Monday morning I had my 4 week post-op visit with Dr. Smith. In the waiting room, I ran into Barbara, who was one of my surgery buddies from the pre-op class, who had her gastric bypass the day after me. I weighed in at 341.2, which is down 32.1 pounds from my pre-op weight. We talked about how I’ve been having some bad days, dehydration, and how persistent my nausea and vomiting is. He was concerned that I may be dealing with an esophageal stricture, and ordered an endoscopy with dilation. This procedure requires a clear liquid diet, for at least 24 hours.

The scheduler tried to get me in for a next day appointment, but the soonest she could get me in was Thursday. I’ve been trying to keep to the clear liquids diet, but it actually makes me more nauseous.

I went into work for 3 hours, and was not feeling quite right the whole time I was there. I went home napped, and got progressively worse through the afternoon. By the time I decided to call my surgeon for direction, it was 5:15 – just missed his office closing.

I called the answering service, and Dr Smith called back a few minutes later. We discussed my symptoms, and he agreed that I was dealing with severe dehydration. He advised me to head to St. Mark’s ER for IV fluids.

I arrived at the ER a little after 6pm.  Luckily the waiting room was pretty empty, and I was through triage within 20 minutes. By the 30 minute mark, Dr. Paradise was in the room assessing my symptoms. I got started on IV fluids and had a series of tests done. I was so dehydrated that I hadn’t urinated all day, and I wasn’t able until a liter of fluids was in me. As I got more hydrated, I was more comfortable and felt less yucky. Once my levels were what the doctor wanted them to be, he had me start sucking on ice chips and sipping salty Sprite (I can’t have carbonation with my gastric bypass, and salt will counteract the CO2). When I kept them down, I was able to be discharged.

Today was a lot easier than yesterday. I was properly hydrated, so I felt less fatigued. I worked for 3 hours, was able to attend a fun lunch with some bloggers, and relax and recuperate for the afternoon. Rosie wanted to audition for a play, so I helped her prepare a song and resume, took her to the audition, then went home and got straight in bed.

I got an extremely loud case of hiccups, and decided to record it…but as soon as I hit record, the hiccups were gone. But since I had the camera out, I decided to do a quick vlog post for a 4 week post-op update.