Going in for a Mini Gastric Bypass July 2, 2010

Jun 15, 2010

In two weeks, I'm going in for a Mini Gastric Bypass.  My surgeon will be Dr Himpens in Belgium. I live in The Netherlands, a two hour drive from the St Blasius Hospital in Dendermonde where Dr Himpens operates. 

I educated myself about Weight loss surgery by reading: "Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies". Seriously, that is an actual book, and a very good one. I also browsed the abstracts of medical studies on ww.pubmed.org. 


I'm very, very nervous. I still don't know if this is the right thing to do. My BMI is 36, so, in the lower range for surgery.  I now weigh 231 pounds (102 kg) at 5 ft 6" (1 m 70).  
My main problem is that depression I've had for the last five years. The same five years in which I gained 50 pounds. I want that depression gone, I want to be able to enjoy life again instead of being the stressed out, irritable and joyless person I have been. I am currently in therapy and on Prozac, but it isn't enough. I hope, hope hope that this surgery will help make me feel better.  Maybe because exercising will be easier. Maybe because I will look better. Maybe because I will eat less and spend less of my body's energy on digesting food. Maybe because an enforced diet will cause my blood sugar to be more stable.  I don't know, but at this point I am desperate enough to try surgery.  

The surgery will cost 6000 euro's all in, and I pay for it out of pocket. 

To make the transition after surgery easier, I already cut out all sugar and white bread and pasta. I thought I wouldn't have the discipline for that, but it turns out stopping entirely is much, much easier then just trying to cut down. Another very good book, "Potatoes not Prozac"  explained the body chemistry reasons behind this. It turns out that sugar and white starch can act, with sugar sensitive people, as a drug. That makes it easier to understand why it is so hard to take just one cookie. 

Weird. Many of the posts here are about emotions, family, youth. Instead, I'm all about medical and financial stuff. Perhaps that makes it easier to deal with.  But I do look forward to having the people here on OH as my support team after surgery. 

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