I used to be a member on OH last year, prior to my GBS, and this is my first time logging back in. And I see things have been changed, my whole profile is gone, so I will be starting it over, but this time it will be from the viewpoint as a post-op GBS patient. So here goes.....

 

Over the past few months I have had several (wonderful) people come to me, inquiring about my journey with gastric bypass surgery. I have even been blessed with having new friends on here that have also gone through the surgery, just now starting the process or are midway through it. Each person I talk to asks "What happened? What all did you go through?" and various other questions. So, I thought I would put up a new blog, kinda like a summarized diary of what I went through to get to the operating table, and then the things that have happened since then. So, here we go. And I will try to do this without scaring anyone. Or boring anyone to death.

 

Some of you have known me for a long time. Way before I moved to Pennsylvania and became a wife and mom. And those of you that have had the pleasure of knowing me over half my life know that I have NEVER been skinny. I wasn't really fat, but in high school, my senior year, I was a size 13. I thought I was HUGE. I was curvier than all the other girls and being short just made it worse. Everyone else was a size 6, 8, 10 and I just felt like a seacow. Always told I had a pretty face, but honestly, after hearing "Oh, she's such a pretty girl" and "What a beautiful face" a gazillion times, you tend to want to puke. When I moved to PA in 1999 I was a size 14 and once again I thought I was huge. It didn't help that my soon to be sister in law was a size 2. After I had my daughter, when I was 20, I was a size 14/16. (The sister in law had also had a child, 9 months before me, and was bitching regularly about being a size 5. *growls*) But,  I figured it would be easy as all get out to lose the weight. I started eating as healthy as I could, and I breastfed my daughter, which does help you burn off the fat. Two months after my daughter was born my mom had the gastric bypass surgery done. (She has lost over 150 lbs). Now, I won't lie. For the longest time I swore I'd never resort to surgery to lose weight. My mom had the open bypass done, with the long thick scar down her front. And it scared me. I saw how she had to change her ways of eating, of living all together, and I just said NO. Granted, she looked great, felt better than she had felt in a really long time and was happy with the surgery and it's results. But I just shut down the option of surgery all together. I was still 20, I had plenty of time to lose the weight, right? I got married two days before I was 21. I had my dress made just for me....my chest size was about a 42DD and my hips were around 54". I was about a size 18/20 and I was fat. But my dress was pretty, my wedding was nice, and I just figured "I have time to lose it all after I turn 21."

 

However, every diet I tried was a failure. I would lose a few lbs, but gain them back, plus 10 more. Diet after diet, diet pills galore, NOT eating all together....Nothing worked. When I had my second child, my oldest boy, I went into labor & delivery weighing around 219 and came out looking good. However, I was going through a lot in my personal life and depression soon took over. I was working nights, taking care of my children during the day and we just weren't eating healthy. After a nice little breakdown and medication, I started to lose weight again, having gotten my priorities straight. But it wasn't a noticeable weight loss. Two pounds this week lost....1 pound gain next week. It just never made sense. I could walk, run, life weights, work out, ANYTHING, and the weight just wouldn't budge. After my final child, my youngest son, was born I ballooned up big time. This was the biggest I'd ever been. If you look in my GBS Progress album you will see my progress collage. The 06/06 picture, where I am wearing a black shirt and going through a blonde phase (LOL), you will see. I was probably around 260 there. It was horrible. Yes, I had people telling me I was pretty, I still had people saying I was beautiful, but I was also being told "...for a plus sized girl." Well, dammit, I didn't want to be a plus sized girl! I would cringe when I had to go clothes shopping. Whenever Christmas time came and my mom or my mother in law wanted to buy clothes for me as gifts and would ask my sizes, I'd lie. I was around a size 22, so I'd say I was an 18. I had to. I couldn't be strong and admit what size I was. Besides, I wouldn't want the plus sized clothes from anywhere. They were all horrid!! Big blotchy prints of color that would assault one's eyes from 300 yards away. Elastic waistband pants or jeans that did not compliment your curves one bit. It was a nightmare.

