One year surgeriversary

Maddie, what a year indeed ! Praying that during yr 2 the ride gets much slower for you ! You have handled this so well ! HAPPY SURGIVERSARY

Congrats on your year and you look fabulous! You are an incredibe woman and considering all you've had to go through, you're weight loss is quite impressive.

Keep on doing the next right thing and you are still in my prayers.

Wow, a year. And a 100lb loss. That's great and I'm so glad you aren't draining as much as before.

You've been thru so much and been such a trooper. Here's to better things and a healthy year ahead.

You're the greatest!!!

Dana

What a year! Swinging lizards this coming year will get you sorted out so you can enjoy your new self. You look great! Happy surgiversary.

--gina

My God Maddie it's been an entire YEAR!  I have followed you from the start.  I can totally understand why you may have reservations.  It seems like it never ends yet you remain so stoic and dignified!  My toys would have been tossed out of the pram a long time ago I can assure you!!!

You look amazing!   Now get some more gorgeous pics and post them of you NOW!  You are lovely.

Best of luck Maddie. xx

Maddie, you are such an inspiration for me.  Not just for WLS, but in general.  You get stuff thrown at you from left and right and you just keep on truckin'.  I can't wait until the day comes where I feel as strong as I imagine you are. 

Awww, Maddie, my heart has gone out to you so many times this past year.   My sister also had a stubborn leak, and is just now, at 15 months out, thinking she might kinda like her DS.    I have faith that you will get to the point where you're healed and healthy.     If it's any consolation - YOU LOOK FABULOUS!   Your "after" picture shows a gorgeous, normal-sized woman!  I don't have any words of consoling wisdom to impart, but just please know that I'm behind the scenes here rooting for you.
 

Thank you very much Julie.  I think about your sister often too. Did her leak ever heal or did she have surgery? 

I am thinking that I might someday get to the point where I like and even love my DS.  I mean, I know I went from pretty much hating it to living with it to on a few occasions even liking it. It isn't so much the DS I don't like, it's the food intolerances, and this damned leak thing. I've started paying MUCH more attention to that food bell in my stomach that says "OK, NO MORE! OR ELSE!!" and I have found that for the MOST part when I listen to it I don't get that awful icky feeling or want to hurl. I just have had to come to grips with the realization that I am only going to get a few bites out of whatever it is that I am eating and so I damn well better enjoy them. I used to get horribly hungry, but now when I eat I have no hunger for like six hours after just eating a few bites. Right now I'm not so worried about it because I am on TPN and I do limit what and how often I eat. I want Princess to rest most of the day. I find that the one thing I miss the most is bread like products. Being a Jersey girl I REALLY miss good bagels with a thick layer of schmear (Cream cheese for the uninitiated...lol).  I might be able to have one bite, but I risk killing myself and hours of being sick afterwards. It's so not worth it. My hope is that someday I'll be able to enjoy the things that I cannot right now and that many of the food intolerances will pass.

In the meantime I enjoy what I can and hope and pray for the plug experience to commence soon!

Maddie, my understanding is that when they opened my sister up, after several glu-ing repair sessions, that her drain had formed a fibrous, scar-tissue-type "tunnel" that was perpetuating the leak.  I hope I'm making some sense.    Once they removed the drain, I think she finally healed up.   Because you've been NPO or on TPN for so long, your tummy is just like a baby post-op tummy, not a one-year-old tummy.  It'll get better.   I can now eat an entire bagel, but will suffer the consequences gas-wise when I do.  I love excellent bagels so much though, that sometimes it's just worth it! 

I pretty much feel like I did when I was allowed to eat. My stomach was pretty food intolerant then and it's still food intolerant. I'm still bound by small amounts and by small I mean 2.5 bites of food. Three bites of food and I'm going to be sick and pay for my gluttony *sarcasm*.  I did try to eat 1/4 of a bagel and paid dearly for my error. It tasted so good going down, but didn't reside in Princess for long. The concern now is how much scar tissue is around my stomach and is that what is causing me to eat so little, that perhaps my stomach may not stretch or stretch only a small amount. Further tests will have to be done. I just cannot deal  emotionally with anymore hospitals or tests right now.

I do have a bit of a funny though about gas. I had been going to WaWa (sort of like a Quick Check, 7-11) and getting this frozen mocha cappichino drink. It was OH MY GWAD delicious and with the heat the frozen slushy drink was just wonderful. I drank on, cautiously since I knew it had sugar in it. When nothing happened to me I figured I was in the clear. A couple weeks later I had another one and still had no issues. Yes, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. So several weeks later hubby and I have to hike up to the (renaissance) fairegrounds to do some work. The grounds were not officially open so the flush privy's were not working, but they did have a couple of port a potties. Well, in the car on the way I was enjoying another frozen mocha cappichino slushy thing. When we got to the place we were going to be working at I said that I had to go to the bathroom. The walk to the privy was about 6-7 minutes one way. I started tooting the entire way. At first I thought something had died because the smell followed me and I didn't realize that odor was coming from my arse!  By the time I got to the privy the gas pains were full blown, not to mention the full blown foamies!  Well I thought that I was done, so I walked back to the back of the faire and by the time I got there I had to turn around and walk (OK jog actually) back to the port a potty. This went on for SEVERAL hours. At one point I thought I would just wait it out by the potty, but when I did I didn't seem to have to go, that is until I walked the 7 minutes back to the back of the faire. Tooting all along the way. Then my husband had the nerve to tell me that my gas was "NOXIOUS!".  I gave him that "are you kidding me?" look and asked him if his farts had burned out his olfactory glands because he didn't fart roses.

So, lesson learned. No more frozen cappichino drinks for me. I've even been very careful with sugar now since it played havoc with my insides.

My OK to eat list grows smaller and smaller....lol.