Wedding Weekend!

Hello faithful readers! I have arrived home safe and sound from the most enjoyable and uplifting weekend! Kyle and Kate's wedding was beautiful, amazing, God-filled - oh man words can not describe how awesome it was! The trip there and home was another story! After being stuck at the Cleveland airport for 8 hours on Friday, Brenna and I finally arrived in Ft. Wayne, IN where Popple Dan and his lovely girlfriend Meghan picked us up! We then headed to Kyle's parents house for a lovely meal and great conversation! There I finally got to meet Mrs. Heimann!! She's so lovely!! I've been dying to meet her, and Kyle said she was eager to meet me! Happiness had by all! After a great night's sleep at the hotel it was time to get ready for the wedding!! We met Kate at the Church around 11:45 AM! Kate looked stunning in her simple, yet elegant wedding dress!! I got to take some great photo's of her and Kyle before the Mass as well! (they are below!) The Mass was so beautiful - the highlight of my trip! After Mass we headed to the Knights of Columbus in Decatur for the reception! Because of the ice storm they had on Friday, the KOC has no electricity!! A generator made it so the sound system worked and a few strings of white Christmas lights! We ate by candle light and danced under christmas lights! It really set a romantic and elegant setting! We ate awesome Taco's from the make your own taco bar!! (yumm taco's - yay I can eat them!!) We danced the night away and it was wonderful to catch up with some of my most favorite people like Cory and Jon and finally meet Meghan and the rest of the Heimann clan!! Brenna and I hung out with the CHWC peeps and PJ (former drummer of Popple) Saturday night back at our hotel! We told stories and sang along with Jon and PJ! An all around great evening that I didn't want to end... but by 2:30 AM I had to go to bed for the early wake up for 8:30 Mass on Sunday! Sunday included morning Mass, a fun and crazy morning at Kyle's house watching some of Kyle's friends from Purdue cook a breakfast of buckwheat pancakes, bacon and eggs!! Then Cory and his lovely girlfriend Marie can to pick us up for head to Kate's parents house for lunch. Another great afternoon spent with the Heimann's and the Stroup's as well as Kate and Kyle! Cory and Marie then drove us to the airport for our flights home (that's a long crazy story about all the airport mix ups for the way home!) We finally arrived home in Boston at 11:00 PM, waited over an hour for luggage to find out it never left Fort Wayne!! Luckily our luggage was lost on the way home!! The luggage arrived yesterday on my doorstep!! It was sad to leave - I think I was the happiest I've been in a long time over the weekend (not saying I am not normally always happy - just super duper happy that weekend!) I hope my life journey puts be back in Decatur, IN again in the future! As I head off for Christmas Eve Mass with my family, I'll leave you to enjoy some pics of the wonderful weekend I've had.....

46 down....

The last 2 days I have spent my afternoons at the lovely Brigham and Women's Hospital at appointments! Yesterday I had my nutritionist and today my surgeon! Both were great appointments! I learned yesterday with Natalie (the nutritionist) about this great website called Fitday (www.fitday.com). It's a free website that you can put in all your food, water, exercise, vitamins, really anything and everything and it tracks it daily for you and best of all - creates these pie charts of what you've eaten (protein, carbs, fat, etc...) I am such a visual person so I know this will help me with trying to figure out if I've had enough protein each day! I also learned that I am getting an "ok" amount of protein everyday (she'd like to see 15-20 more grams) but that I am actually choosing foods that are healthy, yet not the best sources of protein! I also learned some great tricks to eating out and the "safe" range of sugar content for post op patients (although some dump with only 4 grams of sugar in a food and others have no effect.) I will stay within the safe range - and I actually don't miss sugar at all!! WOW - never thought I'd say that! lol! I got to check in with Dr. Lautz today! I have lost another 14 pounds since my last visit 4 weeks ago - I am right on track with weight loss! I have lost 46 pounds total now - and although I can't really see many drastic changes in my body - other people are starting to comment - soon enough I will notice. I also asked my burning question to Dr. Lautz of why I have 10 incisions while others only have 5 or 6?! Dr. Lautz informed me - "you were a difficult case." Why thank you Dr. Lautz, I always like to challenge people! He proceeded to lift my shirt and detail what every incision was made for - lots of camera's, scopes, monitors - some for my stomach, some for my liver, and one tiny needle prick! Dr. Lautz said that many doctors will still do the surgery with only 5 or 6 cuts, but it will prolong the time in the OR to 7 or 8 hours as opposed to the average 3-4. He said that when you make more cuts it reduces the amount of time greatly in difficult patients. Recovery is the same for 5-6 as it is for 10. He did also inform me the most incisions he's ever made was 11 - he made quite the joke as I was a 10! I really do love him - he's such a personable doctor and a wonderful surgeon! I have been cleared to begin follow-ups only every 3 months now until 1 year!! Whoo hooo!! He says I am doing marvelously and to keep up the hard work! On the hard work front - i can't even begin to explain how frustrating and honestly mad I get when my friends and people I know make it out to seem like I took the easy way out by having weight loss surgery. Now I think I am a pretty educated person when it comes to weight loss. I've done it all - weight watchers (3 times), LA Weight Loss, Dieticians, Doctor ordered weight loss, weight loss support groups, NutriSystems, weight loss pills, spent thousands of dollars on health clubs, personal training, The 90 day make-over, Richard Simmons, the AB roller, you name - I probably tried it. I've stumped numerous dietitians and doctors as to why my body wouldn't ever let me lose more than 85 pounds. How I would eat nothing or eat lots of high protein foods and still wouldn't lose. With all those trials and heartache of longing to be thin and healthy it was hard... but this is 10 hundred times harder. I can't explain why really it's hard to put into words really. It's better - yet a whole lot harder. And friends and people telling me to be careful, and that it's not a quick fix, and that a lot of people gain it back - that doesn't make it any easier. I'm not a dummy - I know it's not a quick fix, I know this is a life change, I know that the surgery is just a tool and success comes when I put the tool with life changes. I know all this from reading up on it, doing my research, talking to those who've actually been through the surgery and are living life post-op, talking to my doctor. When people who have no clue what my journey is like right now tell me what I should and need to do when they have not been through the surgery - that's frustrating. I applaud everyone who is losing weight - surgery or no surgery - ALL of it is difficult and a feet in itself! Support is the number one thing I think all those trying to change life habits need - not the "you shoulds" or "be carefuls" or "don't do's." Don't tell people what - support them on their journey. Ok, I'll get off my soap box now!

