More delays

Things aren't travelling too bad lately. The nurses from the hospital have been coming out once a day to re-dress the wound. As of Friday they are every second day. Pleased to say the wound is almost healed, but currently over healing. I have what they call 'over granulation'... basically the tissue inside doesn't recognise that its reached the top of the wound and keeps growing. It's only small, but hopefully it will go back down with the inodine dressings the nurses have started putting on. This is probably happening because I'm prone to keloidal scarring and have been since I was a kid, nothing major... will just leave a tiny lump of skin once healed if it doesn't go down which I could have cut off later down the track if I wanted too. Wound is likely to dry up in about 2 or so weeks. I'm on my 4th week of antibiotics and am looking at 6 weeks in total. Down to 250mg as of the most recent bottle, so I really hope everything gets out and buggers off before the wound closes altogether.

Was due for a fill last week, but the doctor delayed that by 2 weeks. She said she may give me a fill next week when I have my appointment with her.... soooo cross fingers all is well by then and she is happy enough to do so.

In other news, I have been having some odd pains about 20-30 minutes after eating around my belly button area... At first I thought it was constipation kind of pain, but I haven't been constipated at all... gets quite bad sometimes, not sure what it is.... Just hoping it's not problems with my bowels that has just decided to pop out around the same time as this has happened. My Mum has Crohn's disease and IBS, so it's quite possible that I may get it (or at least have the symptoms at some stage in my life) seeing as it's hereditary... My half brother has it, so it's unlikely that I do have it... but you never know.

I really need to start drinking more water. Pre-Op I was getting 2Lt a day... but I've slacked off back to the way I was before my pre-op diet. :\

I feel prettyyyyyyyy oh so prettyyyyyyyy

I feel prettyyyyyyyy and wittyyyyyyyyyy and.....happpyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy lol

Just having a feel good day today.

Thanking my blessings. Seems like my bottom-of-the-pit was the IV in hospital... Hoping that everything from now on will just be uphill instead of downhill.

There are now 2 people in the world who know how much I weigh. The one person following this blog (if she happened to read back in my history -waves- Hi Bec!) and my Mum.

I'm dreading the day I pause from losing. It has definitely slowed down, but that's because I'm back to eating normal foods. Hopefully it won't take too much to kick my body back into gear. I have some good methods of getting out of the plateau books - learnt from the many many years of dieting I've been on. The best one I can advise anyone is the 3 day protein kick which should do the trick. 6 small 'meals' a day consisting of only protein. Females are 100gm protein per meal and males are 200gm protein per meal. It sucks to only eat meat and eggs for 3 days, but you definitely lose weight in that short amount of time and then your body stops being a stubborn ass and lets you keep losing after you put yourself back on normal food. Thumbs up :)

Anyways... leaving it here... here's to getting better... and thanks for the well wishes Bec :) so nice of you!

Stupid hospital... stupid infection

I had my last IV antibiotics at 6pm on Sunday night and went off home. Back on oral tablets now, just hope they are finishing off the job that the IV AB's started.

I have had a nurse come see me at work every day since I left SCG (Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital) to change the wound dressing and generally just check up on how it's healing. So far, seems to be going OK.

The other day the nurse stuck a cotton bud in there to see how deep the wound was. In the process she popped a pocket of fluid which has been draining for the last couple of days... now I'm paranoid that there might be another one and if it heals up without it draining then that could be a bad thing??? They don't seem worried about it at all, but I am!!!!!!

Anyway... I'm due for a fill next Tuesday, so I'm looking forward to that :) Can't wait to feel more restriced. Makes life so much easier when your brain just tells you to stop when you need to stop...

Not liking the amount of time off I've had to have so far.. but should be over soon enough I hope.

finally some good news

I went into the ED last night and after a 4 hour wait they put me into a temporary bed where i stayed the night. The hospital staff hooked me up with antibiotics through a drip and said i'd have surgery early the next morning.

Got moved to the short stay unit at about 5.30am and was expected to go in about 9am or 10am. The surgeon came through to see me and it turns out the IV antibiotics seem to be doing what the tablets weren't and the infection is looking a bit better.

They came to the conclusion that they could probably save the port... Thus avoiding surgery Yay! They gave me a local and opened the wound the whole way up. Put somethig in to avoid it closing and chucked a dressing on it. They want me to stay here for a couple of days on the IV so i'm looking at leaving some time on Sunday. :)

have to go back to hospital tonight. ED. :(

infectiony stuff

Back to the hospital this afternoon.

Redness has moved up about 5-6cm and the lump seems to be joining it.

Called and was told to come in because they may need to drain it surgically.

When does it get better?

Scared...

I just received this message from someone on LiveJournal, as I posted about whats happening on their wls community.

Hi there
just read your post in the WLS forum and believe me I can comiserate. I was originally banded June 08. About a month later I developed an infection at the site of my port. My GP prescribed anitbiotics. This past July I noticed that I could SEE the edge of my port. ooo bad news. I went to my surgeon and they gave me their prognosis. The band had to come out. After a year (and 110 lbs) I thought I might be ok. I was wrong. Emotionally I was a wreck and physically I followed suit. I was rebanded Sept this year and have just had my first fill. They relocated the port.

