New Blogger Alert and BYOC

Hello fellow bloggers! I found today that there's a new blogger in town. She goes by Kebs and you can check her out at From Fat to Fabulous: One Girl's WLS Journey. She's in the beginning stages of her journey and she had a pretty discouraging experience during her psych consultation, so she could really use some support!

Now, on to BYOC

BYOC – Bring Your Own Crazy – 5 little questions you can copy and paste to your own blog in an effort to get to know your fellow bloggers better and to give your blogging brain a break.

Enjoy!

1. What is your blog theme and how did you pick your blog name?
My blog theme is my weight loss journey involving the Lap Band (and anything else I may feel like talking about). I chose my blog name because I really like alliteration and I wanted to sound fun and appealing.

2. Repeat question: I’m going to name a person not knowing anything about this person in your life or even if they exist and you need to try to describe them in five words/phrases.

Female neighbor two homes/doors down to the left

Town gossip
Always needs my boyfriend to fix something for her (think she has an old lady crush on him)
Has an adorable puppy
Can't remember my name for the life of her
Not good to talk to when I'm running late for work.

3. Which do you hate more? Spiders or snakes. Elliptical or treadmill. Hannah Montana or Lindsay Lohan.

I'm going with spiders, only because I've encountered far more spiders than snakes in my life. If poisonous snakes were prominent in my area, then I'd probably say those, but they're not, so, spiders it is.

Elliptical, without a doubt. Joined a gym a month ago and the first time I did the elliptical I felt like I was going to die. Sure, I burned a lot of calories, but I found out that if I put a treadmill up on a pretty steep incline, I can burn calories at roughly the same rate. I'd rather do the treadmill.

Lindsay Lohan. She was good when she did The Parent Trap, hell, she was even ok for Mean Girls, but now she's just yucky.


4. Completely selfish question…I need a dress for Chicago…keep in mind I live in Podunk so the options of physically going into a vast array of stores is VERY limited. (thank God for the internet) When you need something fancy/a dress – what is your go to store and why?

That depends on the occasion and how much I'm looking to spend. My cousin got  married a few months ago, and in all honesty, I bought my the skirt I wore for it at the thrift store. I have a friends getting married on the beach in NC next year and I've already started looking for a dress for that (which is stupid because I have no idea what size I'll be) and I've looked everywhere from Walmart, Target, and Kohl's, to Fashion Bug, Lane Bryant, and Torrid. I also like Deb Shops. They have some nice things, but rarely have excellent sales (Hello?! Broke college student, here!)

5. Repeat question: How was your week in blog land and in real life?
Blog  land  is good. I'm amazingly up to 49 followers, which I'm having a hard time grasping. Thanks to everyone who reads! Also, our new friend Kebs found me, so that's exciting because we're the same age.

Real life was stressful as hell. Had issues with work, school, and the insurance company. Awesome! Luckily, things with work and school were taken care of. Still waiting to hear from my surgeon's administrative assistant about the crap with insurance. Got to spend some time with my grandma yesterday though, so that was pretty sweet.

That's it for now. Have a great weekend, all!

Back to the Grind

After spending my summer working and having surgery, I can't believe I start back to school on Monday. I think, in all my years of being a student, this is the first time I can honestly say I'm actually looking forward to going back to school. My schedule worked out perfectly with my work schedule (which last year was unthinkable). I bought a lunch box and an ice pack, some protein shakes from Costco (delicious) and a few protein bars to try out, since I'm going to be on campus 9-5 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have a good feeling about this semester.

On the band front, things are going ok. I'm down 2 lbs from the 248 I was last week at my follow up appt. I don't remember the exact weight from this morning, but it was 246.something, which I guess I'm happy with, especially since my band is empty. It sucks being hungry a lot of the time, but today I started on soft foods, so I'm allowed to have lunch meat, chicken, and cooked veggies now, which I'm quite excited about. There are a few recipes I'm excited to try as soon as I can eat real food. This week I'll probably make my healthy version of orange chicken. I've been craving Chinese food hardcore. Anyway, I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I'm obsessed with the Food Network. Like, I was watching it in the hospital after I woke up. Crazy? Perhaps. But it makes me happy. So, I saw Anne Burrell make this recipe for spinach and ricotta gnocci. The recipe only has 1/4 cup of flour in it, so it's mostly protein. The fat free ricotta cheese that my local grocery store carries has 45 calories and 8 proteins per 1/4 cup serving, so I'm excited to try it out. Another thing I found while browsing the internet is called cloud bread. Has anyone ever tried this? It almost seems too good to be true. But I'll definitely be trying it out as soon as I'm on regular foods again. I have 2 weeks of soft foods, then I'll be on regular.

