Passed the Nutritionist!

I am offically done with my pre-op testing. I had my dietician consult today. Man, they put me through the ringer. I was there for three hours. I was weighed and then they tore apart my food log.

Apparently, if you are not eating what the dietician eats (mainly dairy) than you are doing something wrong.

I was able to get through it. She zinged me on my oreo habit, but I told her that I had not had a Reese cup for a month and I was down to two oreos a day with my one cup of coffee and they are the regular one, not the mega and not the double stuff ones.

Baby steps.

She told me twice how she weighs 100 pounds.

Really?

But I passed their tests and I am on my way. I weighed in at 267, but I had not eaten all day and had not had much to drink. I didn't want to weigh my bladder and colon and get yelled at.

Now I have to keep it between the lines for the next two months until my surgery and then the deed will be done and the hunger will abate. For a while.

I had to buy new underwear today. My 12's were too big and they didn't have 10's, so I bought a size 9 and they fit without pinching.

:)

I also had to buy another pair of pants and a stretchy size large fit me just fine. I am really about a 2x, but my legs are thin and muscular. It's just the belly that is so big.

I may have bad days.

I may want to quit.

It may be hard.

I might get scared

BUT

I am here to do this thing.

I am more than a number on a scale

and I can do all manner of things.

I might not get it done the way that everyone things I should

But I will do it in my way

In my time.

Big Girl Panties ON!

13 weeks and counting to Vertical Gastric Sleeve Surgery.

My week so far.

I weighed in at the beginning of the week and had a startling gain, which made me question everything. I wanted to put it off as just water weight from a sneak attack period or the fact that the weigh in took place in the evening and I had been eating all day.

But I had to come to terms with the fact that my eating had really sucked lately. Every since the week before Halloween. Darn these holidays.

So I have mentally kicked my own butt and gotten back in the game. My dietician told me to eat fruits and veggies instead of sweets and that is what I have been doing. I am also really working much harder on keeping myself to 1400 calories than ever before. I have not made it every day, but I am way closer.

Tuesday I blew it, Wednesday I was under 1400, Thursday I was at 1500 and Friday I was on target again. Today I am doing well.

I have been packing my lunch daily, even if I am staying home. It helps me eat better during the long part of the day. I also bought some PB2 - google that stuff. Man, it is good when dipped into with baby carrots.

I know it's not a Reese cup. But it satisfies.

Not me. Do some squats today!

I have started doing some squats in the day - only 20 in the am and 20 in the pm, but I can REALLY feel the burn.

I am not doing squats that go very low, but I am getting my butt down parallel to knee level. My swim was interesting, because I could really feel the thigh burn. I felt stronger even though it hurt a bit.

My sleep is better, I am loving the CPAP. It has really worked for me. Sure, things bug me about it, but overall, I am not having headaches, I am sleeping better and I am sure that there is a lot less stress on my heart. I have dreams now that do not haunt me into the morning.

So that is where I am today.

Playing the Odds

I recently made a video (I posted it below) about how, although I am afraid of the vertical sleeve gastrectomy surgery, I am more afraid of diverticulitis. Bettie Lou Hoo made a comment, in which she said:

Now whenever I get an extreme anger/fear/panic-inducing thought in my head, I stop and ask myself: Is this a feeling or a fact? "I'm going to die from surgery" is not a fact. The fact is that less than 1% of people die from surgery (0.06%, in fact) and of those, about 80% were high-risk. It's also a fact that I was low risk. Which made it a fact that there was more than a 99% chance I would not die of surgery. See? Like that.

In contrast, perforated diverticulitis has a mortality rate of 6% for purulent peritonitis and 35% for fecal peritonitis, according to the American Society of Colon & Rectal Surgeons. (Well, you said you wanted us to remind you - so there you go.)

You know, she's right. Dead on right. I need to stop worrying about the sleeve and get my ass in gear to stay as healthy as possible, lose as much as I can as quickly as I can, so that I can get my bowel resection and get past the danger zone of this diverticular disease.

And, as Fatkings Phil said in his recent awesomecast:

Don't let the What If's haunt you!