 

In 2006 I got a new job and the one girl I worked with had the surgery done in 2004. She mentioned it to me the one day, after she'd told me that she'd made tea and it was in the fridge but it was unsweetened, because she couldn't have sugar. She was 23 or 24, and she'd gone from 300 lbs down to 175. She looked amazing. I know it might sound strange, but I would actually sit and watch her, taking in the grace she moved about it. To think....she had been 300 lbs and now looked like this? Oh my God, could I really do it? I suddenly wanted to learn everything I could about the surgery, I wanted to find a doctor or a hospital nearby that would do it, that my insurance would work with. I talked it over with my husband, with my mom. And I decided that I wanted to know even more, because I WANTED this surgery. I sat and looked at my life - I was 26 years old and married, I had three young children that I wanted to enjoy a long healthy active life with. I looked at how there wasn't a day that didn't go by that I wasn't in some sort of pain. I was tired all the time, no matter how much sleep I got. My back hurt, my legs hurt, my EVERYTHING hurt. And I just flat out wasn't happy with myself one bit.

 

So I did some searching online and I found a doctor in Hazelton, which is an hour and a half from here. I called his office the next day and the nurse was so sweet. She told me right away that with my height and weight, I was morbidly obese. I cried. I couldn't believe I was in that category. Me?? Morbidly obese?? Never!! Whenever I'd think of that term I'd picture the people on TV that weighed in at 450+, that couldn't leave their house because of how big they were. I thought of people who ate and ate and ate, 9+ meals a day, super sizing everything. People who needed those scooters to get around in the stores, who just couldn't function in an every day life. It was mean to think these things, I know, but that is honestly how I felt. I looked at my own day to day doings....I rarely ate. I actually under ate. But I wasn't getting smaller. I didn't drink, I wasn't lazy. I worked a full time job AND was a full time stay at home mom, chasing my kids around like mad. If anything I felt I should have been the size of Kate Moss. But here I was, closer to the size of Anna Nicole Smith. I asked the nurse to sign me up for an appointment with the doctor as soon as she could, I wanted their next available opening.

 

She set me up with a meeting first, a somewhat laid back support group type meeting. Bob and I went into, meeting the doctor and the nurse (Dr Bono and Jane) as well as about a dozen other potential bypass patients and their support person.  It was a very helpful seminar. Learning the ways that your body works and how you can go from being healthy to obese without being the typical "lazy" person. How your body just sometimes doesn't want to work with you, to let you lose that weight and how no amount of dieting in the world would help in the way you need help. Dr Bono was so upfront and friendly, he didn't BS anything. Neither did Jane, and the fact that she herself had undergone the surgery several years ago was an inspiration. I was so ready and so excited. But the process was just beginning.

 

In all honesty, from the moment I picked up the phone to schedule that first appointment, I thought I was going to get turned down. However, even though I was told I was on the lower end of the "ruler", my BMI only being 40 or 41, I had a lot of co-morbidities. And, if you have those co-morbidities - your BMI is high, you have any kind of sleeping or breathing problems, any kinds of aches, pains, heart problems, family history of obesity, etc. - you are qualified. The first thing that happened was I got set up with numerous doctors, who were set to form a variety of tests. Now, as for the number of doctors each person will have to see....I can't tell you. I think it varies with your insurance as well as with the bypass surgeon who performs your surgery. I am not sure how similar everyone is, but I personally went to a psychiatrist, a cardiologist, a pulminologist, an endocrinologist, two sleep studies (both overnight stays) and a dietician. They want to check EVERYTHING to make sure your body can handle the surgery. With the psychiatrist I had to sit in a small room for almost two hours, with this nice but very straight-laced woman delving deep into my past as well as the present, dissecting everything that ever happened to me. Then she sat with Bob for half an hour, getting his opinion, his take on everything. Finally she deemed me fit for the surgery. One reason you see a psychiatrist is to make you that you are found competent, that you have the understanding that the surgery is NOT a quick fix and that having it will not make your entire life perfect. It's to help you see that it is more than just a physical transformation, but also a mental and emotional one as well. The cardiologist hooked me up to a heart monitor and listened to my lungs, which took all of 15 minutes. The pulmonoligist did an EKG on me, as well as several other scans of my heart, where they found I had a mild heart murmur. This also didn't take very long at all. The endocrinologist set up an appointment with me to have me sedated and to have an endoscopy done, which is to have a tube with a camera threaded down your throat, enabling them to view your esophagus, stomach, etc. This is to just make sure that everything inside is ready for surgery, no ulcers, tears, etc. It's not that bad.