That's about all I've got going on right now. Have a great day, all!

Firsts

Today I had my first follow up appointment at the surgeon's office. I didn't actually get to see my surgeon. In fact, I have no idea who the woman was who did my appointment, but she seemed to be happy with my progress thus far. I asked her if I could start taking Benefiber (because the scale is up to 248!) and she said yes, so hopefully that'll get things moving with the weight loss. Thanks everyone who commented on that last post. So, I go for my first fill on September 16th, which I'm kind of excited about, but kind of nervous about as well. I'm not sure why I'm nervous. I think maybe because my band is completely empty right now (oh, and I found out I have an 11 cc band, btw) so I don't know what the restriction will feel like. I don't really know  how it's supposed to feel or what to expect. But, I guess that's what this whole journey is all about, right? Getting outside of my comfort zone. Anyway, not much else going on, so I'm going to go ahead and do my first BYOC!


It’s Friday so that means here in Draz Land it’s time for BYOC – Bring Your Own Crazy!

We answer just a few questions to get to know each other better and to give our blog brains a break!

Copy to your own blog if you wish and ENJOY!

1. How much makeup do you wear daily, how long does it take you and are you loyal to certain brands?
Daily, I don't usually wear makeup. If I'm going out, I'll put on eye shadow (usually this pink sparkly stuff from Rimmel that my friend gave me), eye liner (whatever's cheap), mascara (also Rimmel, and given to me by another friend, but it's the BEST mascara ever), and lip gloss. So, I guess I subconsciously favor Rimmel products.

2. Repeat question: I’m going to pick a person not knowing your relationship with them (or even if there is one) and you try to describe this person in 5 words/short sentences.

Your oldest paternal aunt

Sweet
Loving
Pittsburgher turned Southern belle
Steelers Fan
Motherly

3. Tell me about your first real kiss and how old you were.

I was 12 and stupid. It was in a hallway after Sunday School (sorry, God!). The guy was a pretty big jerk, actually.

4. If I gave you $1000.00 and told you that you had to give it to a charity – which charity would you choose and why?
I have to agree with Ronnie on this one and say that I'd give to a charity to help fight hunger in the United States. I'm not going to get into politics or anything, because that's not what I'm here for, but I find it really sad how much our government seems to care about getting help to people in other countries, but not so much about the people in their own country.
5. Repeat question: Summarize your week in blog land and in real life.

I pretty much stayed out of blog land this week. I did some reading, but my mom was here all week, so I spent a lot of time with her.
Real life, Mom and I ran a lot of errands, I started getting ready for school to start, and took some time to relax before going back to school and work.



Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Did I mention I'm a Magician?

It's true. Sometimes I do disappearing acts...like the past week or so. Sorry for that. Lots going on. Mom came over Friday night and she's staying with me til Saturday. Since I'm feeling better, I've been doing a lot more, like Sunday, Ben and I went to the county fair, which was actually pretty boring. Normally we go to the county fair in the county that he's from, which is AMAZING, but this year we went to the one where we live now because it was more convenient. Anyway, at this fair, their petting zoo was so lame, and I'm an animal person, so I love seeing all the different animals, but they were way overloaded on sheep and goats. Boring. The games sucked. Like, even more than normal carnival games. There was a ridiculous number of "pop the balloon with a dart" games. We tend to stay away from those because when we first started dating, Ben accidentally spent 23 dollars to win me a monkey (he got swindled). We never go on any rides because I'm afraid I'm too fat and I'll break something, so that was out. And the only thing I consumed was a bottle of water. I have to say, there definitely would have been a lot more to do without this band.

Speaking of the band, I started my full liquids last week and the potty issues resolved...too well. Now I'm having trouble going :( What do you guys recommend? I've heard Miralax, my mom said prune juice, my grandma said Benefiber, and my dad says "don't take anything until you talk to your surgeon" (which is on Friday) what do you guys think? Like, seriously, I've had TWO bowel movements since last Thursday. This is not good. I never got to an even 20 lb weight loss on the scale. The lowest I saw was 244.7 (a mere .3 lbs away from 20!) and that was the morning I started full liquids. Now the scale's up to 248.something and I feel so sad :( I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but I'm only on liquids, so clearly, I can't be having enough calories to be gaining actual weight, right? I KNOW I don't have enough calories every day to have gained 4 pounds. This is ridiculous.

Also, another exciting thing happened this weekend--my first Costco trip post-op. Ben and mom took me. It was...interesting? I walked around and took samples and chewed them up and spit them out. I feel like I should have some shame about that, but really, I don't. Oh well. Actually, one of the guys passing out samples was a RNY post op. He had his surgery at the same hospital I had mine, so we talked for a good 10 minutes and he was really nice. Told me to come back and see him. Hopefully I can go back and see him after I've lost a good few more  pounds.