So what's my advise to you? Make sure that you get a broad antibiotic. I was on Keflex (sp?) but a nurse friend advised I might be better off on a broader one. Also the fact that you have a gapping hole leads me to believe they're gonna remove it. Seems that infection will travel along the tubing so that they have to remove it. But ymmv

Cheers and best of luck with it
Brent

...I don't know what to think... If I had to have the band taken out I would be absolutely shattered... heartbroken... broke for no reason... my god.. just thinking about has me in tears :( I would have no way to pay for this again.. I've just forked out 15,000 dollars for fucks sake.. WHAT THE FUCK. WHY IS ALL THIS SHIT HAPPENING TO ME????

I already just want to crawl into a hole and fucking die...

In all seriousness

"It's serious".

When a doctor says it's serious, then it's pretty serious... right?

"We want to try and avoid the infection either moving to the band or to the port".

Right...

"I'll take a swap and send it away for testing so we can find out what kind of bug got in there"

To which he pushed the fuckin thing in so far it hurt like a bitch. At the same time he opened the hole more so it could drain better.

Drain better it did.

By the time I got home, I had to change it.

By the time I left for work this morning I had used 5 dressings and had to go buy another 6 from the chemist (at $14.95 for a 5 pack) to get me through the day.

I also got "the strongest prescription antibiotics" they had until they can figure out what exactly it is causing the infection.

The tablets are like fricken horse pills... but they are going down, so that's ok.

I'm in a hell of a lot more pain today... pressure pain mostly... I can feel the lump has gone upwards though, about half way to the port, so I hope that's not the actual infection moving up.. :(

If I start running a fever or get really bad pain or start bleeding, I need to call them straight away.

Wicked... and the bad luck continues... *roll eyes*

um...help

Well.. it's now about 7 hours since I last updated and my infected incision has opened up about half a centimetre. and there is a big ass hole... I can see the whole 'incision line' because it's yellow, so I'm guessing the skin is VERY thin and its infected and yukky in there so it would continue to open up if I didn't see someone about it.

I called my surgeons rooms and they gave me the surgeons mobile number because she's not in and shes going to meet me there in about half an hour to see whats going on...

It's been oozing some major yukky stuff today.... GROSS!!!!

weeping on the inside...

So yeah... I *KNEW* from the get go that something wasn't quite right with one of my incisions... After the first day or so I noticed a big lump under it... both my surgeon and a different doctor said its normal, especially on that one as that's the biggest hole in the muscle as the band goes through there....

But still.... it feels like the size of a golf ball... and you're telling me that's normal?

Woke up this morning.. it's red as shit and weeping hardcore... I think I used about 20 tissues... It's only weeping in one little section, but it's just constant... it's not really pus either, it's more a yellowy coloured clear kind of discharge... (isn't discharge just the worst word in the dictionary? Sounds so rank... discharge lol)

So I've booked an appointment with a doctor this afternoon at my local to get some antibiotics... looks like I'm going to have to try and get down a tablet somehow... crushing it is going to be severely disgusting, but I probably don't have any other choice... unless they can give me capsules with some form of powder that I can put with something. *sigh*

No wonder it's been sore for weeks... no wonder I still can't bend over without it hurting or sleep on my side without it hurting... I just KNEW it. bah humbug...

hip hip hooray

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee =D

hell weird pains....

I'm having some hell weird back pains today. I feel like the muscles in my back on the left side are cramped. No amount of stretching is making it feel better and painkillers aren't relaxing the muscles either...

Besides that, I'm feeling pretty darn good. I've had a dramatic improvement in what I can get down and am actually introducing a few things that are a bit more bulky in terms of food - obviously still taking it very safe, but I've already progressed from really mushy soggy foods to more wholesome but saucy foods or really dry crisp bread type foods (e.g. a Salada which goes mushy in your mouth anyway - hell yeah baby Vegemite finally comes back into the equation) I tell you what... I feel better now that I can actually chew properly.

I'm not even going to try with meat and all that until I have been approved to do so.. but things like angel hair pasta al dente is awesome as well as rice that isn't overcooked (with some type of sauce) -- I guess the best way to describe that is like... if I can chew it and it separates nicely in my mouth then it's OK. If it's in my mouth and when chewed it clumps together, then it's not worth trying to swallow because it's going to be a problem. So far, using that rule has worked for me. And so far, fizzy drink has also been fine (I gave a swig of coke zero a go and it was fine). Try everything once they say... find your limitations... if you have a problem with something, try again in a few months time.

In 2 and a half weeks I will be approved to eat solids, But at the same time I have an appointment for a fill... so the likeliness of me starting solids when I'm approved to do so is slim. I wouldn't want to risk it straight away for starters! I would rather get used to the level of restriction I have after the fill and then slowly build up to the solids and see what I'm comfortable with.

It's my Birthday next Monday and my Boyfriend is taking me on a river cruise with a 5 course meal and wine tasting - should be awesome. My 5 course meal won't be a 5 course meal, but that's OK. It's a lovely thought and should be lots of fun. :)

First Post-Op Apt!

Had my first post-op appointment today and I'm happy to report I have lost 11.3kg :)

I've officially started mushies as of the weekend just gone, so it should be a fairly easy transition from now on.

I have my first fill in 3 weeks with Dr Taylor, so hopefully by then I will have some more good news! :)

Feeling about 85% normal. Turning point was Saturday. Wasn't able to do much up until then, but I managed to get a fair bit done Saturday and Sunday with barely any hassles.

Wondering whether I should name my band...lots of people seem to.. but I think it's a tad lame haha... but then again, I can be super lame at times... so maybe it could work out for me :P