RedHeadBeauty
Thank you for this opportunity to tell you about my journey, which has been a lifetime in the making. I’m sure almost all of us have spent our lives battling our weight and that is what has brought us to this place that we are at, whether we are only pondering surgery, have made the decision to go forward with it, or are post-op one week or years later. For me, being overweight began when I reached adolescence. There was a clear difference in my weight between 3rd and 4th grade. This was the same year my mom and dad separated and I ate a lot for comfort. It didn’t help that I was the only person in my family with a weight problem. I was adopted as an infant and I have two younger sisters who never struggled with weight in any way and my mom and dad who adopted me are also both average size. In fact, my Dad always was TOO skinny and had a problem gaining weight.
Go ahead…………..take a moment to appreciate that irony! J I started yoyo dieting in high school. Kids were vicious. I had nicknames like “boogie-down Missy”, which was meant as a taunt because I liked to dance and the kids would say, “bust a move, boogie-down Missy” so they could laugh at me. In high school one boy used to call me “Moo-moo the ministers daughter”, much to the delight of the other kids in my class. Because my younger sister was so athletic and popular, especially with the boys, it made me very jealous and I tried to fit in, participating in field hockey and volleyball, only to maintain the most secure position on the team - bench, that is……..the team bench. I became obsessed with losing weight as a senior in high school and subsequently began compulsively eating or not eating. eating no breakfast, only a yogurt and a piece of fruit for lunch and then gorging at dinnertime to make up for the food I didn’t eat during the day. I had my share of food “secrets”. I recall making a box of brownies and then eating the entire 9 x 13 pan before my parents came home. It was never my intention to eat the entire pan, but once I started eating and realized that I had eaten half the pan already, I was embarrassed and didn’t want my mom and dad to know so I had to finish it and wash the pan before they came home. Ever since I started receiving an allowance in 7th grade, I would spend the entire $40, which was my monthly allotment, (this was back in the 70s, after all) in about 10 days, on snacks at the corner store. Meanwhile, my skinny sisters would use their allowance to go out roller skating with friends, buy new clothes, go to the movies, things like that. I figured I had no social life, so it didn’t matter. But it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I shielded myself by spending all my allowance on junk food, then if nobody wanted to do things with me, it was okay because I didn’t have any money left anyway. And around and around it went. Looking back now at those high school pictures, I was never as fat as I thought I was. I hated myself so much, there were never any boyfriends. But, that too, was all in my head, because there were boys who were interested in me. My self-esteem was just so low, I didn’t see it. I never even had my first boyfriend until I was 20.
My weight skyrocketed when I became a mother. Many of you women probably know what I am talking about. If you are genetically predisposed to obesity, getting pregnant becomes a genetic challenge and my genes won! The first time I got pregnant, I was 24, nearly 25, and I packed on 65 pounds. Must have been the same 65 pounds I had just taken 6 months to lose on Weight Watchers! I remember I was 245 pounds and thought I was huge! That was when I was full-term, 9+ months pregnant! If I had only known how much bigger I would eventually become…………… I had another turning point in my life when, at 23, I met my birthmother. I went looking for her and was so blessed to be reunited with her through the home for unwed mothers that she lived at when she had me. My adoptive parents, the only Mom and Dad I have ever known, were very supportive of me finding her, and so they provided me with the little bit of information they had, including the name of the home they adopted me from. When I was reunited with her, I was so surprised to find out how much alike we are. I felt I was looking in the mirror. She also has a problem with her weight, and as a result, she has a lot of health problems. She has had two operations on her back. She has a slipped disk she blames on a car accident that happened over 30 years ago. She has been an insulin-dependent diabetic since the age of 42. She has congestive heart failure, but she says “the doctors made a mistake” and that that diagnosis was incorrect. She is chronically hypertensive and takes medication for that. She came to visit last summer from South Dakota and brought with her a grocery bag full of medications. She has to check her blood glucose every time she eats and then take the corresponding amount of Humalog, which she has to inject herself. She has terrible joint pain in her knees and has to plan accordingly if she thinks she might have to walk up a flight of stairs to get somewhere, like when she came to my house because I live in a condo up two flights of stairs. The point of all this is, I may have never had the gastric bypass if I hadn’t met my birthmother. I believed, all my life, that I could be thin, like my sisters and my mother, if I just tried harder, dieted and exercised, deprived myself of all the treats the rest of my family consumed with such enthusiasm. I beat myself up emotionally over