Kathy L.
To see the beginning on my WLS journey (12 Jan to 27 July 02),
Please see my profile Kathy Loomis at Fort Campbell, KY.
Hubby and I are still looking for jobs in our new area. Of course I only want part time and my search has just begun.
Our son is loving his "new" school. He is playing soccer for the high school. They had their first game yesterday. Sad news....they lost both games. He does miss his freinds at Friends at FTC. But so do I :o(
DH has been showing everyone his bad side these last few months and I finally said enough! I am to the point that I won't be with him come our 22nd anniversary next July. He went over to the VA in Dayton for some physiological help for his outbursts and they are saying he has Gulf War syndrome, post traumatic stress. I guess someone in the government is finally saying that they were at fault for forcing these soldiers to take the shots/pills during Saudi that had not been approved and this is what is causing this breakdown. All I know is that my DH to me is a walking time bomb! It just pisses me off the FTC KNEW he had a problem, but to them....let it be someone elses problem. The only few things that is keeping me around right this minute is that, one: our son...we both had him together we can finish raising him (he graduates in June from HS), two: 21 years is a long time, and three: he showed me so much love, compassion, caring during my after care for the surgery I feel like I can't just walk away when he is at one of his weakest points.
I am going to go for now. Hope everyone out there is doing great as well! God Bless!
I am sooo sorry!
I am still doing great! I weigh between 191-205, depending when I weigh, I don't pay attention anymore. I need to watch what I eat more. I have realize this week that I am eating very little protein! I am back to my veggies, potatoes and sweets. So this coming week is going to be a me, me, me week. This is where I concentrate on my food intake.
I still miss eating big meals sometimes....but I add a little bit of everything to my plate so I do have the variety. I am content. I can still eat sugars. I just watch how much. I never know when I am going to dump. Today I must of had a first. I think I dumped in my sleep while taking a nap. I had eaten a handful of sugar daddies, and when I woke up from my nap I felt like crap! So when I dump on sugars I stay away from them. I can eat 2 pkgs (of 4 peices each)of Now and Laters with no dumping. I have been staying away from chocolates-I just don't have that craving for them and when I do take a bite/taste there is no satisfaction, so why bother. My new evening drink is sugar free hot chocolate. About a week ago I had a marshmellow on an open fire. It was good but believe it or not....I only ate one, yes ONE was enough!
We are still job searching in our new area. I got to work at the high school in the cafeteria these last 3 weeks and I felt great. That can be a tough job at times! I also volunteer 2 days a week at the head start program. Hubby finally found a job he likes but the pay sucks.......and there is no benefits since he only works 30 hours a week (I personally feel that in this area that when people finds out that you are getting a military retirement check and they know you have medical benefits, they think we don't need anything and they give my hubby the crap jobs....he has been hired by 2 different people and each time he showed up to work they informed him that he was not hired for the job that they interviewed him for but they will let him work making anywhere from $3-$7 less than what he interview for-that has been upsetting us both!)...back to hubby working.......16 days ago when he was coming home from work, he was about 3-5 miles from the factory, and he went off the road and flipped and totaled our Santa Fe....Yep the one that we got on Valentines Day. He ended up with broken ribs on his left side, a spinal injury, concussion, and scrapes. Want to see the damage go to this web site: http://hometown.aol.com/kmml/santafe.html
He is doing well and healing slowly.
This ends today's journey.......God Bless Everyone! :o)
I may have lost a lot more had I been in some type of program. Right now I am saving money so we can get out of my father-in-laws home. It is a GODSEND to have someone to fall back on when you have no place to live but this visit my sister-in-law has gotten my father-in-law in such a brain washing sceme that he thinks she walks on water and could do do wrong! And he is treating his 3 boys like crap. And since we are living with him I am seeing all this take place. Tonight my father-in-law got mad at me because I threw away a box (he claimed it had a life time quarantee-it only had a two year and he has had this item for around 4 years) after I pulled it out to use the item in the box and it was filled with cock roaches. I told him the box was filled with cock roaches and he said it was not. Thank God I had my cousin with me because he witness me stomping the cockroaches on the ground and killing them. It is these stupid things that is going on that I will not tolerate. His daughter is 50 years old and she still abuses his kindness. But this is also the same lady who fell at church after an old chair broke and she injured herself. She made the comment about getting pain and suffering from the church! Can you imagine that!!! After Jesus gave himself to pain and suffering for our sins, she then has the nerve to want the church to pay her for pain and suffering. By the way the churches insurance is paying for her injury treatment since she has no insurance and they should.
