Carlacee
And Almost Two Years Later...
Oct 30, 2018
I reread my first blog post. I was in such despair. My goodness. From my experience from that waiting period was I learned I had to suck it up and go on with my life. That is exactly what I did. I went to the hospital weekly and had my iron infusions and stopped thinking about having surgery. I placed that idea somewhere in the back of my head. Maybe it would happen and maybe it would not. Getting iron infusions was my life now. Funny thing is my hemoglobin hardly increased. Towards the end, my iron went up so high that the nurses refused to treat me anymore and sent me back to the hematologist. She told me that she thinks my hemoglobin is just low, naturally and that she was clearing me for surgery.
I was surprised. I thought they were going to run more tests or even give me blood transfusions. Nope. None of that.
Then I sat around expecting to hear from the bariatric clinic for about a month. I called them to find out if they received the clearance from the specialist. They said they had. The said they would call me in a month or so for my next appointment.
In March of 2018 I went to my next appointment at the bariatric clinic. They did not tell me who I was seeing. I thought I would have to meet with the internist again or the dietician. It had been over a year since I had been at the clinic so I thought they would have wanted to make sure I was still on track with my eating - I wasn't. I had so many last suppers, it was unbelievable.
To my surprise I met with the surgeon. He said I would probably have to take iron infusions for the rest of my life but the benefits of having the surgery would far outweigh going for infusions. He said it was up to me. I told him, to sign me up for the surgery. I would worry about iron later.
He gave me some papers to sign and then told me to see the receptionist. I did so and was sent to another counter. I went to this counter and was shocked when they asked if I wanted the surgery in May or June. I asked them if they meant this year. They laughed and said they had never had a response like that before. They didn't know that I had been waiting for almost two years with no end in sight.
I chose a surgery date of June 27, 2018.
I had the surgery. It took some time to recover. My one incision in the tummy was slow to heal. It took about six weeks until I was feeling better. I went back to work after 8 weeks of being home.
I am almost 18 weeks from surgery. I am feeling much more alive and active. I weigh myself once a week. At my last weigh in which was last week, I was down 75. 5 lbs from when I started my Opti-fast diet (for 3 weeks - brutal but I didn't cheat). I am down 53.4 lbs since my surgery. I exercise about 5 days a week. I only walk. I try to do 10k steps the days when I exercise. That is all I am doing right now. Later on, I plan on starting yoga and who knows what else. I exercise at my own pace and do not over exert myself or I know I will start to hate it.
I am so happy I had the surgery.
My highest weight was 307. Before I started Optifast I was 302. Now I am 226.6. Very happy with the results.
One of the biggest lessons I learned so far in this journey is to be patient. Things will happen when they are supposed to happen and not before.