lillypie9
Getting to the point of VSG has been a long, strange trip for me. I've lost 100 pounds at least 3 times in my life, but was always frustrated with myself because I could figure out how to lose it, I just couldn't figure out how to keep it off.
At my highest weight of 267, I decided to pursue getting a Lap-Band, but my insurance company at the time considered it experimental and would only approve RNY. With the research I had done, I was not comfortable with the rerouting of organs and potential for malabsorption, so I consulted an attorney, but ultimately, my insurance company just wouldn't cover it.
I began to see the therapist who had done my psych assessment for the Lap-Band. And in frustration, I acceded to the insurance company's demands and began the process all over again for RNY with a different practice closer to my home.
Everything was proceeding swimmingly until I had my psych assessment with the new practice. After speaking to their psychiatrist, he determined that I was not a good candidate for surgery, essentially stating that I didn't have adequate coping skills to maintain weight loss after surgery.
I fumed, I raged, I called the director of the program to protest, but that was that. I spent the rest of the summer feeling sorry for myself, eating crap and sitting in front of the computer until early in the morning.
On the side, I'd been poking around a Yahoo group for food addicts, They had a plan of eating that eschewed any and all forms of sugar and artificial sweeteners, wheat, flour, alcohol, cheese, and high fat foods, but I knew I'd never be able to do anything like that. Sugar was my love, my life.
But for some reason, maybe a big fuck you, I'll show you, to that psychiatrist, September 5, 2006, I'd just had it. I finished my last bite of whatever crap I was eating, went to bed, and woke up and resolved to follow this food plan. I was completely unprepared, had none of the food I needed in the house, but somehow I made it work, and I made it through sugar withdrawal.
Within a year, following the weighed and measured meal plan of lean protein, vegetables, fruits and whole grains, potatoes and beans, I'd lost 100 pounds and my sugar cravings. I learned to love the sweetness of roasted vegetables. Roasted onions tasted like candy to me.
I continued following the plan and saw to my amazement that it was easy to maintain my weight loss. I stayed the same size for 2 years and then gradually I started gaining weight and growing hair in weird places.
I told my endocrinologist, and she ran tests which confirmed I had Cushing's Disease. Cushing's Disease is caused by benign tumors in the pituitary gland that cause the body to oversecrete the corticosteroid cortisol. The result of this is a whole host of symptoms, the most common of which is weight gain, mainly in the trunk of the body.
In a May 2010 surgery, they removed 90% of my pituitary, but I was one of the lucky ones for whom the surgery was successful and I was deemed cured.
I went home to recuperate and to await the easy weight loss I'd seen in the before and after pictures on the Cushing's message boards. I continued my food plan, but unlike the first time, I did not lose weight.
After surgery I had to be maintained on oral steroids until my body recovered and began secreting normal amounts of cortisol on its own. So I comforted myself with the belief that once I had been weaned off the hydrocortisone, I'd lose the weight.
But I had trouble weaning from the steroids because I had constant joint pain, the steroids caused weight gain, the joint pain forced me to cut back my exercise and it became a big ol' snowball of weight gain.
This was further complicated by the fact that I started having all kinds of symptoms that I recognized as relating to hypothyroidism, even though my test results were "normal". My endocrinologist started my on a T4-only med which was ineffective in treating my symptoms.
After doing some research, I learned that many people cannot convert T4 to T3, which is the thyroid hormone the body's cells can use. In frustration, I sought the help of a holistic MD who started me on a T3-based thyroid med and also convinced me, despite my better judgment that I should try the HCG diet.
I paid her a ridiculous amount of money for what I knew was an extremely low calorie fad diet with all the cliched fad diet foods (hello, melba toast!) and the precious injectable HCG which was going to melt pounds off me like magic.
And guess what--it did. I lost 15 pounds eating lettuce and melba toast and giving myself injections, while my family hid from me, as I tend to get a little cranky when I'm starving.
From my experience on the HCG diet, I realized that I was capable of losing weight, but it would have to be an extremely low calorie diet and not the healthy food plan I'd followed for the previous five years. I knew I could never sustain eating so few calories indefinitely.
I was in a quandary. I'd been following a rigorous food plan for nearly five years, it was healthy for my body, but it was no longer serving me. The frustration of the past two years overtook me and I relapsed and began eating sugar and other unhealthy things.
As the weight piled on again, I began to consider WLS again but really struggled with the idea, as it had not been looked on favorably by those who followed my plan of eating. It was as if I'd been indoctrinated into a cult and I had to change my entire world view. I struggled with this for most of 2012.
I did not get to the point where I was at my highest weight, but being ten years older than the first time I considered WLS, the weight was much more debilitating to my body. I was in constant pain and exhausted from the stress of carrying all the extra weight. My diabetes came back and it was a sad day when I had to be put back on two medications for it.
At some point, I learned about the VGS surgery which hadn't been an option the first time. Armed with this new knowledge I signed up for a weight-loss seminar through my local hospital's bariatric surgery program, only to find out a week later than my husband's insurance had stopped covering WLS.
Regrouping, I secured financing, but found the local program didn't have a self-pay provision for the sleeve so I went back to the practice I had started with ten years before.
Being a self-pay has its benefits--there's no jumping through insurance company hoops, but things happen FAST when you're self-pay and I think in a way, it's good to have that time to contemplate just what exactly it is you're doing to your body and how much your life is going to change.
So I checked off my list of pre-op requirements quickly, but a part of me dreaded the psych assessment, worrying that even though it would be with the same therapist I'd seen ten years before, she'd find a way to reject me.
But the rational part of my mind knew that the previous five years of my life had been the perfect preparation for WLS. I had avoided the foods we sleevers are advised to avoid, I kept track of the amounts I ate, I managed stress without transferring my food addiction to alcohol, I had incorporated exercise as a daily part of my life. I really was ready and I had the tools I needed to be successful.
My surgery was scheduled for 10/30/12, which collided with Megastorm Sandy, so was postponed until 11/2/13.
I am sleeved and doing well and looking forward to resuming the activities I love--photography, skiing and hiking--and getting out of these #$%^ maternity clothes--the only ones that would fit my big old Cushing's belly.