I am sorry that I am sounding so negative. We have been on our own for the last 20 years, and having to depend on someone for a roof who would rather us disappear, is hard!
Hopefully when I write again I can say that we have our own place and that everything is going great! Bye for now.... :o)
Two things I forgot to write. One, I met a really nice lady on this site who happens to be getting ready to start her new life. Her name is Alicia. If all goes well on Monday she is hoping to have her surgery the following week. So please keep Alicia in your prayers.......Two, I am now ONE inch taller! I was 5'2" at the Dr's today. I have heard of people getting taller but until it happens to you, well, it is kind of hard to believe it! :o)
11Nov02-Happy Veteran's Day to past and present soldiers!
I got my blood work back and it wasn't to good. My iron levels was in the 20's and I thought my B-12 was in the 20's as well. I am now on daily iron pills (I am still taking my centrum adult chewables with iron too) and I get a monthly B-12 shot as well. Since I have gotten my B-12 shot I have felt like crap! The first 24 hours were the worst! I felt like I had been beaten with a baseball bat! I did call the Dr's office and the Dr doesn' think that my pain was from the shot....I don't know, I just know how I felt afterwards. I have got to go. just wanted to update everyone on my blood test. I am now off to go get some fruit. I think my potassium may be acting up this week.
You know this is my fault...I need to eat HEALTHY! I am eating to much carbs! Bye for now...........
I got my second B-12 shot about three days ago and I am finally noticing a difference! I had a very heavy period in November and at the end I got a sinus infection so while I was at the Dr's office I asked the DR to check my iron again since I did have such a heavy period and sure enough by iron had went down even though I had been taking iron supplements this past month. So now I am taking two iron pills a day along with my regular multivitmin with iron. Unfortuantly at this Dr's visit my b/p was very high so the DR put me back on my b/p pills. I have never had high b/p at this weight. I guess I must still have a lot of fat blocking my arteries!
My size 14 pull up jeans are starting to get a little loose. I did buy some of those $7 jean specials and I needed a size 18P. Those are regular jeans. I did notice at Kmart that when I put their jeans up next to each other even though they said they were a size 18P and they were the exact same pants...they were not cut at the waist the same. Some was off as much as one inch!
As a Christmas present from my daughter and her hubby, they bought us two plane tickets to fly out and see them at Ft. Lewis, Washington. My son and I are leaving this coming Wednesday. The last the kids saw me I was wearing a size 24-26 pants and I weighed about 255. My hubby has to work that is why he is not going. Now he did get to visit them in October for his 40th birthday. That ticket as well was a gift from them. It is great when your kids can finally return some kindness to you! :o)
I will try and update the pictures on this page. So I will end for now. Take care everyone and Happy Holiday's to all and God Bless You ALL in the upcoming NEW YEAR!! Love....ME :o)
27DEC02-Hello Everyone! I hope this update finds you all doing well and that you are having a great holiday season! I am currently at Ft. Lewis with my daugher and son-in-law. It is nice to see the two again. I will hate to go....I and my son will head back to Indiana next Friday.
I have been watching what I eat since I have been out here and I have not dumped once. All I can figure out is that I don't want my daughter to see me sick, so I am not overdoing anything!
I have no idea what I weigh since my daughter does not have a scale here. I got 3 "L-P" size Bill Blass shirts and they seem to be a little big. So my body may be shifting or I may be losing weight again.
The kids are amazed at my weight loss. My daughter was telling me, that she told them at work, that it is hard to see me and know that I am her "Mom". I can even wear her coats! Of course my son in law makes fun of my burp(?) (it sounds like I am being scared-a squeek....hubby says he missed that noise :o) Then all three of them will hand me a crouton (or anything in simular size) and says "Here's your meal...are you full yet?" I am glad for the jokes, it makes us all healthier to laugh.
I am going to end this update for this year now. Once again I wish you all peace and joy for the upcoming New Year's and Always! With much love to my fellow brothers and sisters.......
God Bless! :o)
22APR03-Wow! Today is my one year re-birthday! Time has just flown by! Of course things in our lives has been changing so much that it has helped this year fly by.
