Countdown...

I had my pre-op appointment with the surgeon on Monday. It was a ten-minute visit that could have easily been handled over the phone, or by giving me paperwork. Dangit, I paid a $30 co-pay just to hear that everything's fine, and we're set to go for surgery. He did talk about the hospital stay a bit. I go in at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday the 11th of April, and if everything goes well, I will be able to go home on Thursday the 13th. I won't be able to eat anything for 24 hours after the surgery, and then I'll be on liquids until I go home. After that, I can't eat anything thicker than applesauce for three weeks. At three weeks post-op, I will see the surgeon again, and he will decide then if I can move to thicker foods.

So, sometime this week or next, I need to go shopping and stock up on jello, applesauce, pudding, soup, and anything else of the right consistency that appeals to me. I'm thinking I might buy some baby food. It's the right consistency, and it's in exactly the right serving size. If I can find a good sale, I'll buy some different varieties and see how that works out. It sure would be convenient, that's for sure. I also bought some protein powder called Unjury, which my dietician recommended. It has 40 grams of protein per scoop, and they have different flavors. I got chocolate and unflavored. I was thinking that I could mix the chocolate with fruity stuff, jello, and pudding, and the unflavored in soups and whatnot. It's very important to eat a LOT of protein after this surgery, or else your body will start digesting muscles instead of fat. We DON'T want that!

I did find out that my primary care doctor had screwed up (AGAIN, but that's for another post), and hadn't included all of the labs that I needed in the initial testing. So I had to go get poked again. The bonus is that I went to Overlake Hospital in Bellevue for it, which is where my surgery will be done, so I was able to scope it out and figure out exactly where I need to go for check-in on the day of surgery. I HATE not knowing where I'm supposed to go, so that was very helpful.

The surgeon doesn't believe in making his patients go on a diet before the surgery, which is nice. He asks that I don't go on a binge, and that I eat reasonably for the week before surgery, but I don't have to do anything special, which is a huge bonus! Some doctors require their patients to lose a certain amount of weight before surgery, or crash diet for the week before, according the research I've been doing. I've researched my surgeon, as well, and he has a really good reputation, so that settles my mind a bit. He's done thousands of these surgeries, and I've spoken to past patients of his, and they all had good outcomes.

So, I've been reading Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies, and it's been very helpful in my preparation for the surgery. There is a lot of very useful information covering all aspects of pre- and post-surgery. There are even recipes for the months following surgery.

I'm actually looking forward to the surgery now. I'm going to enjoy the time off of work, which has been very stressful the last few weeks. I think I might buy a new computer game to entertain myself with. My husband and I also just adopted some ferrets, and I'll get to spend a lot of time bonding with them during that time. My final quarter of college just kicked off this week, too, so I'm hoping that I can get ahead on schoolwork in order to reduce the stress level a bit. Here's hoping!

I'm trying to decide where I want to go for my final meal eating out before the surgery. I'll have to do that this coming weekend, because the surgeon doesn't want me going out for the seven days beforehand. It's coming up so fast! After all the preparation, all the waiting, it seems that things are moving along really quickly now.

13 days and counting...

Lab results

So, I had some pre-op labs done the other day. I got a phone call from my doctor the next morning, saying that my results were in and that she needed me to come in right away to discuss the results. I got kinda freaked out about that, and left work.

It turned out that my triglycerides were in the 260 range (they're supposed to be 150 or below) and my hemoglobin a1c was over 12 (it should be below 6). What does this mean? It means that I have Type II diabetes. Apparently that hemoglobin level corresponds to an average blood sugar level of 300 over the last six weeks. My body isn't metabolizing sugar properly. It's making plenty of insulin, but my cells aren't able to utilize it, which means they aren't getting fed, which means I am hungry a lot of the time.

This explains a LOT. I've been having problems with hunger for quite a while, and I've never been able to understand why it's so hard for me to stick to a diet. Now I know why.

As far as the surgery, this is just one more reason to have it. The only possible effect upon me afterwards is that I may heal more slowly than I would if I wasn't diabetic.

23 days and counting until surgery...

Preparation

I've been required to do a LOT of preparation for this surgery, and I'm not done yet. I've had to go to a sleep doctor, and have a sleep study done to make sure that I don't have sleep apnea. That was TORTURE, let me tell you. It's very hard to sleep when you're covered with wires! My sleep study was a full 24 hour study. During the day, I was required to take a series of half-hour naps. They'd come in and wake me up after only half an hour, and that made me grumpy. Well, after all that, it turns out that I don't have sleep apnea, so I guess that's good to know, but I don't think it was worth what I had to go through to find out!

My surgeon also required me to see a dietician. He was very helpful in explaining what to expect after the surgery. He gave me a lot of information, and recommended certain products that would help me to remain healthy while my body starves to a smaller size. I will be limited to about 700 calories a day, but that will be easy to do at first, because the surgeon shrinks the stomach to only one ounce in size. Think about how small that is!

