Progress

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Team Outing & Deep Posts

OK.  I'm hungry.  Not aching pains, getting dizzy, ravenous, have-to-have-something-right-this-second-or-I'm-going-to-lose-it hungry...but I'm hungry.  My calories are slowly working their way higher.  For the last week or so, I was seriously lucky to get 400 calories a day.  Now I'm getting closer to between 500-600.  I know that's still way low but there's only so much jello, pudding, soup I can eat.  I also cannot begin to tell you how sick I am of eating these things.  I want to CHEW!  God gave us teeth...we were meant to use them!  As for pain, getting better.  A little pain in the abdomen (maybe still from gas or something?) and of course that shoulder.  The shoulder is getting a little better every day too so that's definitely a good thing.  At least it's progress.  I told myself I wasn't going to get on a scale the first 6 weeks as any weight loss/gain is temporary as I heal.  Well, that didn't happen.  So far I've lost 13 lbs from my surgery date weight of 228.  I fully expect my weight to go up as I start actually eating again and I'm OK with that.  I'm not going to update my ticker until I get my first fill though because that seems to me when it's really "official." 

Yesterday, we had a team outing at work.  We have these every quarter where my group does something "fun" to help build relationships, blah, blah, blah.  We went to Dave & Buster's.  Not sure if they are everywhere but it's basically a restaurant/bar/arcade type place.  A lot of fun!  Oh!  But the food!  My group had chicken tacos, burgers, blackened chicken pasta and the list goes on!  It all looked and smell fantastic!  I got nothing.  The two types of soup they have there were just too "chowdery" or spicy for this phase so I ate before we went and had an iced tea.  There are always a couple people who don't eat when we go out (one is ALWAYS watching her weight and eats her salad before she comes and the other is just the oddest person I've ever met in my life) so I didn't feel too awkward not ordering anything.  I also made sure to place myself at the end of the table next to the only two people who know why I can't eat.  Avoided a lot of questions that way.  *On a side note, does anyone else find these corporate team building things to be horribly stupid??  They start off OK...pick a good destination...a place that should be fun but then you have to play dumb games during lunch to "get to know eachother better" and then there's the people.  I've worked in my group for 4 years now.  We haven't gotten anyone new in at least 2.  I already know these people as well as I need to.  No offense but I can avoid most of the people I work with when I'm at work...don't like them there so I certainly don't like them in the "real world."  There are a couple people I work with that just suck.  Plain and simple.  No if's, and's or but's about it.  Not to mention that if I want to hang out with any of these people, we do it after work, away from the sucky people.  *sigh*  Oh well. 

Moving on to the "deep posts" part of this blog.  It seems every time I turn around lately, someone is having some grand epiphany, is hitting their goal and can get all retrospective, is reaffirming their commitments, etc.  I have nothing deep to contribute right now.  Right now, I feel consumed by healing, trying not to eat, work and my family and very little else.  I haven't been mulling my situation over much since I had my surgery as I feel like I just need to focus on getting back to 100% before I can really commit to anything else.  Did anyone else kind of feel this way after surgery?  Like if you took too deep a look into something, it would scare the hell out of you, so you just deal with what you have to deal with right this second?  Anyway, to all the deep bloggers, I thank you for your bravery and honesty in what you're going through as it's inspirational to see what others must overcome or a good heartfelt reason why you blog or what your goals are.

Now just to respond to some things:  First, thank you all for your words of encouragement.  To Lynda: incisions are doing pretty good. Not too irritated except for the one that seems to hit right at my bra line.  It doesn't bother me but I'm thinking that can't be good for it.  Will also get some cream of wheat this weekend to add some variety.  Catherine - Thanks for the tip on the scar stuff.  Checked it out and it looks good.  Anyone have any idea when I should start using some sort of scar treatment?  To Shante and Angela - Thanks for visiting my blog.  If anyone wants to check out theirs...we were all banded the same day  and Angela could use some encouragement and Shante is doing beautifully - you can visit theirs blogs here and here.

Hope everyone's having a good week.  I'll probably check in on Monday so have a great weekend!

6 comments:

Lynda said...

OMG!--I completely ABHORE all those "team building" exercises. The worst for me are the role playing ones. I can never really take it seriously. And, the "situations" are never representative of what happens when I'm really working. It just goes to show how out of touch supervisors can be.

Barbara said...

Oh Manda Panda.. you are totally where you should be with your band. I think each and everyone of us can relate to where you are right now and I think it is a good place.

you will have stories to tell ... just hang in there..

Anonymous said...

as the person who sometimes has to planned the mandatory fun work events - yeah, sometimes they aren't so fun. : ) BTW, I just started following you. I am going to be banded on 9-16-10. thank you for sharing your story!

Patrick said...

Team building rocks, well, maybe it would if there were a team building exercise that included actual rocks. I am a guy, I like rocks, what can I say.

As for the epiphany stuff, just focus on healing and adjusting to your band & life with it. Get that all sorted to where you are comfortable and feel well in control and before you know, you'll be coming at us with some cool epiphany posts of your own.

Jenny said...

I agree with you that I don't really want to get to know anyone a little better!

Patrick said...

I have an award to honor you with on my blog today:
http://responsibility199.blogspot.com/2010/09/day-137-happy-101.html