 

I can tell you if they make you do the sleep study you will be hooked up to a bunch of electrodes and have things on your head, your arms, your legs, your chest and face. If they determine you have sleep apnea they will have you come back and do it all over again, same exact process, only this time they add in a c-pap machine. You get to pick which mask you think will work best with you and they will monitor to make sure the c-pap is working well for you. It's really not as bad as some people make it out to be. You feel like the Predator, with all the electrodes as the "hair" LOL and you definitely don't want a picture taken of you, but it's all okay. I personally had severe sleep apnea, where I stopped breathing a lot at night. When you have a c-pap, typical settings are around 8 or 10 I think. My settings were up around 17 and 18. So, yeah, it was pretty bad.

 

Now, you might also have to do a diet study for a dietician or your insurance, and the timeframe of that can vary. My insurance required a 6 month supervised diet, which REALLY pissed me off. It's really just a daily journal of what you eat/drink. I am going to be completely honest about the diet thing. I did the best I could with mine, though. Seriously, I was a full time working mom of three, there just wasn't time for me to sit down and write in detail everything I ate or drank every time I had it. So I would take a weekend and just write stuff, trying to remember as best I could everything I'd eaten the past few days.  But I managed to get it done, with the help of Bob. 

 
Also, most times the first two weeks before surgery they have you go onto an all liquids diet, to shrink your liver. Your liver is right over your stomach, over the area they work on, and it's very sensitive to the touch. So they want it as small as it can go, so that its not in the way. I can't tell you when you will have the surgery, time-wise from the first appt. It took me months to go through all of my appts, but then I was traveling an hour and a half each way to see the various doctors. But once the final test was done my gastric doctor sent the papers in and I was give my surgery date two days later, and my surgery was 13 days after that. Some may say that this isn't a big deal, especially if you have an open bypass done. When it comes to what type of surgery you will have - be it an open bypass or a laproscopic one - that pretty much depends on your body and your surgeon. I was told that doctors try to go with the laproscopic version, because it's less invasive, but it all depends on your body. A lot of people who are bigger tend to have to go with the open bypass. But again, that's up to your doctor. Just know that your surgeon can tell if you stuck to that liquids diet or not once they see your liver. And my own doctor informed me that he lets his patients know if they do not follow the liquid diet and their liver is not where he wants it he will sew them back up and send them back home for a 3 to 4 week liquid diet. It's just easier for them to work on you.

 

Finally the day of surgery came and we had to be at the hospital at 5:00 a.m. I was set to have surgery around 6, if I remember correctly. My mom and Bob went with me and once we got there I got weighed in (I was at 253 lbs, after having lost 10 lbs over the two week liquid diet) and then got prepped. I had to have monitors stuck everywhere, I had to have several IVs, antibiotics administered. It was quite unsettling and for days after the surgery I had bruises everywhere. Finally it was time to go into the OR.

 

After surgery, I won't lie. I was in MAJOR pain. I just ached all over. It's a little hard to remember the first...oh, I'd say 12 to 15 hours after surgery. I was so doped up on morphine, I was either in a fog or completely out. After surgery I wasn't allowed anything to eat or drink. I was in the ICU unit and I had all male nurses in there, and this one young one Ian would bring me ice chips and would tell me to just let them sit in my mouth. My mouth and lips were so dry I felt like I was constantly gagging. But they don't want you drinking anything until after they do this dye test thing on you. That is nasty. I have NEVER tasted anything more foul that than. Its this yellow juice-looking stuff that tastes like it could be used as a household cleaner. It's this nasty bittery sweet lemony stuff that made me gag. But they have you do it, and then they do this live x-ray thing to make sure there are no leaks after your surgery. I did that and Ian was with me, and he had to rush me back to my room, because I got sick from it. I was in the hospital two days, then I got to come home.

