Magically Fatty Disney World

Disney World is a dangerous place in a post-op world. If you are not familiar with the dining plan or the restaurants in the parks and at the resorts it can be very difficult to get the proper protein you need and be able to enjoy your vacation. I am an experienced Disney World patron and I knew what I was getting myself into and which restaurants would be best for me but unfortunately getting reservations isn’t always possible. I was there for a week and sometimes I had no choice but to slip up or else I wasn’t going to have anything to eat again until the next morning.

 The number one rule about maintaining your diet while trapped in Disney (Yes, you are trapped unless you drove there or want to pay for expensive cab rides off the property.) is to avoid Quick Service meals. This is Disney’s answer to fast food, they may not have a McDonald’s but the food is just as bad and very hard on the digestion system. With the Deluxe Dining plan everything comes with an appetizer, entrée and desert. If you are post-op like me, a lot of food will be wasted. I hate the thought of wasting food but they are insistent on giving you everything you paid for so whole plates may go untouched. Having knowledge on what the menus look like, which parks are offering extra magic hours and what you tolerate is the key to success. All hours and menus can be accessed at http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/ if you click on the park and the dining options it will show you all the restaurants including Quick Service restaurants. It is important to find at least one Quick Service for emergency dining. For me, Magic Kingdom restaurants did not really offer anything I can eat and getting a reservation at Cinderella’s Castle and the new Be Our Guest restaurant is very difficult. I came up with Pinocchio Haus as my one Magic Kingdom dining contingency plan. There, I had the meatball sub and just ate two meatballs off the bread and nothing else. The meatballs were a bit dry and I did have to sip some water with them even though I am not supposed to drink with my meals. Small sips were better than risking getting a dry meatball stuck. My stomach was very uncomfortable afterwards but if I didn’t eat I would have had to wait until morning because the restaurants don’t stay open as late as the parks do.

On the dining plan you can eat at any Disney Park restaurant that accepts the dining plan, three great recommendations: The Brown Derby in Hollywood Studios (Make reservations.), The Crab House in Downtown Disney and Planet Hollywood in Downtown Disney. The first two are signature dining restaurants and will deduct two points off your dining plan but are completely worth it. The Brown Derby offers an array of fine dining protein from a delicious snow crab appetizer to chicken and steak (If you are up to that in your post op stage.). The Crab House has a large variety of delicious high in protein crab and lobster, if you are with non seafood eaters their dinner menu also offers a great variety of steak, chicken and pasta for them. Also, I recommend their tomato, goat cheese and chicken pasta (Eat around the pasta.). Planet Hollywood also offers a variety of things you can pick on; the chicken tostadas have a delicious shredded chicken you can eat off the top as a filling appetizer or the tomato and mozzarella is also a hearty appetizer. I had the LA Lasagna which is deep fried lasagna tubes filled with sauce and ricotta. I only ate the insides. Be prepared for wait staff at most restaurants to say something about not finishing your plate or the way you picked through your food. My response is, “I eat like a five year old, I have to separate and examine everything.” It gets a laugh and gets them to leave you alone. I tried to avoid most deserts or ordered something small that I could give the impression that it was touched. Epcot also offers a great variety of restaurants in their World Showcase. The Mexican restaurants are excellent and it is very easy to separate the chicken from the enchiladas and everything typically comes with black beans. Don’t be afraid of Disney dining, just do your research and you won’t have a problem getting the protein you need. I’m still not a breakfast eater so I packed a six pack of Boost shakes in a hard suitcase and was able to get V8 on the premises.

I was nervous about rides and roller coasters. I still have a fear I might pop a stitch or bust open my new stomach but everything was fine even on Splash Mountain. I was happy that I fit on rides better than I did last year but I did get slammed around a lot more because I am smaller so be aware of that possibility.  I do not recommend going to Disney if you are not on solids yet or still healing. If you are still on the liquid diet or mushy portion it is going to be very difficult. Hold off any Disney planning until you are into your solid portion and know what you can handle. I would like to be able to tell you whether or not I have lost weight during my vacation but I must admit that I am nervous about weighing myself. I don’t want to see those numbers even go up by a pound even though my portions were small, Disney food is just so fattening. I’m working up the courage to weigh myself but for now I’m just going to enjoy the memories.

You Call It Thanksgiving, I Call It Thursday

I feel obligated to say something about Thanksgiving; however, I’ve never been a fan of this holiday. I have issues with how the holiday came to be and what it has morphed into but I will give thanks to all my readers. I appreciate that you want to read what I have to write. 

For those of you who dread Thanksgiving because someone is going to criticize you about your weight, please don’t hesitate to tell whomever it is to shove a turkey leg up it. If they have nothing nice to say then you shouldn’t either. If you are struggling because you are afraid of the extra calories, don’t be. Just remember to eat your protein first and taste other things. If you know something is a trigger, just like junkies have triggers, stay away from it. Don’t even taste it.

If you enjoy Thanksgiving, then have a good holiday. Eat, drink and be merry (unless you just had surgery. Then have a gravy flavored shake and be on with your Thursday.)