my weight, thinking it was all my fault, maybe all the things I had done wrong over the years that had cumulatively added their own pounds, ending in my being so overweight. My own father said, with good intentions of course, “You are such a beautiful girl. Imagine how pretty you would be if you could just lose the weight.” I was nine. My own grandmother used to send me articles and tips, cut out of the newspaper about this diet or that diet, Dear Abby columns, etc. She would send these articles in an envelope with no return address and no handwritten note because she “didn’t want to hurt my feelings”, not realizing that it hurt me even more that someone out there in the world thought I was fat and didn’t have the guts to say so. When I met my birthmother, the only thing that kept surfacing in my quest for weight loss was, I didn’t want to end up like her, 50 years old and in constant pain, physical and emotional. I wanted to look in the mirror and love what I saw and I wanted my kids to know that their mom would be around for a very long time. I wanted to be the cool mom! In 2001 I was 34. I had to have my gall bladder removed. So many people brought up the3 Fs: “Fat, Fair and Forty”. I wondered if I would have had to have that surgery if I was thin. 6 months later I spent 24 hours in the hospital for what ended up being reflux. I swear I thought I was having a heart attack. Later, I found out, after an endoscopy, that I had a hiatal hernia. I went to see Dr. Desilets at Baystate GI associates and he said “You will need to have an operation to repair the hiatal hernia. Have you ever thought about having a gastric bypass? You could fix that hernia and it would help you lose weight as well.” Well, that sounded like a win-win situation to me. I spoke to the PCP I had at that time and she also supported me. And so the process began. It was May of 2002. In June I had my first appointment with Dr. Munshi. I remember he even asked me if I was heavy enough to qualify for the surgery, but my BMI was 44.5 and I was 282 pounds at 5 feet 7 inches. I definitely did qualify! What a blessing that was to find out, that I was actually big enough! Oh my God, I was always too big for this, too big for that, and finally I was just big enough! What a blessing! Did you ever think you would be so happy you were too heavy?!? J After meeting Dr. Munshi I had to meet Dr. Earle, who was performing the laparoscopic bypass with Dr. Munshi at that time. I was very happy with both of them. That was in July, 2002, I believe. It’s only the month I am unsure of…….. I was then scheduled for surgery in October that same year. Yes……….at that time there was not much of a wait. I know some of you who are starting out think you have to wait a long time, but let me tell you…….if I had to wait a year or two, I would have done it. I was almost through the whole process, having attended 4 support groups and still going and having been approved by my insurance and the counselor who I talked with about the surgery. Then the whole process came to a screeching halt. On September 19, 2002, my step dad of 25 years died very suddenly. He was so supportive of me getting the surgery. I was devastated. I was torn as to whether to tell my counselor, since she had already written my letter approving me for the surgery. But I knew I needed grief counseling, so I called her and then I told her. Then the letter was rescinded. I was so disappointed. The surgery was postponed until my counselor could write back saying she felt I was emotionally ready for it and the way I felt, that could take years! Surprisingly, she felt I was sufficiently ready after about 2 months. Then, I had to wait all over again for a surgery date. On December 3, 2002, I got my date. February 10, 2003. I was bouncing off the walls! Only two months I would have to wait, and it flew by! Everyone in my family was so supportive, except the boyfriend I had at that time and my Dad. My now-ex-boyfriend had his own reasons for not wanting me to have the surgery, not the least of which was his own insecurity. But my Dad being so against the surgery really surprised me. He was always the one who was so excited about me losing weight on this diet and that diet, he was always the one with the newest fad diet to bring to me to try, OptiFast, Phen-Fen, Jenny, need I say anymore? He didn’t want me to have the surgery so bad, that when I brought it up, he mentioned a new diet he read about where women were putting paperclips on their ears, so that when they wanted to eat, they would rub the paperclip, it would cause mild pain or discomfort and the urge to eat would be taken away ( supposedly). Unbelievable to me! I said, you gotta be kidding me! If I put a paperclip on my earlobe, I would probably eat MORE to take away the pain!! J But don’t get me started talking about that! My dad and I talked about it a lot and finally I asked Dad if he would like to come out from Illinois for my surgery so he could be with me. He was so happy, he even drove all the way from Illinois by himself! The night before my surgery I went out to dinner with my Dad and my then-boyfriend. I still remember, 4 ½ years later, that we went out to eat at the 99 in East Longmeadow. I remember I had baked chicken with rice and veggies and I ate the whole dam thing. I remember my then-boyfriend told me NOT to have the apple crisp I wanted for dessert because it would be overdoing it. He always did that to me! I was so stupid! I listened to him! Thinking back now, I should have done it………I’ll never eat like that again.
