Post by Girlrocker on Jul 22, 2012 12:14:06 GMT -5
Hi, normally since I just posted a 6 mo update I wouldn't post such a long detailed one so soon, but I hit a significant number - unexpectedly - and with the recent long-needed sharing of people going through complications from both revision surgeries and a few with virgin surgeries, I wanted to share here, since I went through them with my RNY 10 years ago.
When I stepped on the scale this past week was in shock, as it showed me at 178. I grinned, I clapped my hand over my mouth in disbelief. And then I cried. I'm crying now while I type this. Happy tears yes, but also a few tears for all the years I have lost being obese, all that I've had to go through to get here.
From a pure numbers standpoint, I'm a size 10, now, I really look different, even I can see the difference in my profile, my silhouette. For the first time, at 51 years old, I can see who I am meant to be. I'm not skinny by any means, have no desire to be, that's never what this was about, and it's not a word I'd ever use for myself, though others around me comment that way and I have to laugh, have a sense of humor. I have miles of excess skin to contend with - stomach, hips, back, boobs, sideboobs, and still some on my arms. The 160s - my surgeon's goal - is within reach, and so is my personal one of 150s.
While the numbers stupify me, it's how I feel that amazes me. My DS is reversing the anemia/iron/calcium deficiencies I had from my RNY. I had to get iron infusions to boost my ferratin, and I am absolutely dedicated to getting in the right amount of protein daily and taking my supplements. How this will play out later remains to be seen, but for the first time in 9 years I have eyebrows again - super thin, still need filling in, but I have them. I've lost half my hair, fortunately I had a lot of it, so it I've been able to masquerade it, I just have to be more careful when putting it up because then you see all the thin/bald spots.
I have never in my life felt as at ease in warm, summer weather as I do now. To blend in, feel like one of the girls. This really hit me Friday when I went with a gal pal to the free jazz series at LACMA in a colorful summer dress, hair pulled back, decked out sandal flats, very beachy-Cali long earrings. I looked around at all the lovely ladies, all shapes, sizes, in their pretty summer wear, admiring and, getting ideas. And felt this quiet joy to feel like one of them, instead of that awful yearning feeling I lived with most of my life, the one I call the little girl with her face pressed up against the glass.
What a long, difficult, painful road to experience such simple joy.
When I had my RNY 10 years ago, I was 40 and it was a herculean decision to make, as we all know well. Years of diet failures, 3 huge weight losses/regains. I had it laproscopic, was at one of the best teaching hospitals in the country...and 3 weeks after started vomiting non-stop, everything and all including bile. I was readmitted, was on nothing by mouth for 6 weeks (the standard approach to determining GI issues). I had numerous tests, I was running fevers as high as 104, it was hard to find a place on my body that wasn't bruised from IVs, shots, tests. I had researched, read, knew mostly good stories, had read several with complications, some really serious and not as easily treatable, turned around. So now I wondered if that would be me. Was I going to need a colostomy bag? Why did I do this to myself, why couldn't I just have been successful losing weight with diet and exercise, what the hell was wrong with me?
I had a bowel obstruction that they could see, and a small ulcer. But the degree of the problem wasn't related to these, and the only way they could find out was a second surgery. Turns out the culprit was a stitch holding down my intestine had popped, and it bunched up behind my stomach/pouch...! I'm like, HOW in the hell could they not see that with the 100 tests they did? But they couldn't, they fixed it, fortunately the bowel obstruction corrected itself. So I thought, phew, now I can put this behind me.
Nope. The day after surgery the nurse looked at my incision, noticed redness and said, I think you have an infection. I said what does that mean? She said, you have to have your staples removed. I'm thinking ok, the few where it was red. She said no, all of them. I looked at her like she was out of her mind. I had a near 10 inch incision from the top of my rib cage to my belly, HOW could the staples come out?! But they did and I had what was now the grand canyon in my middle, you could literally see my insides, I was terrified, I was bawling hysterically. They packed me twice a day, and I had no idea how I could manage this on my own, I lived alone, and I couldn't even look at my middle. I was scheduled for a home health nurse who fortunately for me, was a wound specialist from the army at one time, and she took charge. Got me on a wound vac and I spent the next 3 months at home healing. My weight loss was slow but steady, I didn't have short-term disability at work so I was without pay. I healed, went back to work.
After a few months, I was experiencing pain and discomfort, had the alien look in my belly, had developed a hernia, one that was so big I had to have surgery. So I was scheduled, when I could have my same surgeon before he moved to Hawaii, and get some PS at the same time. I was approved for what I thought was a full abdominoplasty (upper and lower stomach) and self-paid my arms. I find out the day BEFORE surgery I am a) not approved for full abdominoplasty, the PS nurse totally screwed everything up paperworkwise (and was removed from that position in his office right after my surgery) and, my PS informs me he might do my arms in two phases, not one. I'm like NOW you tell me this? I couldn't change the surgery date because of the hernia, had to go forward. I have the hernia fixed, feel better, get the PS done I can, not what I was supposed to get but an improvement and I think now I can move on.
