The life and times of Libby Withnall

Unfortunately I seem to be one of the one who suffered after surgery. Monday I was in loads of pain and nauseas plus the pain in my shoulder was excruciating– I pretty much slept though so did escape the pain. Tues not much better – nausea got worse as the day went on and I started vomiting up blood (after just dry heaving). The girls and Kevin came to visit but I wasn’t really up to it. (Amy bought in stack of cards from her friends at school – which I thought was so sweet). They tried 3 different anti-nausea drugs before one actually worked. This was about 9pm on Tues night and I was in tears cause I just wanted a break. Did manage to drink a half glass of cordial during the day and sometime during the day the shoulder pain went away. Wed feeling better. Mum, Dad and Granny came to visit which was very nice and helped fill in the morning, then Kevin came in the afternoon. Had trouble finding a comfy position to sit/lie. Managed a bit of soup at lunch and dinner plus more cordial. The lady beside me was a given an icy pole which I would almost have killed for. Last night I had a really bad head/neck ache. But eventually got off to sleep and got a reasonable nights rest. Still feeling nauseous this morning but didn’t convince my nurse I still could take my nausea tablets until around 10.30am, hence the drive home from Sydney was not too comfortable. On the way home I made Kevin stop and get me that icy pole and boy was it nice. I ate half , then the rest later on. It really hit the spot and was easy to get down. I’ve been vegging out on the couch watching TV and cuddling with my pup and feel so much better this afternoon. Now I’m sipping on a choc optifast shake and will try some pumpkin soup for dinner. Oh, I did hop on the scales and am down 3kg from Monday morning – not surprising with how little I’ve eaten – so that’s 9kg in 2.5 weeks. Not too shabby . Hmm, just realized I’m the lowest weight I’ve been in about 10 years. Anyway, it’s good to be back in the land of the living.

Libby came out of surgery yesterday at about 4pm.

Heres a really crappy photo taken with my phone while she sleept (I will get in trouble for this). She was in pain (the black cord is the Pethidine button) and has a normal saline drip in. I will be visiting today so will let you know how its all going. If she is anything like me, day 2 will be better but still not up to phone calls or concentrating on anything more than daytime television (Which is suprisingly watchable while on serious opiates)

Hopefully by tomorrow, she should be feeling closer to normal again and ready to come home on Thursday.

— Kevin

Todays the day when I head to hospital and have much of my stomach removed. There is no going back – not that I’d want to. I desperately want to be a slim, fit, energetic person and as far as I can see it WLS is the only way to make it a reality. I’m actually feeling excited this morning. Got up around 5am so I could have my last shake before fasting for the operation. My Mum and Dad are taking me to the hospital after we drop the girls at school and I should be in surgery around 11am-12pm. Kevin is going to come be with me when I awaken – though based on his experience I won’t be that awake until tomorrow. I only lost 1.5kg this week which isn’t as much as I’d expected but still gives me 6kg for the last two weeks. I should know by now my body behaves quite as it should when it comes to losing weight. Anyway, hopefully I’ll be back home and blogging by Thurs/Fri.

I’m VERY excited to report I lost 4.5kg (10lbs), which is what I lost on the 12 weeks I did the Body for Life program. Now I do realize if went back to eating “normally” it would all go straight back on but since I’m not going to’ it’s weight lost forever. I’m now under 120kg and feeling a lot better. It’s not been too bad a week, though yesterday was HARD – I really wanted to eat- like a normal person or even cook dinner for my family- like a normal person. I did have some rice paper rolls while we were out for lunch instead of a bar, which I think balanced itself out. But it was a LONG afternoon. Feeling better today (though rather hungry). The fantastic shift on the scales certainly helps . And this time next week I’ll be getting ready for the op.

The current highlight of my day is dinner – low-startch veggies stir-fried in chicken stock and soy sauce – YUM!!!

I’m going to try and not bore you all to tears with news of my WLS but will update once or twice a week for those interested. If not feel free to ignore.

The pre-op diet requires only 3 meals a day of meal replacements shakes/bars/deserts plus some extra veggies. Now I have to admit this does get pretty boring fast but I’ve been having a green salad with my lunch and bowl of veggie soup with dinner. Day 1 went okay, day 2 I felt lightheaded and woozy and kind of spaced out, day 3 I felt rather sick at times but found I had more energy, by dinner time I was starting to feel more like myself. I’m about to start day 4 and have been told it should get better from now and should stop feeling hungry – let’s hope. I’ve still be going to the gym – not sure if it’s wise or not but want to be in optimum fitness as I know I’ll have to have around 4 weeks off lifting weights after surgery.