Today I weighed 185. That is down 80 Lbs from 265 a year ago. I wish that it was more, but I am happy and healthy with where I am at. Last year at this time I was wearing a size 24-26W clothes. Today I wear a size 14. I started exercising in January. Right now I have not been able to exercise for the last two weeks. My regular DR is waiting for a heart sonogram results and my test is tomorrow. If all comes back ok on that then hopefully by this Saturday I will be able to be back at aerobics‘! I was having some burning pain in my stomach about three weeks ago and the DR wanted me to have a aorta sonogram because he thought that I may have a aneurysm, but that test came back great. Then he heard the murmur (I have had it most of my life but my fat had covered up the hole) and just to be safe he is having the heart done as well. My burning has went away about 95%. I changed stress medications and I had stopped exercising. So my DR does not know what was causing the burning. This is the bad thing about being my DR’s first gastric bypass patient, he is learning as we go. I will see the stomach DR in mid May for my one year check up (a few weeks late :o).
If I had to do this over again would I? YES! It has been worth the journey! The thing that I can pass on and I have heard it over and over again on this site is to remember that this surgery is a TOOL! Not a CURE to skinniness! I can eat what ever I want now, just in small quantities.
I started noticing about two months ago that I don’t get as sick when I eat sugar products. In other words I have stopped dumping! That is a blessing! Now in the past when I did dump, after the dumping episode was over, I had to go lay down and I would go into this heavy sleep for about 2 hours. I do notice that if I get to much sugar now that I will get extremely tired. Now don’t think I am eating like I used to do, because I don’t. But I did have a small piece of my son’s 18th bday cake over the weekend. And last night I had some strawberries on a small piece of angel food cake.
These are the things that I have to watch out for: I think I could eat a whole box of chicken bisket crackers during a two hour movie by eating one at a time (To prevent this, I just grab out about 6 crackers and I get some cheese). The longer I sit at a table the more I can eat. My pouch empties pretty quickly. When I eat at home I put my food on a desert plate. Once the food is gone then I put my plate up. When I go to a restaurant I tend to continue to pick off my plate after I am done. So we don’t go out to eat very much and I also ask for a to go box right away so I can put the food out of my sight.
To show you in size what I can eat here are some examples: For a meal I can eat a McDonald’s cheeseburger or I can eat a fish fillet as long as I take off one of the pieces of bread. I can also eat the small yogurt parfait (not at the same time as the sandwiches). I can eat an apple about the size of a tennis ball for a snack. I was able to eat my first carrot this past weekend. Now I have eaten salads with small pieces of raw vegetables, but just to pick of a piece of raw vegetable and eat it, it would make my pouch hurt. On Saturday I ate two baby carrots and I had no problems.
I have never been a water drinker and I was hoping that the surgery would make me one, well it didn’t! I do not drink the water amount that I should drink. I do get liquids in, coffee, milk, OJ, small quantities of water. I feel that if I drank more water then I wouldn’t want to snack on carbs as much!
I take two iron pills a day (that is one big reason I should drink a WHOLE lot of water), my calcium chews, chewable multivitamin, of course stool softener for the iron. And I have a monthly B-12 shot to help booster the iron.
My stomach is looking good. I am only sagging under the arms. I think the reason for my stomach not sagging as bad is because my weight loss has been slow. And with aerobics’ my legs are looking great! :o)
Thanks for stopping by and reading my update! God Bless! Kathy :o)
I am still able to eat about anything. While house hunting in Richmond today I stopped by DQ and got some icecream. It went down well and stayed down. ABout 30 minutes later I had this extreme tiredness come over me but I did not get sick. One good thing is that I don't crave sweets anymore. I am still bad on the carbs though! I bounce from 180-185.
In 17 days I will be at Ft. Lewis with my daughter for 5 weeks, and during that time we will be working together on losing weight. So hopefully I can write back here at the end of July and say I am down to 1??!
The only draw back that I can see that I have had with this surgery is that my hormones is all out of wack! My levels were so down in January that had I tried to get pregnant, I would not have been able to. At 40 and with my "baby" graduating from high school a week ago today, having a baby is the LAST thing on my mind! I am just getting back into the "mood". Of course my husband is really frustrated! He would like the "mood" to be a few times a week instead of once a month...if he's lucky. Anyone out there have any suggestions? Email them to me! I sure can use some help!
Hubby got a real good job in Richmond, IN so we are now house hunting in that area. Maybe once we get out of his dad's home and on our own two feet things will start to settle down just in time for our daughter and her two boxers to move in with us while her husband goes to Iraq in Feb! Life goes on :o)
My three year anniversary! I have not been to this web site in such a long time. I was surprise to see my profiles still around! It wasn't until I found my profile that I realized that today was my three year mark.
