Day 52 : Trying Something Different

I think I finally diagnose my abdomen  pain in the afternoon as gas.  I'm trying something different today.  First, I skip my usual half bowl of oatmeal and 1 boil egg this morning, replacing it instead with 10 ounce of soy bean juice (about 10g of protein).  Second, I'll refrain from chewing gum.  Lets see if this makes any difference.  I am a bit concern about my blood sugar level, which is much higher than last week.

Oh, this is what I'm drinking for soybean juice.  I tend to drink 20 ounces a day, once in the morning, and once later on in the day.

 

Soybean Juice

In Warcraft gaming, I finally got one of my alt, Kasukabe the gnome warlock a Brewfest Kodo.  My main toon Dianora actually managed to loot that same Kodo 2 days in a roll, unfortunately for me, she already has it, and I cannot mail it to my other 2 80s.

Here's the picture:

126/95/77 282.8lb 99 mg/DL

Day 51 : Odd

Odd that my numbers is the way it is.  I actually didn't eat much solid food yesterday, protein shake for dinner due to getting home so late.  Lets see what tomorrow's number is like.

Due to conflicting schedule, my lunch end up being a protein bar (20g of protein).  Dinner was pork chop (5 ounces) cooked in NuWave oven.  I also defrosted 1 additional pork chop and put in 1 tablespoon of cooking sake, soy sauce and rice vinegar.  By tomorrow evening, that meat should be fully defrosted and marinated.

129/91/78 285lb 98 mg/DL

Day 50 : Not a Day of Many Meetings

The original title of this post is "Day of Many Meetings".  After I went through the office day, I came to realize, that is next Tuesday, when I have 3 back to back meetings.  Today only have 2 back to back.

One thing that has been bothering me for almost a week is the 12:30PM to 3:30PM feeling of bloat that at time is a very sharp pain at my intestine.  Just to get some more exercise, I walk 0.4 miles to a bread shop (ironic that I can't eat most of the item on the menu) and get soup for lunch.  Unfortunately, I didn't preclude bread in the soup, and the French Onion soup came with a bunch of bread in the soup.  I picked out the bread aside and drank the soup, and the pain promptly return at 12:30PM, reaching their apex at about 1:15PM.  Perhaps that's something I can ask the support group.
I took my measurements after my morning exercise.  This has skewed both my blood pressure/pulse and blood sugar measurement. 

130/86/90 284lb 100 mg /DL

Day 49 : Out of On-Call - More Photos

Forgot to take the picture yesterday, so here's the original and today's pictures. Still don't see that much of a difference :).  Lost 4.4lb this week. Move the picture back to Sunday.

I started to drink about 4 ounces of Pomegranate juice.  Not too bad, but I diluted it 1:1 to make it go down easier.

OK, I think I'm just going to have to give up on the Chinese Restaurant across the street.  Ordered the lunch special Shrimp in Lobster Sauce.  I ate 1/2 of the plate and put the rest in a box.  It's now 3 hours later, and my digestive system is complaining.  You would think something as soft as shrimp wouldn't cause problem.

126/89/84 284.8lb 94 mg/DL

Day 48 : Internet Back - Steak - Week 7

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

09-27-2010 Front

09-27-2010 Side

After a co-worker who volunteered to take the on-call from me during my Internet outage, I awake this morning to discovered the return of both Cable TV and Internet.  Even during my recovery at the hospital, I wasn't this cut off from Internet, which I need for work.  Now I have Internet back, I took back the on-call.  More rambling later on.

Time Warner Cable later called back and informed me that the actual issue is a fiber break, which would knock everyone at my neighborhood out.  Since I had internet up to 3:27 PM, and woke up at 3:55PM to no internet, I might very well be the first person to call it in.  As for the problematic cell phone tethering, my brother  theorized that due to the internet outage caused by Time Warner Cable, the local cell tower might have been overwhelmed by people using alternative connectivity.

