1 year post op

Jun 16, 2009

One-year anniversay of RNY gastric bypass surgery.

 

It's been almost a week since the one-year anniversay of having gastric bypass surgery. Monthly, I've been posting my thoughts and feelings about the process. I'm not sure if I'll keep doing the updates after this, but now seems like a good time for a summary.

 

The day that I started the liquid diet pre-surgery I weighed 465 pounds. I'm not sure if that was my highest weight or not – it was difficult to find a scale that weighed me. I had to order one special before my surgery so that I could keep track of my progress. Other “special” equipment that I had pre-surgery included a “reacher” so that I wouldn't have to bend down and pick things up and a seat belt extender for my car (I never installed it as I could still put the seat belt on as long as I wasn't wearing anything bulky or a coat). I struggled with a lot of things a year ago – difficulties included:

• I couldn't stand for more than a few minutes at a time. In fact, I usually sat down after showering in the morning to finish the rest of my morning routine. I often ordered my groceries for delivery or pick-up because I wasn't able to walk through a store without being in a lot of pain or sweating a lot. I didn't go to the mall, walking around the neighborhood on a beautiful day, or anything that involved being on my feet for longer than 5 minutes.

• What I am most ashamed of – I had trouble with toileting. Wiping was difficult and inserting and removing tampons was also a real struggle. I was really starting to fear that I wouldn't be able to care for myself in this way much longer.

• I didn't engage in ANY activity without first considering how my weight would impact it – before enrolling in an MBA program I went to the school to make sure that the chairs were not attached to the seats, I would check movie theaters to make sure that they had “stadium seating”, I would only fly if my husband was going to be in the seat next to me and I would try to make sure that nobody else was in our row, when going to concerts or other outings I would only choose an aisle seat or make my husband buy extra tickets so that I wouldn't “crowd” anyone else, after renting a car where the seat belts didn't fit I refused to rent another car or ride in a vehicle with someone else that would ask me to put on my seat belt, I would check the websites of any activity I was considering to see if I would “fit” or if there was a weight limit (things like does a restaurant only have booths, do I have to climb a ladder, is there some type of clothing that you have to wear that might not fit, etc.). Pretty much my activities were limited to going out to eat and taking bus tours (and even bus tours were becoming questionable due to narrow aisles and seats).

• I could hardly ever find clothes that fit me. I absolutely couldn't shop in a store – everything had to be ordered through a catalog or online. Even in the “plus sized” catalogs almost nothing fit me. I was starting to have serious issues finding professional, attractive clothes. If I did find something that fit, I would order it in every color so that I could have some variety in my wardrobe.

• For months my husband and I slept on a futon because I kept breaking the bed frame. We finally had to buy an “extra strength” one. It also was a tight fit in our queen sized bed. I needed well more than my half.

• My blood pressure was very high. I knew a woman who was put on bed rest during her pregnancy for having a blood pressure that was significantly lower than mine was on a daily basis. I'm sure that I was quickly headed for diabetes and a host of other health related problems.

• I couldn't tie my shoes or wear any shoes other than sneakers because my feet were so swollen.

I'm sure that there are more struggles that I faced on a daily basis. I write them here now because memory fades with time and my mind plays tricks on me (more about this later). I often forget how bad that it really was and I need to never forget.

For many years I had lied to myself. With each freedom that I lost as I gained weight, I justified that it wasn't such a big deal and that I didn't want what I had lost anyway. Early in 2008 I realized that I wasn't really living anymore – I couldn't take care of myself and I knew that I was getting closer to becoming physically unable to care for myself, I couldn't be a mother (my weight stopped my ovulation), I couldn't be a good wife to my husband. I was 36 years old, but I was just existing, not living. I decided that there would be no more lies of starting a healthy living and exercise plan “tomorrow” - the gastric bypass was the only hope for me.

 

When preparing for the gastric bypass, I was afraid that my life would change forever and that I'd never be able to eat again. I went through this tremendous grief process and had several “last meals” thinking that certain foods would be unavailable to me later. This misconception is probably the one that surprises me the most and one that I would share with anyone else preparing for a gastric bypass. I still feel hunger, especially emotional hunger. And my pouch isn't so small that I can't eat a significant amount of food when I want to. And, I know this isn't true for everyone, but I can eat anything that I want. There isn't a single food, healthy or not, that I haven't been able to eat. I didn't need a single one of those “last meals” because I can have any of those foods today. Granted, if I eat a lot of sugar or fat, the gas that I emit and it's smell is unbelievable, but that doesn't mean that I can't eat those foods. Because of this, I'm learning that the gastric bypass really was a tool, and not a full-fledged solution. I'm having to examine my relationship with food and why I make the food choices that I do. I've lost about 50% of my excess weight without having to dig too deeply into my issues with emotional eating, but those days are coming to an end. I will have to continue to address my issues with food for the rest of my life. The pouch is not enough in and of itself.

 

Anyway, I have lost about 165 pounds to date. My life is so much different now. Today:

• I buy all of my clothes in a store. I really can't order from a catalog or online now even if I wanted to (which I don't)– it's hard to guage what size I wear. I can buy clothes at almost any store that I want to as well. I still tend to stick with the traditional “plus size” stores, but I've been moving on to shopping at Kohl's and Wal-Mart for some things as well.

