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I went out of town for the Memorial Day weekend.  There were almost 30 family members of us that went to our mining property about 3 hours away from where I live.  I took my 84 year old father that has been having dementia problems for the last few years.  He had a great time, but it is a huge challenge for him to be so far away from his comfort and familiarity spaces.  And, as much as I love his so dearly, he is a challenge for me to spend that much time with, especially with so many other folks around in a small space!

Food was so hard!  I could not practice my addiction because of my recent wls!  THANK GOD!! 

I realized that my entire family are food addicts.  I had much more time to observe because I was not practicing my own food addiction, (could not do it if I wanted to, which I didn't)! 

There is some kind of light-weight mourning that is going on for me about food.  (Probably there is deeper mourning about it under the surface that I haven't uncovered, yet).  I wanted to eat the way that I used to.  But I am so grateful that I could not!  I remember thinking that this new little VSG tummy is doing exactly what I wanted it to do--keep me from doing what comes so naturally and so unconsciously--EATING way beyond the point of full!

I wonder how much unconscious eating I have done in my history??  I bet the better majority of it has been exactly that!!

I certainly have not learned how to deal with this wls tool in a stressful family environment yet!    I found myself eating the 3 or 4 bites that I could get in, really fast and very unconsciously!  That made my tummy very unhappy and I felt sick to my stomach off and on for the whole weekend! 

In between my stuffing of 3 or 4 bites, I observed the huge plates of food that my family members were having.  I watched them literally stuff to the point of being sick themselves!  And not one of them seemed to have any awareness about the depth of what they were doing in those moments with food.  For a split second here and there, I wanted what they were doing...

Everything revolved around food.

I am stuffed to the gills one moment after eating just a few small bites of anything and then about 2 or 3 hours later, I'm hungry like I haven't eating in a really long while!

I have managed to lose about 43 pounds though, and I am so grateful for this!!  It is a real learning environment for me, getting used to this new tummy!!

I often post a discussion topic and then find that I need to also post it on my blog...so here goes a repeat of a discussion topic:

I had VSG at 9 AM, well, it ended up being more like 10:30 AM, yesterday morning, April 22nd.  It all went off without a hitch and I even managed zero nausea until this morning about 10:30 AM.  That is a miracle in itself because I usually get deathly ill with nausea from surgeries from the very beginning of waking up from them! 

Dr. Umbach said the VSG surgery "was a text-book case."  He told me he has been running around crowing about the surgery...and then he told me that my surgery is the first Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy at that hospital--Desert Springs Hospital, Las Vegas, Nevada. 

I would be willing to bet it could very well be the first in Southern Nevada, but I am not exactly sure about that.  I know there are sleeve surgeons in northern Nevada, but I had a heck of a time finding a sleeve surgeon here in the Las Vegas area.

I was absolutely convinced that the Sleeve is the only sane way to go in weight loss surgery!

I have five, 1 inch to 1 1/2 inch incisions around my upper belly and one a little smaller than dime-sized puncture place in my lower abdomen on the right.  They are all put back together with glue!  I have never seen this before.  I've seen steri strips, but not literally glue!  Sure hope they all hold well!  So far, so good!

I have had to have two spinal fusion surgeries in my life and they do an abdominal incision for them, too--about a 10-12 inch incision!  But they were open surgeries...and let me tell you, VSG laprascopic surgery is a piece of cake compared to open surgeries!!!

I felt so spectacular this morning that I could hardly believe I even had surgery!  I got up and took my own shower and became completely self-sufficient.  This is a plus for me because I don't do well with having to be taken care of.  (I need to work on this, to allow myself more of  being taken care of)!  

I do have to say that my daughter-in-law insisted on staying the night with me at the hospital last night, and I was very grateful.  I was NOT self-sufficient last night, for sure!  I couldn't even get to the bathroom to pee without getting unhooked from IV machines and blow up socks on my legs!  She is such a sweetie and I am so very grateful for her love and her assistance!!

Today I am sore in my upper abdomen from time to time and I feel very tired right now.  But I have just had surgery, so this all is par for the course!  I am home with just me and my dog and we are doing just splendidly!

All in all, I am doing spectacularly well!  And...I am so grateful for the gift of this surgery and the hope and real possibility that I will now be able to get my weight to a healthy level!  It just was not possible without this surgery for me!  I tried my hardest!