I guess that's about it for today. Sorry for taking such a long hiatus. I'll try not to do that again in the future, but, hey, life happens. Hope everyone has a great day!

One Week

One week post op and down to 245 pounds from 264.4. I am ecstatic. The first week was pretty rough. I started on my full liquids today, and I have to say, I've never been happier to eat pudding. Yum. My mom generously paid for my protien shakes, vitamins, and sf Torani syrup sampler from amazon. I'm so looking forward to this week. Comparatively, it will be delicious.

On Tuesday, my friends Megan and Eileen came over and they brought me these gorgeous flowers.

They had some lunch with Ben. He made grilled chicken salad. I had a cherry popsicle. Meh.

Yesterday I had a bit of a scare. It was around 8:00 and I noticed that part of my left leg was swelling. Justin and Anna (bro and sis-in-law) are both nurses, so I called Justin and asked him if he thought I should be worried about a blood clot. It wasn't red or warm to the touch, but it did hurt a bit, although not consistently. He said it most likely wasn't, but I got scared anyway and Ben and I went to the ER, where my dad met up with us. Justin came along later. They did an ultrasound on it and they said it was fine. I guess I'd rather be paranoid than dead, but I sort of feel silly about it. I'm relieved though. I've been walking like I should, so I was really upset when I saw the swelling.

Oh, speaking of ultrasound, Justin and Anna went for their first ultrasound today! I'm so excited about my very first niece or nephew. I just can't wait :)

Today, Ben went back to work. I feel  so bad that he spent all of his vacation time with me and we didn't even do anything. He's pretty swell though. After he left, I got a visit from my grandma and my cousin. It was  good to see them. Last time I saw them was a few weeks pre-op. They said they definitely noticed a difference in my appearance. So exciting! They brought me this cute basket with a few different nail polishes, body  wash, lotion, and some sugar free mint chocolate chip gum. We had a nice visit.

Oh, I have kind of a TMI/gross question for you guys, so if you don't want to read about it, stop reading now and have a great day.

It's normal to have liquid stool when you're on a liquid diet, right? I mean, no solid food in=no solid waste out, correct? Just checking, because my "safe discharge packet" from the hospital says that if you have diarrhea then it's probably from a bacteria acquired in the hospital and they can treat it. But, I don't really feel like it's diarrhea, it just seems to me that it's liquid  poo. Thanks in advance for your answers. Take care, all!

Sorry for the Suspense...

Honestly, I haven't felt up to doing much of anything the past couple days. So, here's a recap of my weekeend.

Thursday, Ben and I got to the hospital bright and early. I insisted we left the house at 7:30 for my 9:30 arrival time because traffic is generally a nightmare and they're filming the new Batman movie in the part of town where my hospital is. So, we get there around 8:30. Ben was hungry, so he got some sausage english  muffin type deal. We went upstairs to check in and I got my ID number and hospital bracelet. Then around 9:15 my parents and Ben's mom got there. They were all allowed to go back to pre-op with me, which was really nice. So, I was poked and prodded, peed in a cup, did all that jazz, and then at like, 11:30, it was time to go back to the OR. The last thing I remember was a clip on the iv pole. It sort of looked like a hair clip, but different. Then I went to sleep. I woke up with a machine beeping at me and people telling me to take deep breaths. That was annoying because I was trying to sleep and breathing was painful. But, I have a feeling I wasn't breathing at all, so I guess it was nice of them to remind me. The rest of Thursday's a blur. I just know that Justin and Anna came to see me in the hospital and the night time nurse and aide were far superior to the daylight workers. Oh, and daddy bought me flowers and Ben bought me a stuffed duck.

Friday morning I got up and started walking. Ben stayed with me in the hospital on a recliner. It just wasn't a very fun day. Walking with a catheter is no fun. Sitting with a catheter is no fun. Having a catheter is NO FUN. So, around 9, I went down for my upper GI and after that they finally took out the stupid catheter. Anyhow, after that, I didn't know what was going on. We were finally able to leave around 6:30. Got home and found that my best friend Sam and her family sent me super cute flowers <3.

Saturday, Ben's parents and brother came over to bring Rocky back. They brought flowers too :)   Rocky's been very good and hasn't walked on me or anything. I think he knows that I'm not well. Both Saturday and Sunday I threw up, but I'm pretty sure it was because I drank too fast. I'm not going to worry about it unless it keeps up. I don't have a fever or anything, so I think I'll be ok. Oh, also, I don't know if they took an official "before weight" at the office. If they did, it wasn't while I was concious. So, I'll just use 264.4 as my official start weight. That being said, I'm down to 255.2 already. That's normal, right? I mean, I'm on clear liquids, so I figure weight loss has to be faster in the beginning, but the reading material the hospital provided says that immediately post-op, I should lose 1-2 lbs/week.

