Sunday, January 23, 2011

So Then I Ripped Off My Stitches...

I started off the year pretty slow and I have only blogged once this year so far. Terrible! But in my defense I've had a lot going on. I've had a lot of personal and professional challenges going on at the exact same time and that always seems to happen. Yes, like two things at the same time. Life has a way of doing that and as much as I said that I was going to rebuke all the bad things from 2010 they've somehow tried to sneak their way into 2011.


So once again, I refuse to have the same year that I had last year. I have a vision board and a vision this year and a plan! By the way, my vision board was featured on Rosie Molinary's blog. She's the author of Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self Acceptance. I haven't read the book yet but have been meaning to get it. I wonder if there's a Kindle version.

As many of you know from my previous blogs I had surgery on December 27. That went pretty well and I went in for my two week check up on January 10. I thought the doctor was going to do a thorough check up, if you get what I mean. In other words, I thought he was going to check where he did the surgery. As it turns out, all he wanted was a urine sample and to talk to me for five minutes. The more detailed check-up was in another month.

I took the opportunity to ask him, "What in the world did y'all do to me? My legs were so sore and I had these two weird welts on the inside of my legs with blood on them, like you all put tape there and it ripped my skin."

He looked at me perplexed and said, "Those were your stitches. It was glue!"

"What?!" I asked even more confused, "Oh...." 

He thought that he had explained that part but I swear I don't remember ever hearing him say that they were making any incisions on the inside of my thighs and that there would be glue stitches there. And I in turn didn't tell him that I promptly ripped that "glue" off either the day of surgery or the very next day. I mean, the nurse didn't even tell me to be careful or that when I showered I would have glue/stitches there. Great! I may have just detached what was connected on the other side of those incisions. Hopefully not...because I can't afford to have surgery all over again to fix it.

Then I got curious and I decided to You Tube the surgery I had and I almost wish I hadn't. OR I should have watched the animated version instead of the live person one. I just kept thinking, "Ugh! They did that to me!" Not a good idea. So my advice here is, never You Tube your surgery, before or after you have it. Especially not before because then you may not even have the surgery, any surgery, I'm not just talking about mine.

That was a great way to start off the year! Ripped stitches, less writing, and less exercise. Oh yeah, I forgot that part. I actually went back to exercising a week after the surgery like the doctor said I could, but I overdid it a bit, so I had to take the second week off. When I told the doctor about the pulling that I felt after I went to the gym he said I should take it easier and listen to my body.  I went back on the third week a couple of times but I feel like it was minimal compared to what I had been doing before the surgery.

Tomorrow I hit the four week mark so I can go back to running if I wanted to. However I probably can't because I'm going to have to build myself back up to it. I'll probably do the 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds (or more) of walking alternating back and forth. I'm actually looking forward to getting back on track.

I also took a big step and went to see a dietician at the True Results clinic. One thing that always surprised me when I got the lap band a few years ago was that they never scheduled an appointment with a dietician. I thought that was really weird and when I asked to speak to someone they had me speak to their patient liaison that I'm sorry to say doesn't seem to have any real training or licensing. When she told me that she never used weights to work out because she didn't want to "bulk up" it was hard for me to take anything she said seriously.

This time I met with a real dietician and we had a good little visit. I didn't think she was the best dietician visit I have ever had, but it was okay. She gave me some specific advice for a lap band patient and I am going to work on following all of her suggestions. In a nutshell I'm getting a kid's size plate that has the different sections for the different food groups. I have to eat the most protein and I have to eat it first. Then I eat my vegetables and my carbs last. I am cutting out vodka and cranberry juice first and I'm going to try to drink more wine. She said if I must drink I should drink wine so I'm going to try that. If I just make those small changes to my diet, there was a lot more detail of course, she said I will definitely see a difference in my weight loss.

Today I'm about to get a much needed massage. I had a really bad pain in my upper back early in the week and it isn't as bad any more, but I feel like I should address it any way before it comes back. I think it may be my lap top too. I need to get one of those rolling suitcases so I won't have to carry it. I'm already too short and too top heavy. I don't need that added weight.

Other than that I've had sick children for the past few days. My daughter was sick on Thursday evening and my son has been sick since he got back from school on Friday. He's still congested but he's been running fever at night. I need to keep on top of it today so he won't run fever tonight. The challenges of motherhood!

The first month of the year is over and we are really on our way into 2011. Let's see what this week will bring! I have my back-up plan ready.

1 comment:

sillyolme said...

I think I would be a little frightened to see the surgery I had on my ear on a youtube video. When I was 3 and then again when I was 5, they cut my ear off pretty much, and pinned it to my nose to correct a hole in my ear drum. Just thinking about that makes me shiver, so I dont think I would actually want to see it!

What did you have done??