Onward to my new lease on life!  I am grateful for this gift and cannot wait to see it in action!  But right now, it is sip, sip, sip, sip...discover what makes my tummy mad and what makes my tummy happy.  So far my tummy likes luke-warm things, hot things, and room temperature things...all liquid.  IT HATES ICE AND ICE COLD everything right now!  Maybe in time...

I could not believe that the hospital gave me pureed scrambled eggs and cream of wheat this morning.  Both of these made me deathly ill!!!!!  I kept asking them if this was right...and they insisted that it is.  But my tummy said that were flat-out WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!

Back to liquids only and I am doing better!

I am less than two days away from surgery!  I cannot believe that I am here, so close!  It seemed like it was a long trek to get to here, as I was walking through it...And now, looking back, it seems like the time passed in a flash!  That is so strange!

I have been feeling a few butterflies in my gut, but they are quickly replaced with that "melting into a soft, fluffy cloud place" that is the gift of Surrender.  I am getting much better at it!  Yahooooo!  It is the very best place for me to stay always, but especially when life is scary, crazy and/or stressful.  I so wish I could have managed to stay in a Surrender place over food!  But I am even in a surrendered place about not being able to manage food without more tools to do it!  It simply is "What Is" for me!

Surrendering for me is not about working like a dog to achieve something, but instead, a letting go and letting myself just fall off the cliff--and trusting that God is at the helm.  I need not be concerned about a single thing.  What a gift!

It is always a risk to choose to surrender.  But each time I recognize that at some level I am fighting and I make the decision to stop the fight, I find that I am always held in the falling, and it is such a peaceful and wonderous place to get the opportunity to be!!  You would think that I would never fight it in the first place!  Every time I do the surrendering, it gets easier and easier to take those Leaps of Faith!  Nothing but wonderous things happen in my life when I am courageous and embrace those Leaps!

I am so very grateful for all the friends I have met on this journey to acquire one more tool to help me heal my addiction to food.  Listening to the plights and trials of others with similar struggles as I have makes me realize that no matter how much I get to thinking that I am just one, lone, odd duck on the planet, down deep, we are all absolutely the same.  There is great comfort in this realization.  There is much comfort in hooking up with all of the folks walking similar paths as I am.

I have had two spinal fusion surgeries and have a mess of metal in me there.  But my knees have always been just great, even packing around all this extra weight.  One, stupid little trip, seemingly pretty benign, and even seemed to heal in about one week, then morphed into severe recurring problems with the knee beyond belief.  I finally had an MRI done and found out that I have a severely torn medial collateral ligament and a moderately torn anterior cruciate ligament and a torn meniscus to boot.  Good grief!!  How can that happen and it not have stopped me dead in my tracks from the first moment?  I just don't know...

But...I think that my overweight body is the number one reason that this knee is just not mending well.  I am trying to avoid knee surgery and so hope and pray that losing weight will be a gift and a relief to my knee!  In the mean time I do physical therapy  regularly on my knee, doing my best to make my ham strings and quads strong enough to do the work of the ligaments that can no longer do their job!

If not...I'll be whining about knee surgery next...  I hope everyone here will be able to stand me whining more!

I often cannot stand hearing myself whining....but that doesn't seem to stop me!!!

I was so whipped that I stayed off work yesterday.  I tried to rest, but didn't really get as much rest as I would have liked.  But I did lounge around all day, and that was at least a little help.

I did a healing session last night and uncovered some stuff that I had not ever before.  Everything happens in the right timing...God's timing.  I hope it will open some energy for me.  I believe that it will!

I am still running on low today, but not as much as I was.  I think this pre-op diet is part of the energy lock I've got going on.  I am doing two protein shakes a day and one lean/green meal.  I am probably not even getting 800 calories in a day.  I have never in my life done such a restricted diet.  But this is what the surgeon asked of me to help shrink my liver so that surgery will be easier.  It is very hard to eat almost zero carbs and only 800 calories a day.  I have lost some weight, which is good, but I think this is partly why I am so whooped!  But if this will help the surgery be less dangerous, then I'm willing to do this.  I will have to face this low calories stuff from now on out after surgery, too, so I better get used to it!

