Good afternoon;

Well here we are at the end of another year. Can’t hardly believe 2005 has come and gone that quickly. If you have read some of my past post 2005 was not the greatest year for me and my family. Of course some would say it was a great year. Meaning that I did not die back in May.

Christmas turned out nice. The kids are happy and had a good Christmas considering. I sit here at work reminiscing about 2005 and other years. I catching myself thinking how lucky I really am, I have a beautiful wife and wonderful kids. For the most part everyone is healthy and we all love each other. I have seen my other daughter and hope to stay in touch with her after all these years.

I hope 2006 is a good year and I hope the family and myself stay healthy and out of the hospital. I am currently down to 248 pounds from 359 in May. I really need to get to the gym and start working out and stay at the gym. I need to be consistent and try to not wavering one week to another. I bought a new digital camera and want to take more pictures of the family and my surroundings. Then post a few on my blog and who knows start a discussion group about photography. I have a lot to learn and look forward to it. I really want to get good at it so I can take pictures of my Dad’s pools that he builds. He does fabulous work and needs to be document for future memories.

I find myself thinking about Mom a lot lately (passed away a few years ago). I sure miss her and wish she was with us today to be with the kids. She sure loved Brandon and I bet would have just fallen all over Adriana. If your out there Mom, I love you and miss you.

I guess I better go and look at the rain. It is pouring lakes out there it is amazing.

Happy New Year everyone be safe.

Later
JB

Works been going good. Made a trip to Reno, NV to deliver a plotter and set it up. Spent 2 days working with the 5 people in that office.

As of last Tuesday I weighted in at 266. When I hit 259 I will have lost 100 pounds since my heart problems in May. That will be quite an acomplishment. Working out, I still do 20 minutes on the treadmill. An then work out my chest and stomach. Then I get an aqua message that caps the workout rather nicely.

Thanksgiving is coming up and I am not looking forward to it at all. I hope it will all be about the friendship and the talking and not about my surgery. We will see how it goes, this will be the first year I will not eat 2 or more plates full. I will be lucky to get down a small plate.

Been spending time with my son on his Yugioh card obsestion. Well I like the fact that he is collecting something. We went down and bought him the Yugi Evolution Starter Deck. This deck had Dark Magician and he says that is the coolest. Now he need Dark Magician Girl that will make it complete. He really wants the Egyptian God cards but I found that these are rare and very expensive. Three of them can cost in excess of $150, yes for only three of them.

Baby is walking everywhere and into everything. She is growing up so fast it is crazy. Brittany is a teen looking for a boyfriend or at least checking them out. Tammy is doing great I am so lucky to have her as my wife. She is working hard on losing weight. She is working out hard and eating right. I am so proud of her. Oh yea almost forgot. Went and had an EchoGram done and my ejection fraction is approx 25-28% that is doubled what it was in May. Not out of the woodwork yet but doing better.

Better go for now, take care and sleep tight.
JB

Good morning:

Had quite a talk with Brandon teacher today. Apparently 6-8 girls were fighting over Brandon yesterday. I guess Brandon has a few girls that like him a lot. Were talking about 3rd graders here. So the teacher wants us to have a talk with him about girls and how he should stay away from them. So we have a stud muffin for a son and we need to tell him girls are bad. hummm….

Other than that the morning was uneventful and made it to work in one piece. Had a good workout last night. I did cardio for 20 min and then did weights. I am working on my arms, chest, and stomach. Then had a nice aqua message afterwards. Last nights work out was a little tougher than the last few days not sure why. I made it through but really watching my heart rate. I am allowed to go 30 pts over my resting. My resting has been between 95-100. I take my heart rate up to about 115 but try not to go over that for to long of a period.

Have to go for now.

JB

Sorry it has been over a month or two since blogging. I have been busy getting back to work after my surgery.  I am doing good as of 11-1-05 I am weighing in at 271.6 which is down 53.9 pounds since surgery on 8-30-05.  I have been working out, doing cardio and lifting weights. I am starting slow and light and working my way up.  I still have heart issues that I have to pay attention to.  I hope to get an echogram done within the next couple of months to see if the weight loss is helping.  I sure hope it is helping otherwise I may have to get on the heart transplant list and I DO NOT want to do that.

