First, Dr. Joya in Puerto Vallarta was definitely great - great surgeon - I only met him twice - once before surgery, and once after. His team, though, were just as wonderful and I saw them often - every single day, there were three doctors from the team that were in my room at least once checking on me, and nurses every couple hours putting pain meds in my iv and checking me out, etc. He has a psychologist on his team - she visited me the day of my surgery to make sure I was in the right frame of mind and well-researched; of course, she realized that I was well-researched.
She also came in the day after my surgery to check on me and chit chat for a few.
One of the most impressive things – after I got out of the hospital on Thursday, one of the doctors on the team said he’d check in on me. I thought he meant he’d phone the hotel. On Friday morning and Saturday morning before I flew out, that doctor came to the hotel and talked personally to me to make sure I was okay. Can’t find THAT type of “house call” in the US, huh?
The hospital facilities were nice. I had a private room, it had a comfy recliner and a loveseat in there. TV was boring – almost all in Spanish. It was an interesting experience. The first night was incredibly uncomfortable (my surgery wasn’t til about 5 p.m., so I arrived back in the room about 8 ). Not huge pain – just very uncomfortable with the gas, so I couldn’t rest – it was right up under my ribs.
After that, I was fine – got let loose Thursday afternoon, and felt slightly nauseous that evening when trying warm broth for the first time, but it passed quickly and I let it cool the next morning, which helped a lot.
At present, I’m not having any pain or discomfort. I’m learning how my new tummy talks though LOL. Rather than a stomach growl telling me I’m hungry, I have this kind of tight pain under my sternum, as if where my stomach meets the esophagus, it is tightening. Oddly, that appears to be the same when I’m feeling full. I haven’t had the opportunity on liquids yet to feel a sense of fullness, per se, but if I eat too many bites of jello, for example, too quickly, that same tightness happens. Interesting!
I took a walk around the mall with a friend of mine today – only day I didn’t walk outside so far has been yesterday – I was busy moving around my apartment, doing laundry and such, but no real exertion. Today, more walking, and I swept my porch, which was also good exertion, because it was filthy – full of webs, dirt, etc. I was sweating when I was finished with that, lemme tellya!
Okay, here’s my question. I weighed Sunday afternoon. It said 267 lbs, which was 21 lbs under what I had started with on July 8 at the beginning of my pre-op diet. It was 12 lbs under where I weighed on Tuesday before my surgery. However, I weighed yesterday morning and it was up to 268 lbs, and this morning was 269. WTH?? Is this normal, like my body is just kind of regulating because I starved for a few days in PV as it was difficult to find the right clear liquids?
Today, I backed up a bit. I’ve had mostly clear nearly calorie free liquids, like Propel fitness water, I had six bites of brothy soup at lunch, and for dinner, I’ve had one Unjury protein powder chicken flavor soup thing, as I need to start thinking about the protein now that I’m a week out. Maybe I was drinking too much diluted juice (it was diluted 75% water, 25% apple juice, for example)? Or was my body just regulating? Did you experience anything like that?
Of course, it gave me the fears that I was going to be the only person in history that this surgery wasn’t going to work for, but I told myself that was silly. Tomorrow, I start recording my “full liquid” diet, which I start then, in Thedailyplate or on sparkpeople if they have a place for it. I don’t want to drink too many calories.
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