7 Months 1 Week Post-Op

My posts have become far and few between as my progress gets farther and farther from my surgery date. Overall I feel successful thus far and I am happier with the healthier me. I have gotten a new job as a Pet Counselor at Petland and it is helping to pass the time while my husband is on a deployment. I am excited to finally see him and to reveal the progress I have made since he has been gone. I do feel as though I have let some of my old bad habits creep back in and I am on a mission to stop it in it's tracks. I am determined tomorrow to get back on track with my plan and regain full and total control of my weightloss tool. Slider foods have allowed me to start eating more than I should be able to and being on the go with a new job and busier lifestyle than followed surgery has allowed me to start making poor food decisions again. I am going to get back on track tomorrow starting with waking up early and hitting the gym for an hour. I have slacked off this week and haven't been to the gym since Monday and I feel like that was because of me working a full time schedule this week. I have lost a little over 75lbs so far, but I want to lose 25 more lbs in the next 3-4 months to prepare for deployment homecoming. To do so I am really going to have to crack down on my eating habits and exercise routine. I am determined to get back on track and promote my health. Below are some pictures of me on my journey. I don't have any super recent ones- but I plan on taking some tomorrow and updating again soon. I am about 50 lbs from my goal weight of 130lbs.

This is my 5 month front and back comparison photo:

The first photo was day of surgery, the second and third are of the swelling from my infections, the fourth was at 3 months post op, and the 5th was at 5 months post op:

The first and third photos were before surgery - the second and fourth were at 5 months post op:

4 Months 1 Week Post-Op

Wow! A lot of time has passed since my last update! I have been so busy with moving and deployment and spending time with family to notice! to those of you who read often, I apologize. Since my last update my wound is completely healed! It healed enough the day that my husband deployed for me to stop packing it! It was very lucky timing for us! God was definitely watching out for us and gave me and my husband just the amount of time we needed together before his departure. He has been gone a little over a month now. I have also gotten a membership to the YMCA and have been working out with my sister. I have started doing upper body workouts to focus on the loose skin that I am beginning to accumulate on my arms. I am also doing cardio exercises and got a sweet pair of Dr. Dre Beats headphones for working out. I will be scheduling my second personal training session this week to learn about which lower body workouts will be best for me and in a few weeks I will begin focusing on my abdomen. I am still a little sensitive when doing crunches and things of that nature with my incision site, so I don't want to push it too early. I had to get a doctors clearance for my Y membership and I was so happy the day that they allowed me to start my personal training! At this point I have hit a bit of a plateau, maybe it was the stress from moving, or my husband's absence, but I am sitting on a loss a little under 60 lbs at the moment and I am finally below 200 lbs! I feel good about myself and I am gaining more confidence. My scars are starting to fade and I am noticing that I have more endurance when it comes to walking long distances and uphill. I can even climb stairs without getting winded! I also had quit taking my vitamins for a few weeks because they were making me sick, but I found a new one that I like much better and I began taking them today. I got the Strawberry-Pineapple multivitamin, the Grape Iron, and the Berry calcium from Celebrate Bariatric Vitamins and they are really good. I also got the Chocolate protein and vitamin powder, but it's not as good as others I have had. Mainly due to the fact that they make you mix it with milk as to not add extra calories and fat. It is tolerable though. I will post some photos of my progress at the bottom of this posting and will be sure to update more frequently!

3 month 3 week comparison photo:

You can see my "pucker" where my incision was and also very vague scars, I am also accumulating some loose skin at the bottom of my stomach:

This is a view of my incision all healed up!

11 Weeks Post-Op

I have been so bad about posting lately with the upcoming deployment and the stress from recently moving. I do have good news though. I am only 6 lbs away from hitting my goal of losing 50lbs. Once I hit it I will be rewarding myself with a new haircut! I went to the doctor yesterday and had my wound check appointment. With all of the setbacks they finally think I'm in the homestretch. It was only a little over 2 cm deep yesterday. They expect I will be packing it for about one and a half to two more weeks. I still have not been exercising because I don't need to get an infection and pro-long the process further. I will begin as soon as I am healed. I am getting new work-out clothes with our tax return and I am ready to start being active. I want to hit more goals and get more rewards!! My rewards list is as follows:

50 Lbs - Haircut
60 Lbs - Mani / Pedi
70 Lbs - iPod Touch and Beats Headphones
75 Lbs - Coach Purse and Wallet
80 Lbs - New Shoes
90 Lbs - New Work-Out Clothes
100 Lbs - New Outfit
110 Lbs - New Watch
120 Lbs - New Sunglasses
125 Lbs - MAC Makeover
130 Lbs - 2 Concert Tickets
GOAL: 140 Lbs - Victoria Secret Shopping!

