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Surgeon TestimonialCharles Ferguson, M.D.I absolutely adore Dr. Ferguson. He is a wonderful, friendly, kind, funny man. Not to mention an amazingly skilled surgeon. He was all over the local press for a while this year because of a high-profile lawsuit, which was going on during the time of my presurgical process, which resulted in some postponements in my surgery. This caused me some frustration, but it never caused me to doubt his abilities, and thankfully (and justly) he prevailed in the courtroom. rnrnI sailed through surgery thanks to his skill and I'm so grateful to him that I'm on the other side of this process and can now start my new life!rnrnSince he also represents the MGH Weight Center here, I'll mention that as well. As a weight management center, they are superb. They offer top-notch medical care there. I highly recommend them. Not only do they have the best in their fields working there, they are on the cutting edge of obesity research thanks to their leader, Dr. Lee Kaplan. They are simply the best. rnrnAs a medical office, they leave much to be desired. I, and many people I have talked to, have had many difficulties with office staff: Rudeness, unreturned phone calls, scheduling problems, billing issues, etc. They just don't seem very competent. That being said, I wouldn't let that stop me from going there. I go there for medical care, and I'm not going to get better care elsewhere. Their program is simply the best around. The other stuff is frustrating and dampens the experience somewhat, but I had the best surgeon one could have and excellent care so I've done with griping. Hopefully they'll straighten out those snags and make the experience there more pleasant and a little less frustrating. The positives by far outweigh the negatives.rnrnSo there it is, the good and the bad. Definitely don't let the bad scare you off. It seems frustrating at the time, but anything you have to put up with is so worth it for the security of knowing that you have the best medical minds and surgical hands caring for you. I highly recommend both Dr. Ferguson and the MGH Weight Center.rn |
I had my gastric bypass on September 19, 2007, weighing in at 308. My starting weight the day I had my consultation at the Weight Center was 323 pounds. Now, over a year later I'm doing great, after a shaky start due to some post-operative difficulties which were NOT due to any fault of my surgeon, which I feel it is important to emphasize.
Nowadays, I'm 25+ pounds under my original goal weight and struggle to keep weight on, which I something I never anticipated. Not that I'm complaining, mind you! I'm thrilled with my success! I need to update my pictures to reflect my new look, as the pictures on here are a bit out of date now. I weigh around 150 pounds now, give or take a few pounds depending on the day. I have a totally different relationship with food now, and just love eating my fish and veggies! I enjoy food now even more than ever, just less of it. I have no desire for sweets. It's such a pleasure to be freed from the prison of obsessing about food all the time! Life is good now!
 
 
GOOOAAALLLLL!!!!!!!!!!! on July 14, 2008 6:07 pm
Now I get to post before and after pics!
     
Oh yeah, baby.
It took 9 months, and a hellish start, but here I am, 148 pounds lighter, and at goal. I now weigh 175 pounds, and I'm still losing. It happened so fast. I can't believe how fast the time flew. It's been ages since I've even been on this site. I hadn't realized how long.
Two Major Milestones Reached! on February 20, 2008 12:45 pm
This week has been a major week for WLS milestones. First, I have officially lost 100 pounds. I lost about 15 pounds prior to the surgery. I'm counting from the day I had my first consultation at the Weight Center. Then I've lost about 88 pounds since the surgery. Wow, it's unbelievable! I'm literally melting away. It's really hard to believe that weight can come off so fast and so easily. I've always suffered so much through weight loss before, and this has been so easy. I just never think about food. I literally have to remind myself to eat. Amazing. And being so tall and large-framed as I am, I'm already getting bony, even though I still have a fair amount of weight left to lose. I'm actually getting a bony ass. I have this band of muscle there, and then the rest is bones. They're not protruding or anything (unless I'm laying on my side), but they're definitely palpable, and when I sit, it's just bone on chair. Weird. When I was younger, even much thinner than this, I had much more cushion down there. One of the joys of being older I guess. Not so much youthful padding in the girly places. I'm not surprised that my pelvic area is getting bony the fastest. I'm very big boned there. Built for breeding I guess, LOL, though I never did. I have big hips!
The other major milestone I reached this week is that my BMI is now 29.9, which means that I am no longer clinically obese! Woohoo!!!!! Now I'm just one of the common overweight folks, just like the rest of America. I no longer stand out in the crowd. It feels good to be 'normal', though I hate to use that term. I don't think obese people are abnormal, but I think the rest of society sees us that way, which quite honestly, I resent. I could go off on a rant here, but I won't. I'm going to keep this post positive! So I met and checked off one of my major goals of no longer being obese. That feels good. It's been a very long time since I've been there.
Next up: Reaching Onederland! I can't tell you how long it's been since I've been in that magical land. I'm guessing about 13 years.
It's so nice to not have such a struggle. The surgeon said that one of the things that surgery does is help take away the struggle. He wasn't kidding! I guess for me a lot of the struggle was physiological, and maybe habitual, because emotionally, I'm handling it fine. I'm not finding a need to turn to food for comfort. I'm really not missing that stuff at all. My new favorite food? Beef jerky! Can't get enough. And since I struggle to get in enough protein, that's probably a good thing.