We bought some steaks from Costco on Saturday, and yesterday, we had our first shot at it on today's lunch.  The steaks was cut into 4-5 ounce individual serving package.  According to the NuWave Oven instruction, 4 minutes on one side and 3 minutes on the other.  That didn't get the temperature up to 150, so I added a minutes, and the meat still comes up to be about medium rare.  The serving was supplemented with  some mashed potatoes (surprisingly enough the most easily digestible carbohydrate in my stock) and roasted sweet bell pepper (another Costco item).

136/94/80 285.4 lb 93 mg/DL
Week to Week 2.8lb
Total Weight Loss 42.6lb
Body Mass Index 40.95

Day 47 : Cable / Internet down

Well, my Cable TV and Modem went down this afternoon.  And both me and my brother are on-call and requires Internet to actually work.  Good thing we got Wired Tethering working on our phones, or we would really be in serious trouble.

Ok, as it turns out, the only room in my house where internet via cell phone works well is in up stair with windows facing the cell tower.  Unfortunately it's also 90 degrees. 

123/95/73 285.8 lb 97 mg/DL

Day 46 : Where Almost Nothing Gets Done

The alt Icecrown Citadel 10 run was an utter disaster.   We couldn't even get pass the first boss due to the 2 rogues having communication issues.  Both the pug and guild tank in the raid log off the server, not wanting to get saved to a failed raid.  Perhaps better luck tonight.

Mercifully, I didn't get awake by the on-call last night.  It's good to have a full night of sleep.

One thing I've noticed in the past 3 days is how bloated my digestive system felt after lunch.  Yesterday's lunch was Taster's Choice Steamed Honey Balsamic Chicken which should not cause any issue.  Well, something still does.  I haven't taken any of the usual suspect in the mix (rice, pasta and bread).  Perhaps I should take some Gas-X with me today and see what happens.

Ok, thinking back, perhaps I shouldn't have blended milk into my fruits to make shakes.  Perhaps milk still does not agree with me, even with lactaid.  Lets see how not drinking it works out.

129/90/78 286.6 lb 96 mg/DL

Day 45 : Cardiologist Appointment That Wasn't

First, recap of last night's raid of disaster at World of Warcraft.  Our Icecrown Citadel 25 instance was bugged with no content, and I actually cannot go into the place.  The raid leader tried to fix it, and give up after 45 minutes.  So we raided Sunwell Plateau and Ruby Sanctum instead.   By the time we finished Ruby Sanctum, and the instance was working, and 2.5 out of 3 hours of raid time have gone pass.  Some of the raider mistakenly thought the night was over.  It wasn't, and by then, mistakes, mine own included was becoming evidence.  In the end, we did end up rescuing Valithria Dreamwalker in heroic mode on what should be farm content, but we end up having to do it twice.  Since we cleared what we would do on Sunday, we'll shifte the rest of our raid schedule to Sunday and Monday.  Lets hope it goes better than last night.

Back to Bariatric related issues now.  Yesterday, I made another attempt at eating restaurant food.  Now, at home, I bought the package mapo tofu mix and cook with green onion and ground turkey.  One serving of that last me 2 meals, and I don't seemed to have adverse reaction.  So I tried doing the same thing with restaurant version yesterday, which was cooked with tender tofu and ground pork.  I put about half of the box into another container to take home for dinner.  And I ate the rest for lunch.  Now, the restaurant version appears to be much more greasy, and I still cannot tell when I'm actually full.  In any event, as far as I can tell, 3 hours later, I experienced a mini-dumping.  Oddly enough, I was able to take the dinner version without any difficulty at all (after nuking it for 2 minutes in the Microwave).

One little note of interest.  I went to Costco and bought a pallet of their Kirkland Signature Diet Green Tea (which I cannot drink, caffeine) and carried it down the parking lot, all the way across the building to the front entrance, up the elevator.  It was a lot more difficult than I anticipated, certainly more than the last time I did this.  The pallet weight about 40 lb.  Now, since my surgery, I've lost about 41 lb, and I really don't remember moving with this much difficulty.

This afternoon, I have a make up appointment with my Cardiologist (previous appointment happened right after my surgery, and basically fell off my calendar without me noticing). Didn't happened. My Cardiologist was feeling ill, and I only found out after sitting in the office for 10 minutes. Well, this appointment will occurred again next Friday.