I arrived at the hospital at 6 AM Monday morning, Feb. 10, 2003. I was shown back to the pre-op area right away and changed into my gown and booties. They then came in and went over the paperwork with me and checked for a vein for the IV. I have terrible veins so they wrapped my arms in hot towels and I waited a few minutes. Then the nurse came back and got the IV in the first try. They let my mom, dad and then-boyfriend come in and joined me once the IV was in and then the surgeons and anesthesiologist came in and talked to me about what to expect. All the preparations took about an hour, all of a sudden I was being wheeled into surgery! I moved onto another gurney and they gave me some happy meds and that was the end of it until I woke up. Thursday morning he took me home and got my things packed and I had a warm, delicious shower that felt soooo good. Then my Dad took me out to the condo he rented in Lee, Mass for a week. Every day we would do a little trip. It had snowed all week and the ground out there was covered in snow. It was very beautiful and I was feeling better every day. I was eating very runny plain oatmeal mixed with baby food. If you do go this route, be careful as a lot of baby foods have a high sugar content. If you cant find baby food with no added sugar, my suggestion is mash your own super ripe bananas, or make mushy peas. Another food that I liked after about two weeks was Wendy’s Chili, but I measured everything that I ate, just to make sure I was eating only 3 oz. at a time. I had to literally remind myself to eat. One thing I had a problem with was getting enough water in. Regular water caused burps and discomfort. And it tasted funny. It doesn’t now……..but for some reason it did then. I cannot stress these two points enough: 1) Everybody is different! And 2) Rely on your nutritionist! I went through a big change, as all post-ops do, readjusting to how to eat. The hardest thing for me post-op is to not eat and drink at the same time. Still is………. Learning when to stop eating gets easier as time goes on. I know right away when I am full. But it took me a long time to learn to eat slowly again. There were a LOT of foods that made me sick. And that will change over time. What are the foods that I cannot eat anymore? Steak. Any dry meat. Most Chinese food (that was a hard one!). No MORE ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT-BUFFETS!!! At this point in my post op life, I can honestly tell you that one started out of necessity, because I would literally eat myself sick, and that is not a good feeling, but now it is purely financial, because why pay $10 for all-you-can-eat when all-you-can-eat is about a handful? And you can’t even take it home with you? My husband LOVES to eat out with me, because we share a plate and have leftovers!! Your list of foods that you do NOT want to eat anymore will grow as the years go by, because you will realize that some foods just borderline on discomfort, rather than outright vomiting and cramping, and so you just can’t be bothered with that feeling anymore. Like I choose not to eat rice, potatoes, pasta OF ANY KIND (don’t let them fool you into believing whole grain pasta is gonna agree with you…….it’s still pasta, which has gluten) and all of these give me the lovely “dinner spare tire” that is a dead giveaway I am not gonna be feeling too good for at least 2 hours. My husband, who I met after I was at goal, knows. We had sushi the other night and the rice swelled up in my stomach and made me look pregnant. After a meal like that I have to rush home and change into my old-lady-granny-jammies, instead of my cute, hip-huggers. Then I just lay in the bed watching TV until it goes down. Trust me, it’s not a pretty picture. A year after my bypass, I had a tummy tuck. Dr. Melissa Johnson did my surgery a day after my birthday, which was March 17, 2004. It was very painful. I remember waking up being unable to stand up all the way. It was very tight. The first week was rough. My blood pressure was constantly low and so I had to be monitored on my walks around the floor in the hospital. I was anemic for some reason and so was very tired and light-headed, not to mention my belly was tight and uncomfortable. My surgeon put me on iron pills and within a week that helped a lot. When I woke up in the hospital I wasn't really in any pain, but couldn't stand up straight and also had a hard time getting around because of the problems I mentioned earlier. The hospital did a pretty good job with pain control. I had an IV and they put the morphine in the IV the first night. Then, the next day, they changed me to oral percocet, which I continued to take at home. I am a stomach sleeper and it was hard to sleep on my back for 2 weeks. I piled up 3 big pillows behind me and put one of the big couch pillows under my knees and slept pretty comfortably