Now, for the pictures!

Pre-Op

Mommy and Daddy (Ben's mom was taking pictures while daddy was taking video)

Me and Ben

Ugh. Post-Op

View from my hospital room. I was so mad that when I got up to my room my family was saying what a beautiful view it was and I couldn't get up to see it :(

My duck from Ben. I heart ducks.

Flowers from Sam and her family.

Flowers from Daddy

Flowers from Ben's family

Here's Rocky. He wanted to meet you all :)

Have a good day, all!

meh

I'm alive. Just got home. Getting something to drink, taking more of my drugs, and going to bed. You'll get a real update complete with pics tomorrow.

'Twas the Night Before Banding...

I can't believe surgery day is finally HERE!!! I'm not nervous yet. I still don't think it's fully sunk in that this is really happening. Today, I got all my stuff ready for when I come home-- got some homemade chicken stock in the freezer in 1 cup sized containers, jello is setting, and have 2 pitchers of Crystal Lite made. Bag is packed for the hospital, so I'm pretty much set to go. I had Ben do my measurements today and he took pictures for me, so, after 23 short years, here's the damage...

Unofficial Start Weight: 264.4 (this was done at 9:00 pm with a stomach that is not empty--I'll let you all know what the official weight is on their scale when I'm able to post next).
Pants Size: 22 (usually)
Shirt Size: Anywhere from 20-24 or 2x

Measurements...
Bust: 50"
Under Boobs: 43.5"
Waist: 57"
Spot on my torso where I wear my pants: 56"
Hips: 55"
Upper Arms: 17"
Thighs: 30"
Calves: 18"

And here are the pictures...

                                                               Oh, why, hello Pat Sajak

I apologize for the sheerness of my top. But, I figured it would be better to wear a cami than a beater because at least this keeps my back fat concealed. Didn't realize you could see my tattoo through it. So, my bad on that one.

Anyway, I guess that's it for tonight. Thank you all for your well wishes. Good night world. See you when I'm banded :)

Busy Days

I've had my surgery date for probably about two months, so why is it that it feels like it's crept up on me so fast? The past couple days I've had so much to do I feel like I'm running out of time. Ben's boss didn't bring his paycheck down to the store branch he works at, so, Saturday after I got off work, we had to drive 50 miles round trip to the main office to get his paycheck. We made a day of it though because Ben's parents live about 10 minutes from where we had to go, so we went up there and had dinner with them. We were supposed to take Rocky up there tomorrow because Ben's going to stay in the hospital with me and I didn't want to leave Rocky home alone, but Ben's mom suggested we just take him with us Saturday and leave him there so we don't have to make another trip. So, that's what we did. I felt so bad when we were driving away because Rocky was watching us the whole time. We adopted him from the Humane Society almost a year ago. He's about 7 years old and the man he was living with got too old/sick and couldn't care for him anymore. I don't want Rocky to think we dropped him off and aren't coming back to get him, just because I know he's been through that before. But, he's with Grannie Frannie, Grandpa John, and uncle/cousin/whatever Nick (their mini schnauzer), so he's in good company and well taken care of. Then, Sunday was my dad's birthday, so Ben, Justin (my brother), Anna (sis-in-law) and I took him out to lunch. After that, Ben and I spent some time with my mom. Then Monday was my pre-op physical and blood work, had a lunch/shopping date with my friend Mary, then I took Justin to the Pirate game  for his birthday. We lost, but we acquired Derrek Lee from Baltimore and he hit 2 home runs in his first game as a Pittsburgh Pirate, so that was pretty sweet. Then we went to the casino for a little bit. Didn't win big, but had an ok time. Today I went to work, went out with my friend Tyler for a bit, and now I'm doing laundry and trying to get everything in order so I don't have to worry about much tomorrow. Who knew there would be so much to do? Sigh. Sorry this post is basically a big rant-fest. Just a lot going on. And last night, Ben had a nightmare that made him wake up in a sweat. He claims not to remember what it was about, but I'm 90% sure it was about me and my surgery because he made me promise that I  won't die. I wish he wouldn't be so nervous and give me a chance to be nervous. I know it's just because he cares about me, but it's just weird that I have to be the one who's reassuring him.

Tomorrow I get to find out what time I need to be at the hospital. Pretty excited. I still can't believe I'm actually doing this. It's so surreal. I found out that I won't have to do a bowel cleanse, which I took tomorrow off for, so that's good news. I'm going to drive down to school and get my schedule set up, along with any other last minute preparations I need to do. Hope everyone has a great day!