I also had to go see a psychologist, to make sure I was mentally ready for this surgery. I liked the psychologist that my surgeon recommended; he had obviously evaluated gastric bypass patients before! He knew about my concerns, and pointed out some things that I hadn't thought of. For example, one thing that I am concerned about involves my husband. He met me and fell in love with me at my current weight. Will his feelings for me change when I lose a large amount of weight? I will look very different, and I am afraid that he won't find me as attractive as before.

Other issues that I deal with on a daily basis: fitting into seats. My hips are wide enough that sometimes I don't fit into seats very well. I have been bruised by seats before. I'm nervous every time I fly, because the seatbelts are so tight. On some airlines, the belts don't fit, and I hide my lap under a jacket so that the attendants don't make a big deal about it. On others, I have to struggle to make them fit, and I think that everyone is staring at me while I do it.

Apparently the shock of losing a significant amount of weight can take a large psychological toll on a person. I have been large my whole life, and have dealt with a lot of discrimination as a result. Will I resent being treated more fairly when I'm smaller? I wonder...

Now, tomorrow, I have to go have some labs done. I have to fast, and since I work until 2:30, I am going to be very hungry by the time the labs are done. I also have to have a gallbladder ultrasound, a chest x-ray, and an EKG. Once all those are done, I can relax somewhat. My pre-op appointment is scheduled for Monday, March 27th. That's when I'll discuss specifics with the surgeon about all the little details.

I've purchased a protein product that the dietician recommended called Unjury. It's got a very high protein content per scoop, and I'll be able to mix it with different foods to make sure I'm getting enough protein. If I don't eat enough protein, my body will start digesting my muscles instead of the fat, and we don't want that! Along with the powder, I bought a book called "Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies" that has been very helpful. I suspect that I will be carrying that thing around after surgery, until I've fully adjusted.

I'm tired, run down from a long weekend, stressed because it's my finals week and because I'm handling a new account at work that is simply massive. I'm actually looking forward to the surgery for the time off that I'll get! Not only will this be a massive positive step in my life, but it will give me a chance to catch my breath.

I need that right now.

Welcome! Here's some background...

I have been overweight my entire life. In the last year, I have developed arthritis in both knees, and am having issues with the discs in my lower back as well. I have been considering gastric bypass surgery for several years, but have been a poor college student and so didn't have health insurance.

Well, I was recently married (to an incredible man, by the way), and he brought health insurance with him. Lo and behold, this health insurance covers gastric bypass, but only under very specific conditions. At my current Body Mass Index (BMI), I fulfill the requirements set by my insurance company. I currently weigh about 315 pounds, and I am 5'5" tall, which puts my BMI at 52.4. I am considered morbidly obese at that BMI.

Until this last year, I've been a fairly active person. I am a swing dancer, and would dance several times a week. As my knees have begun to hurt more and more, I had to slowly curtail my activities...and the weight began to pile on. In the last eight months, I've gained about forty pounds. (I say "about" because I avoid scales like the plague!)

My problem has always been portion control. I can eat healthy when I want to; I've been successful in the short term with dieting and eating correctly. I love healthy food - especially grilled chicken with lemon. Eventually, the hunger gets to be too much for me, and I can't control my portions any longer...and the lost weight comes back, and then some.

My most successful weight loss occurred about three years ago. I joined a gym, and began exercising twice a day aerobically, and three times a week for strength training. Over the course of about six months, I dropped about 60 pounds. I wasn't looking back. I was eating right, exercising, building muscle mass (at one point I was able to leg press 425 pounds!), and loving every minute of it. Then, as far as my exercise regimen went, disaster struck. First, I developed a stress fracture in my foot. Then, I developed gout as a side effect of all the protein I was eating. I was determined to keep trying, until I severely strained my ankle while out on a walk one day with friends. Three years later, I still have pain in that ankle if I stress it at all.

I'm starting to feel like I'm trapped in my body. When I look in the mirror, I don't see myself. I see a fat girl whose weight is out of control, and will kill her - but not before it inflicts some pain along the way.

I don't like the way that makes me feel. I long to be dancing again, out in the sun (when it's not raining!), and enjoying life. I can't do that right now, so I need to do something to enable me to do that. I see gastric bypass as the way to make that happen, and have LONG TERM SUCCESS.

A lot of people will say that diet and exercise are the way to do it. Do a little research if you're one of these, and you'll find that diet and exercise alone only has about a 5% long-term success rate when it comes to losing a large amount of weight. I don't want to go through all the work of losing the weight, only to have it come back in a few years. I know myself, and I know what it will take to make my weight loss succeed, and quite frankly, I need a bit of help to do it. This surgery is my tool.