In the end, just remember that after all is said and done, it is just Thursday with a fancy name attached.

Hurricane Sandy Post-Op Regret

As most of you know, the east coast was hit by hurricane Sandy, some areas were hit harder than others. I live in an area that was hit hard but not as severely as Staten Island or the Jersey Shore. I had no power, heat, hot water or fresh food for a week. I had to throw out my Greek yogurt, soy milk, purees just about everything I have been living off of in my post-op world. I had to revert back to a liquid diet to get the protein I needed. Protein powder being the only thing that didn’t need to be trashed. When FEMA and the National Guard came with military rations for us, everything was crackers or had rice in it, nothing I can currently digest. All my local hospitals and clinics were shut down. Bellevue Hospital, where I received my surgery took a lot of damage and is not set to reopen until February 2013, hopefully sooner.

Surrounded by all this disaster made me start to feel immense regret for having the surgery. It made me realize how little prepared I was for a disaster and had I lived on Staten Island, the forgotten island that was left trapped for days in the storm how would I have survived? This surgery doesn’t give you much option in terms of nutritional survival in a disaster, especially when you are recently post op. I was on the borderline end of mushy on to solid stage when Sandy hit and I didn’t have many options. The first day of the storm all the supermarkets were selling premade bags of bread and water and nothing else. That didn’t help me. The next day they were all closed and dumped everything in a dumpster, old and young alike were starving and digging through the supermarket’s trashed stock for anything they could eat. I was too afraid to do that fearing the risk of becoming ill with no bariatric doctors available. The regret I felt was more about the inability to survive if things became worse. I kept asking myself, how could I have done this? If another disaster hits how will I survive? Then I would tell myself not to worry, by the time another disaster hits I should be further down the post op line… I hope.

Things are slowly recovering in my area but it made me wonder what are the ways someone post op can prepare for small and large disasters? Winter is upon us and if this current weather is any indication of what is to come, we are all going to need a plan.

What They Don't Tell You

I am officially six weeks out of surgery and down 24 lbs since the day of the surgery and 43lbs in total since the start of the liquid diet. If you have never had the surgery please don’t think this came easy, there is nothing easy about it.

There are a lot of things they don’t tell you, to quote my doctor, “It was have made you more nervous had I told you. Would you have still gone through with it?” My response, “I don’t know because you took my right to make an informative decision away.” They tell you about the potential nausea, constipation, gas, reflux and hair falling out but they leave out other things. For those with chronic back pain, only after the fact did I find out it is common for you to have intense pain, worse than your usual back pain after the surgery. I will come back to this.

On the day of the surgery I started having doubts. I cried and when they put me on the table I was about to say I don’t want to do this but by the time that happened I woke up in agony and it was all ready done. I was so nauseous and the pain was so intense, my mouth felt like a cotton desert and nobody would even give me an ice chip. They had no room available for me and I had to stay in the recovery room until the late evening when they found one for me. The doctors say before the surgery it is very important to bring your medications with you as the hospital does not necessarily have them to provide. I did, I brought my birth control and back medication, however, when I was finally placed in a room I was told my belongings are locked up until the next day. Despite my doctor’s warnings not to miss my pills especially my birth control even if I had it with me, the nurses and doctors after the surgery were not going to allow me to take it because they weren’t letting me swallow anything. Even with the morphine drip, my back was in agony. I was experiencing pain in my back I hadn’t previously experienced. Due to the pain I was out of my very uncomfortable bed which was broken in less than the recommended six hours. I spent my first night walking around and not sleeping. I couldn’t sleep the pain in my back and stomach was too intense and instead of giving me the medication I use for my back they insisted on giving me Vicodan which does nothing for my nerve pain. I didn’t eat(drink broth/whatever that other liquid poison was)  anything the entire time I was in the hospital, everything burned the back of my throat, I only drank water and tea. Despite my back doctor’s warnings the hospital bariatric doctor’s took me off my back meds causing a painful downward spiral in my lower back. By day three of my hospital stay I was ready to get out of there, my back was in agony and that trumped any stomach pain I had. Upon discharge they told me not to take my back meds and sent me home with more damn Vicodan. I was unable to get in touch with my back doctor until the following Monday and she was not happy that I was taken off my meds and after a discussion with the bariatric doctors (which I’m sure she yelled at them because she is all about the well-being of her patients) she informed me to stop the Vicodan and continue the back medication. I was walking on a cane and barely able to get out of bed things were so bad. In addition to he surgery weakening your core (keep in mind you cannot do any core activities for six weeks) it is common for the surgery to pinch nerves in your back because you are on a table for many hours and then in the hospital bed, then lying on your back when you are home. Had I known it was going to make my back worse I might have made some different arrangements or at least made my house a little more comfortable for my condition.

Another important thing to remember is to bring loose fitting clothes and don’t plan on wearing a bra home. I was so swollen that I could barely fit in my sneakers. Bring the most comfortable loose fitting things you own.