Nope. My belly started to extend like I was 7-8 mos preggers. Turns out I have an internal seroma, which means I keep filling up with fluid. A 'hazard' of abdominal surgery for obese people. Because of the hernia/mesh, they couldn't risk infection, do it in the office, so I had to schedule the procedure by ultrasound - six times, until the problem was resolved and the fluid didn't come back.
By then, my weight loss had halted, I had to battle to stay under 200 lbs and I was miserable. To further complicate matters, I was fired from my job, it was all due to my multiple surgeries and doctor appointments, but they buried it in a restructure. I tried to make some kind of peace being 200 lbs, and five years maintained my weight, changed my body through exercise, until I hit a big personal bump that just knocked me down (mom diagnosed with cancer, had been estranged for 8 years, commuted to Henderson Nevada as primary caretaker for a year) That on top of finding out that the ONLY way I could maintain my weight at all was through intense exercise (2+ hours daily, 7 days a week) that I could not possibly sustain.
No should ever head into a virgin or revision surgery of this scope without having a FULL understanding of what is being done and the risks. I don't think the intention is to be cavalier about some of these problems - I think many of us are pragmatic about them. As in, we knew the risks involved, and honestly? You just hope they don't happen to you. This surgery is NOT for everyone and my heart aches for people who are going through such difficult problems. I want to scream - as I did for myself - how unfair it all is, when all we want to do is be healthy, and we have to endure so much. I went into my revision having lived through these problems, knowing they could happen again - it was the chance I was willing to take because it was right for me. When I was waiting for approval, I told my therapist I had to be prepared to deal with getting denied and figure out what I was going to do. When I was approved, I then told her, well if this isn't successful for me and/or I have MORE complications, I have to be prepared for how I deal with that. I'm 51 and have lost half my life to dealing with obesity - if I dwell on that I would never get out of bed. This is where I'm at and I focus forward.
Words don't do justice for the gratitude I feel that I didn't have to do either of those things. Sometimes, I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I can't believe after all the years of misery, this part is going so right. And I hate that for others it isn't.
Thank you for listening, and for the people here who have helped me along the way.
(modified for typos, I should hit spell check FIRST!)
When I stepped on the scale this past week was in shock, as it showed me at 178. I grinned, I clapped my hand over my mouth in disbelief. And then I cried. I'm crying now while I type this. Happy tears yes, but also a few tears for all the years I have lost being obese, all that I've had to go through to get here.
From a pure numbers standpoint, I'm a size 10, now, I really look different, even I can see the difference in my profile, my silhouette. For the first time, at 51 years old, I can see who I am meant to be. I'm not skinny by any means, have no desire to be, that's never what this was about, and it's not a word I'd ever use for myself, though others around me comment that way and I have to laugh, have a sense of humor. I have miles of excess skin to contend with - stomach, hips, back, boobs, sideboobs, and still some on my arms. The 160s - my surgeon's goal - is within reach, and so is my personal one of 150s.
While the numbers stupify me, it's how I feel that amazes me. My DS is reversing the anemia/iron/calcium deficiencies I had from my RNY. I had to get iron infusions to boost my ferratin, and I am absolutely dedicated to getting in the right amount of protein daily and taking my supplements. How this will play out later remains to be seen, but for the first time in 9 years I have eyebrows again - super thin, still need filling in, but I have them. I've lost half my hair, fortunately I had a lot of it, so it I've been able to masquerade it, I just have to be more careful when putting it up because then you see all the thin/bald spots.
I have never in my life felt as at ease in warm, summer weather as I do now. To blend in, feel like one of the girls. This really hit me Friday when I went with a gal pal to the free jazz series at LACMA in a colorful summer dress, hair pulled back, decked out sandal flats, very beachy-Cali long earrings. I looked around at all the lovely ladies, all shapes, sizes, in their pretty summer wear, admiring and, getting ideas. And felt this quiet joy to feel like one of them, instead of that awful yearning feeling I lived with most of my life, the one I call the little girl with her face pressed up against the glass.
What a long, difficult, painful road to experience such simple joy.
When I had my RNY 10 years ago, I was 40 and it was a herculean decision to make, as we all know well. Years of diet failures, 3 huge weight losses/regains. I had it laproscopic, was at one of the best teaching hospitals in the country...and 3 weeks after started vomiting non-stop, everything and all including bile. I was readmitted, was on nothing by mouth for 6 weeks (the standard approach to determining GI issues). I had numerous tests, I was running fevers as high as 104, it was hard to find a place on my body that wasn't bruised from IVs, shots, tests. I had researched, read, knew mostly good stories, had read several with complications, some really serious and not as easily treatable, turned around. So now I wondered if that would be me. Was I going to need a colostomy bag? Why did I do this to myself, why couldn't I just have been successful losing weight with diet and exercise, what the hell was wrong with me?