 

What to expect once they set you free? No lifting anything for a month, no real food, nothing but water and sugar-free juice. I managed sugar-free apple sauce, some baby foods, potato soup, stuff like that. If you have the laproscopic you could either have staples, stitches or steri-strips on 5 of your incisions and the 6th one, right under your left boob, is normally left open and you have packing or gauze put in it. I had to change that twice a day and that hurt like hell too. I had a home health nurse that came and did it for a week, then my mom and Bob took turns doing it. I'd always take a vicodin beforehand, just to dull the pain, because it honestly burned like hell. I would cry like a baby, even after having taken the vicodin. Oh, in the hospital (I almost forgot) they will probably have you do nebulizer treatments and they want you up and moving around so you won't get pneumonia from it. It's really easy to get that after such a major surgery. When it comes to eating a drinking you're going to find that you might not even want anything. But you do have to try what you're allowed because if you don't, you'll get sicker than if you tried to eat something you shouldn't. You won't be able to eat and drink at the same time. I made that mistake early on and learned from it big time. I had juice and some mashed potatoes and I got violently sick from it. I felt like I was ripping my incisions open, but I didn't. Also, wear sweats and baggy clothes as much as you like. Honestly, the weight will drop off you so rapidly, it's no use buying a lot of new clothes. I still wear the old drawstring stuff I had before surgery, just draw it up tighter, because I'm still losing and it makes no sense to go and buy $100 worth of clothes that will be too lose in a week's time.

 

Okay, any guy who is reading this, scroll down now, because this part is for the women only. When it comes to having your period you could go either way - You can either get it right after having surgery, even if you had it right before (like I did) or you can go months without having one after surgery. I have known women to go 4 or 5 months without one. So you never know. It all depends on your body. Also, be prepared to lose some hair. On your head. LOL I'm not talking a few strands here or there, and I'm not talking the amount you lost when you were pregnant and after you gave birth. I mean MORE. I mean enough to to make at least 3 Barbie's per shower. I cannot tell you how many times in the past 2 months I have washed my hair and cried in the shower, appalled at the amount of hair that just came out into my hands. Thankfully I was blessed with a lot of thick hair, so you can't tell too much unless you've known me and touched my hair before. But it's thin and brittle. Of course, this means you will have to bulk up on your protein intake and I'm also taking biotin pills. Also, don't color or perm your hair for a good while after having surgery.

 

Guys, you can start reading again now. Haha

 

Well, let's see...what else.... You cannot just sit and expect the weight to fall off by itself. You HAVE to work out. You have to exercise. You HAVE to eat right. You cannot think that the pounds will melt away alone and you definitely cannot think that you can go back to eating whatever you want and not have to worry. Because there are those who have had the surgery and then gained every pound back, and then some. So please, don't be a fool and think that once you have the surgery done you don't have to work towards your positive progress anymore.

 

It has been a little over 5 months since I had my surgery. I'm down 5 jeans sizes and 1 1/2 shoe sizes. I still have about 30 more lbs that I would like to lose, and I am looking at having a tummy tuck done. I am still learning to eat, and when I do eat I still have to eat very slow. At first you can either drink or eat, not both at the same time. However that will change, to where you can have a bit of each together, but it means less of each in your stomach. It's all pretty much a trial and error type process. You just have to see what things work with you and what things done. But to give you a quick idea of it all -- It takes me about 45 minutes to eat a taco from Taco Bell. And that taco might sit perfectly well with me tonight, but I could go back next week to get the same thing and I can get sick just minutes after taking that first bite. Some days I can keep anything down, some days I can't even keep water down. You can never expect what will happen. It truly is a trial and error process.


You won't be allowed sugar, you shouldn't eat greasy or fried foods, no carbonation for a while. This surgery is not a quick fix. It is a major life altering decision. It changes the entire way you look at food. But I would do it again tomorrow if I had to. I do not regret it, even with the bad side effects. I see it as giving me extra years later in life to spend with the ones I love.

 

I hope this "diary" has been a help. I'm sorry it wasn't more indepth, but then, if anyone wants to know more, you can always message me. I'm very open about my experience and am willing to tell whatever I can about it.

 

Good luck to all of you who are in the middle of your journey or who are just now starting. And if there are any that have been debating on whether they want to look into having gastric done, or if you know someone who wants it, by all means, do more research, learn everything you can about it. It's different from everyone, no two experiences are alike. But most of us who have had the surgery are very supportive and willing to help in any way possible.

About Me
South Hill , VA
Location
24.0
BMI
DS
Surgery
07/30/2007
Surgery Date
Apr 18, 2007
Member Since

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