127/89/93 287 lb 87 mg/DL

Day 44 : Flashback Day 3 - The Discharge

Continuing my back filled of first couple of days after surgery:

Day 3 came along, I was walking 20 laps in the morning.  By now, I was under the effect of both CO2 that was pumped into my stomach cavity to make room for surgical instruments seeping into the rest of my body, and the after effect of the CAT scan dye.  This makes my entire body muscle ache.

The on-call physicians made their round in the morning, and was happy enough with my result that I was getting discharged that day.  Call my brother to come pick me up, finally I get to remove Peripheral Cannula (the thingamajig installed on my right forearm) and not getting hooked up to the saline solution dispensing machine.  That device is just another mildly annoying things in the hospital stay (the other being wearing nothing but a hospital gown and flip flaps).

I took both of the prescription (Prilosec and liquid Codeine) and fill them at my local pharmacy.  The Prilosec I'll be taking for the next 40 days.  Surprisingly enough, I don't have enough pain to justified using liquid Codeine, and I stopped altogether 2 days after discharge.  I also went and buy some chicken broth to supplement the protein shake that'll become my constant meal choices.

One thing I think I kind of messed up is how I take my medicine.  I grind all of the morning medicines with a marble mortars and pestles into fine powder.  I than use Magic Bullet to blend the medicine into the protein shake.  3 weeks later, I decided to just take the medicine powder, bitter as it was straight up with a sip of water, and not alter the protein shake.  Blending the shakes increases the volume of the drink by about 20%, and I really don't need more air in my digestive system. 

Today's on-call onslaught isn't quit as bad as yesterday.  I'm only awaken at 2AM and then a couple more times at 4AM.  At that junction, I decided to just drive into work right away and take care of it.

136/92/84 288 lb 90 mg/DL

Day 43 : Things You Missed When You're On-Call

For example, sleep.  Today's number was an eye-opener. Yeah, it's hard to get any sort of rest when the PDA wakes you up every 30 minutes, plus the 2 hours spend at 2AM praying for network to improve. And 2 hours later, even more emergency that required my attention. Retook the blood pressure measurement, at least it's more reasonable.

Here's a different picture of the tabard effect:

135/93/86 288lb 91mg/DL

Day 42 : Flashback Day 2

After the excitement of the first night, where my test ran until about 5AM, I basically didn't get much sleep.  I was also amazed at the sheer amount of saline solution that went through my body through the night.

When the morning came (and the changing of shift of the nurse staff), I took the recommendation of walking the wing's lap as a challenge.  They recommend 10 laps a day, so I decided to do 20 laps in the morning and however much I can stand in the afternoon.

The parking at the hospital and nearby places continued to be astonishingly bad, my brother and father managed to get to the place at 10AM, took them an hour to park.  I was surviving on my droid the first day for internet information.  My brother was kind enough to bring the laptop, which helps tremendously. 

I believe they start feeding me beef broth, protein drink and clear jello by the middle of the 2nd day.  I drink what I can, trying not to push myself.  By the end of second day's afternoon, I actually have genuine sign of my digestive system working.

Oh, since this item is kind of hard to get, I finally completed my Lightbringer set (spanning about 3 years to get all of the necessary pieces, including matching axe and shield).  The tabard is one of the reward item for completing Shadowmourn.

123/83/74 287.8lb 93mg/DL

Day 41 : Photos (2 Days prior to surgery & Day 41) Week 6

Not too exciting of a day thus far, but I should go ahead and show the before and after pictures, so here they go:

First off my front and side view pictures from 2 days prior to surgery:

08-07-2010 Front

08-07-2010 Side

And then Today's pictures:

09-19-2010 Front

09-19-2010 Side

Frankly, I don't see much of a difference :)

Now that I'm going back and back fill information, this is the first entry of this blog that has Milestone reach.  This is when I cross over the 40lb mark.

