Diet before surgery

By calling my diet an all liquid diet might scare someone away. Let me rephrase this... my diet was all liquid meaning that i drank protein shakes for my meals. I stuck with Nectar mostly for the entire 10 days. Every once in awhile i would mix up one one of my left over Body By Vi shakes just to get a new taste. During this 10 days i could also eat an unlimited amount of non-starchy vegetables. This meaning carrots, peppers, onions, baby corn, green beans etc. However, i could not add butter to anything only seasonings.

The 10 days flu by extremely fast! Before i knew it i was a day before surgery and i was nervous as ever! The night before surgery i got no sleep what so ever. I had to check into the hospital at 4:45am. Once i got all checked in, the nurses started my IV and i got changed and ready for my surgery. The time quickly flew by and soon the i was being wheeled back to the surgery room.

My surgery lasted a little over an hour and i was in recovery for around 2 hours. I do not recall much of my recovery. I slightly remember waking up when they were moving me over to another bed and a lot of pain but then i was quickly given more pain meds and was back off to sleep. The next time I woke up I was in my room and surrounded by my sister, dad and girlfriend. Once i woke up all i wanted to do was go back to sleep but family and friends kept on stopping by to check on me or calling to see if i was ok.

The nurses soon came in to check on me again and explained to be that for the next 24 hours all i could consume was ice chips and that i needed to consume 2 tbsp of ice every 15 minutes until i hit 80oz. This would reassure that i would not dehydrate. The nurses gave me a check list and every time I ate 2tbsp of ice chips i would tally it until i was done. I was not hungry what so ever so this was not a hard task for me. I would also have to get up every couple hours and go on a walk to insure i did not get a blood clot.

Soon enough everyone left and it was just my girlfriend and I.  She would be staying with me in the hospital for the next two nights, She soon learned how to unhook me from everything and help me walk around the hospital. This was a great help! On and off the rest of the night i was asleep and so was she. The nurses would come in throughout the night and check my vitals and take me for a walk if i needed.

The next morning around 7am my surgeons came to check on me. The checked out my wounds and made sure i was doing ok. At this time they also told me i could now switch from the ice chips to water and if i could take it start my proteins. So every hour i would drink 7, 2tbsp cups of water and 1, 2tbsp cup of protein. The hospital had a few different types of protein i could choose from but i usually picked to mix it with sugar free hot chocolate.

Day 2 was a lot easier then the first day and i got my catheter out! thank god! Night two i had no difficulties just really recovering and hanging out with people that stopped by to check on me. My blood sugar did get a little low in the middle of the night but they gave me a sugar free popsicle and it boosted right back up!

On the morning of my third day i was more then ever ready to head home. I did not get the OK to leave until about 3pm that day but soon i was going to be headed to my home. The doctors called in all my prescriptions that i would need to recover and then helped me get everything out to the car. Within an hour i was on the road and almost home!

Hello!

I suppose I should start by telling you a little about myself. I am 24 years old and recently underwent Gastric Sleeve surgery. Throughout my entire life i have struggled greatly with my weight. It tended to fluctuate year after year and it never seemed that by me killing myself in the gym was doing any good. When I was going into my junior year of college i was told that I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). For those that do not know what this is... it is a ovarian cyst condition where my body cannot digest sugars properly and because of that the stored sugar becomes fat in my body and i also develop cyst on my ovaries. There is not much you can do for PCOS other then cut down on your sugar intake and take vitamins but i tried that. At first i thought everything was going well and i dropped down to 160lbs! However, within a year and a half i was back up to 200lbs and getting bigger then ever. By this time i had pretty much given up on ever being at a healthy weight but once again i tried diet after diet. I tried Atkins, Body by Vi, Sensa, you name it and all of them were the same. I would lose about 15lbs and then no more.

After giving up and settling I spoke with a long time friend who i had not seen in over 6 months. She too had always battled with her weight and told me that she had just underwent weight loss surgery and if i was serious about it i should check it out! I questioned if i should even check out weight loss surgery because i was only about 230lbs but on the website it talked about women battling with PCOS and how it was ungodly hard for them to lose weight and how much one could benefit from weight loss surgery! Within 5 minutes i was already on the website and checking it out. I had applied to the program and was just waiting to see if i was accepted. That Monday i received an email saying that i was accepted and that I needed to complete a lot of paperwork and have it faxed to their office. 

About a month later i got my first appointment! I was so nervous but i went and checked it out. I had a appointment with a social worker, a nutritionist, physical therapist and a physicians assistant. For the next 6 months i would go to doctors appointments with my nutritionist and physical therapist. I would be educated on how to work out properly and foods to eat and vitamins to take. Every months my progress would be assessed by a team and then i would either be "ok'd" for surgery or told to keep working!

The month of december came and i  received a phone call from the program. I was "ok'd" for surgery and could make my surgery date for a month later! Instantly, i was shocked! all this work and educational classes had finally paid off. I could not believe that all my problems could finally be solved! I could finally do all the things in life i have always wanted to do and not have my weight holding me back.

Now came the hard part. Christmas break was soon approaches and i would have numerous family get togethers and loads of food bringing dangled in front of my face. Not only would this be extremely hard for the average person but be extremely hard for me lol Trying to be on a diet during the holidays is awful... You might be asking yourself now why would i be dieting right before my surgery? shouldn't i be eating all my favorite foods. Well you see, before bariatric surgery you have to go on a 10 day liquid to decrease the size of your liver. This makes it easier to go around during surgery and it takes less time. 

So here i was on this damn liquid diet for 10 days....