lisa
What a long, strange trip it's been...
Nov 27, 2013
It's been eons since I've posted. I've had more ups and downs (mostly downs) for the past few years. But today I am a new and better person.
I gained back some weight - like 50lbs. I was miserable in my life, and my marriage and realize that I had been for so long. I think it was the night my morbidly obese husband looked at me and told me that he no longer found me sexually attractive that I started a long, slow road to oblivion. Over the next ten years, he chipped away at my self-esteem, a little at a time. And before too long, for every bit of self-esteem I lost, I gained more weight. This would not do. I started losing when I got myself together enough to lose about 265 pounds of soul sucking fat and started my life with my kids. He had made me believe I stood no chance on my own, not in Texas, Texas doesn't like alimony and it certainly doesn't allow it for more than three years. Once I got an attorney, and once I realizled that my sociopathic, misogynist husband had lied to me, I realized I could be okay on my own. And I finally got up the nerve to get him out. The divorce was final this year. But as soon as he was gone.. maybe a few months after he was gone, everybody here started to relax. At first just a little bit, and after awhile, a lot more. I stopped punishing myself for making a mistake that I wasn't the first one to make (I was wife #2) and started back on my basic tools. Gone were the Newton Chocolate Raspberry crisps that Nestle doesn't even make anymore. It was an addiction, I was finally glad they were gone. Then I gave up most sugar, even the things that came next from Nestle, whatever they were, I was over them. I started living on yogurt and cheerios. I wasn't even thinking about weight loss, that was merely incidental to giving up stuff I had no business eating.
In February 2012, I started having pains in my abdomen. Nothing new, hell, vomiting when I'd eaten something too quickly or too much of was SOP around here. But no matter how much I made myself throw up, the pain would not go away. I decided to go to the ER around midnight. Okay folks, here's the deal about NG tubes. You could walk in with a Tee shirt that said "NO NG TUBE WITHOUT SCOPE!" and they'd still do it. They "measure" the approximate distance from your pouch to the top of your throat and then they put a bend in it. It's every bit the horror you've heard. It was INCREDIBLY AWFUL! The staff was pretty sure I had an impaction in my intestines. I disagreed, I'd been moving things along just fine. But you also have no say over your care either. That's because they give you wonderful painkillers. I've already been taking pain killers - you should probably just expect to acquire some kind of auto-immune disorder after surgery. I actually got 3 or 4 just from the stress of my marriage. The nastiest thus far being Sjogrens Syndrome which I learned about watching Mystery Diagnosis and another woman talking about my symptoms. There was actually a name for this? Not only that, there are treatments. Anyway, the tube, they reasoned, would release the gas that was building up from the blockage and I would get some relief from the pain. Mind you, there was no distension or any indication of blockage. But they put the NG tube down my nose, down my throat and into my esophagus. They were perplexed for despite all of their measuring, they had not gotten to my stomach. The nurse and her stethoscope listened while the other nurse kept bobbing the tube up and down making it longer until the nurse with the stethoscope was satisfied. The NG tube is a rigid, hard piece of tube that you feel in the back of your throat. Every time you move, you feel it in your body. It hurts a lot. By the end, I was in ICU (for lack of a bed on the surgery ward) and got no sleep because I did not have my pills. I wasn't allowed to have anything to eat or drink. If you know Sjogren's then you know the hallmark is extreme dryness of mouth and throat. This was the worst thing I had ever gone through. You think you're dying of thirst after the bariatric surgery? This makes that look like sand through your fingers. I was now over 12 hours with no medication when strangers told me they really didn't know what was wrong. They couldn't agree, so they were just going to have to do exploratory surgery. This was not good news. Hospitals are horrible places for me. Nobody ever allow me to take the pills I need to sleep, this place wouldn't give me anything to help ease the dryness that was making me want to die. After surgery, I was told the doctor came by and told me everything. Does anybody ever remember being cognizant enough after surgery to even remember a visit from their surgeon much less what he or she said? You have my admiration. I remembered nothing except it had been a day and a half since I'd gotten any sleep and if I didn't get some liquid soon, I would probably get angry. They really didn't care if I got angry. So I started playing a game. What did I have to lose? Some idiot had attached