So where am I at today? I would love to tell you that I weigh 110. But I can't. The lowest that I got was 160. My daughter moved in with us in October and since then I have gained 20 lbs.
I have yearly stomach checks and all is well there. My pouch is still small. I can eat almost anything. I still cannot drink and eat. My surgeon once told me to eat in 5 minutes. Well I still have not did that. Because of the way my pouch is made things slip right into the intestine giving me more room to eat the longer I eat. I do eat healtier. I enjoy "junk" food every now and then but it is not to the extreme. I need to exercise.
When they say this surgery is a tool and not a "cure" they mean it! I would have this surgery again in a heart beat. I have not had my plastic surgery yet to remove skin. I want to make sure I am done losing weight.
Things I am living with since the surgery. I take iron, calcium, stool softners and vitmains daily. I get a monthly B-12 shot. At the age of 40 I went into a lot of hormone changes. Dr. thought I would come out of it but I never did. I have about 3 or 4 periods a year. Not a bad thing since my kids are now 24 and 20.
Good points: I can shop anywhere now and get nice clothes. And I can do so much more activities. Hopefully I will be back sooner than later. Take care everyone!
Hello Everyone:
I tired to get on my account around my 4 year mark, but couldn't remember password. But here I am now.
So where am I today? I just weighed myself and I am at 201. I am starting to see some "W's" in my clothes that I buy. I am back down to 5'1. At my skiniest I was around 5'2.5". I just reread what I wrote last year and I never did take any of my advice to exercise. I do walk some, but not enough to make a difference. I am snoring again. Not a good sign for my sleep apnea, so got to dust off c-pap machine. I have used it a few times, but my pouch feels "swollen" in the morning.
Still taking the same meds as above. When I was on this website back in April I saw an ad for the nose B-12 and my doctor gave me a precription for them. My insurance approved it. So if my body can absorbed the nose B-12 I will no longer have to get the shots. That saves me about $25 a month!
Healthwise: I have an average of 2 periods a year. The doctor tried to help me with my hormone inbalance and he gave me some blood pressure pills that would help put me in the "mood". Well things went haywire and my heartbeat was down to 25 beats per minute at times. Don't know if I was ever in the mood because I was too tired!! Ended up having to go see a heart doctor. All was well for awhile once he put me on a different med. Had to change that one because of mood swings, so I am back on my old medicine. I had some barium x-rays done of my pouch back in October to see if they could see why I can eat more than I should. My pouch is still small but I never asked to see how small it was. The Dr who read the xray said it was "very" small. Everything looked great. I have a small hiatal hernia that only causes very occasional problems. I can no longer eat anything spicy. And I love spicy food! When I eat spicy food my mouth hurts.
Everyone is living at "home" now. My son-in-law made it back safe from Iraq in October. From what I hear Bruce Willis is going to be in a movie about his unit while they were over there. My daughter is finishing up her sophmore year as a nursing student. My son just started a new job at a new car dealership here in town. I work for the local schools and hubby works for a dog food company. So with as busy as our house is you think I would be SKINNY! Time to put myself first and start taking care of myself. I miss very much my support group. A support group is very vital in helping you through rough times.
Thanks for stopping by! Take care everyone and God Bless!
^^o^^5 YEARS^^o^^
June 10, 2007. It has now been 5 years 6 weeks since my surgey. Not much has changed since last year. I still weigh between 195-205. I am glad to see fellow friends from 2002 still doing great!
This year while working at the school I seemed to have been blessed with catching every little cold. My last cold was bad. ER doc thought I might have caught the rotavirus. I was out of work for a week. Took two weeks to get better.
I still take all the same meds. After being ill this year I am trying to be more faithful with my mulivitiam and calcium. The B-12 nose spray has done miracles. My B12 levels at least tripled! So the Nascobal was a good medical choice!
My family joined a gym so my daughter and I are getting out and exercising. We are having fun learning how to play racketball (also known to us as dodgeball..lol)
I feel that my biggest weight problem is snacking. I was a big snacker before I had the surgery. Now I was told to continue to eat a lot of "little" meals (bad thing to say to a person who snacked all the time). Now my little meals are bad snacks like crackers.
As I continue on the gym scene I will try to keep this site updated on that progress.
Until then..............take care!
Kathy
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