February, 2010 - One year post DS

Feb 11, 2010

Wow, a year has gone by.   I was looking at my 6-month update and really not a lot has changed except my weight.   I've lost over 120 pounds since the DS now.   I had the expected six-week stall at 3 months, and didn't freak.   More recently, I've had another 6-weeks long stall and I've sort of not freaked.   I lost 7# last week but gained one of them back this week.   I don't understand that at all.

My weight loss has been kind of weird looking!   My shoulders, arms and legs, my midriff and pretty much everything except my belly have gotten fairly thin.   Slender, even.    But my poor belly!   I look like a very old, very wrinkly pregnant person!   I had two babies over 10# and the abdominus rectus muscles never went back where they belonged.   Well, I have a lot of the hard, visceral fat that's probably made that impossible.  I can tell that it's going away, but it just seems to be much more stubborn than the subcutaneous fat.   So the Sub-Q fat is gone, so I have a big, round belly but with wrinkly, loose skin on top of it!   OMG if you think that's a bad mental image, you should actually SEE it.   I actually do wear my daughter's maternity jeans!   The legs and hips and everything fit - a size "L" in regular junior sizes.  But I definitely need that maternity room at the top.   They're regular looking jeans with a button and zipper and all - they just have a series of buttons and tabs that open or close the waist as the preggo lady needs.  It's cool because I've always had to get such big legs to have the belly big enough.   I guess the clothing companies can't believe that someone would have such a lot of belly and such a relatively small amount of thigh and hip.

Hubby says he thinks I'm not going to get rid of the belly unless I have things taken up, tightened and tucked.   I do NOT plan on doing that!!!!    I lived with endometriosis pain for 20 years because I was afraid to have a hysterectomy; I am not going to sign up for tummy tuck pain!   I'm doing pretty well with controlling problems with the redundant skin, and if I don't have breakdowns and things that might actually threaten my health down the road, I'm standing pat.  I'm in my mid-late 50s.   I'm a grandma.   Pardon my pot belly.

Still have kidney disease, still have Type II diabetes, still taking insulin, still blind-ish.   I can deal with those things. 

I'll have my one-year checkup next week, and I'm interested to see how my labs are going to be.   I feel like I've really gotten used to and understand my vitamin and supplement schedule now.   It's very very rare that I'd forget to take a batch.   Or at least it's rare that I forget long enough to mess up the day's intake, anyway.

I feel quite a bit better than I did at the six month point, I think.   I have quite a bit more stamina.   Which, I know, wasn't saying much to begin with.   But now I can stand at the kitchen counter to do things that I would have had to schlepp to the kitchen table and sit to do in the past.

I've never had any problems getting the protein or water in that I need.   Thanks to having my DS in two steps for that, I think.   If I didn't have the kidney failure and need to restrict my water intake, I'd probably drink even more.   I actually enjoy drinking more than I enjoy eating, which surprises me a bit.

The other thing that has surprised me is the happiness.   A friend had her surgery about a year before I did, and has had a wonderful improvement in her health.   I remember the sound of her voice when she said "The freedom, Dennie.   The freedom!"   I don't have the amount of freedom that she has, but I have a great deal more than I did before the surgery.   It changed my metabolism somehow in a way that seems to have changed my outlook.   Or my mood or something.   I know I've said several times that I woke up from that surgery feeling better.   Even when I was stopped up for two weeks, I felt better!   I felt like I'd turned a page in my life and I knew it was going to be better.  

I do like to come to OH as often as I can and try to tell my story.   Because I started out so late in life and I was already so old and so sick, a lot of doctors didn't think I'd make it through the surgery.   But - ta-daaaaaa!   I did!   I like to let people know that if you have to have a two-stage DS you can still make it work and still have a lot of success.   Yeah, I've still got a big belly, but at 12 months, I've lost over 120 pounds, so that's very wonderful, to my mind.

Yeah, I wish I'd done it sooner.   But it's too late to do it sooner.   So I'm making the best of what's here and now.   Which is pretty durn good.

Dennie

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