Off to Indiana for Popple Kyle and Kate's wedding this weekend!! Pray for a miracle that we get out of Boston and into Cleveland and then Ft. Wayne, IN with no weather glitches tomorrow! Pray for Kyle and Kate too!!

Heaven can come in food!!

My most missed food is no longer missed - Rice Cakes!!! Whooo hoooo!!! Since I am on stage 4 I can gradually add back in carbs and since I can not eat bread, the nutritionist said I could try rice cakes, but thought I could have problems with them. So this morning when I couldn't figure out what to eat... I saw the sleeve of rice cake out of the corner of my eye and thought - hhmmm, maybe I'll try. I grabbed a slice of american cheese and plopped the cheese covered Rice Cake in the microwave for a measly 12 seconds and wa la - MY FAVORITE SNACK!! (well it is no longer a snack as I couldn't finish the whole rice cake!!) I began my day a VERY happy camper today!! I took it real slow and made sure I chewed chewed chewed before I swallowed!! YUMMY!! I actually just finished another one with peanut butter since I needed an easy way to get 7 more protein grams in me without cooking meat! I don't think i've ever been more excited for a food in my life!! This is a very fun stage as I basically can eat anything except raw veggies - so it's been fun experimenting! So far so good, I haven't had any problems with new food yet. My only food issues are any kind of egg except cooked over easy or poached and chicken sometimes will "get stuck" if it's not moist enough. I feel really lucky especially after reading more and more on the "Thinner Times" gastric bypass forums. I'm almost 8 weeks out of surgery and I haven't thrown up yet (someone knock on some wood please!)! But I follow my diet and stages to a "T" and don't eat anything I'm not suppose to like sugary foods or high "bad" fat foods and i only sugar free flavored water, decaf tea or milk (no soda, juices, or alcohol)! I get my sweet fix from sugar free popsicles, jello, pudding or creamsicles. The numbers are still dropping slowly so I'll be addressing that with the dietitian on Wednesday at my appointment. But other than that - things are looking up! Oh yea - I went shopping over the weekend to get something to wear to the wedding this weekend (whoo hoo!!) and I DROPPED 2 sizes on the top and 1 pant size!!! :)

Updates!

Hello my faithful readers - so sorry i've left you hanging for so long! I believe updates are in order! First thanks for all your kind words of encouragement and a special thanks to Margo for all the great website resources for support groups - i have not joined them, but reading them has offered great insight, support and relieved some stress! Each day is different - some days I have great days and others I have "woe is me" days - but i've learned - THAT'S NORMAL!! Thanksgiving went well and I got to focus on what Thanksgiving is all about instead of what a lot of people do - the food! I truly enjoyed being with my family and my sister-in-law's family. The nephew was the center of attention that day and it was great to just soak up all the family lovin! I still couldn't snuggle him - but i was able to get on the ground and crawl around and play with him which was great! I finished up my stage 3 diet while in Cleveland at the convention. The Convention it's self was blah, but seeing great friends like Popple and Fiance Kate and CHWCer's like Kelly and Jan was fabulous!! Food was a different story - i think i did more harm than good that week. I started off better but ended not so strong. I drove down with Paula and Jim and brought food with me. Once in Cleveland we found a grocery store and i bought some more to get me through the week. Our hotel was a good 4 or so blocks away from the convention center and all that walking plus all the walking and being on your feet during the day KILLED me. Not to mention I always had a backpack on that carried my food and books... I was in some serious pain most days. I can't even describe what my insides felt like other than awful. Which in turn made me not really feel like eating. We ate out our first night - Me, Jim and Paula went to Houlihans and I had chicken and a potato - $13.95 for me to eat a 1/4 of it! Wednesday night we went to Hard Rock and Popple Dan and I shared Chicken Nacho's - YUMMY!! I ate lots of yogurt and cheese sticks during my week. My chicken cold cuts went bad pretty early on (I don't think my fridge was keeping them cold enough!) So I was pretty low on the protein intake. I tried Tuna Steak for the first time too - YUCK! This is a learning process for me of what I like and what I don't like of all things I can eat! Since being home I've struggled eating again. I know its because I wasn't getting in all I was suppose to last week that my pouch is not really liking any food - but it's a little better each day! I am also back to work this week Part Time, 15-20 hours a week. I came in today for lunch with the staff and the staff meeting. I had watermelon and pineapple for the first time - that was a treat!! I also finally got to satisfy my craving for broccoli tonight with my STEAK dinner - it was good... tastes a little different, but hey my pouch tolerated it so that's a bonus! Other than just working on increasing my calorie and protein intake up to what it's suppose to be (1000 calories and 65 grams of protein - i'm at 700 calories and 35-40 protein) Thanks again for your love and support!! I will be better at updating and blogging now!! PS - Mrs. Heimann I CAN NOT wait to meet you!! I will see you next week!