All of these goals will help to motivate me and help me prepare for Anthony's arrival back home. I hope that I can lose all of the weight and hit my goal within the year.

Here is a picture of my face from October, before surgery, and on my Birthday, January 30th.

Update!

I haven't updated in a while because I have been avoiding the scale. I am at a loss of around 40 lbs right now and my pants are getting way too big. I have pulled some smaller sizes out of storage and I have went from a size 24 to a 20 in the past two months. Considering I haven't been exercising that's still a great loss to me. I have recently been looking into bariatric and low-fat and sugar recipes to start cooking a little healthier. With Anthony deploying in just a few weeks I will have plenty of time to master that before he gets back home. As far as my incision goes I think we only have a few more weeks. Last Monday I was 5 cm deep, Friday I was  4 cm deep, and this Monday I was only 3 cm deep! The smaller it gets it seems the faster it's healing. I'm not going to lie, it's pretty painful. Changing the wound has been difficult because it is getting so small to where the 1/4" ribbon and wooden tipped applicator don't want to both fit in there. It feels like a scraping. I am doing it though, once a day now (YAY!). The top has been closing so we have had to start packing it half-way down and then pack the top more. If the top closes up before the depth heals we will get another abscess and I will have to be cut open again and we will back to square one! NO, thank you! I feel like I am doing okay emotionally, but we will see how that stays as the deployment gets here. I just need to stay away from food for comfort during this! On a happier note, my husband and I are attending a Military Adoption Workshop this coming week and we are really excited to get this process started. Hopefully we will be all set to start placement by the time he gets back from Kuwait! Tomorrow is my birthday and I have been super busy working on projects for an internship at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, so sorry for my lack of postings lately! I hope all of my hard work and efforts pay off and I get the job. Good things are going to happen for me in 2013. This is going to be MY year! :)

Photos to come soon!

Incision

I just wanted to post a photo of how small my incision is today. The bleach solution has definitely helped the rare becteria go away and we can already tell a huge difference in how fast I am healing. hopefully only another week or two of packing it. We will see at my Friday wound check appointment.

5 Weeks 2 Days Post-Op

It's been far too long since my last blog update. I have been so busy with deployment preparations and moving and the holidays. I haven't weighed myself in a few days, but I know I am losing weight. I am fitting into clothes that not too long ago were too small by a bit. My bras are not as full as they once were and that is something to talk about in itself! My jeans, while they are still hugging at my waist are beginning to sag in the butt and are super loose around the thighs. My incision has also shrunk a bit. We battled first the infection, and then a few weeks later found out that it was harboring a rare bacteria that kept my wound from healing. We had to pack it with a bleach solution twice a day for a week. Thankfully over that week it looks to have gotten much smaller already and it looks like it may heal by the end of the month if we don't run into anymore problems or setbacks. Thank goodness! Just in time for Anthony's deployment. We will be moving on the 19th of this month and I couldn't be more excited. We are going to save a lot of money and I will have an even better work out center at my disposal. I'm talking stair stepper, weight machine and all! I know that I have definitely lost 30 lbs at this point, possibly more, but my doc thinks that I will plateau soon, which is why I have been avoiding the scale. I don't want to discourage myself. I am so ready to exercise and I have an appointment on the 10th to see if I will be cleared for exercise and if so, off I go to the wellness center personal trainer. Anthony also got me ZUMBA for Christmas, the DVD series. There are free classes on Ft.Carson every week, so once I lose about 50 lbs I'll probably join them. My scars are kinda dark now, but the scabs are all gone and my doctor has cleared me to start using Merderma if I want to. The one in my belly button healed kinda weird and I feel that some new skin should form before I use it. I may start using that around my birthday on the 30th. My rings are nearly falling off and will fit on any of my fingers now, including my thumbs. I will post some pictures below this of my incision and scars, and a photo of my face where you can slightly tell that I have lost some facial weight. I will try to post again soon.

Photos That Go With 5 Weeks 2 Days Post-Op

This is a view of all of the scars:

This is the worst scar, where my drainage bag was removed:

 This is my belly button, which healed weird because of tearing during staple removal:

 The two right side scars:

 My packed incision.

Facial Photo: