Lisa Morton Smith
5/2/04 - Well in four days I will be one month post-op! Everything has been going textbook wonderful according to my surgeon. I am losing REALLY SLOW, only 22 pounds, which is depressing me. Everyone tells me not to worry, the weight will come off, I sure hope so. Overall, I am tired, but can make it through a day at work - which is very hectic. I am not eating near enough protein or getting near enough water. I really do not understand how anyone can at my stage. I can intake about 8 oz of food a day, which if I am lucky is about 30-40 grams protein and about 24-32 oz of water - and that is by me forcing myself to eat & drink all day long. I have tried making myself eat every two hours as the dietician suggested. My body refuses and I vomit. Same when I try to drink more and more every day. Frustrating!
It is harder than I thought to get back into my normal routine. This is the first time in my life I have ever not been able to do something I wanted to, due to lack of energy. Even though I have been overweight my entire life, I have always been very healthy and active. Since the surgery, getting out of bed is a chore, I ache daily and want to nap at least once a day. I am sure it is because my body is still recovering and I am rebuilding my strength. It is just an odd experience for me, something else to cope with! Luckily, I am living with the world's best boyfriend! He is unbelievably supportive and helpful. Without him, I would not have been able to do this. His love and support have gotten me through the entire process with a smile on my face and continued hope for a better future.
If at this stage, if I am allowed to give tips to others considering the surgery, this website and a strong loving support person would be it. I have found so much useful and comforting information on this site, it has been my best information resource since I decided to have WLS. It is so helpful to read other people's profiles, or the message board and see that you are not alone, that many others felt and reacted the same way you are. It makes the process much less intimidating. As for support, I lucked out and have the best. Like many WLS patients, my family was less than thrilled and less than supportive. My boyfriend has been the exact opposite. He is strong, caring, loving and positive. Everything you need to succeed. Even now, almost one month post-op and only 22 pounds lighter, not a day goes by that he doesn't tell me he loves me, checks how I am doing with protein, water, vitamins, etc..., does everything he can for me around the house, then tells me he loves me again. I know it sounds mushy, but when you have a huge incision down you middle, you ache everywhere and feel like a whale, it means the world to you.
5/8/04 - Well I had my first post-op dietician appointment last week. I lost another 7 pounds which brings my total to 29 pounds now. Other than not getting in all my protein and water, I am doing great. I am now able to eat real food and CHEW!!!!! I cannot tell you how exciting this is after a month of slurping and gumming all my food. I have been devouring tofu weinies every day since I was released from liquid/soft food prison.
5/23/04 - So how is this for great kicks, I am a miraculous healer! Allow me to explain. I am just shy of 7 weeks post-op and down 31 pounds total. Not losing very quickly which is a constant source of frustration. My dietican has advised me to eat 6 meals a day, slowly and stop when I just begin to feel full, which is what I was doing. Anyway, for the past 8-10 days or so I noticed I can eat way more than it seems I should be able to. I told this to my dietician and she said it is all in my head, that since I went from eating 1 oz of food to 2 oz of food, it just SEEMS like I am eating too much. I kept telling her, no, it is more than that. So I went and bought a food scale and measured. By the time I just start to feel full - 6 oz. Full - 8 oz. NOW she is listening to me!!! Both my surgeon and my dietician are horrified. Physically, my body should not be able to accept more than 3 or so oz of food at 7 weeks. They say I physically shouldn't be able to eat that much till 1 year post-op. Long story short, after much discussion and consulting with even more doctors, it was determined that I have amazing re-cooperative skills and my body has healed and relaxed to the stage of a one year post-op in 7 weeks. Lucky me. The best advise they can give me now is to measure all my food and so long as I keep losing, not to worry. Too late.
I know right now, I still do not have hunger pains. 6 months from now that won't be the case. I don't mind measuring all the food, but I would have preferred to have that tiny little pouch on my side anyway.
I also know what everyone must be thinking. That I am sitting at home downing Big Mac's and soda and streched it out. I'm not. As a matter of fact, prior to surgery I worked with a doctor for four years and was able to lose - AND KEEP OFF - 139 pounds on my own. That loss brought me down to MO! How depressing is that?!?!?! Anyway, I make good food choices and exercise - probally not enough, but I do it. So I know it is not me forcing myself to eat, it is just my body refusing to cooperate. As usual.
What I keep thinking about the most is something my old doctor said to me. I had been doing everything right for years, but in the last 18 months of working with him, I had not lost a single pound. We had tried everything, changing my diet, changing my exercise, pills, herbs - you name it - and no success. Obviously, I was beyond frustrated and on our last meeting he finally stated "You are fat and you will always be fat and you need to learn to get used to it. Your body refuses to cooperate, it wants to be this size." End of our relationship needless to say. However, given my miraculous recovery, I can't help but wonder if he's right. This is how my body wants to be, and it won't cooperate.
5/29/04 - There is something wrong with me. Emotionally. I know from my research, that a lot of WLS patients experience depression afterward. I don't know if that is it or not. I am just not myself. Nothing is wrong anywhere in my life, but for some reason I hate everything. My patience is nill, my temper is short. I am sad and angry all the time. I was not prepared for this. I don't know how to make it go away, how to feel better.
6/27/04 - Well I am just shy of 3 months post up now. I am down a total of 49 pounds. Very slow indeed. Last Friday I met with my new dietician regarding my situation. She says I need to eat more, that my body is in starvation mode and unlike most people, it for some unknown reason refuses to canabilize itself (burn its own fat) to survive. Instead, my body has completely frozen up. I hold onto almost every calorie I intake and don't burn any of what I have saved. She also thinks I am NOT malabsorbing my food, since i can tolerate just about anything. According to her, they had no way of knowing this would happen prior to surgery. Appearantly they (doctor/dietician) feel that since I didn't die during surgery, everything else is a positive. I don't. I didn't get sawed in half, have my guts LITERALLY ripped out and pay $65,000 NOT to lose weight. I was not deathly ill prior to surgery, this was not a life saving procedure in my case. And what i would like to know most of all - why weren't any of these possibilities mentioned BEFORE I gave them $65K? Where were the warnings then? Why didn't ANYONE tell me, you might not be a success and we have no way of knowing if that will happen? Instead all I heard was how great I would look, how the pounds would melt away, how I would feel so much better. Well that is not happening! And I feel sick and tired constantly. I feel like a huge idiot for doing this to myself. I just went into major debt, have a HUGE scar, am losing my hair, sick and tired all the time - and still fat!
7/29/04 - Well I am now down 59 pounds and just shy of four months. I am still tired all the time and have lost about half the hair on my head. I am still regretting this surgery. I have started exercising more, eating meat and trying to stay better hydrated. Nothing seems to make me feel better or lose weight quicker. I have completly given up on my surgeon and his staff helping me. They have proved to be worthless. The only good thing to come out of all this is my boyfriend proposed!! We are getting married next May in St. Croix. Provided I am not bald. I refuse to get married bald. I would like to fit into a normal size wedding dress too. And be able to get into a bathing suit with out people running away in horror. (Hence my new found need to exercise more.)
11/7/04 - Sorry I have been gone for so long! What with the wedding planning, honeymoon planning, new house buying planning -I'm going nuts.
To date, since surgery, I have lost 92 pounds in 7 months. My surgeon thought I would have lost the total amount of 130 pounds by 6 months, but my body refuses to cooperate. In fact, left to it's own devices, I only lose one pound per week. Not quite the result I expected for being torn in half, having my guts removed and paying $65,000. I have been following the Atkins diet for several weeks now, and average 4 pounds per week loss on it. It is working better than the surgery! HA! Had I know that, I would have tried Atkins before I agreed to surgery. Also, about 4 days after starting the Atkins diet, I stopped being constantly nauseas, stopped throwing up 10 times a day and got my energy back. And about 2 weeks into it, my hair stopped falling out! Bonus! For anyone who is reading this, TRY ATKINS FIRST! I know everyone says you only regret the surgery at first, that it is just till you get used to it, blah blah blah....I am at 7 months and wish to god I had thought to do Atkins - the only diet I never tried pre-op - before agreeing to have this surgery.
One good thing - I recently realized, I now weigh less than the fabricated weight I put on my drivers license! HA!!
12/4/04 - It's official - as of this morning I have lost 100 pounds since surgery! Hurray!!! Still doing the Atkins diet, which is especially hard around the holidays. Only 26 more pounds to go to meet goal. Wish me luck. It feels like it is taking forever to get there. I want to be at goal by my wedding on May 5th, 2005. Keep your fingers crossed.
12/12/04 - Only lost 3 more pounds. Better than nothing. I know, I know, be happy. But when you rarely eat, and when you do it is nothing you like, you just expect to weigh a lot less. ANYWAY, why I am updating, after a lifetime of having an enormous behind, I now fit into single digit pants. Could ya die?!?!?!?! That was a landmark event and I had to share.
2/4/05 - Sorry I am such a slacker at updating this thing. I am now 2 days shy of 10 months and 13 pounds shy of my goal weight ( as of last Sundays weigh in). These last few pounds are KILLING me. I follow my Atkins diet very stirctly, but have difficulty getting into ketosis, and average 2 pounds a week loss if I am lucky. I am begining to feel the strain of not being normal too. And it is getting to me. It is finally sinking in that I am not normal, nor will I ever be normal. I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I thought this surgery would make me like everyone else. But i am not, and i will not ever be. I have to watch every bite I eat, I have to measure every bite I eat, it is the only way I will be able to maintain my weight loss. Already at barely 10 months, if I let up for a second, the weight starts coming back on. It is extremely frightening. I do not want to go back to how I was, but the pressure to maintain the new much smaller me, makes me crazy some times.
The other night my fiance and I were out to dinner at the Olive Garden. I couldn't eat the salad (can't digest any since surgury), couldn't eat the bread (carbs), couldn't eat the pasta (carbs), couldn't eat and cheese or sauces (lactose intolerant since surgery) and i lost it. I threw down my utensils and yelled "This fu*&%$ing SUCKS!" at the top of my lungs. Everyone stared and we had to rush out. I just couldn't bear to be there, with all this food that I so desperately wanted and couldn't have. I hated everyone else there that could eat it all and be happy and not worry about ballooning back up in weight. Is that normal? Does everyone go through this at some point? I keep telling myself it is normal, that I am just now starting to learn to deal with my new life and have to learn new habits. I don't know. I just wish it was easier.
Another recent occurance - everyone telling me I am too thin!! I never even dreamt of the day that would even be a possibility of happening. I am finally a normal sized person, and now everyone is giving me the "too thin" "anorexic" comments. PLEASE!! Where was they before? Why didn't they ever feel the need to say "Hey tubby, put down the doughnut - your obese." Why was it ok for me to be HUGE, nut not ok for me to be normal??? I think I have a very good grasp of my size, and see myself pretty clearly. I have lost a grand total - pre and post op - of 203 pounds, which I am very proud of. But I also know i still have a ways to go I am still 13 pounds from goal - as of last Sunday (weigh in) plus have to get the excess skin removed. I am not done yet.
3/18/05 - Well, I am still beside myself with frustration. I have been plateaued for about 5-6 weeks. I have been so good, but I still have 8 pounds to goal. Nothing I do seems to make any difference, and that is what is driving me nuts. I am 2 weeks from my one year anniversay and 46 days from my wedding and still 8 pounds heavier than I want to be. I know I should be happy. I know this happens to everyone. I know I have alot of skin that accounts for some of the excess weight. I know. I know. I know. But it still doesn't make it any better. When I didn't make it to goal by 6 months like my surgeon said I should, I was depressed, but I gave myself an additional 6 months - twice what he said i would need - to make it. Now with 2 weeks to go and 8 pounds left, I feel like a total loser - and not in the good way. What is wrong with me? What is wrong with my physiology that my body refuses to cooperate? I mean I had my stomach and intestines removed for gods sake, I barely eat anything, you would think that is enough to make it cooperate. But no. Can you tell I am frustrated????
And I am getting more and more "you should gain some weight back" comments, too. Which make me want to shoot someone. For the first time in my entire life I am normal sized. I am not anorexic, I am not malnourished, I am normal. Finaly after a lifetime of obesity, I am normal. Now everyone feels the need to tell me I should eat, I look horrible, gain weight. Can you believe this crap?!?! I had a co-worker tell me I looked like "a skull on a stick" "horrible". Then I overheard 2 other co-workers say "she looks anorexic now" "she should have stopped when she looked good". Please. I think it is because they are not used to me this way. Strangers on the street don't think these things about me, only people that knew me huge do. And I actually use the "skull on a stick" line if I dare to take a bite of something I am not supposed to. Like I went to take a bite of a brownie and my fiance says "That is not Atkins friendly!" and I say "Who cares, I am a skull on stick!" I am trying to find some amusement in it all.
And I am so looking forward to the plastic surgery. The ever knowledgeable Miss Tooter guessed I have about 15 pounds of skin, based upon losing 208 pounds. If I do, that would rock! I especially can't wait to get the belly skin removed. No matter how much I lose, there is this roll of skin that hangs there making me look like I have a beer gut. And it itches! I can't wait! And I then I want what used to be my butt cut off. I swear I could do ass origami if I wanted to, I have so much hanging skin back there. Then there are the bat wings and the the thighs. And of course, I want to get my boobs back. Right now I look like a 10 year old boy. I want the old girls back like they used to be. Although I am wondering about what size I should go up to. I used to be a DD, now I think that might be too big for my new body type. I am now thinking about just doing a C or D cup. I don't know. That is 8 pounds and probally $50,000 in surgeries from now.
4/2/05 - FINALLY!!!! Some movement on the scale - this week I lost 2 pounds! Count them - 1, 2. Amazing!! So now the total is 210 pounds pre & post op loss, with only 6 to go!! Wish me luck! I think I might actually take a long walk today - I know exercise - my arch enemy, but I want this downward trend to continue.
4/3/05 - OMG!!! ANOTHER POUND TODAY!! 211 Total only 5 to go! I am in too much shock to comment!
4/6/05 - Well today is the day, MY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! I cannot believe I made it. I am still 5 pounds from goal, but I am ok with that today. Today I focused on what I went through over the past year, and how my life has changed, not what I still have to achieve. And cake. I also focused on cake. Carrot cake to be specific. Have I ever mentioned my love of cake? Anyway, I did have some and it was fabulous, till I got sick. I think I can go another year before I have anymore cake. But I digress, I was focusing on all the good things, like today I wore a size 4 outfit and got lots of complements. That was fun!
I just hope I can maintain this weight loss for the years to come. My biggest fiear is that I will regain all I have lost and end up back where I started. But to a certain extent, I think that fear may be helping me. It is what makes me eat right 90% of the time, and makes me weigh and measure my food and weigh and measure myself regularly. That fear may be what keeps me in check in the future.
I actually had a weird thing hapen today too. A new agent started at my office and while I was processing her paperwork, and we were chit chating, of course, food came up and she looked at me and said "Oh, you are so skinny, you can probally eat anything you want." I was shocked. I don't think it ever occured to me how I look to others, who haven't known me since I was heavy. It was so bizarre. I was looking around to see who she was talking to, because it couldn't have been me, right? It was very strange to think that someone would take one look at ME and think, she never had a weight problem. Weird.
4/14/05 - Ok, back to stucksville. Haven't dropped an ounce in days. Still being very good. Still annoyed. Only 19 days till the wedding and only 5 pounds left to go. I am now considering cutting off or out non vital apendeges or organs. I mean how many lungs do you REALLY need??????? And all 10 of thoses fingers - just taking up space...... No seriously, I will leave my organs in tact......for now.
6/1/05 - Well it is official - I am a married woman! 05/05/05 we were married on the Grotto Beach at the Buccaneer on St. Croix. It was so picture perfect, I thought it was a dream! We then spent an amazing three weeks on St. Croix, falling madly in love with the place. It was all so much more and so much better than I had ever even dared to dream.
One problem, I went off my diet for the entire time I was there. I also discovered Coconut Shrimp and Rum. About 13 pounds of it to be exact. Is that even possible?!?! I am so disgusted with myself i could (and do) cry. I don't even understand how I gained so much. Granted i didn't count a single carb or calorie while we were there, but I also eat - what 6 oz per meal? And of that I threw up a good portion of it. Plus for the first time in my life I was active. We went swimming and hiking every day. How on earth could I have porked out so badly?!?! Starting today, starvation mode. I cannot dare to eat. I am so afraid I will gain it all back. Obviously my body hates me and has forgotten we had GBS. Shoot me!
6/5/05 - Wow. Today is the day I post my before and after pictures. Today I let everyone see the old me, the me I hated so much I did everything I could to hide. It was really a revolation. I had not looked at these pictures in years, and I had never shown them to my new husband. He met me about 140 pounds into my 220 pound weight loss journey. Granted I was still pretty big when he met me, and he loved me anyway for who I am, but it was a shock to him to see the 'before' me. I look at these pictures and remember exactly what I felt like. Exactly how much I hated myself. Exactly how sad and loney I truly was. It makes me cry. Cry for how awful I felt my entire obese life, and cry for how happy I am now. Recently married to the man I love more than anything in the world, thinner than I have ever even dared to dream I would be. I can't even believe it is really me, then or now. I remember the outfit in my before picture, it was a size 32, I bought it at The Avenue, it was the largest size they carried. In my wedding pictures I am wearing a 4. I bought it at Nordstroms, they had to take in a 6, they didn't carry anything smaller in the store. I cried when I found out the size. It never occured to me that I would ever be that size, that I would ever be normal. I never thought this would happen. I never thought I would make it. I never thought anyone would see past my weight to love me. Amazing.
I will never forget the person I was. When I dream, I am not scared by monsters or deamons that lurk there, I am scared of seeing the old me in the mirror. Those are my nightmares, becoming the old me again, that terrifies me more than anyone will ever know. Anyway, it is time I learn to let go. Time I acknowledge how far I have come and remember all I had to do to get here. It is time I allow myself to be happy.
7/29/05 - Well the time has come to look into plastic surgery! I have met with 4 surgeons so far in the US and emailed horrific naked photos of myself to another 5 doctors all over the world. They all have one concencus - I am "deformed"! Yes, you heard it, "deformed" by the weight loss. Lovely, like I wasn't feeling bad enough. In the US they all seem to want $35,000-$40,000 for the procedures, and say it would take over a year to do them all. Over seas, they say $12,000-$15,000 and it would take a max of 6 months. Can you say "Se Habla En Espanole?" I guess I am off to Costa Rica this winter, provided I can come up with the funds. I need to have everything done. Arms, Boobs, Tummy, Butt, Thighs, pretty much everything from the neck to the knees. I am not looking forward to this. Not only the cost, but the travel and the recovery. Plus, I honestly think i am not as healthy now as I was pre-op RYN. I don't think I will be able to recover as quickly as I want to. I just am not sure my body can handle it. But I am so miserable with all this skin, that I feel if I don't get it taken off, I will lose my mind. And that is another disappointment, here everyone (hubby and gyno saw me naked and I believed them, and friends that have seen me clothed) - has been telling me that I have about 20+ pounds of skin to be removed. I started daydreaming about being super thin after those 20+ pounds came off with plastics. Until I went to see the plastic surgeons. They said it is more like MAYBE 10 pounds of skin. I couldn't believe it, only 10! They all said it is just skin - no fat, no subcutaneous matter - just empty skin, that looks worse than it really is. If you knew how bad I looked naked, how I have to fold it all up and tuck it in everyday just to wear normal clothes, you wouldn't believe it either. I was so depressed. Here i thought I would be a real skinny minny afterward. Not that 10 pounds isn't good, it is just I was hoping for more.
Which brings up the other issue I have been dealing with. When is enough, enough. I have been accused by everyone lately of having an anorexics mentality. I am smaller than I ever even dared to dream I would be, yet, I want more. Much more. When will I be skinny enough? When will I say that where I am is acceptable? When will I be able to accept myself as i am? Part of me thinks that if I do say "OK, where I am is fine." that it will somehow make me start gaining weight. I don't know why. And I am terrified that I cannot maintain where I am, let alone if I was even smaller. Even when i do everything right, if I drink so much as one glass of water too much, or eat one or two bites too many - I gain weight. And not just, a half a pound of water weight. I mean 3-5 pounds that take a week of starving and exercise to get rid of. I feel like my body is fighting me every second of every day. That no matter how hard I try, it wants to be bigger and will use any opportunity to do so. It is terrifying me.
8/12/05 - Well I am going to definately do the plastic surgeries in Costa Rica. It is just so much cheaper. I plan on using Dr. Macaya and staying at the recovery resort he reccomends. I will now probally have to wait until spting of next year. We are a little tight on funds with hubby going back to school, my mom's continued ill health and her home recently burning down. With everything going on, emotionally and financially, I don't feel comfortable spending all that moeny and being away for three whole weeks right now.
Dr. Macaya has quoted me $10,200 for an upper arm lift with scar revision, breast lift with implants, tummy tck with tightening, inner and outter thighs and a butt lift. The recovery resort is about $1,800 for three weeks with three meals, one snack, airport and doctor visit transportation included. The airfare, right now anyway, is running about $450. So for a grand total of about $12,500, I can look like a human.
I can't wait for the surgeries. I am terrified of going alone. Terrified of the pain. Worried about the scaring. Worried about the after effects of so much anesteia. Worry about how my hubby will be while I am gone. Worried about what he will think of my scars when I come back. Worried about losing my job because of all the time off. Worried about losing my job because I won't physically be able to keep up afterward. I am worried about pretty much everything. I guess that is normal. It is just that I hate the way my body looks. I went through so much to get here. I have to fight every minute of every day to stay here. And I still am not happy with my looks. I feel like I must apologize or explain all my floppy skin to evryone i meet. Like I need to tell them, come back in a year when the extra saggy pounds are gone, then you will see the real me. I am also hoping once I have all the surgery, I will feel better about myself. Scars and all, I will finally look normal and be a normal size. I don't think people that have never had a weight problem understand what that means. To finally feel normal.
I have been reading a book reccomended on this site. Passing For Thin. It is the story of a woman who loses half her body weight, close to 160 pounds when she is in her thirties, and what she experiences. I don't really like the way she writes, but I can TOTALLY relate to what she writing, what she is feeling. There is this one line in the book, I copied it and taped to my PC at work. It just totally GOT me. She is at home alone, writing her book. She is wearing a sports bra and shorts. She says "No one will ever see me this way. I am practicing being thin." That is how I am feeling, like I am practicing being this new thin person. That I am not yet comfotable in this new skin. That there is implied effort in being normal. It was this one little line, but it got me.
9/17/05 - Well I have been feeling not so good these days. Very tired, restless, achy - sort of like having the flu all the time. So I scheduled my blood work early, with a new doctor in my area that has worked with other bypass patients before. I was sure that something was wrong, that I was somehow low or missing something essential, and that was why I was feeling like crap. HA!!
My blood work results came back excellent. Not just good, or wonderful, but excellent. It must just be stress causing the icky feeling.
I also had a bone density test done. Since surgery, I have shrunk an inch. My husband was teasing me one day about how I have not only shrunk width wise, but height wise. I said he was high, I was the same height I have always been. The same height I have been since like fifth grade. So he measured me. I am one inch shorter than I was 17 months ago when I had the surgery. Now I know since surgery I have been lactose intolerant, so I very, very, very rarely ever even look at something containing dairy, but I always take my calcium supplements. Always. One of the few benefits of having OCD is consistency. Which is probally why my labs always come back so good. Anyway, it turns out that I have lost one fifth of the bone density in my spine since surgery. I am not absorbing enough of the calcium I do take. Unfortunately, there is not much the doc can do for me at this point. She upped my calcium supplement intake, to the max I can safely have, which is three times the amount for a normal woman my age. And she told me to increase my weight bearing exercise. I had to look that up, exercise not being a staple of my vocabulary. It includes walking, which I reluctantly do every morning. Out side of that, she said we will just rerun the tests every year to monitor the loss. I asked about all the osteoperosis drugs on the market and would they help me. She said they are all designed for post-menapausal women (I am in my 30's), and would cause me very ill side effects. She would only consider putting me on them if my bone loss continued at an exaggerated rate, and the benefits would out weigh the side effects. Great.
On a positive note, for some unknown reason, I actually lost weight! Amazing I know! I have been struggeling every minute of every day just to maintain my goal weight, then BAM!! Suddenly I slid under my goal weight! Under my goal weight!! Could you die?!?! In the last month - 17 months since surgery - I lost 8.5 pounds! I cannot begin to tell you how happy that makes me. Now the trick is, can I maintain it for the rest of my life.
9/30/05 - OK, I just had to post this. Over the past almost 18 months, as my sizes have gone down, I have received old clothes from the people I work with. This has helped me tremendously, as you know how expensive it can be to try to maintain a normal wardrobe when your body is constantly changing. Plus, the people I work with are far better off than I, so I score really nice things! I would never ever have been able to own a Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren or Armani anything on my own. By accepting the kind cast offs of others, I can now say that I do. ANYWAY....a while ago I received a bag of clothes that I swear were like for a Barbie doll. My hubby and I laughed as I tried on the clothes and looked like a bratwurst in a microwave. Or one of those hams, bulging through the mesh holder. LOL! We were so amused by this, that I actually kept a couple of the items for future levity. Never know when you will need a good laugh. ANYWAY AGAIN.....yesturday I wore my favorite pants to work. They are not my favorite because they are pretty or sexy or my favorite color. They are my favorite because they are a size four, and when i wear them i feel proud of myself and all the weight I have lost. So here I am feeling proud in my favorite pants and a co-worker comes up and says it looks like I am wearing "clown pants" "they are so big". I was shocked. I thought they fit fine, maybe a little - little - big in the legs, but fine overall. Last night when I got home, I dug out the bag of clothes that made us laugh so hard months before. They fit. And not in a funny way, in a nice way. So today i wore the very pants that were so funny months ago to work. My co-worker says "Finally, a pair of pants that fits!!", says "they look good", that I should "wear more pants like them". They are a size two. :) I never ever thought I would see the day that I wore single digit clothes, let alone a two. These are my new favorite pants.
Not that I think I am really a size two. I think they are magic pants. :) The ONLY size two anything that would ever fit me. But I am enjoying it none the less. Soon my doubt demons will raise their ugly heads and make me start worrying about gaining the weight back, busting the bottom out of them.....and so on.
But for now, I am going to enjoy the magic.
11/19/05 - Well, I am 19.5 months post-op now. I survived! LOL! Everyday is a struggle. The temptation to eat the wrong things for the wrong reasons can be so intense some days. I do 'cheat' more now than I have in the past. And I am sure I graze a little here and there, even though I know I shouldn't. But, overall, I do most things right. My intense fear of weight gain usually keeps me from screwing up too badly. In fact, I just lost 2 pounds this week! Which puts me 10 pounds below the lowest goal weight my surgeon gave me. And I keep telling myself I still have that 10 pounds of skin to be removed with plastics. So, hopefully, when all is said and done, I will be 20 pounds below the lowest weight the doctor thought I could get to. Unrealistic - maybe, but it keeps me focused.
I am constantly terrified of gaining the weight back. I don't want any bounce back. I have noticed a disporportionate amount of weight gain when I do eat anything off my very strict plan. For example, if I eat say 2 cookies at work. Even if that is all I eat, and everything else I do is right and I exercise - the next day I will be 1.5 pounds heavier. It makes no sense. But it happens consistently, so I just have to learn to deal with it.
I am now wearing anywhere from a 2 to a 4. The 2's probally fit best, but the 4's are more comfortable. I have even sqeezed myself into a 1 and a 0! And I do mean squeezed. It was just fun to see if it was possible.
This new body is still a bit foreign to me. Although I have begun to accept that I am smaller than I was, exactly how small I have become has not sunk in yet. I get alot of "You need to eat!" & "Your anorexic!" comments. Even from the naturally skinny girls I work with. They say I have no clue how small I am, that they think I am small. I think I am normal sized. Finally, for the first time in my life, I at least look normal. The height/weight & the BMI charts all say I am normal for my height and body size. Not small, not anorexic, just normal. And even though I cling to that thought, I am normal sized, most of the day. I still look at things and think, I won't fit, my big butt will break that, how am I going to squeeze through there? The other day an agent I work with had on a coat that I loved and had wanted to buy. She said I should try it on and handed it to me. It was a Medium, and I almost paniced, I just knew it wouldn't fit me. I would tear it or bust out a sleeve, something, trying it on. When I finally did put it on, it was huge on me. Huge. Turns out, I would have to order it in an XS to fit me. So I am obviously smaller than I thought. But looking at it, looking at her, I was convinced that I was still too big. I know one day I will be able accept who I am now. But part of me wonders if that is day - the day I become comfortable with myself - is that day I start to gain it all back again? That is my biggest fear. I weigh every day. I throw out any item of clothing that even begins to feel loose. I count all my calories, fat, carbs and protein. I am so afraid if I let up for even a minute, I will lose everything I have worked for. I will gain it all back. Some days I find that fear motivating, enough of an impitus to keep on track. Other days it drags me down so hard, I feel like I will emotionally break from it. I just try my best every day. I just keep hoping my good days out number my bad.
