So many feelings in my stomach

Waking up from surgery is just such an unpleasant experience. I remember this from last year when I had parathyroid surgery, but I was hoping that this time would be better, and it both was and was not. It was better because I woke up from a complication-free surgery at the right time and was not totally confused and alone. It was also better because I didn't feel nauseated--I told my anesthesiologist that last time I did get nausea, so she gave me some preventive stuff ahead of time, and it worked.

It was worse because when they do abdominal surgery, I guess sometimes they put pressure on your diaphragm? Or something? I can't remember exactly what because I was kind of out of it when the nurse was explaining it to me, but it was very difficult to breathe. I was wheezing, basically, huffing and puffing and struggling. And there was a lot of pain at one of my incision sites. This lasted for about half an hour until the pain meds really kicked in and I started being able to breathe more easily.

Still, that experience, lying in the bed in a stupor, aware only of the pain and your inability to breathe? Not pleasant. I am SO glad I didn't go for bypass because that's a much more complicated surgery and I can imagine recovering from it is a lot worse. Plus, I'd still be in the hospital right now. And it would have cost $24,000. So, you know. I picked the lap-band when I still thought insurance would be paying, so cost wasn't a factor, but it's certainly a relief that my surgery was the less expensive option.

Anyway, the surgery itself went well, apparently--no complications, everything was simple and easy, and I was home by 1 p.m., at which point I tweeted that I had survived and collapsed into bed in a Vicodin + wearing-off anesthesia = extreme exhaustion haze. I woke up four hours later feeling better, but actually there's definitely more pain than last time.

I have five tiny incisions--three very small ones (judging by the fact that they only have band-aids on them) along my rib cage under my breasts, and two larger ones (assumption based on the gauze bandages covering them) above and to the sides of my belly button. Only the lower left incision hurts. Apparently that's where my port is--the thing that will be used to fill my band with saline solution. The pain is so bad that I can't lie on my left side, and I am still taking Vicodin instead of switching to Tylenol. Thank god Vicodin doesn't make me dizzy like Percocet did.

When I got home I hadn't eaten in about four days (and had lost about 11 pounds during that time), so I was really hungry, but it still took me about twenty minutes to eat a container of yogurt, and after that I wasn't hungry at all. Lap-bands don't create much restriction until they're filled, so I assume this has more to do with being post-surgery and medicated and not having eaten in so long that I have to ease back into it? But either way, I will take it. It would be awesome if I turned out to be one of those people who did have a bit of restriction pre-fill.

And that is sort of the crux of this whole thing. "If I were one of the people who." As in, everyone has a different experience with their band. Some can't eat at all post-surgery. Others can, and do, eat solid foods right away even though you really need not to do that because you can cause damage to your band, and your stomach, during the healing process. Some people need a lot of fills to reach restriction. Others need hardly any. Some people lose the weight really fast. Others are much more gradual. And the occasional person doesn't lose weight at all.

That last thing is what scares me a lot. I know that for some people, this surgery isn't the right fit, and I'm mostly confident that for me, it is the right fit. I also know that a lot of people who don't lose the weight with the surgery have things that need to change--their fill, or their eating habits, or their exercise habits. As they remind us over and over again, surgery is not a cure for obesity. It's a tool for weight-loss. You still have to make the effort, make the right choices. You have to walk the walk. And I absolutely will do that. So I know, rationally, that this surgery WILL work for me. But I'm still afraid that I'll be one of those exceptional people for whom the surgery doesn't work, and it will turn out to be a $10,000 mistake.

However, I do not have buyer's remorse at the moment. I feel OK, all things considered, and I think I can already feel some restriction, and I do think that it will work. I know that from the outside looking in it seems like of course it will work, of course it will be worth it. Because that's exactly how I felt when I read Erica's post-surgery freakout post last year where she was saying she wish she hadn't had the surgery. I knew that in a little while she'd feel better and then she would no longer wish that, even though at the time she couldn't see that.

The other thing that scares me is that because this is such a unique experience for each person, a lot of this is trial and error. As the dietitian told me when I was quizzing her on all sorts of things, such as exactly how long to wait between sips of water, "it's all one big experiment." Because it's not like I can see my stomach now. I can't look at it and tell that it's full and that if I eat anything else it will come back up. I have to do quite a bit of tracking and testing to make sure I'm doing it right.

And I know this will get better, I'll start getting in tune with my pouch and also, once the pain goes away it will be a lot easier to recognize those hungry and full feelings. Right now there's this pain in my stomach, and a small amount of nausea from the Vicodin, and mixing that with feelings of hunger and fullness makes it really hard to discern what my stomach is trying to tell me. And I know that will improve with time.

But still. No regrets, but wow was this a big thing to do. The surgery is over but everything that comes along with it is only just starting. I just keep trying to remind myself that it will be worth it in the end.