep without a nurse asking me my name and checking my obs. lol

I am drinking 1 litre of water plus 400mls of protein shakes and one cup of peppermint tea a day. I am also eating meat, just a teaspoon and chewing it to the point that it is pretty much pureed. Im feeling great, I walked 20mins today and 15 minutes yesterday. The only thing that is hard, is I feel like my housework is getting away with me and Im getting short with my family because they are not really in tune with cleaning. I know I have to let it slide sometimes but it's so hard for me to relax if I see mess. It is well ingrained in me since I was a young girl. My hubby keeps telling me to relax and lie down but I just keep saying, i can't relax and think about waking up to a mess! Anyways, rant over...All is going well. I am trying to get down a litre of water and then I have one more protein shake to drink before the night ends. I did speak to my surgeon today, I told him that I was worried that my sleeve may not be small enough because I seem to have no real problems drinking all of my fluids but I have read many people complaining about getting their fluids down. He said, that my sleeve is the right size and that all the results are variable, some have problems and some don't. That was good to hear and that I should have lost 10-16kg before my 6 week visit. That would be great!