Family is doing well Adriana is walking now, well sort of weaving.  Taken on a new roll at work I am now doing regional support for California and Nevada it has been quit challenging.  I will go for now I need to try and eat my 4-5 bites of protein for lunch.

Take care.

JB

Before and after surgury updates I have had a very successful surgery up to this point. I had VG (Vertical Gastrectomy) surgery on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 0900.  I had to check myself in on Monday for heart precautions.  I admitted myself at 0800 and had a right heart catheter put in at 1030 by my cardiologist took 30 minutes. That went extremely well considering the last one I had it took them 2 hours and 4 doctors. Then I went to CCU for the rest of the day. I had bowel prep starting at 1640 and boy oh boy by 1830 I was sitting all night. I consider myself lucky because they thought they were going to putting a balloon pump in and that would have meant I lay there for bowel prep would not have been good.

I then went into surgery at 0715 on Tuesday and Dr. John Rabkin performed surgery at 0900 (so I was told) and out of surgery at 0959.  All early detections were that it was a success. In my wife’s mind when I got up to ICU and said something to her she was happy. Quit frankly, I do not remember a damn thing from surgery until the next day. Due to my heart condition I did not get out of bed that night. I remember seeing some key people on Tuesday. My WIFE, Dr. John Rabkin, and Barbara Metcalf. I was told I held conversations with these people, sorry but do not recall talking.  Let’s be honest here about the pain.  I was not in much pain on Tuesday, mainly because I do not remember much of it.  Now Wednesday, started off okay.  Then I played macho man and did not use my PCA (morphine drip) nearly enough. The pain at one point was pretty severe. They asked me on a scale of 1-10 how much?  My wife looked at the chart that CPMC provided, that showed pain levels, and she said well it is obvious he is a 10 he is crying.  So they doped me up and provided extra pain medication. That did the trick, my pain was tolerable, and of course the side effect is that I slept most of the day, but that was okay with me. Now come Wednesday night, actually I think it was Thursday early morning. I told my nurse I wanted my follie out. So we took care of that and with in an hour I also got up and went to the bathroom. They were thrilled about that.  Thursday was a catch up day for me on what happened the two days before. I also had my first meal, well if you call a popsicle a meal then yes my first meal.

I was released Friday and finally made it home. Pain wise, I have some don’t get me wrong, however it is not bad at all. I think the biopsy they did on my liver hurts more than my wounds. Speaking of wounds, I have 4 lap holes and one 2 inch incision on my belly button. Eating is so different, my mind is going crazy. My 9 month old daughter eats more than me. As a matter of fact I am using her baby spoon to eat with. So it feels like I am eating more instead of 2 bites from a teaspoon. I get approx 5-6 baby spoon bites. Fluids, well fluids have been interesting. I take my sips, sips, sips (like you said Barb). After 1 to 2 sips I have to stop and wait. Then within a minute or two I have this throw up sensation, but all it is, is a little air bubble.

Take what I write here as just another example of the way people take surgeries. Remember also I had extra precautionary measures being taken due to my heart condition. I look forward to keeping everyone updated as the days and weeks go by.

Take care
JB

I thought I had better write about my issues prior to having Vertical Gasrectomy weight loss surgery.  In 2003 I was at my heaviest of 392 pounds. I normally don’t have a problem with my weight, but I started to grow concerned. I decided to diet, I had never wanted to diet but decided I better. I went on the Atkins low/no carb diet. Over the course of 8 months I lost 71 pounds. I was feeling better than 392 but still not right. Then I had an oppurtunity to move with the company and moved to Redding, CA.  I could never get back on track, I would say over the next 3-5 months I gained 30ish pounds back. Then July of 2004 I was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy/congestive heart failure (CHF).  I went on speacial care and meds. Did okay under care but never again did I feel 100%.  I was fatigued a lot and my back and knees were killing me. Of course joints hurting was nothing compared to cardiomyopothy and CHF. Then May 2005 I had a serious heart problem. Wound up in the hospital for 5 weeks. See August 7, 2005 blog entry for more details.

Lets list problems associated to weight.

Joints hurting and deteriorating
Major Heart issues - Cardiomyopothy and Congestive Heart Failure
Sleep Apnea
Always Fatigued
Kids embarrassed with size of Dad
Had to buy special clothes (5XL in shirts, 50+ in pants)
Well that is life before WLS. We will see what happens over the next few months.

Later.
JB

Were do I begin since my last Blog. 