1/29/06 - Well, not much has changed. I still battle daily with wanting to eat. I still hate to exercise. I still feel like crap most days. Lately, I have been fluxuating up and down about 5 pounds. It started when the doctor put me on Wellbutrin to help calm me down and cure my insomnia. I was down to about 2 hours of sleep per night, going on about 3 months, felt like death, crabby as could be. She, and everyone else I spoke with, said it was fabulous, after a few weeks, you felt great, higher energy and no weight gain. Once again, my body is the exception to the rule. The minute I started taking it, I was lethargic, like a zombie. And I gained 6 pounds in 10 days. WITHOUT changing my maintenence diet or exercise routine. I am always so cautious of taking meds, that I pay particular attention to diet and exercise when I do. And I still track everything on fitday, weigh and measure when I am not positve of exactly how much I am consuming - so I know I didn't change anything. Nothing else in my life was altered, it had to be the Wellbutrin. The weight gain was making me absolutly nuts, so I took myself off of it. Sure enough, I lost a pound every day after I stopped. But since then, I have flucutated up and down about 5 pounds. I keep telling myself, it is my body readjusting - fluid levels, hormone levels - what ever got screwed up on those meds. But it doesn't seem to help. I still hate myself when I get on the scale and am up a few pounds. I still torture myself to lose it. I still berade myself with "Fat Pig!" thoughts. I wish I was one of those people that coped with normal flucutations better. I just don't have it in me.
I also just bought a fat/hydration/weight scale. I love it! Now I have 2 mores ways to obcess about how much I hate myself.
12/08/06 - Well I lived! It was touch and go for a while, but I made it!
I am sorry I have not updated the board sooner; I am just getting back in the swing of things.
Per my last post, I was on my way to the hospital, a giant edema filled septic ball of pain, after having all my plastics done at once in Costa Rica. Well, here is the short version of what has happened since.
Turns out none of my problems had anything to do with Dr. Macaya or having plastics in CR. None of them. In fact, all my doctors here – of which I had five – agreed he did beautiful work, which my body has since ruined. All my problems were caused by my Gastric Bypass. Apparently, I have a ‘chronic wasting disease’. My body seems to be incapable of absorbing any vitamins, minerals or nutrients through what is left of my stomach and intestines. I was basically at the end of my nutritional rope, so to speak, and when I had all the surgeries, what little my body had to survive on was gone. Which is why I grew so sick, could not fight off infection or heal.
None of my doctors could believe I even lived through the plastics to begin with, let alone my recovery here. I ended up having to have another surgery to debris my wounds, during which I also contracted a MERCA Staff Infection, that kept me in solitary confinement at the hospital for two weeks. Fun.
Once the docs figured out what was wrong with me, they were able to infuse me with TPN. Or as I like to call it, fat juice. It is like a giant liquid Oreo that delivers all the nutrients directly into my veins through a Central Intravenous Line they installed. (More fun.) The only side effect is weight gain and water retention, which coupled with already hideous case of post surgical edema, added nearly 50 pounds to frame. And of course, those extra pounds coupled with my poor recovery have basically ruined my plastics.
But, I am alive. And gratefully so. My plastics may be ruined, and I still have open wounds that require me to go to the hospital 3-4 times per week, but I am alive. There were several times the docs said they thought they would lose me, in fact, they are all shocked by my recovery so far. At best they were thinking I would need 3-6 months in a nursing home (!) in order to recover. Luckily, my body has responded well to the fat juice and other treatments they have given me.
I am now almost back to normal – with the exception of the open wounds. They are testing me on a powdered protein/supplement program, in hopes that my body will absorb some of it in order to keep me out of the hospital. Otherwise, I will need regular visits for the rest of my life to be infused with fat juice in order to maintain proper nutrition/health. I have lost half the weight I gained, though I do swell up huge by the end of the day. And my scars, well they aren’t so great, but I survived.
Thank you all for all your concern and support over the past few months. You were all of great comfort to me during this trying time. I thank you, and wish you all well.
12/08/06 - Hello Again!
I was just over 2 years post op when I had plastics in July. I was below my doctors’ goal weight. Although in the past 9 months I had forgone the regular blood work ($$ issues), all the work I had done prior to that (every 3-4 months) always came back at the bottom end of the normal range, which was the best I was told I could hope for. I did have blood work testing prior to plastics, and assumed all was well since they went ahead with everything.
I have taken all my vitamins and supplements without fail since day one. There is something to be said for having OCD! I also watch my diet like a hawk; it is the only way I was ever able to lose weight. I weigh, measure and log everything I eat into Fitday.com, and averaged 100 grams of protein per day. So I would not consider myself a nutritional slacker in any way.
Now that I think of it, the only indication I ever had regarding severe malabsorbtion, was when I was diagnosed with Ostiopatia. In the first 18 months after GBS, I shrunk 2 inches in height. My doctor did a Dexa Scan and determined that I had lost 33% of the bone mass in my spine, which caused the compression/shrinkage. Since then, I was taking 3 times the amount of calcium citrate a normal woman would take to help offset the loss. According to my blood work after plastics, that didn’t help a lick. My calcium was basically non-existent, just like everything else.