130/93/77 288lb 93mg/DL
Week to Week 3.2lb
Total Weight Loss 40lb
Body Mass Index 41.35
Milestone 40lb

Day 40 : Back to Usual Routines - Flashback Day 1

Nothing terribly earth shattering today.  At least I'm back doing my weekend chores prior to my surgery, another step  back to normality.  Was tempted to visit the forbidden noodle shop and try their fried tofu again, but since I'm running late as it is with the trip to the cemetery to put flower at my mother's urn, that temptation is suppressed.

Back to back-filling my pre-blog narrations.

The surgery is at 08-09-10 (hum, just noticed, 8-9-10 :).  My brother was kind enough to take a whole week off to help me out.  Due to the fact that the surgery took place at 9AM, our actual check in time is 6:45 AM, which means we have to leave a wee bit earlier than that.  Following the surgery protocol, I actually dressed fairly down (as it turns out, I won't be wearing anything more than the hospital gown for 3 days) with T-shirts and gym shorts.  Didn't carry my wallet, took 2 ID with me for identification.  I did bring my Droid phone with me with charger.

Since this is my first major surgery, most of what happens is brand new territory.  Pre-op involved the staff taking a bunch of reading and fitting my right arm with a IV drip thingamajig that I'll be carrying for the next 3 days as well.  After getting work up in pre-ops for about 2 hours, I was wheeled into the surgery room.  My impression of the place is that it's rather empty, and COLD.  There the last thing I remember prior to me loosing 2 hours of memory is the assistant anesthesiologist pressing down on my chest to straighten my windpipe so they can fit a breathing tube through.

Roughly 2 hours later, I awoke in the post-op room with a tremendous muscle cramp near diaphragm that really acted up when I cough, which given the amount of nasal discharge and my coughing habit is a bit painful.  Fortunately, one of the nurse at my room told me about putting a pillow on top of that muscle, press down with my arms.  That makes my coughing tolerable.

One of the necessary discomfort that I had while in the hospital is the leg squeeze wrap that worked the muscle on my calf muscles.  I understand the purpose of that contraption, but none the less, it's a wee bit discomfort as every time I want to go to to pee, I have to ring the nurse to unstrap me and strap me back in.

The surgeon and other medical staff were a bit unease with my blood pressure and pulse rate.  So much so by 9PM, they ordered the full barrage of tests, blood work, chest x-ray, and my least favorite CATS scan.  Now, everything else I've done before, CAT scan is a new thing.  The CAT scan requires them to inject me with a dye that fill my vein with fire.  That sensation spread to other part of my skins, and the entire process is rather uncomfortable.  As it turns out, this dye have other after effect that's annoying.

This barrage of test lasted until 2AM, at which time I attempt to sleep.

Ok, last night, I actually managed to raid until 2AM on my death knight.  That goes a way to explain my number.

142/97/68 290.4lb 91mg/DL

Day 39 : Company Picnic - Flashback 2 Days Pre-Surgery

Another note to myself, raiding until 1AM is somewhat bad for a restful night of sleep.  My morning blood pressure measurement sort of bear witness to that.

So today is the company picnic.  Took the smallest slice of the BBQ chicken, and tried to scrape off as much sauce as I can.  Took some potato salad, which I know I can digest.  Eating a whole hot dog is probably not a good idea.  Currently, I'm still having difficulty judging when I'm full, which is odd, since I think I got the sensation of hunger back.

Since I started this blog on Day 38, I should tried to back fill a bit of my progress.

My surgery took place on Monday 08-09-2010.  My measurement journal actually started on 08-07-2010, just prior to the 2 day clear liquid bowel preparation.  My weight at that time is 328lb.  Amazingly enough, 2 days of clear liquid cleared almost 9lb off me.  Thus, my day of surgery weight is 317.6lb.

138/98/77 290.0lb 91mg/DL

Day 38 : Surgeon Post-Op Appointment

Day 38 post surgery.  Attempted to broaden my lunch menu by going across the street and trying out their version of Mongolian Beef.  Note to self, avoid greasy food for a while.  Other than that, the surgery teams are rather pleased with my progress, 26.8lb lost since the day of the surgery. 

Find out from the surgeon that I'm supposed to dissolve the b-complex under my tongue.  Learn something new every day.

135/91/81 290.8lb 91mg/DL