February 28, 2005 was my last day at Ch2m Hill.  I went on to work for myself with one main contract in hand.  Things were going good and looking up as far as financial stability was going. The one thing that happened that was not good was I had to drop the family for medical insurance. I keep on with COBRA from Ch2m Hill. 

May 3, 2005 - As I was typing an email to a client, I broke out in a cold clammy wet sweat from head to toe.  At that time I thought I had to go to the bathroom so I did and nothing but I felt really bad. So I got up and then went by the fan and told myself just  for a minute or two and cool off.  As I did that my chest started hurting. That is when I knew something was wrong. I was able to get up and grab my keys and head out for the house (stupid thing to do). I barely made it to the house when I told my wife something is wrong and to get me to the hospital. She wanted to call 911 but I told her to drive me to Mercy hospital. I arrived there at 11ish am and told the clerk I think I am having a heart attack. She told me to sign in about the time she looked up and saw me she said, wait come right back. She took my blood pressure and her eyes went wide and rushed me to the ER. That is when all the fun began, they did all kinds of things to me and stabilized me. My cardiologist Dr. Mendelhson had an EKG done on me before he got there. They decided to admit me and when I got up stairs to a room my cardiologist came in to talk to me. He basically told me that he would not be able to continue care for me.  That my heart condition has deterated tremendously. My Ejection Fraction was 10-15% and 2 months prior was at 30-35%.  He began to talk to me about seeing a specialist that deals in this kind of thing. I recall him saying heart transplant facility once but just thought it was a place that works on rehabilitating the heart. So Tammy and I said yes lets make the arrangements to go. I told him to talk to them and I would drive down in a day or two. Well that is not what he had in mind.  At 7 pm that night I was life lighted down to San Francisco and taken to California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC).  At 7 pm I was loaded up and flown to SF and arrived in the hospital shortly after 9 pm. I was alone but in good hands. The nurses that flown down with me were extremely nice and supportive. Tammy was unable to fly down with me because of the kids. She in turn made arrangements for the kids and drive down the next day. My Dad and Uncle B drove down the next day as well.  So for the next 5 weeks I was in California Pacific Medical Center being worked up for a heart transplant and trying to rehabilitate my heart.  

It was then recommended that I speak to a weight loss specialist.  CPMC said that I needed to lose a 100 pounds to be a better candidate for a heart transplant.  They recommended and contacted Pacific Laparoscopy to come speak to me. They sent over a PA to show me the different surgery’s. Then Dr. Robert Rabkin came over to meet with me.  He then had his brother Dr. John Rabkin come in and speak to me and talk to me about what procedure they recommended for me. They want to do Vertical Gastrectomy (VG) see attached photo showing my surgery. I agreed and they started the approval process with Blue Shield. During this time they sent Barbara Metcalf a very nice lady over to speak to me. She was so happy for me and looking forward to seeing my progress.  As you can imagine Blue Shield denied my life giving surgery. So feeling down and out I told the cardiologist unless were doing some thing else it was time for me to leave. I would fight the insurance from home and not the hospital. They finally released me on June 7, 2005, just in time to see my daughter graduate from 8th grade the next night. 

That brings us to the end of June. I filed an appeal with Blue Shield and for 30-days I called the case manager every day or every other day checking in and telling her this is medically needed.  I remember even crying on the phone a couple of times saying I did not want to die or have a heart transplant.  Then on July 22, 2005 I received a call from Blue Shield and I just knew they were denying me again. Well the call was a great one… I WAS APPROVED!!!!!!! . 

I went back to work with Ch2m Hillon July 25, 2005. I have done pretty well so far. I will have VG surgery on August 30, 2005 down in SF at CPMC with  Dr. John Rabkin doing the surgery.  I have to go in on the 29th to have some precautionary measures down before the surgery the next day.  For the next 3 weeks I will be working, yet taking it easy. I cannot have any issues before then.

Let me list a couple of Newsgroups that I have been turned on to by Pacific Laparoscopy.

PacLap - http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/DS_PacificLaparoscopy/ 

VS newsgroup - http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/sleevegastrectomy/

Some statistics before surgery. 
Age: 35
Height: 6′
Weight: 325.5 Ibs
BMI 43.3

That will be it for now. I may or may not be back until after my surgery. Then I plan on keeping my Blog up-to-date with my progress.

Have a great week.
JB