• I exercise pretty much daily. I still walk slow, but I can walk/stand for hours at a time. My husband and I just returned from a vacation where we spent most days on our feet (mostly) for over 10 hours. I love to ride bikes and I even bought a bike to ride around the neighborhood and hopefully start doing some trail riding this summer.

• I do all of my shopping in the store. No more delivery or pick-up for me. I feel bad for my husband as I'm sure that our spending has increased with my ability to stand and shop for longer periods of time.

• I have become a jewellry freak. I don't know why. I've heard the weight-loss surgery changes people and that they become interested in things that they weren't really interested in before. I happen to love jewelry now. I think I might have liked it before, but I was worried that bracelets, necklaces, and watches wouldn't fit. Now I find that I have to wear them smaller than I would expect to.

• I don't worry about booths anymore or arms with seats. I know that I will fit in any of these things. I work with a woman who used to complain that some chairs were “too big” for her and I always thought this was funny – how could a chair be too big? I'm finding out though – there are some chairs that I wish were smaller for certain situations. Weird. I still prefer an aisle seat or to have nobody next to me. This preference doesn't impact my willingness to attend an event though – it's just something that I have to deal with. I'm pretty sure that it's a psychological thing too and that people don't feel “crowded” by me, but that's a concept that is taking some time to adjust to.

• I also don't worry about cars or seat belts anymore. They fit. It's a non-issue. I'm riding more with others now that I know that I don't have to worry about it.

• Toileting and showering are also issues that I don't even think about anymore. In fact, when I was at the gym the other day I realized that I had walked from my car to the treadmill (and up a flight of stairs in the process), walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes, then walked back downstairs to the locker room, showered, and got ready, all without sitting down. This would not even have been something remotely possible a year ago.

• My ovulation cycle appears normal and I think that it's time for me to try to become a mother before my biological clock removes that option (I hope that it's not too late already). I also feel like I have the energy to keep up with a little one and be a good mom.

There are frequently “wow” moments where I am confronted by the ways that my life is different now. Like remembering how bad things were before, remembering how good things are now is also significantly impacted by my psychological state at any given moment. I find that it's important for me to remember all of the positive changes – especially when I try to minimize how far that I've come.

 

Post gastric bypass has not been an easy journey for me though. I confront a lot of psychological stuff on a daily basis. Since the surgery I've really struggled with depression. I take a daily anti-depressant and the depression symptoms are non-existent when I'm taking the medication. However, I am a wreck without the medication. This was not the case prior to my surgery and I really believe that the depression is more a result of biochemical changes in my body than the emotional things that I am facing (although those are also significant).

 

Emotionally, I wonder how long I will see myself as a 465 pound woman. Honestly, I can look at pictures of me before surgery and think that I don't look that much different today. Logically I realize that this isn't true, but it's who I see. The excess skin on my stomach and thighs contributes to this problem somewhat. I find myself thinking that it's not extra skin, that it's still the fat. I often catch myself thinking like I did when I was bigger. When we were on our recent vacation, I would sometimes wonder how my weight would impact an activity before I realized that I didn't need to think about that anymore. This morning I grabbed a pair of pants from the hanger in order to get dressed and I was convinced that I had shrunk them in the wash – my clothes look too small to me off of my body. This phenomenon makes shopping trips very long as I initially choose clothes that are several sizes too large and have to go down size by size until I find the right one.

 

If you ask me, most of the time I will tell you that my weight loss surgery was not a success. Even with all of the other things I've already mentioned, I still feel like a failure. I weigh 300 pounds today – a weight that many people are when they start this journey. I am still significantly obese. Every day I am convinced that my weight will not go any lower than it currently is. Family and friends have caught me talking about having a revision surgery because I think that this one isn't working enough. 165 pounds I've lost, but I can't help but think that it should have been more, that I should have used this tool better. I constantly have to remind myself that this is a journey and it's not over yet. I am changing and the farther out that I get from surgery, the slower the changes come, but they're still coming and I need to learn to accept that.

 

I do need to address my relationship with food more closely now. I can eat a significant amount of food in a sitting now and I often don't make healthy food choices. I eat for emotional reasons and I have difficulty denying myself high calorie junk foods. I know that my relationship with food will change with time because I am changing. I am becoming healthier and I want to incorporate healthier eating into my diet. But it is going to take some more time and some more work. So the journey will continue.

 

Bottom line – would I do this again? Absolutely. I believe that gastric bypass was the only way that I had a chance to truly live again. And even though I want to go farther in my journey, everything that I had hoped to have back in my life is mine today. Honestly, even if my weight loss were to stop here at 300 pounds, I would be happy with my life. I am happy with my life. I see others still struggle. I see them rationalize the way that I used to. I don't say anything, it's not my place, we all must come to our own understanding of when enough is enough. For people that are as obese as I was, I truly understand that weight loss surgery is the ONLY long-term option. If I had not had surgery I would not be writing about how my life is different today because I lost 165 pounds. There would be no bicycle in my garage that I love to ride. I would not have returned from a long vacation where I spent hours on my feet.

 

This was the right choice for me. I live again because I made this choice.

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