I have a bunch of stuff still to do before surgery next Wednesday.  I've got all my "getting stuff into the house" things done so that I don't have to send people on errands, (hopefully), or drive myself to run errands I won't feel like I can do. 

I have a friend's birthday brunch at the M Resort, a brand new hotel/casino/buffet in Las Vegas, tomorrow morning--should be great fun to make a buffet my one and only lean-green meal!  But I am sure I will find stuff that will let me do that.  It just won't be very damn much fun!  If I could have managed my eating this way all along, I wouldn't need to be having weight loss surgery now, so I know I am on the right path for me, because this is really hard with food right now!--and I have needed to be eating this way ALL ALONG!!!

I have a group meditation at my house Sunday morning, followed by a dinner I planned with my kids where originally I was going to tell my kids about the surgery at this time...but I already told them all.  I still want to spend the time with them, though.  This has now ended up including my Dad and my brothers because there is no other time to get my Dad from his group home and spend some time with him before this surgery.  I want to see him and my family before surgery!  

I have NOT told my Dad about the surgery, and I do not plan to until I am mended and navigating back on my feet again.  At 84, and since his recent stroke event, he just worries and frets so badly that it would make it so miserable for him and in turn, miserable for me if I tell him before I actually do the surgery.  Waiting will be easier on us both, I hope and pray!  I need something to be easier SOMEWHERE! 

Monday I work and then have a massage after work.  I won't be able to do any massages for God only knows how long after the surgery...and they help all the Fibromyalgia pain so much...I just need one more to fortify me before the surgery! 

Tuesday I work and get the last of things set in a holding pattern so I can be off for a couple of weeks. Then I have one more healing session right after work--this is the night before the surgery--all these are helping me in getting ready for the surgery.  And they help so very much!  Then my healer/spiritual advisor/friend will go with me to the hospital and help me stay in a meditative and peaceful state before and going into the surgery.  This is always a great help to me whenever I have had to have surgeries in the last 10 years!  I am so very grateful for her in my life!!

Then I am off on the weight loss surgery adventure.  I plan on having a do-able journey!  I hope this is God's plan, too!!!!!

But...I could sure use a long nap right this minute!

I have been really dragging my butt around these days.  I hardly have any energy at all, and I usually have LOTS of energy! 

I have been doing a lot of getting things into my house so that I don't have to do it while recuperating.  I have been trying to get everything to a stopping point at work so that I can be off for the surgery. 

I've been mega busy, there are no two ways about this!

I think it is this pre-op, no/very low carb diet that has drained me of my energy!  I am hardly doing any carbs at all.  I am doing two protein shakes a day and one lean-green meal.  It is was what the surgeon asked of me.  I am struggling with it but I am doing it!  I will be grateful when the surgery is done so that I will have more power to stay on track.  This is FLIPPING MISERABLE not getting to eat what I want!   Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I have lost about 23 pounds now though, so this is good. 

I finally finished my LAST pre-surgery clearance test, an abdominal ultrasound, yesterday morning.  I feel like I've gone through a ringer and I haven't even had the surgery yet!  I picked up some icky vibes from the tech doing the ultrasound as she was working.  I don't know what is up, but I believe that something is up, I think with my kidneys.  I hope I am wrong, but I usually am not wrong when picking up vibes...

I have been doing a pre-op, mostly liquid protein diet getting ready for surgery on 04/22/09.  Today when I weighed, I made it under 300--in fact to 299!  It has been a while since I have been here and I am so very grateful!!  I have hopes and prayers to get all this excess weight off so that I can be healthy!  I've lost 18 pounds so far and I haven't even had the surgery yet!!  But I know I cannot keep this up indefinitely, (which is what I must do in order to lose all this excess weight), without more tools than I currently have at my disposal.  VSG will be a great gift in this respect!

This is hard, and I have to fight to not go eating anything that I should not.  But I won't because I do not want to jeopardize my surgery with the fatty liver thing.  I am concerned about this, though, because even after I had previously lost 100 pounds and made it down to 228, I had to have an abdominal ultrasound and they said then that I had a "fatty liver".  This is the first time in my life that I was told this.  Well, I certainly do not weigh that little at this time!! 

I hope doing the pre-op diet will be enough.  I believe I will still have a fatty liver even when I get to surgery!