At home, I had to make sure I was getting in my three protein shakes a day which even up until the end of the four weeks of the post op liquid diet was a struggle. I have to get up at five to seven A.M. to have my first shake just so I can drink the other two shakes throughout the day plus water. I also had pretty bad nausea starting the second week, I have come to the conclusion that my body no longer wants anything to do with high protein chocolate Boost (maybe it is the sugar) so I just stuck to whey protein, One of the things I found helped me with nausea was V8. I recommend asking your doctor before you try it, V8 is very acidic and my doctors were afraid of reflux but it has not bothered me. I have been getting additional protein by mixing K02 (A Special K drink mix similar to Crystal Light except it has 5 grams of protein) in my whey protein, combined with half water and half soy milk. Despite that, my hair is still falling out. The doctors lied when they said if you get enough protein your hair won’t fall out. Now they told me no matter what I will loose some hair, how much varies and it won’t stop until my weight settles. As I keep losing pounds I will keep losing hair.

Despite all of this, I am now on the pureed portion of the diet. The diet doesn’t bother me, just fitting food in is what does. My daily diet consist of an early morning shake for breakfast, less than a cup of Fage 0 greek yogurt for lunch and a puree I made for dinner. The first week was a broccoli puree, the last week and a half has been an excellent bean puree.

So, this is where I am with everything. A little angry at the doctors and little happy with my progress and excited that my six weeks have passed and now I can go to physical therapy to do some core strengthening to help make my back happy again.

I also want to thank my readers, I know you are out there I see the blog hits. You are a quiet bunch but don’t be afraid to ask questions or tell your story, You don’t have to come out of the fatty closet but you can make your voice heard here. I will be back with updates as often as possible.

Post Surgery Wound: The Official Brand of the Bariatric Cult

I am now post-Sleeve surgery and I have been recovering at home without a computer. I just wanted to get this quick post out there. I have five incisions. I took a picture while I was in the hospital of the largest incision which is in the front of my stomach about two inches above my naval and slightly to the right. This incision was freaking me out because I thought there was blood oozing from the the wound. Looking at the picture you can understand why I thought my insides were leaking out.

A week later, I had my post op to check on my wounds. My doctor said she was going to remove the tape. I flinched a few times before I actually let her do it. I felt that pulling off the tape would cause bleeding and whatnot because for some reason in my head the tape was holding everything together. Once she pulled off the tape there was nothing there but bruises, scars and bandage glue. The smaller incisions are healing pretty well. The larger one has given me some trouble. I have had no infections but I had some fluid coming out of the larger one. As of now, I'm four weeks post op and things are healing well. I was weighed at the post-op and I cannot remember how much I lost (I will get in to the surgery and the healing process in my next post. I wasn't doing so well in pain matters.) but I do know between the start of the two week liquid diet and the day of the surgery I lost 17lbs.

So, now I'm an official branded member of the bariatric cult. I will be back with a run down on the first month of post-op and all the things they don't tell you pre-op.

Liquid Diet Day 14: The Final Day

Fourteen days of protein shakes and vegetables. I am prepared for my surgery tomorrow, I even bought a new video game to kill any boring down time I may have in the hospital, though I don't think there will be much. I am now waiting for the clinic to call me and tell me what time to come in tomorrow morning. I feel indifferent towards this whole thing and I'm more worried about going under anesthesia right now.

The liquid diet has been pretty simple, I'm so full of liquids that I don't feel hungry. My cup of vegetables for the past two weeks has been salad. I like salad so it has not been a problem. For my whey protein shakes, cinnamon powder has been my flavor savior. If there was a issue of immense hunger, dizziness or weakness a boiled egg or a can of V8 has been very helpful. For a treat, frozen ice pops made with Berry Benefiber or Orange Metamucil.  I am sure it is different for everyone based on taste and weight.

The next time I write, there will be a physical piece of me missing and I will be an official member of the Bariatric Cult.

Liquid Diet Day 8: Does it Count if I Don't Swallow?

I didn't pass out from lack of nutrition.

Ten pounds down and one week to go until surgery. The liquid diet has been much easier than I thought it would be. With a shake for breakfast, a glass of fiber and Go Greens in the morning, I'm full of liquids. For lunch another shake and a cup of vegetables combined with my daily intake of water and for dinner another shake and if I am lacking protein for the day, a boiled egg. Then I end my day with another glass of fiber. I'm so full of liquids and constantly drinking them that I have no room for food. The only craving I had the first few days was for cheese but once I started making the whey protein shakes with skim milk, I felt much better.

I have done creative little things to try to get more flavor into this diet including switching over to gummy vitamins. If I really want a treat, I have a fiber ice pop, they cost next to nothing to make and you all ready have all the ingredients, all you need is an ice pop tray. I just miss the flavor of things and sometimes I want to just chew them and spit them out so I can have the taste in my mouth. All seems to be going well for now.

I am, however, getting a little nervous and wondering if I am really making the right decision, especially since I am very much in the closet about this surgery.