my IV to my arm right in the middle, so if I bent my arm, the alarm would sound. I started bending my arm just enough for the alarm to sound. And then I taught myself to just phase out the sound. It drove the night nurse (Ratchet I believe was her name) crazy. With no light going on over the door, they had to check every single room. Every 20 minutes without fail I bent my arm. As a way to get me to stop, they finally woke up the surgeon who said I could have some ice chips and something for pain. They don't seem to know what it's like to live with a pain disorder. Sjogrens is such a nifty little AID. (auto immune disorder just to be sure). Not only does it cause dryness of your mouth, throat and eyes, it causes pain. A lot of pain. And the more stress I was under the more pain I had. What's really pathetic was my purse was right on the window sill and in my purse I had pain pills, my tranquilizers and my Sjogren's medication that would relieve my Saharan desert mouth. Why didn't I just take them?? I remember after finally making Ratchet so angry with the alarms she started ignoring them, I went into the bathroom and saw a few drops of blood on the floor. I thought to myself "helluva time to get my period" but there was too much blood so I thought I should push the button since I had no pain but was starting to wonder how much longer I could stand. When Daylily or whatever her name was came into the room to see what I wanted (Ratchet wouldn't come herself) the bathroom looked like a crime scene. The IV had come out of my arm - they never put it in very well to start with - and it had just been pumping out through the still-in-my-arm needle. I just looked around and apologized to Daylily for getting blood on her. I finally sat down and listened and she went screaming down the hall "BLOOD! THERE'S BLOOD!!" Yeah, there was blood. A whole lot of it. She's absolutely right.
This really nice nurse who I didn't know came in. I didn't know this hospital had any really nice employees. She redid the IV, helped me get the blood off of me and gave me a clean gown. And ice chips. Later, the doctor came in with pictures. What am I looking at? That's me? My abdomen looked like underground caverns, stalactites and stalagmites were everywhere. Those, the doctor told me, were "adhesions". Adhesions look like that? Wow, reality check. The second picture was much more interesting and probably the reason for the pain. It was my appendix. I looked at it for awhile. Nope, can't be. It doesn't look like an appendix. Oh, they assured me it was not only my appendix, but that somehow it had gotten stuffed with stool. Now I'm recalling what I know about anatomy, and the tiny little vein sized path to the appendix and the size of what appeared to be in it. Not possible. Not even remotely possible. The doctor told me had I not come in I would have been toxic in two weeks or less. I'm way too much of a weenie to not go to the hospital when I'm in that kind of pain. And I do know pain. Having developed an interesting form of Sjogrens, the tendons in my arms started tearing away from the bones starting in my shoulders, moving down to my elbows. I couldn't tell you how many procedures I've had to repair these tears and the pain I've gone through. I've been seeing a pain management specialist for at least 5 years now. But there was no way I was spending another night in that hospital. I didn't care if they had to transfer me by ambulance, I wanted out. There was no way I could survive another night with Ratchet. Uh Uh. I didn't care that I'd just had major abdominal surgery, it wasn't the first time. I'd had 2 C-sections, a gall-bladder removal and now this. I promised to do nothing just get me the hell out!
And they released me. I started writing a letter to the hospital, but when I saw the lobby (not the way I came in), and saw how much money they had spent on art glass installments while the nurses were using clipboards - paper clipboards! They had to call down to the pharmacy for any meds. They had no standard patient bracelet scanners, they had no computerized charts. Paper charts in a hospital with close to a million dollars in art glass installments. What a freaking waste!
Now I'm much closer to my goal weight. I won't touch fast food and generally stop after a few bites of anything even if I'm still hungry. It's enough. I'm back into my size 9 pants and at 5'8" I'm only about 15 lbs from my personal goal - I'm already at my doctor's goal. So even now, 8 years post op or more, you can stop falling. You'll always have the tools, and you always know how to use them. I'm diligent about my vitamins and calcium, I inject my B-12 every other week but get it from Amazon instead of the pharmacy since I don't have major medical anymore until I can get on a Medicare plan.
I've got a new fella and he is a constant reminder that I am a vibrant, beautiful, sexy woman who is stronger than some lowdown guy who beats up on women and kids verbally. I'll never have to live through another year ending in '13'. Things can only get better :)