Had a nice relaxing day to recover from the party. Pottered around – which was nice after such a busy week. Did some washing, ironing, reading blogs and e-mail, attended to the chooks, watered the veggie garden – which is growing rapidly after some rain last week, had a swim and enjoyed a lesiurely lunch at Mums. I’ve just tidied/cleaned up the pantry in preparation for starting my pre-op diet tomorrow. Don’t want any leftover chocolate, chips, etc tempting me. Tomorrow I need to go do a veggie shop so I can make up salads and veggie soup – which I can have in addition to Optifast shakes, soups and bars. I know nearly everyone finds the diet awful (the reason for it is to shrink the liver and make surgery and recovery easier) but I’m actually excited to get started on the weight loss journey – lets see how I feel tomorrow night. Kevin said the first 4 days were very hard and he was very tired. Lucky I’ve got a nice quiet week ahead.

Kevin has been talking about weight loss surgery since the start of the year. At first I was opposed – so much so that I thought I might divorce him if he went ahead. But I was ignorant and as he did more research and reported that to me, I realized why I wasn’t losing much weight (despite eating well and exercising 6 days a week). Researchers have shown that the longer you are overweight the harder it becomes for your body to lose weight and only 5% of diets are successful. Not very good odds for someone who has been overweight for nearly 20 years. I undertook my own research and we’ve been watching “Big Medicine” on the Health channel which is all about WLS. Shortly after Kevin made his decision and got a date (22nd Oct) I decided to also have the surgery. We are both having a vertical sleeve gastroplasty – which basically removes most of your stomach – meaning you can only eat fairly small portions. I’ve seen the doc and my date for surgery is the 12th November. I will now much public some previous posts on WLS that I had made private.

Originally I was debating whether to tell friends beforehand or not (as a lot of other people have had negative responses from their friends). But I decided my friends all know about my long battle with my weight and have seen me try to lose the weight by dieting and exercising and know I’m not taking the “easy way out” – which was my own pre-conception about the surgery. Plus I also believe my friends and family only want the best for me and will be nothing but supportive. As for the newer friends or acquantiences – I think I’ll just deal with that as it comes up – but probably not tell them until afterwards.

We’ve told Amy and she’s excited about having a slimmer, fitter Mum and Dad. Mum and Dad are also very accepting now that they know more about it. I am very excited and can’t wait to have the surgery and lose this weight.

Not the date I wanted, or expected, but a date none-the-less. It’s Friday 9 th November – so 2.5 weeks after Kev. I am a bit dissapointed – I will miss Amy’s singing and drama End of Year Concert and I won’t be able to go Creative Connection with Stacy Jullian. But I will be having life-altering surgery. It’s hard to believe food will become so less important in my life. I guess it’ll be like when I was on Body for Life. I felt so good then – had so much more energy and time. Just time time around I will see the results on the scale.

Well, I met with Dr Talbot yesterday. There is no reason for me not to have WLS so it’s full steam ahead. I’m to ring on Friday to get a date – should be within a couple days of Kevin – and get a full blood test. I’m so excited. In around 5 weeks I’ll be having surgery. Today I’m going through my wardrobe and sorting all my clothes in sizes. I think this will be a good thing as I’ll be dropping sizes so fast in the first couple of months.

I’ve been reading up a lot on the VSG and it’s hard to believe how quickly and easily people lose weight. The norm seems to be 8-10kg pre-op while on the liquid diet (which shrinks your liver and makes surgery easier), then 10kg in the first month, then around 5kg a month. Let’s say I have my surgery early Nov (which is what I’m really hoping for), then by 2008 I will be 25kg lighter than I am now. WOW!!!! Quite mind blowing really. I’d be rapt to be 10kg lighter by Christmas so anything over that would be a huge bonus. Oh, I just realized that I acutally have a chance to met my goal for the year – which was to be under 100kg. Currently 120.5 so I really should be able to make that goal – hmm….maybe I should return the size 20 I bought today or swap it for a smaller size…. I am so excited to meet with the doc on Wed afternoon.