I'd Do It All Over Again...But...

Mar 05, 2011

Looking back to 2003 and how awful things were for me, I know I wasn't destined to be here much longer in the condition I was in because of my obesity.  On the day of my surgery I weighed 284 pounds, but I had been successful in losing some weight pre-op because at one time a traditional scale would not weigh me and a doctor's scale weighed me at 304 pounds.  I was having problems with my blood pressure and my heart - my EKG's were not right and the print out looked down right scary. 

Despite the helll I've been through in my surgery's aftermath, I do still believe I wouldn't be here at all had I not had this surgery to help intervene and stop the vicious cycle I had created over the years by crash dieting.  As a result of crash dieting my metabolism basically said "I Quit" and refused to respond to anything I did, and for a full year prior to my surgery I was under the care of a doctor who prescribed a diet that I journaled, he reviewed; and my weight never changed.

When (many years after this) I was admitted to Georgetown Hospital's Intensive Care Unit in critical condition, their tests revealed thyroid deficiency, almost completely non-functioning adrenal glands, and pituatary deficiency; in addition to this pesky little problem with my pancreas meaning I was to have HUGE surgery that I had in Feburary 2009, and I'm still not really back on my feet now.  I am basically home bound.  Going out or moving around too much causes my blood sugar to plummet. 

My husband and I went to pick up a new car yesterday and I checked my blood sugar in the car and it was 90.  By the time we got to the dealership (an hour later) and I was sitting in the office, I started feeling nauseated, sweating, so I checked my blood sugar again and in that one hour my blood sugar had dropped from 90 to 50.  I had to excuse myself and use the ladies room to draw up an injection of a medication that raises my blood sugar and then get out of the dealership and get something to eat and quick.  In my case I can't do a piece of candy or juice because this Nesidioblastosis thing is vicious.  If you feed it sugar it just produces MORE insulin, so it will raise your blood sugar temporarily...but it will backlash quickly and your sugar level will drop even lower than it was before you ate the candy or drank juice.  I have to have a mixture of protein and complex carbohydrates which are released into your system at a more even rate thus they don't cause a "spike" or a "dive."  Amusing too is the fact that if I eat too much protein it pushes my blood sugar straight down.  So much for your basics of protein and produce -- like I say, I've had to get creative and find complex carbohydrates that don't have too much sugar in them to add to things that were protein to balance my meals out plus I have to check my blood sugar eight (8) times a day and I have to have four (4) injections every day.

My writing this blog is not intended to discourage anyone by any means from having surgery -- especially if you've found yourself in my situation where you know instinctively that your life is definitely in jeopardy if you DON'T have the surgery.  My intention IS however to make people aware that 99.9% of the time things go great, but this complication is becoming more recognized in the RNY process and more prevalent and it has almost taken my life.

Have any of you got any idea what it is like to simply go to bed at night thinking everything's "ok" and wake up in an ICU?  I have no recollection for Fire/Rescue coming to my house, or being moved out of my bed.  I don't recall being in an ambulance or the emergency room.  Sometime the next day I came out of a low blood sugar induced coma with no clue where I was or what was going on.  This has happened not once, but as many as TWENTY times.

My poor husband.  I can't begin to imagine the sheer agony he has been through because he has been with me every step of the way and it breaks my heart.  I think if the situation were reversed and I couldn't wake him up I would go off.  I thank God for him every day I have him in my life, and that's the only other problem I had with the process.  I really really wish that my husband was more a part of the pre-op seminars, especially the part where it changed what I would eat for the rest of my life.  MY decision changed his life without his knowledge and he deserved more than that.  Of course I'm hearing after the fact :-)  that alot of the post-ops that were married or in committed relationships have problems after their weight loss.  Now is not the time to be hearing that.  I needed to know that BEFORE, thank you very much.  But all of this is relatively "new" (as compared to the appendectomy) lol...thus it's good we have this opportunity to put our thoughts to paper in the hope that in expressing ourselves and describing what we've been through will help others be aware of things and hopefully avoid certain pitfalls.  Bang-bang for now, I'll tell y'all more later...It's a Friday nite and my husband has a band job which means while he's gone I get to play my guitar (minus the resident music critic) hahahahah...gotta love it...two musicians marry each other, what the hell were we thinking?  :-)  Hugs to everyone, Jo Ann

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