NAKED & RADICALLY HONEST…

I am home now and doing a lot better. I got SO SO sick on Monday, like violently ill. I went to my surgeon’s office, they gave me meds and sent me home. I didn’t make it an hour and knew I had to go to the ER. So I went there and they gave me meds and sent me home. I was home for maybe an hour and knew I had to go back. So I went back to the ER and they admitted me, saying it was probably just the flu but they would keep me anyway. So then I got more and more and more sick. Tuesday morning they did a scope (horrible, hell on earth I tell you) to look down my stomach, then they did surgery to find and fix the problem. Turns out my intestines were herniated and twisted up behind my stomach. NO WONDER I was so sick!!!  ARGH. So they did surgery right away and I got home last night then. Pray to God this is IT, no more complications from this gastric bypass or I am surely going to regret doing it.

It’s been a tough week. Monday I think was a pretty good day and since then things have gone downhill. I caught some nasty gunk going around and have been dealing with that and unable to keep down medicine. So I have like a sinus cold and can’t seem to keep down medicine for it. Then I tried to rinse out my sinuses with saline water (as I was taught when I was surgery on my sinuses a couple years ago) and for some reason it didn’t work. Water went into my ears, plugging one completely and pain was severe. I didn’t sleep one night at all and was quite miserable the next day as well, THEN I started puking up anything I ate or drank again, AND ended up with two kids down with the stomach flu this week…….. OH LORD WHEN DOES IT END?

Today is Saturday and I have finally figured out that if I can bear the pain and discomfort of getting down and KEEPING DOWN some food I feel so much better afterward - with some food in my stomach as opposed to without. So, I have been trying to eat some and trying like crazy to fight every urge to puke and just get past the pain of digestion. It seems to really pay off though, I am getting some energy back and my moral is getting better. So let’s just say eating isn’t fun but having food in your body is a good thing.

I seem to be having some womanly issues as well… I started BCP a couple weeks before surgery and have now had “menses” 3 times, with the 3rd (the entire past week +) being really icky and concerning me about low iron, which can be a problem anyway with WLS. I did get a supplement from my doctor for that but, I have had a hard time swallowing it so far.

I read today that women on BCP’s after WLS end up with the pill having only a 72% effectiveness because of malabsorbtion… wow!!!!!  Who knew?? So, in other words, I may be having these womanly issues because I can’t absorb the medicine in the pill (one of the teeny tiny pills I have managed to get down everyday). ARGH ARGH ARGH.

I must add that I am STILL GLAD I DID THIS — I am complaining a lot I know - Anyone reading this considering WLS just needs to know that it is NOT easy, it is not even remotely easy. It is, in fact, the most difficult thing I have ever done, more difficult than I ever imagined it would be. I think going into this with your eyes wide open is the best option for having success afterward. So, Hopefully this will help someone.

The recovery is long and the last 3-1/2 weeks have been pretty much hell, but, I know it will be better and better and I know that I am going to be reaping the benefits of weight loss and feeling better very soon. My clothes are all getting really baggy on me already (lost 30+ pounds so far).

Much love!
Tarra

So I have had trouble getting anything down - including water - because it hurts. If you have ever had hiatal hernia or severe acid reflux, stricture in your esophogus, pill stuck in your throat etc….. you may be able to relate. It hurts in your chest, sometimes really bad. Then you start to feel urpie/burpie and spitty, and eventually it will just go down or you might puke. Well, that’s where I am. I either have to feel the pain for a couple hours or just puke. So much fun I tell ya.

Anyway so I get these spells of nausea and dizzyness. It’s all just part of the adjustment period I know. I went to my surgeon the other day and had an esophogram (that’s where they give you poison and watch it go down on a kind of ultrasound sort of thingy). Turns out I have stricture at the stomach opening. That means it’s like a ring of tissue that is too tight and not allowing things to go into my stomach very well. They can go in an “dilate” it but he said we have to wait till it’s healed up more so it doesn’t get torn. And, hopefully, it will just heal up and it won’t be a problem.

Well fast forward to the ankle. I was loading up Charleigh (my 2 yr old) and Treytan (my 4 yr old) into the mini van to go get the rest of the kids from school. I tripped, not sure if I kind of passed out or what, but I found myself sitting in the driveway in dire pain. I heard a crack and I was positive that I broke my ankle. Broke the other one when I was 18 so I know what it feels like. I managed to hobble to the driver’s seat and met up with Matt who took me to the walk-in clinic. They x-rayed and said looks like a bad sprain, stay off it, ice it, and see if you can’t borrow a walker or a cain from someone. They also offered me the air-boot, to which I declined. It will be a cold day in hell before you see me hobbling around in an air boot!!!! I didn’t get a walker or a cain either BTW. Just stubborn I guess.

So the next day it was swelled up and hurting worse and of course I can’t take anything for it except tylenol. Well that evening they called and said that they had the x-ray read by a radiologist and it’s actually broken. They also see a bone spur in there. Isn’t that just lovely??? So, I don’t know what I will do now. I spose I really should go get the air boot. I know that for bone spurs they tend to operate and take them out and, I don’t want anymore surgery. I am done with surgery. I am pretty much scared to death to ever have any kind of surgery again.