that way. I had two drains, little JP drains that hold about 75 ccs of fluid. The fluid that drains into them is blood. Don't be shocked by that. One of the drains got blocked the first week and so she took it out. I was left with only one drain, which did a pretty good job, for 2 weeks. When I had that drain removed 2 weeks after the surgery I swelled up a little bit (actually a lot). It turned out a lot of my swelling was not normal. I had developed an abdominal seroma, which means that the open space in my abdomen had collected some fluid and blood that needed to be drained under ultrasound three times! It didn’t hurt nearly as bad you think it would, even though it looks bad, because your stomach is actually still numb from the tummy tuck. So they numb you up even more in ultrasound with some local anesthetic, which I told them they didn’t need to do and then you really don’t feel a thing. I went all the way up to a size 16 again before the swelling started coming down. But when I shrunk all the way down, I was a size 8! That was the only time, as an adult anyway, that I was a single digit! Exercise is a giant part of my post-op life. I have realized, after periods of non-activity, that your weight WILL go back UP again (gasp!!) if you don’t exercise! Now my whole family, my husband and my two boys, who are 10 and almost 15, belong to theY in Springfield and we go three times a week. There was one week I had the stomach flu and didn’t go and it was a noticeable difference in my energy level. Also, I get B12 shots every month because I have an iron deficiency as a side effect of not eating enough protein. But I take my multivitamins and my calcium every day and that is manageable. My family enjoys doing things like camping, riding bikes now and I LOVE clothes shopping! The mirror is no longer my enemy. I even catch myself looking at my reflection in the windows on the street or in the mall and still am surprised that that is me. So after all these years, let me say that the hardest part of having this surgery is making the adjustment. You will learn, you will grieve the loss of your favorite foods, you will relearn how to eat, how to relate to people, how you see yourself. You will reinvent YOU. And then, after all that, you will just be YOU. You won’t even remember how your life was before. All that attention you will get during your weight loss will stop (which you will say THANK GOD for!). Believe it. You won’t want people to keep saying to you: “How did you do it?” “How much weight have you lost?” “You’re not still losing are you?” and then, finally, “Don’t lose anymore! It’s not healthy!” That one cracked me up. Finally, you will just be you. And you will be comfortable with it. And there will come a time when you don’t remember what you went through to get here, except when you have to sit down and really think about it. I thank you so much for this opportunity to remember it all and to share it with all of you.
The surgery took 4 and 1/2 hours. I woke up not in too much discomfort, just kind of groggy. I heard I spent 2 hours in recovery. They took me up to my room pretty soon after I woke up, which was about 2:30 in the afternoon. Then my family joined me, but I was really tired and just remember fading in and out of sleep. Tuesday was a better day. I was having some problems with the IV. My arm was getting kind of hard and swollen and my left hand (same arm where the IV was) was all swollen and I couldn't make a fist it was so bad. They told me it was regular fluid retention which is increased post-op. I had a morphine pump PCA which administers 1 mg of morphine when you push the button. I had no epidural and didn't need one. I was very happy without it.
Wednesday they realized the IV was "infiltrating" and they would need to take it out. The "IV nurse" came in and stabbed me twice. I was getting really agitated and tears were coming to this strong woman's eyes as she was getting ready to try and put the damn thing between two knuckles when my surgeon, Dr. Munshi, came in and I begged him not to let her do that. Bless his heart, he told her I didn't even need an IV I was doing so well! Hurray!!! I was so happy I could have kissed him! Then he told me I could go home either Wednesday or Thursday! Great news! I really wanted to eat something before leaving the hospital just so there would be no issues later so I opted for Thursday. I got to eat a sugar-free popsicle and thought I died and went to heaven it tasted so good. Thursday morning I had very runny cream of wheat. Then I got to go home. It was Valentine’s Day. One thing I remember about being in the hospital is that every single time I opened my eyes, my Dad was sitting in the chair in my room either reading a book, watching TV or, God bless his huge heart, just watching me.
About Me
Before & After
rollover to see after photo
