Sinus Surgery.....UGH!

Surgery went well from my two surgeon's points of views.  The first one said that my sinus passages were extremely constricted and I should notice a huge difference in how I feel once I'm healed. The second surgeon fixed the hole in my septum with a piece of skin from behind my ear. I was told by 3 different people how slow he works because of his perfectionism. One said he is OCD about his work. I told her I like OCD in my surgeons so long as it pertains to their work on me. Anyway, that surgeon said it was quite a large hole. Septal hole repairs are not always successful, but his career success rate is 100% so I expect mine to be successful as well. I have internal splints inside my nose for the next 2 to 4 weeks and an external splint until I see him next Wednesday. The pain this go round has been quite a bit more intense and I will be glad when it finally lets up. Even doubling up on my pain meds hasn't taken it all away.  On another note, I really tested my sleeve yesterday. I ate the night prior to my surgery (Tuesday) for the final time around 10:00 pm and didn't eat again until about 7:00 pm last night, the evening following my 7:30 am surgery.  I had zero feelings of hunger in my tummy. The Ghrelin is still gone! Prior to surgery, I would have been starving. Yesterday, I was just weak and thought it was surgery related. However, after eating I felt so much better that I knew it was mostly due to lack of food. I'm glad to know just how well my sleeve is working for me. Now, if I can just get the pain in my nose and face under control, I'll be doing much better!

~Amy

Sinus Surgery.....Again

I had sinus surgery in April of this year and will be going in again tomorrow for a second surgery. For the past 8 to 10 years or so, I have gotten between 5 to 7 sinus infections between October and March. Basically. I was having one after the other during those 6 months. Needless to say, I was pretty much miserable half the year, every year for years. Since my surgery I've continued to have problems.  I've had constant sinus pressure and I developed a hole in my septum from a staph infection I got after the first surgery. The good news though is that I made it through October without a sinus infection. I think the first surgery fixed that problem because it has been years since I didn't have a sinus infection in October and 4to 7 more in the following 5 months.  Due to the continued sinus pressure I've been having, my ENT is going back in and opening the sinuses in my nose and head wider. Then, I will have the whole in my septum repaired by another physician, a craniofacial surgeon.  This procedure isn't medically necessary, perse, at this point. However, it may become so at some point in the future and I'd be crazy not to go ahead and do it for a couple of reasons. For one, I will already be under anesthesia for the procedure I do need and for two, I've met my out of pocket maximum for the year so both procedures will be done at no cost to me. I'm somewhat nervous about the hole repair as they cut your skin at the center, base of your nose and peel it back. They also take skin from, I think, behind my ear to use to patch the hole. Then, I will have internal and external splints in and on my nose.  The external splint will be there for about a week. The internal splints will remain for approximately a month. Hole repairs aren't always successful but this surgeon has yet to have one fail. I'm mainly nervous about the pain I might have and the annoying splints. I didn't have an external splint the first go round, but I had the internal ones and they are annoying!  I know I've made the right decision to undergo both of the procedures, I just wish I didn't have to!  But onward I go......


~Amy

A Penny Day

A Penny Day is a day when you “splurge” from your healthy eating lifestyle.  It is best explained by using the pennies in a jar analogy.

The first jar has 365 pennies in it which represent the days of the year.  Now, make a list of every day in the year that you might stray from your healthy eating lifestyle.  Days like birthdays, weddings and holidays are some examples.  For each day you list, take 1 penny from the first jar and put it in the second jar.  Now look at jar 2.  In the 2^nd jar, you have 25 or so pennies.  The remaining 340 or so pennies are still in your first jar and represent the days you will be living a healthy eating lifestyle.  The 25 or so pennies in the 2^nd jar represent the time each year you know you are going to splurge and stray from your healthy eating lifestyle.  Using this example you can see that what you do on the 340 days of the year that you are following your healthy eating lifestyle closely is much more important that what happens on those 25 or so days that you splurged. 

The problem though is it is not always easy to get back to our healthy eating lifestyle once we had a Penny Day. 

Strategies for Success:

Give Yourself Permission--If the Penny Day is one meal or one day, plan to enjoy it. Agree with yourself that is it okay not to have a healthy eating day. 

Frame Your Splurge--Keep your indulgences to one meal or one day.  Make sure you keep your exercise program and eating structure healthy the day before and the day  after your celebration. This is called "framing" your splurge.

Have a Plan--Plan the details of your splurge and the days before and after so you can stay on track.   

The Splurge--Remember that your splurge isn't your last one ever.  The goal here is to have a great time and enjoy your company. Focus on those foods that you love, eat slowly, and give yourself permission to savor them.

Take Pride in Your Recovery--Now it’s time to get back on track. If you overate, don't beat yourself up about it. Your overall success depends on how quickly you can recover from these special days.  Remember the pennies in a jar analogy.

My near future goal is to figure out my penny days.  What are yours?

~Amy

Excuse The Look

First and foremost, excuse the look of my blog!  I'm tring to change the look of it just a bit and, as you can see, I'm having issues.  From what I understand the real problem is with Blogger and there being an issue with it working correctly to be able to change the look of your blog.  It looks like this has been going on for months, so who knows when I will have my blog looking pretty again.  So, please excuse the "mess" that you see currently!

Okay, on to the next subject.....life post VSG.  Life has been pretty decent in my VSG world although October was a CRAZY month weight wise.  I ended up only being down 4 pounds from where I started in the beginning of October.  In the real world (non-VSG world), this loss is okay at best.  In the VSG world, 4 pounds in a month totally sucks!  I have to take some, okay all :-) of the responsibility for it though.  I haven't been watching my diet.  That is, until the last week of October where I lost all of those 4 pounds.  Terrible, I know, but it is what it is and I've moved passed it.  Now, I'm just trying to move forward and focus on what is now and what is in front of me.  It's been "awful" at work from a trying to lose weight perspective with all the Halloween candy, cookies and other goodies around here.  I've eaten a bit of it and consider eating the small amount I have a moderate success.  Hey, considering what I was eating on Halloween last year and for many years before that I should probably call it a HUGE success.  But, for now, I will call it a moderate success.  It wasn't perfection and I think I can only declare a HUGE success had I stayed out of the junk all together.  Besides, the major part of life post VSG is learning to live with food....all kinds of food.  I'm not a big supporter of those, what I call "Food Natzi's" that I see a lot of people have turned into post VSG.  I want to learn to live a healthy lifestyle at a normal weight and I don't want to always live with the diet mentality.  Denying myself all the "bad food" just perpetuates that diet mentality and I'll be darned if I will live like that for the rest of my life.  So, as I move forward in my journey, I am learning all kinds of things.  One of those things is how to balance my eating.  In other words, how to eat healthy and how to include some of the "junk" like a normal sized person.  I still struggle sometimes, but today I am miles away from where I was on June 4, 2012.

~Amy