My reasons for VSG

May 29, 2012

Hi. I want to put my thoughts down not only for me to refer back to but for others that may be on a similar journey.

I will try to shorten this as much as I can while leaving in the important details. My journey started in 2007 at Duke Weight Loss Center in Durham NC. I spent 8 months going through God awful tests that I thought ok, I only have to do this once. At the time I thought the Barium for the upper GI was the absolute worst shit on earth. Someone could make a fortune if they created a viable chocolate flavor for that. I know now this was only the beginning.  I had the Lap Band placed in April 2008 at Durham Regional by one of the surgeons (I can't recall her name). Due to Duke's volume of people and lack of staffing or appts or whatever, I didn't get a fill until July 30, 2008.

(Before surgery I was mentally prepared to not be able to eat to make all these changes to my life and diet. As I healed from surgery, my worst problem was hunger. I was so hungry. A pizza commercial would come on and put me in tears. I couldn't think of anything else, I couldn't do anything else, I was just hungry. I couldn't do this for 2 more weeks. I had some instant mashed potatoes and I was able to think and process and continue life again. )

So not getting a fill for so long allowed me to pretty much slip right back to old habits. I had no restriction, i had no deterant at all. That was my problem to begin with, lack of control. I didn't look at calories and fat and everything I ate what looked or sounded good whenever I wanted. So to think this new tool will help and then it didn't, nothing essentially changed. I went to Duke for the first fill and when I was told it would be another 10 weeks before I could get another appt in case this fill wasn't enough I knew I could not be successful there. I would not get the support I needed for my band and I called a new surgeon the next day and made an appt. It was the best decision I could have made.

It was then I met Dr. Paul Enochs. I know everyone thinks their surgeon is the best and I am no different, he is truly awesome. I fit well into their practice and moved forward successfully losing about 55 lbs. Then in Oct/Nov 2009 I began having problems. My band was so tight it was very difficult to eat. When I did I would vomit, it seemed to be common practice for me to eat with my family and I would have to leave the table no matter how small the bite or how well it was chewed. By January Dr. Enochs thought it was best for us to go in and see what was going on. I had gone through all the tests and nothing could be physically found to cause any issues.

January 18, 2010 he operated and found that I had an "extreme" amount of scar tissue. It had covered the band, covered all the way to the liver and more. He cleaned out all the scar tissue, the band was fine, no movement, no perforation, etc. so i could start from scratch again. It was great.....until June 2010. I began having the same issues again, slight at first until July 27th was the last day of solid food. After that I drank my calories and when I say drank I dont mean alcohol. I had starbucks frappacino's several times a day. I drank whatever would go through. Yogurt was too thick, plain yogurt. I was hungry, very very hungry. After going through all the tests again as well as an endoscopy by my fabulous GI dr. Nothing could be seen to cause these types of issues again. On September 3rd I had the Lap Band removed and honestly I was so freaking happy. I couldn't wait to actually eat....I hadn't in soooo long. It took a month for my body to adjust where real food did not cause my stomach to swell back up from irritation. I can't lie, I had a Bojangles biscuit every day for 2 weeks. It was freaking amazing.

Dr. Enochs determined that for whatever reason my body had "rejected" the band by encasing it in scar tissue that was compressing it closed even with no fluid.

December 2010 - super long story short I became very very ill and was in the hospital for 4 days (after being at home for several days completely immobile) until it was determined that I have Lupus - Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). It is an autoimmune disorder where your body attacks itself. It can no longer can tell the difference between healthy tissue and non-healthy tissue and can attack any organ of the body. It affects each person differently and for me it is my joints. They were so inflammed I was paralyzed in pain. It was humiliating among other things to go from being healthy, active, busy schedule to needing help to sit in a chair or move at all. It was also that time I started super high doses of prednisone. While it's not a great long term drug it allowed me to walk again. That made it worth the side effects. I started at 150mg a day (not a typo) for 1 week, then on 80mg a day for quite some time. I had no platelets or white blood cells the goal was to keep things from getting worse and go from there. I started seeing a phenomenal rheumatologist (Dr. Joseph Shanahan) on a monthly basis. We did lab work monthly, made adjustments to meds with the goal being get me off of the prednisone. We were aggressive in the beginning but then my body would start to react and we would have to return to a previous dose. In the end it took 1 year to get off of it and I had to do it literally mg by mg for my body to accept it and not react. During my time on the drug I always kept in mind it allowed me to walk. I gained 100 lbs in 6 months, swelled up like a balloon with fluid (30 lbs), developed moon face, started using a wheelchair, and my life as I knew it was gone, all that fast.

In some ways I am thankful for the lupus. It changed me as a person and what is and is not important to me. It put things into perspective permanently. I will never take my family for granted again. Every day, even now May 2012 I am thankful for my son and my husband and what I can physically do. Suddenly things that used to be soooo important didn't matter anymore. Friends I had for years disappeared, literally. That took time for me to accept. I was heartbroken that people I had spent valuable time with in the end didn't matter anymore. (earlier this year I had let them know how hurt i was by how things were. it was then turned around on me and i learned another valuable lesson People make time for what they want to make time for. That includes who they make time for. My reaching out made no difference, had they cared before that I would have heard from them. I learned to value who I do have and keep going)

I have always been heavy/overweight/obese since I was 19 years old so extra weight didn't really bother me. But then I saw as my bloodwork was getting back to normal I didn't feel that much better. My knees are in constant pain and I began to wonder was it the lupus or was it the weight. And believe it or not only about 30 lbs of the prednisone weight fell off. Add to all of this that I am no longer able to go into the office and have been overly fortunate that my company allowed me to begin working from home, otherwise I would be able to hold a job. So I am more sedentary than I have ever been in my life. It was then I started to wonder. Is it the weight? Would I be able to go out with my family without a wheelchair? Take a day off and take my son to the fair or to the museum or zoo or whatever? Things we had done before Dec 2010. Going swimming or going to his school to volunteer or the pumpkin patch or picking strawberries. You don't realize how much you can't do until you can't do it. I felt lazy and I was watching my life go by. I'm only 38 years old. I should be having fun and enjoying life as before not memorizing the dvr schedule. (Which ironically I rarely used to watch tv. 1-2 hours a week before all of this. now, ha, i'm not even going to guess but it is significantly more).

I talked to my dr about the surgery and asked if he would support it. He said that he would, that maybe getting the prednisone weight off would help me be able to be more mobile. I took that and ran. I went back to Dr. Enochs and after all the testing, etc I was approved for the sleeve. Now, my weight now is more risky than it has ever been for surgery. I had to have an IVC filter put in on May 16th. It creeps me out so I'm not going to go into detail, just google it. My only concern is will my body reject it like the band and cause issues with it. I also had to do two weeks of 2 shakes and a meal then two weeks of 4 shakes. (I did the best I could but I was far from perfect). He also wanted to remove my gall bladder during surgery.

I want my life back. Not my lupus life but my active, fun life so my VSG surgery was May 23rd - there was a small complication in that where the band had been was scarred and thickened. Becauseof that he did not take the gall bladder (which means another freakin surgery).

Thanks to anyone that read all of that, it's quite a long story. :)

0 Comments