NYC Pride 2011 [Gallery]
I went to Pride yesterday, it was fabulous. Pride is the one day of the year when you can act extremely over the top and be accepted still. Even dressed as a giant teletubby…
Surgery Update
As most of you know, I had a gastric bypass preformed on December 15th, 2010. The beginning was a little bumpy, but I made it through. I figured I’d post my experiences for anyone who is interested.
After my Surgery they brought me back to recovery. This was the only painful part of the surgery. I felt as if I needed to vomit, but couldn’t. It wasn’t physical pain but rather an extremely intense naseau. They gave me pain killers and other things, but nothing helped until they finally gave me some dilaudid to knock me out. I woke up hours later and felt as if nothing ever happened.
Once I was feeling up to it, they had me walk. They told all of the patients that we had to walk as it would help us heal faster as well as get rid of the gas that they had blown into us to make room for the tools. They also provided little tiny cups that held about two tablespoons of water for us to sip, telling us to sip one over a 30 minute period. I was in the hospital for about a day and a half after my operation.
After the operation I was told to drink only clear liquids for a few days, then start taking my vitamins and protein drinks after that. Because of malabsorption from the surgery I have to take a multivitamin made for bariatric patients, as well as calcium, iron, and vitamin b12. I will have to continue these for the rest of my life, as I can not absorb enough of these from food to maintain proper levels.
There were three stages of food after surgery. You start on a liquid diet for a few weeks. After that, you get to move onto pureed, followed by slowly moving into normal foods. When I say normal foods, I do not mean back to anything you want to eat. Rather healthy solids should be handled well, while after this surgery too much sugar is a no no. Having too much sugar causes what is called ‘dumping syndrome’, which feels extremely horrible.
I have experiences dumping syndrome once since surgery, and once is enough. I had apparently sleep walked up to the kitchen when I had a low glucose level and my subconscious decided on a bowl of frosted flakes. While this did work to get my blood sugar levels up, when they rose enough I snapped to just in time to realize what I did, and then suddenly felt horrible and had to run for the bathroom. The sugar in the frosted flakes caused me to vomit for nearly an hour, as well as experience horrible diarrhea. I felt horrible for about 6 hours after that before returning to normal.
As of today I am down nearly 73 pounds and down from a size 46 waist to a size 34-36 waist depending on the brand. I have a bmi of 26.5 and am happily on my way to a normal bmi soon.
Hard Fest NYC
I attended Hard NYC on Saturday. Unfortunately, I had to leave before M.I.A. made it on due to my back hurting, but I did see Rye Rye, Sleigh Bells, and Die Antwoord, who were wonderful, although Rye Rye’s sound was not set loud enough. Die Antwoord put on a great act, and Sleigh bells had tons of energy. Check out some clips and pictures from the show after the break.
Bannerman Island
On sunday I visited Bannerman Island, an island in the middle of the hudson river. We took a boat over for a tour. Bannerman Island was a military surplus warehouse site, which is now just the ruins of the house and castle. More information can be found on the website.