I only had 24 inches of my intestine removed, so I think that makes me proximinal? I have pretty much felt like crap since having GBS, as compared to how I felt prior, but since I followed the rules, I assumed that was normal. My doctors have told me my chronic wasting is NOT a normal side effect of GBS. That it is just my body. So don’t be worried! My lead doctor has only seen it 4 other times in his 35-year practice. (3 were GBS patients, 1 war vet)
Believe me, I was shocked when they told me. And everyone who knows me was too. I am so adamant about my vits, and 99% of the time never cheating on my diet. No one could believe that was the cause. My docs say I really only absorb the fat and calories in what I eat for fuel, no nutritional value. And yet, I had really hard time losing weight!! You would think if I were ‘wasting’ away, I would have literally been wasting away!!!! But I had to struggle to lose every pound; it never came easy, not even at the beginning. So, it is just a me thing, nothing for anybody else to worry about. Right now, the docs are hoping that I will be able to absorb some of the vits in the powdered form they are testing me on. Just enough to keep me off the fat juice for extended periods of time. Ideally, they would like to only have to give me the fat juice annually. But, none of them think I will ever be able to go without it all together. This is a permanent thing. But it is just me – so don’t worry!
So far, insurance has been covering their share of the medical bills since I came back from CR. They have sent me a ‘survey’ to determine if they should be liable for the charges so far. I have not heard anything yet, and the medical staff thinks I do have a chance of getting them to cover their portion of everything. I still have my co-pays and deductibles, which after being off of work for months, and spending our life savings on the plastics to begin with – are pretty much bankrupting me. But at least I still am here to go bankrupt.
12/5/7 – Well it has been almost a year since the last time I posted. Wow! It doesn’t seem that long. God I have been a slacker.
I will try to make this concise. The past year has kind of sucked overall. I lost both my parents within 7 months of each other. My medical bills are ever escalating and we are pretty much guaranteed having to go bankrupt because of them. I am sick pretty much all the time and nothing seems to help. How was that? Pretty short and sweet.
I could go into the long boring details, but none of that matters. I am usually sick somehow just about every day. Some days I can eat, some days I can’t. Almost every meal makes me pass out or vomit or feel like one or other will happen at any minute. I am on and off the fish shakes/fat juice on a monthly basis. I go on, I gain weight, I come off, my hair falls out, I lose weight, I go back on. Talk about Yo-Yo dieting! It has sadly become a routine for me.
Other than that, I still have a wonderful husband, who seems to love me despite the hell I have put him through. A wonderful dog who now has arthiurtus and is showing his age. And we adopted a special needs kitty! Truman is the newest addition to the family. He has congenital kidney disease and requires special food and special doctors – just like me! HA! No wonder I love him so much!
5/23/8 - Again, could I be more of a slacker???? Unfortunately, not much has changed. I went through more tests shortly after my last post. I constantly feel pretty much like crap and get sick just about every time I eat. I ran up another $10,000 in medical bills to have the doctors confirm, yet again, that there is nothing they can do for me. They bypass seems to have worked too well and due to that and my 'wasting disease' this is pretty much how it is going to be. I believe them. They have worked so hard to help me and have tried everything they can think of to make my life better. Heck, I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for them. Anyway, still dealing with the same issues. Still on and off the fish shakes/fat juice. Still losing hair. Still wishing I was thinner. Same old same old.
Hubby just graduated!! Magna Cum Laude with High Honors as a member of Phi Beta Kappa (?) wit his degree in web design and e-commerce. I am so proud of him! He worked so hard for so long, ontop of taking care of the dog, the cat, the house and sick old me. I love him!
Now we are trying to sell our condo. http://home.gckeys.com/ So we can move to Florida! Venice, Florida! Where it is warm and sunny and you can smell the saltwater.....I can't wait! I sarted a blog about our upcoming adventure. http://lisaandmichaelflorida.blogspot.com/ I do update that more often than I update my profile. But so far it is mostly about my cat. LOL!
4/6/9 - My Five Year Anniversary. Whoopee. Everything is still the same. I am still sick all the time, I still struggle with my weight all the time, I am still not happy with where my weight is. About three weeks ago I had a seizure caused by a bacterial infection that went to my brain. How did that happen? I have no immunity and I feel like such crap on a daily basis that I really didn't notice anything was wrong until something really bad happened. I have been on major meds since and run up even more medical bills. The seizure has also left me with BPPV - vertigo when I lay down, so I can't lay down. Great, bonus. So that is my update. Happy anniversary.
4/11/10 - My 6 Year Anniversary. Ta da. Same old same old. Sorry to dissappoint, but nothing has changed, I still have the same issues, but I have been able to live for another year. What more could I ask for? In the past year my husband and I moved to Florida, which was our dream. It was so hard for me to keep working like I was, being sick all the time, so now I am working part time from home. It is killing us financially, but we are tryiing to make it work. There are days I can't get out of bed, so I really have no choice anymore. Anyway, all I can is hope for the best, try to stay out of the hospital for as long as I can, and hope.
4/6/11 - 7 Years - Seven years ago today I decided to kill myself. Not literally. I had no idea it would all turn out this way. But it is what it is. (That was awfully melodramatic, wasn’t it???)