Cheers for now,
Tracey
The Long Haul on January 4, 2008 6:04 pm
Well, after a long recuperation, I'm doing much better. I'm down over 70 pounds since the surgery and feeling much better. I still have lung issues, but they are slowly healing. I'm still weak and tired but getting stronger every day and starting to enjoy life again. It took a while to get to that point, but I'm there now, especially when I slide into much smaller jeans and clothes. Then it really feels worth it.
For a long time I had terrible nausea and disgust for all food and drink but that has passed now. I get queasy after eating, but I guess that's part of the process and keeps me from overeating. Protein makes me the most queasy, so it's still hard to get my requirements in, but I'm trying, and there are some things that are easier to eat than others. I definitely have my cravings. I'd kill for citrus fruit, and eat a lot of it, plus salty foods, like pickles and olives. And I enjoy my veggies a lot. I've really had no desire for my old downfalls, the sweets that I used to down by the metric ton: ice cream, cheesecake, etc. In fact, I really don't enjoy them much anymore and have a bit of an aversion to them.
Much of the old aches and pains are gone now, and all the old huffing and puffing that made me feel so sick. I feel like a normal person and can go out in public without feeling like I'm being looked at and made fun of. I hated that. I can fit in chairs! I can almost cross my legs comfortably. It's nice. You know what's nicest of all? I don't spend all my time thinking about food! I just don't think about it that much, and I enjoy it more when I do eat. I appreciate my food more, because I get less of it. It makes me more thoughtful about what I do eat. Life is a whole new experience. It's pretty cool.
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Complications, More Complications, Illness, And... on November 9, 2007 2:07 pm
After kidney stones and the subsequent complications from that, things went from bad to worse. I got the one thing that you absolutely DO NOT want to get after surgery. I got blood clots in my lungs. Not just one, but a whole bunch of them in both lungs, including a real big one in my right lung. I nearly died. Somehow I managed to survive that. Spent a little over a week in the hospital with that one. Now I'm on blood thinners for an indeterminate amount of time. Was discharged from the hospital. I was home a few days after that and started having trouble breathing again! ANOTHER ambulance ride to the hospital (my 5th) and subsequent emergency room visit revealed that I now had a massive pleural effusion (buildup of fluid in the sac around the lung) and pneumonia. So I spent another week in the hospital (including my Birthday), got a chest-tube, and almost died again.
Now I'm out of the hospital. My lungs are doing better, but I can hardly eat or drink. I've lost 48 pounds since my surgery (way too fast!), and am so weak I can barely stand. The surgery itself went well, but all the complications I've had since, all technically unrelated, have left me sick, weak, and regretting the whole thing. I'm hoping that eventually I'll be recovered enough that I won't be so regretful, but right now I'm still just too sick to be happy about all this. Yeah, I've lost a boatload of weigh, but I didn't expect to be so sick that I couldn't get out of bed 2 months after surgery, with no end in sight.
I can barely stand to look at food or drink. Even water disgusts me. I'm just struggling right now to get anything in. I sure hope this gets better. I don't think this has so much to do with the surgery itself as it does with the complications. Prior to getting so sick I was doing well with getting my nutrients in and eating fine. Then I got sick and it all went to hell. I guess recovering from nearly dying a couple of times is just going to take a lot of time, and I'm very frustrated by it, and wasting away in the meantime. I guess I'm not young anymore, and I've never been so close to death before. I'm used to bouncing back after illness, not having it drag on and on. I thought I would see noticeable improvement after coming home from the hospital, but I'm really not much better now than I was when I came home, at least in terms of strength. My lungs are better, but I think I've gone downhill in terms of my strength and hydration, etc. I feel like I'm just fading away. I've lost more than a pound a day since I got home.
I'm also getting very depressed because of all this. It's wearing on me. I understand that some depression is normal after surgery, but I think with all I've been through I'm going through a bit more than the normal post-op patient. It's not so much about the usual saying goodbye to the food crutch as 'am I ever going to get better or am I going to be sick forever?' That's a scary idea, and a real possibility. I was told in the hospital that all this might be the result of lupus, RA, or MS, which means that this might be the beginning of a lifetime of illness. I'm not ready to deal with that. I've been ill before, but not on this scale. This is a whole new level of sick. I'm terrified.
So that's my happy tale. Hope that future entries are happier. At least my weight loss ticker is impressive to look at!
Tracey
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First Weigh-In and Complications on October 4, 2007 3:55 pm
I'm going to keep this entry brief because I'm not feeling well.
I had my first weigh-in, a week-and-a-half after surgery, and I've lost 14 pounds! Not bad, I'd say. I'm pretty pleased. It puts me back in Twoterville, which is nice. I'll weigh in again on my next appointment on 10/15, which is just about 2 weeks away. My diet has been advanced and I'm on soft proteins now, for which I'm grateful. I was getting really tired of all those sweet beverages.
As for the complications, I've been sick a lot. It hasn't been surgery-related, but I've been in and out of the hospital for the past 2 weeks with kidney stones and related problems. I even had to have another surgery a week after my bypass because of it. Had 2 trips by ambulance to the emergency room because of excruciating pain. It's been a nightmare. Hopefully it will clear up and I can feel well enough soon to start getting on my feet and start doing what I'm supposed to be doing post bypass. I've been too sick to be walking or anything.
So the weight loss has been nice,but I"ve been too sick to enjoy it much. Hopefully I'll be back on my feet soon.
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