Finally Turning a Corner

As of yesterday morning, I had not been eating much at all this past week.  I was getting in maybe 8 oz. of "food" per day.  It wasn't good.  I was not in a good place.  I was so nauseous and could not stomach anything but water or G2 (shocked that I found a G2 I can actually stomach).  I was starting to get weak, dizzy, and very fatigued.

I had an appointment with my Primary Doc on Friday as a follow-up to the surgery, so I drove myself to that.  Once I got there, I started feeling worse and worse.  It was pretty bad.  I thought I was going to pass out in the waiting room.  When I got in the exam room, I lost it... emotionally.  I knew I was NOT in a good place with this new lifestyle.

Enter my Primary Doc (she's fabulous!)... she had no idea I had just had gastric bypass surgery.  Seriously??  The surgeon said he was going to call her and let her know what was going on.  Not only did she not know, but she didn't have any of my records from the surgeon's office to reference for this particular visit.  Let's just say neither of us were very pleased with this development.

So throughout this appointment, we determined that the symptoms I had were probably happening because I had not been taking my anti-depressant since I came home from the hospital.  I have been on an anti-depressant for a couple of years now and I'm not ashamed of it.  I'm sure most of you reading this are either on one or have been on one at some time in your life.  Unfortunately, obesity can cause major depression and I had that compounded with some other personal issues.  But the fact that I had stopped taking it cold turkey and for a little over a week, I had basically hit the wall.  She told me the symptoms were exactly spot on with the withdrawals from this drug.  So I bought a pill crusher and started taking the anti-depressant again.  She also prescribed some nausea patches and good ol' zofran.  Zofran is a great anti-nausea med to take for immediate nausea.  Unfortunately, I was having chronic nausea and just could not eat anything, so the patches seem to be helping with that.

My family was starting to worry and my sister and nephew came to town yesterday and swore she was going to force food down my throat before she left.  She was worried I was going to pass out at home alone.  In fact, my nephew (6 yrs old) said "Khaki, you need to eat, because according to my questioning, you could pass out at home alone!!"  Haha, sometimes you need to hear the honesty from your favorite little people, even if they heard it from their parents. :)

We went to Wal-Mart and got some goodies for some different recipes I've read about in a book and came home and sister started cooking.  She made homemade veggie soup (minus the ground beef) and homemade mashed taters.  This did me a world of good.  I was able to eat servings of both before she left.  Also, I found a protein shake I can handle.  It does not exactly meet the nutritional criteria (a little more sugar than recommended), but I can get it down and I'm getting protein from it.  Close is better than no protein at all.

I woke up this morning feeling refreshed and renewed and feel like I have finally turned the corner!  Yay!

I have not started back work yet - I have a 2-week post-op follow up with my surgeon's PA this week and will get back in the swing of things, whether I work from home or go back into the office.  I'm kinda wanting to work from home, mainly so I can keep up with the crazy schedule of eating, but I don't mind going into the office because I miss all of my friends!

I'm going to get out today and take a few walks... maybe longer than usual.  We'll see.  I'm just glad I'm feeling better!!

Shucks, I may even take down my Christmas decorations today!  Although I do kind of enjoy looking at them, so I could leave them up a little longer. :)

Kell