I had a bowel obstruction that they could see, and a small ulcer. But the degree of the problem wasn't related to these, and the only way they could find out was a second surgery. Turns out the culprit was a stitch holding down my intestine had popped, and it bunched up behind my stomach/pouch...! I'm like, HOW in the hell could they not see that with the 100 tests they did? But they couldn't, they fixed it, fortunately the bowel obstruction corrected itself. So I thought, phew, now I can put this behind me.
Nope. The day after surgery the nurse looked at my incision, noticed redness and said, I think you have an infection. I said what does that mean? She said, you have to have your staples removed. I'm thinking ok, the few where it was red. She said no, all of them. I looked at her like she was out of her mind. I had a near 10 inch incision from the top of my rib cage to my belly, HOW could the staples come out?! But they did and I had what was now the grand canyon in my middle, you could literally see my insides, I was terrified, I was bawling hysterically. They packed me twice a day, and I had no idea how I could manage this on my own, I lived alone, and I couldn't even look at my middle. I was scheduled for a home health nurse who fortunately for me, was a wound specialist from the army at one time, and she took charge. Got me on a wound vac and I spent the next 3 months at home healing. My weight loss was slow but steady, I didn't have short-term disability at work so I was without pay. I healed, went back to work.
After a few months, I was experiencing pain and discomfort, had the alien look in my belly, had developed a hernia, one that was so big I had to have surgery. So I was scheduled, when I could have my same surgeon before he moved to Hawaii, and get some PS at the same time. I was approved for what I thought was a full abdominoplasty (upper and lower stomach) and self-paid my arms. I find out the day BEFORE surgery I am a) not approved for full abdominoplasty, the PS nurse totally screwed everything up paperworkwise (and was removed from that position in his office right after my surgery) and, my PS informs me he might do my arms in two phases, not one. I'm like NOW you tell me this? I couldn't change the surgery date because of the hernia, had to go forward. I have the hernia fixed, feel better, get the PS done I can, not what I was supposed to get but an improvement and I think now I can move on.
Nope. My belly started to extend like I was 7-8 mos preggers. Turns out I have an internal seroma, which means I keep filling up with fluid. A 'hazard' of abdominal surgery for obese people. Because of the hernia/mesh, they couldn't risk infection, do it in the office, so I had to schedule the procedure by ultrasound - six times, until the problem was resolved and the fluid didn't come back.
By then, my weight loss had halted, I had to battle to stay under 200 lbs and I was miserable. To further complicate matters, I was fired from my job, it was all due to my multiple surgeries and doctor appointments, but they buried it in a restructure. I tried to make some kind of peace being 200 lbs, and five years maintained my weight, changed my body through exercise, until I hit a big personal bump that just knocked me down (mom diagnosed with cancer, had been estranged for 8 years, commuted to Henderson Nevada as primary caretaker for a year) That on top of finding out that the ONLY way I could maintain my weight at all was through intense exercise (2+ hours daily, 7 days a week) that I could not possibly sustain.
No should ever head into a virgin or revision surgery of this scope without having a FULL understanding of what is being done and the risks. I don't think the intention is to be cavalier about some of these problems - I think many of us are pragmatic about them. As in, we knew the risks involved, and honestly? You just hope they don't happen to you. This surgery is NOT for everyone and my heart aches for people who are going through such difficult problems. I want to scream - as I did for myself - how unfair it all is, when all we want to do is be healthy, and we have to endure so much. I went into my revision having lived through these problems, knowing they could happen again - it was the chance I was willing to take because it was right for me. When I was waiting for approval, I told my therapist I had to be prepared to deal with getting denied and figure out what I was going to do. When I was approved, I then told her, well if this isn't successful for me and/or I have MORE complications, I have to be prepared for how I deal with that. I'm 51 and have lost half my life to dealing with obesity - if I dwell on that I would never get out of bed. This is where I'm at and I focus forward.
Words don't do justice for the gratitude I feel that I didn't have to do either of those things. Sometimes, I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I can't believe after all the years of misery, this part is going so right. And I hate that for others it isn't.
Thank you for listening, and for the people here who have helped me along the way.
(modified for typos, I should hit spell check FIRST!)
Congrats on continuing to conquer the victory that you so deserve my friend!!
My Darling, I thank YOU for sharing! Everything you've been through... I can't help but think it's still better than what you might have gone though without having had the surgeries. I know you believe that too. 
Sounds very similar to what MsCello is going through as well. Keeping my fingers crossed that this inflammation of your sleeve resolves sooner rather than later!