Second Chances: Blessings from Above (Week 0)

I traveled to Dallas, Texas this past Monday to have surgery on Tuesday morning to remove part of my stomach. The proper name for the procedure I had done was vertical sleeve gastrectomy. It was performed by Dr. Varela and his staff.

I checked into the Veteran's Administration hospital in Southeast Dallas at 0600 on Tuesday the 12th of August (my weight was 256.6) and by about 11:00 am they administered some drugs and the next thing I remembered was waking up in a room at 4:00. In fact the only thing that I remembered was the fact that I was starving before the surgery. At about 5:00 pm that evening, I was visited by my surgeon who told me that everything went well during the surgery and that I would have to remain in the hospital until and examination of my stomach to make sure there was no leakage where the incision was made. I slept the remainder of Tuesday and it was Wednesday afternoon before I received my first post-surgery meal. I never thought that a bowl of chicken bullion and a cup of sugar free jello could ever taste so good, but then I can't remember the last time that I went 48 hours without eating anything. It wasn't so much that I was hungry, but the fact that I had not had anything to eat or drink and I had the worst case of cotton mouth that I could ever remember.......and I used to have lots-o-cotton-mouth back in the day when I was tipping the sauce.


All was well until early Wednesday evening when I started running a low grade fever which finally broke about 0100 on Thursday morning. My friend Heather came to pick me up at the hospital at 0530 and deliver me to Love Field to catch my Southwest flight back to Austin where I was met by my beautiful wife and two boys.

It has only been three days since the surgery, but I can truthfully report that since coming out of the surgery, I HAVE NOT been hungry. The only thing that I will be eating for the next two weeks consists of the following: beef, chicken, and pork bullion, sugar free jello, no carbonated sugar free drinks, water, and children's Flintstones vitamins (tastes like candy). I weighed in this morning and my weight was 249.8. So in four days I have lost 6.8 pounds. I wanted to baseline a few other figures so that I could see what changes my body would be making in addition to the weight loss, so I had Tara measure various sites on my body. As of 14 August 2008, my neck was 17 inches, my biceps were 15 1/2 inches, my waist was 46 1/2 inches, my chest was 49 inches, my hips were 47 1/2 inches, my thighs were 27 inches and my calves were 17 inches. I have attached a photo of what I look like post surgery.......please no man boob comments (smiles!). The VA has told me that if I have any post surgery issues with excess skin due to the rapid weight loss, that they have plastic surgeons on staff to address that issue......he said there was nothing they could do the for the stretch marks (Go cocoa butter!).


My meals for Thursday and Friday consisted of the following: Carnation Instant Breakfast (150 calories), 8 oz of Quench (30 calories), Beef Bullion (30 Calories), Strawberry Jello (20 calories). Total for both days was 460 calories. Plus as this blog entry went to press I had a 60 calorie cup of no sugar added hot chocolate.


I hope to use this blog to detail this journey and to document my transformation back to a healthy and reasonable weight. Thanks again to all those whose prayers and support helped get our family through this experience.