Update

February 28, 2000

Hi Dr. R,

So far so good. :-). I am sipping my V-8 and Orange Juice, taking my meds.

I tried to call your office on Saturday to verify what the nurse told me.

" That I could go home " , but got no answer and no answering machine. Also

tried on Sunday for the answering machine and got nothing, and again this

morning, again, no answer. So I came home. Dr. Finder is going to remove the

staples on Friday. According to the scale I am 219. Is this possible?? I

didn't get a definate weight before the surgery. I wish I had. I know I

started this process at 237. Gained to 255 during the wait (no pun intended

:-) ). Then when I had the flu, I didn't eat much for a couple of weeks.

But going from the 237, could I have lost 18 pounds already??? I've had a

bit of heartburn, no nausea, no dumping. The pain is bearable with the meds,

and mostly in the upper left rib cage. No bleeding from the sites. The

dietary dept. at the hospital really has NO CLUE about what we can eat, do

they? They brought me sweetened cranberry juice cocktail which I couldn't

drink, iced tea, sweetened jello, sugar packets, and a cup of unsalted broth.

When the tray aide came to get the tray she asked why I hadn't eaten

anything. Besides not being hungry, I told her I couldn't have most of this

with the MGB. I asked for either some OJ or V8. She got rude with me and

told me that this is what they send. The 5th floor male nurse, Mike, was

very helpful after the surgery. Most of the others just left me to my own.

The private room was wonderful. I was in 5116 all the way at the end of the

hall. I brought my fan which was wonderful with the weekend heat, slept with

the bed mostly in the up position, I'm not a back sleeper, but I managed.

When returning to the Duke Tower Suites, I managed to lay on my right side to

sleep, and mostly all is well. My sugar is still a bit elevated, taking

small injections and hopeful that the sugar levels will go down. By the way,

I will volunteer to be an operator, sign me up.

Thanks for my new life!

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