Take-off

Mar 02, 2013

The past week involved a lot of poking and prodding. It was a dual anniversary: my routine annual physical, and 2-yr lab tests since my VSG. Additionally, I have decided to resume my personal aviation interests in Fort McMurray, Alberta once I start work as a heavy equipment operator in the mines there late March. As my family doctor also does aviation medicals, I tacked one onto my annual physical to dodge the cost of duplicating some of the tests.

From a weight-loss surgery perspective, this represents several positive outcomes. My health is that of a normal person. Except for cholesterol which is marginally higher than the risk-free cap, everything else would not mitigate concern. My blood sugar levels were on the high side of normal, though coupled with other tests for diabetes, failed to indicate the disease. Resting blood pressure was one-twenty over seventy. There were no deficiencies where nutrient levels like iron, vitamin B12, calcium, etc. were concerned suggesting that there was no mal-absorption through my child-sized pouch. At the two-year mark, the surgery has been a resounding success...in more ways than one.

As a teen growing up in racially segregated South Africa, I wanted to become a commercial pilot but, in 1982 when I matriculated from high school, South African Airways did not hire non-Whites as pilots. I rejected their suggestion that I join the country's Air Force and link arms with my own oppressor. Non-Whites could become pilots at their own expense; there just wasn't any work for them with the national carrier. With full legal protection from the government, those jobs were reserved for White pilots leaving the Air Force. Twelve years later as a young, fit lecturer of economics at a University just outside of Johannesburg, I took my first flying lesson on my own dime. Within a year, just before the demise of apartheid, I went on to earn a private pilot's licence with a night rating. Pat myself on the shoulder and snub my nose at the regime, yeah! Then, disaster. Twenty years following high school, I was too fat to fit behind the controls of a Cessna and would not have passed the South African flight medical. I let the licence that I was so proud to have attained against all odds, lapse. By this point in the South African political landscape, we had a non-racial, democratic government in power. I no longer had anybody--Black or White--but myself to blame for the untimely end to my flying days.

In 2009, I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. On the advice of my surgeons I halved my diabetes medication within two weeks following my vertical sleeve gastrectomy in December 2010. As my weight plummeted, so did my blood sugar levels. A month after surgery, I was taken off the medication and haven't needed any in the two years since. I get my blood tested every three months, and have an annual eye inspection for macula degeneration, a side-effect of diabetes. No physician in his right mind would diagnose diabetes if he were to look at my medical history of the past two years. My doctor is the only person who, whilst rubbing his hands with glee at my good lab results, still thinks that I'm controlling the 'silent killer' with diet and exercise. My surgeon, on the other hand, subscribes to the numerous research papers that point to an actual reversal of the disease in countless WLS patients, possibly through a hormonal change after the resection of the fundus. I sill eat chocolate and sweetened frozen yoghurt, and make a point of doing so the week before my blood tests. Mind you, I'm also training with weights which is known to be effective at managing blood sugar levels in diabetics. Now that I can exercise again, I'm not going to stop just to prove a point. I just wish that my doc would stop filling out forms indicating diabetes in my health history. It's already cost me a place in the Canadian Armed Forces.

I'm giddy with excitement at the prospect of flying again. My doc also gave me the nod to resume scuba. Although back on the squash courts, my return was cut short after a hamstring tear. Evidently, it hasn't registered in my brain that I sill have some 50 lb to shed before I can go flat-out. Except for the grey whiskers, all-in-all I seem to have turned back the clock some 20 years.

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