Speaking of surgery, I have the crooked neck and a bulged disk in both my upper and lower back and was going to the chiropractor for that in hopes of never having to have back surgery right? Well, come to find out that I have already met the annual maximum my ins. will pay for chiropractic care so now I am done or I have to pay out of pocket. It hasn’t been a great week!!! I can’t pay out of pocket. I have to get my oldest kid into braces (on her teeth) and that will take up all of my flex comp and then some. I am already putting off a new crown on my own tooth till 2009, if possible. I guess if the tooth breaks then I will have to do it but if it can wait I have to first get Madi in braces. Next year it will be Tristan in braces. And, I just can’t see the out of pocket expenses as a possibility for myself so I guess I may have to just go to a regular doctor for my back and they will want to do surgery and……….. I don’t want surgery dag nabbit.

PHOOEY!!!!!!!!!

In other news we were going to go dress shopping today for the bridesmaids in Matt’s brother’s wedding (Madi is a bridesmaid and Charleigh a flower girl, Micki will need a pretty dress as well for her job at the wedding). Well my mom has been sick all week, Madi is with her finishing the school year ya know, and then last night Micki started up with the flu. So Madi isn’t coming over and we’re going to miss out on dress shopping today. It’s always something!! Always someone sick and puking and whatever else in my house it seems.

Well I am going back to listing all kinds of stuff on eBay. My eBay rummage sale.

I hope you are all well and happy!!

Much love
Tarra

First and foremost, this is not an April Fool’s joke, watch American Idol tonight and find out for yourselves just how luscious and amazing David Cook is. Can we say YUMMY and mean it more to anything else on the face of the earth? (Nope, not I). Christopher Walkin would say, for the first time in all of history, that he no longer has to have “more cowbell” because David Cook is perfection… absolute perfection. (Which reminds me… Christopher Walkin is hosting SNL this weekend and YAAAAAAAAAAAY maybe everyone can find out for themselves what the cowbell thing is all about too! Watch & learn how to be babies in gold plated diapers with just the right amount of cowbell!!)

OK so I take it back. I would like to see David Cook doing the cowbell skit with a short shirt on. I know he wouldn’t have the cute jiggly tummy like Will Farrell had which was great, but he would mesmerize us all as he danced around with the cowbell, singing, and showing off his midrif. MMMMMMMMMmmmmmm good.

SOMEBODY SMACK ME!

They say that after surgery like I just had your hormones can go a little haywire. And while I will stand by my word that David Cook is perfect and wonderful, I *might* be drooling just a tad bit much over the whole deal. Don’t ask me to repeat that because you will never hear it again.

So recovery has been hell. I am just being honest. If anyone would have told me that I would be THIS miserable I can’t say that I would have wanted it near so bad. Ask me again in a month or so, and I am absolutely certain I will be happy with my decision and enjoying the successes of having the bigger penis (AH-HEM) I MEANT TO SAY losing weight…. GOSH DARNIT I am just nasty today. Although when I talk about it I know sometimes I can be cryptic and sound like I am talking about my “sex change” operation or something.

No folks, for those who are behind in the Tarra Soap Opera, I had weight loss surgery 2 weeks ago. Not just any WLS, I was planning to have the minimally invasive lap-band but decided to go with the more invasive but “gold standard of WLS”, gastric bypass. 2 weeks later I have lost almost 30 pounds already and let me tell ya… Anyone who says that surgery is an “easy way out” deserves to be taken out behind the wood shed and have their asses kicked from here to mars. This is NOT easy and in fact it is probably the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. HOLY COWS there is nothing easy about this. (if you want to read about the hospital part of it you can read lots of horrible gory details in previous blog)

Continuing on from there… the last 2 weeks have been fair to partly cloudy. Why? Severe neck pain and inability to sleep because of it landed me in the chiropractor’s office, after many years of not going there (we’re talking like 15 or so) only to find out that I am all screwed up. (Yeah I know you already knew that right?) I knew my neck was “too straight” - the result of a car accident I was in when I was 15 when riding in the back seat of a car that did a nose dive, instantly introducing my head to the rear-view mirror and windshield — but little did I know that since my last MRI my neck has gone from “too straight” to actually curved the wrong direction (ouch that kind of explains why everytime they try to stick a tube in my throat I end up feeling like they tried to twist my head off!). THEN I have a bulged disk in between my shoulders, hurts like hell thanks, and the cherry on top is that pain I have had since 1993 when I injured my back at work (another previous blog about workers’ comp aka WSI aka the devil himself) has actually become deterioration in my lower back, another bulged disk, when WSI had been telling me it was “just sacriliaccccccccccccc pain”…. That’s a whole nother blog in itself because chances are that what WSI had me doing for my back all those years probably made it worse, not better, which I could FEEL but no one would ever believe me… [insert cursing of various sizes shapes & colors]

So I get to enjoy sipping water and broth, puking a little here and a little there OH PRETTY! after anything that decides to won’t go through the stomach, with neck and back pain and go to therapy 3 times a week in an attempt to NOT have surgery on my back (God help me if I ever have to go under the knife again someone will have to just put me out of my misery because surgery + me is not looking real good, ever, ever again).

Did I mention that I can never take advil again? The only OTC med I can take for pain now is tylenol? I don’t even know why they make that crap, it doesn’t work.

Well I guess this was my really long winded way of saying HAPPY DAY, even though I didn’t put any April Fools tricks in here anywhere. I did play a good one on Matt though. First time in all these years that I have ever gotten him good like this! I will save that for the next entry because I have to go and sip some broth here quack-like. I mean, QUICK-LIKE.

God bless the USA & David Cook… Peace out homeys!
*snort giggle snort*