I had two doctors appointments this week, one with my actual gastric surgeon, and one with the surgeon that put the filter in my neck.
Appointment with Gastric Surgeon:
Monday I went for my follow-up for surgery, mainly to see how I’m doing, do another weigh-in, and take off the bandages. I’m glad the bandages were taken off cause the wounds were getting itchy. They still are itchy actually which is getting annoying.
Two of the wounds had slightly blistered, but no infection. The rest looked great, and one was almost completely invisible already.
My weigh-in, I lost another 12 pounds in 10 days since surgery. That has put me now at 14% of my total excess weight gone since August. Still a long ways to go, but that’s 14%! I will probably do updated pictures for myself this weekend since that will officially be the two-week mark.
Right now he still wants me to keep band-aids on the wounds, but I don’t need to for the shower now, which I had to before.
He also said he wanted me to start on pureed foods, so I started them on Monday. My first meal was grits, because it was fast and easy and I so wanted to taste food again. But my official big meal (all 2 oz worth) was a garlic chicken salad that tasted so amazing I can’t even begin to describe. Actually the recipe is really good and I can share if it anyone is interested. Plus it gives good protein.
I also made a bean + cheese + light sour cream mixture with a tiny bit of taco seasoning which was recommended by a bariatric blogger and it was divine as well. I’m big on mexican food so this was a savior. Not as much protein as the chicken salad, but still a small amount of protein, and you can always add unflavored protein to the mix. There’s a nice italian recipe I may try later this week, and I want to try a tuna one today for some added protein.
One thing I am having trouble with is protein shakes. I’m becoming easily turned off by them, even ones I liked only a few days ago. I don’t know if it is the protein powder I am using or what, but I’m having trouble getting the shakes down as palatable. I may try some fruity ones when I get to the grocery store hopefully later today.
TMI Section, you’ve been warned:
I started having some digestive problems on Sunday so I started taking Benefiber chewables at my doctors recommendation. Unfortunately I forgot that too much fiber makes me crazy bloated. PAINFULLY bloated. Like I have air pockets in my chest and stomach that feel like they are going to explode. This is a BAD thing when things in there have just been cut-up and sewn back together. I was in so much pain on Monday and Tuesday, and still some on Wednesday but not nearly as much. I stopped the fiber on Tuesday cause there’s no way I can handle that much fiber. Lesson learned. Plus work got mad at me for not doing as much work during that time, which I’m not even getting into here.
Appointment with Filter Surgeon:
This was such a pointless appointment. All these consult and follow-up appointments are. It’s another way to get another co-pay and insurance payment. But these days they are required. This appointment took all of 2 minutes where just explains how they are going to get the filter out, and that’s it. But I did get a chance to ask him how to tell if you get blood clots or not cause I don’t know the exact symptoms or whatever, so that at least made it somewhat useful.