All I can do is what I am doing...and God is in charge of the rest.

I love exercise, but I have not been able to do much for a while.  I fell in April 2008 and really damaged my right knee significantly.  It just keeps getting better and then plunging right back down into useless!  I was humuliated and ashamed of myself because I just could not get my knee well, and I am absolutely certain that it has to do with my having put on 60 pounds in the last year or so.  I have been hobbling around on a cane when my knee is really acting up, and this is very, very humuliating!!

I did physical therapy for 2 months straight, starting in January 2009, and then I had to bail out when my father had a stroke on 03/23.  I felt like I really had a set-back of at least a month's progress with my knee just from not being able to get to PT!!!  But Dad's are more important than even PT.

A couple of days ago I went to Sports Authority and bought the ankle weights I needed to get back to PT and do it on my own.  It is helping now, but I've got some strength-gaining ground to recover before I will be up to exercise again.  

My weight loss surgeon wants me exercising right now.  But right now, all I am good for is keeping up with the physical therapy on my own...which I am faithfully doing because if I don't, I can't walk without mega pain in my knee and below!

I am hoping and praying that getting my weight down will also make exercise more do-able again.  Exercise just makes me feel so, so, so much better when I can do it!!  I love it--though I can hardly believe it because I fought exercise most of my life!

I am feeling pretty overwhelmed about getting all the pre-screening reports and permissions all orchestrated together.  I feel like a music conductor, trying to get all the doctors and their staff on task and getting things faxed to where ever they need to go.  It is a good thing that I can balance a bunch of things all coming together...otherwise, I think they would be hauling me away in a padded truck about now.

I don't have all the paperwork resolved for wls even yet, but I am getting closer, MUCH CLOSER!  Soon things will all be handled and I will be able to relax a little.

I've been doing much more healing work with my spiritual healer in preparation for this wls.  I am so grateful for her!  She has taught me meditation and all things from the spiritual realm over the last 9 + years.  I feel so much more at peace about so many things in my life.  I used to be a nervous wreck all the time.  Now I can go through mega stressful times and not get completely befuddled.  Sometimes I can even do it somewhat gracefully!!  This is a vast improvement in me!!

I am finding myself aware of feeling a lot of fear about this wls coming up so fast.  I know I am doing the right thing for me.  But I find myself scared about all of the adjustments that must happen in me in order to recover from the surgery and recover from using food as a coping mechanism for life. 

I have been able to whip every single hard thing in my life except for my addiction to food--at least permanently, anyway.  I need to permanently get my weight under control.  I have been damn lucky that this 'ol body of mine has held up so well, giving the significant abuse I have given it over my 53 years.  It's a damn good body, even weighting 299 pounds!!

Out of the blue this afternoon, two of my adult sons called me wanting to use my computer and the two of them showed up at my house completely alone, without all their family members.  When I saw them, I knew it was the right time to start taking them into my confidence about my upcoming weight loss surgery.  I wanted to take the risk and tell them.  It felt right now!

And so, I did!

They were so supportive and understanding!!!  They both wanted to know all about it!  We watched Youtube VSG videos and I printed them out all the information from ObesityHelp.com about it.  They both were very happy to see me taking the risk to do something to get my weight under control and to be healthier! 

I think my doing this is giving the both of them courage and hope for themselves in the future, as they, too, have serious weight issues!  They both talked about watching me on this journey and maybe coming with me on it down the road!!

I am so glad that God, the Universe, Whoever, put all the cogs into motion that landed us all together at my house this afternoon...  It opened a space for intimacy and honesty...and I am so happy that I risked to tell them that I am having wls!

Now I have to tell the others in my family. 

Little by little, things are all falling into place...

I am so grateful!

My Dad had a slight stroke a week ago, yesterday.  That set in motion a most challenging week that left me running back and forth to the hospital, not following my pre-surgery diet and completely exhausted to boot.

I took my Dad back to his group home yesterday and now I am trying to get back in gear for wls, but I feel stalled on so many levels.  I am so glad that my Dad is doing better!!  But I just don't know for how long.  I feel concerned about putting myself out of commission for several weeks to recover from this surgery when he is in this space.

I am to see the weight loss surgeon this Thursday for the last appt. with him before the surgery.  But my life is in such chaos right now that I do not know if I am going to be able to do the surgery when I had it planned--April 22nd.  I decided it is best to just go ahead in and see him and 'fess up to what has been happening in my life.  I was to lose 10 pounds by this Thursday, and I had already lost it...but alas, life has kicked me right, square in the butt, (as is often the case and it always leads to getting goofy with food), and I have gained back a few of these pounds.  I am scared the weight loss surgeon is going to want to throw me away, believing me to be non-compliant...when I am not.  But I just do not do well with food during mega stress and this is the EXACT REASON that I need wls as one more tool in my bag of goodies to help me stay on target with food when life gets out of control!

I am in the midst of all the presurgery screening labs, tests, xrays, etc., which is keeping me running around like a chicken with my head cut off while still trying to help take care of my Dad.  This is also contributing now to my anxiety and stress levels.  This was all do-able until I got so tuckered out and stressed out with Dad getting ill.

I keep reminding myself that God is in charge and that I must simply put one foot in front of the other and whatever is to be will become apparent.

Right now I even believe this!

I finally broke down and shared with my niece, my ex-sister-in-law and my daughter-in-law that I am planning weight loss surgery.  I have already told all of my friends.  They are all supportive.  I still have yet to tell my children or my brothers.  And I will not tell my father or his sister, they simply will not be able to deal with the worry about this, they are both very elderly.  But I do plan to tell my children and my brothers on the 19th of April. 

Today is my annual mammogram, tomorrow an echo cardiogram, Thursday, the weight loss surgeon, got to go get more blood work too, Chest x-ray on Friday, have a dexa-scan next Monday followed right after by a thyroid ultrasound.  The following week I have an abdominal ultrasound and I have to see the breast doctor!  Aughghghghghg! 

I just cannot think about all of this stuff...I must just take one day, one minute, one second at a time and I will get through all of this!!!

I have missed conversing with everyone and being part of the group here lately.  Everyone has been so supportive and helpful to me in so many ways.  I am very grateful!!  I love reading all the trials and tribulations of my fellow wls friends and mostly I just love all the affection and acceptance that everyone seems to share with each other around here!

Barbara

I have been researching and working through all the processes for doing weight loss surgery for months now.  Each day it becomes more of a reality.  And some days I find more snags to drag me down in getting this done! 

I made a date with my (adult) kids for 04/19, that's three days before I am scheduled for VSG.  I plan to tell them then, what I am doing.  I feel like I have been sneaking around, keeping this stuff from them.  I don't like being a sneak!  It is not like me at all!  But I have just not felt yet that I was ready to tell them.  I cannot bear their criticism and their fears.  I have enough to do to deal with my own stuff about all of this right now!

I am still working through all the pre-screenings and hoops that one has to jump through in order to get this surgery accomplished.  I don't want to drag my kids and my extended family in to any of it until I am 100% sure this is going to come to be.

But it needs to come to be.  God!  It so needs to come to be!!!

I just cannot keep packing around all this gawd-awful weight.  It is literally killing me.  I feel it!!  I am so lucky that it has not done more nasty things to me than it already has!  I have two younger brothers who also have weight issues, (as does most of my family).  The both of my brothers have diabetes and one has a bunch of side effects from that already!!  I don't want to be where they are.  And I am sure if I had not fought weight as much as I have over the years, I would be exactly where they are...and I will be there too if I don't get this weight under control, and SOON! 

I just am not winning the fight over weight on my own.  I need more than white knuckles, will power, meditation, and 12-step programs to whip this weight for good!  I hope and pray that wls will be the added tool that will tip the odds in my favor!

Today I told my boss that I am planning to do wls.  I was really worried that he would be unhappy because of my needing to be off work.  But he took it well and he seems supportive!  What a relief!  I did ask for his confidentiality about this.  I am just not ready to have everyone on the planet know that I am doing this.  I feel so vulnerable about it. 

I suppose that it is pretty stupid to be worrying about being secretive about doing wls--especially when I am blogging about it on a website that others can see all over the planet!  But..Hey...I need my illusions!  Some day I will feel less vulnerable about this and I will likely be much more open about it with others.  But I surely do not feel this way right now!

I see my PCP next Wednesday and the cardiologist the day after that.  Then I will know if there are more tests that I need done before they will give me medical clearance. 

But the clock just keeping counting down....