 I have to stop thinking of this as an elective procedure and remember the pain and the fear of the last four bouts of Diverticulitis in September, November, January and June and know that the Fucker can strike me out of the blue.


As an aside, my CPAP is now second nature. I love it. Sleeping MUCH better. I get a solid eight hours before I have to get up and I have not had a headache once since I have had it. I love it. I am also not having nightmares every night anymore. Wow. Did you know that people with untreated apnea have a threefold increase in death rates from surgery in general? Yes.

Meeting with the Doctor

I have decided that along with continuing toward my gastric sleeve surgery requirements, I am going to talk to the dietician and the non-surgical weight loss physician who works with my doctor's group.

No, I have not been successful long term with weight loss ever, but I am willing to try again, before I take the risks with the sleeve. I will talk with them and see what they have to offer me.

Here are my sleeve concerns:

1. dying on the table
2. leaks
3. strictures
4. spiraling of the stomach
5. malnutrition, which can affect the following: 

• teeth
• bones
• b-12 levels
• thyroid 

I just want to be sure that I am going the right way for me. This will not extend my surgery date, but I feel that if I don't check it out and try, then I am just hurting myself and will open the door for self-blame down the road.

Here are some problems with prescription weight loss, I really see both sides of the coin here:

1. Cardiac issues
2. regain
3. cardiac issues
4. regain

A dream speaks to me.

I had my endoscopy and after a night of surfing you tube videos and watching so many ladies with complications, I was ready to throw in the Gastric Sleeve towel.

Well, I reminded myself not to make decisions during stressful times and I laid down and took a nap. While I was sleeping, I was dreaming about a friend of mine who is emotionally tied to a man who is just so bad for her. While he is not a physical abuser, he is a drunk and a drug addict. He adds nothing to her life but trauma.

In the dream, she was laying in a bed across from me and she was laying facing this boyfriend. Meanwhile, on the bed just on the other side of her, there was a good guy. Nicely dressed, calm, patient and loving and he was just waiting for her to see him. But she was focused so heavily on the guy in front of her that she couldn't see the nice guy.

I woke up saying,  "You have to let go of the crap you are holding onto, to have hands free to grasp the good that is waiting." I feel like I was spoken to by my inner ME.

And I know that a dream is not merely a movie or commercial that plays briefly in my head, it is my own mind telling me things about my life, if I am willing to listen.

I am still Sleeveward Bound.

Surgery Date!

HI everyone!

I see that there are new readers, I would sure love it if anyone would introduce themselves. I would love to link to your blogs or site.

Anyway, today I got the call that they have scheduled my surgery tentatively for February 18th. I am going for my endoscopy next Friday and barring any problems with that, I should be fine. I also have to have clearance from the nutritional person and the psychiatrist.

So I am on my way. I am excited --- and a bit scared. I am wondering if I am doing the right thing, but on the whole, I am ready. Ok, maybe almost ready.

I am glad that I have time to get my head set. My son's fifteenth birthday is on February 21st and I want to be on my feet for that, or at least able to sit in a chair. Charlie has autism and birthdays are really important to him. I plan to get things ready so that my husband can do all of the birthday stuff and I can just kick back and be a guest.

Meeting with the Surgeon

Today I have my first appointment with the bariatric surgeon. I had a list of questions, but I think I have lost them. Really, I am mostly just concerned about what, if anything, they would do with my hiatal hernia.

My GI doctor told me about fundoplication and it sounds horrible. I don't want that. It causes constriction by wrapping the top of the stomach, sort of like a lap band, and it causes all of the problems that people tend to have with a lapband procedure, such as an inability to burp and a possible inability to swallow.

I want to avoid that.

Another thing that I just want to be sure of, is that having this surgery will not doom me to a limited life span. I want to live a long time. Will this surgery increase or decrease my lifespan.

When I look at the fat that surrounds my torso, I find it hard to imagine that after being unsuccessful so many times and the fat just increasing, that I can do this on my own.

For my own reference and to be transparent, I post this photo.

My arms and legs are normal sized, my legs are actually quite slim, but all of my weight is carried in the torso. When I lose weight, it tends to come off my legs and arms first and the belly just stays.

My main health problem is diverticulitis, which is a problem of pouches forming in the colon and large intestine. This fat just pulls on that area and, as you can see, it makes it impossible for the surgeons to remove the infected area because of the large fat mass right there.

I know this is something that I have to do to be able to have the surgery to fix the divertululosis, but the question is: Will this surgery make my health worse in the longrun?

Slow and Steady or Fast and Furious?

So the options are to continue the diet that I have been on for the past six weeks, which involves food logging in a written journal, exercise and staying at or near 1400 calories a day and not have surgery or continuing on the path toward weight loss surgery.

I think that I have been losing about a pound a week steadily just with the insurance mandated diet. It's hard to tell, because I am not getting on the scale, except at the monthly dietician weigh in.

Now, I have never been fully successful in losing weight in the past, but I have always tried diets that were very extreme. This is pretty loose. I am not cutting out any food or food groups. I just managed to stay within my calories on a day to day basis. I try not to go too low or skip any meals.

Here is a video that my son took yesterday, which shocked me, I guess I don't see my body from this viewpoint much. Am I really this fat? Cringing.

Here is the dilemma for me: I am reading posts on two gastric sleeve facebook pages, in which patients who have had the surgery have asked some questions based upon their current situations:

• Is anyone else getting chipped teeth?  Answer: About four members said that they, too, were suffering from tooth problems post surgery. Were they taking their supplements? Unknown.

• Has anyone else stopped losing weight about nine to twelve months out and has their weight loss started reversing? Many members said that this was happening to them. Several were trying the five day pouch test to try to shrink their stomachs back. Some were turning to diet pills.

• Has anyone else started feeling a reasserting of hunger post surgery? Many members said that they had never had a cessation in their hunger.

This really concerns me to the point where I feel that I need to do everything that I can to be successful with my five month long insurance mandated diet. If I can manage to stay positive with this for the duration, then I am more assured of a healthy outcome if  I do pursue surgery. If I choose not to do surgery, then I have to be on this diet for at least eighty weeks to lose the weight that I have to lose and then to maintain. Either way, my life of eating as a free for all has to be over.

Forever.

Let's just say that I am not sold on the idea that the weight loss surgery will correct all of my problems - especially since it is not brain surgery and I am pretty sure that my brain is the biggest problem.

I am also concerned with many things which are long term issues: Vitamin and mineral loss, bone loss, what if I ended up with cancer and needed chemo? My food intake abilities would be much less than the typical patient. I don't say that flippantly, everyone in my family who has died in the last seventy years has died from cancer.

However, on the -- what? sixth hand? -- on the other hand, obesity is a serious risk for cancer. My mammogram showed slight changes that are alarming and could indicate a propensity for cancer down the road. My aunt is currently battling breast cancer. Obesity is a huge factor in breast cancer. Having said that, I would willingly lop off both breasts tomorrow, if my doctor though it was necessary.

Pros for the surgery include being able to lose the weight faster to combat my recurrent diverticulitis, which is a potentially fatal illness; getting rid of my sleep apnea, being assured of a good result and a cessation to the serious cravings and mental issues related to eating.

Cons are: dying on the table (slight risk), not losing enough weight, impacting my ability to process food correctly, losing bone mass, long term consequences are not yet known, protein liquid diet may seriously cause issues with the diverticulitis and the hemorrhoid bleeding that I have when I go too high protein.

God, I just don't know. Part of me needs to know more, part of me wants to run and hide. How do I make this decision? I am in weekly therapy to try to sort it out.

Anxiety Girl

I have been Anxiety Girl lately:

Able to Leap to Conclusions at a single thought!
Able to keep magnifying situations to an impossible conclusion!

Yesterday was a tough day. The kids had been off of school for five days and then Charlie, our son who has autism, twisted his ankle and we ended up in the ER for three hours, getting an x-ray.

To relax, I went for a swim at the hotel pool that I swim at every day and Creepy Guy was there. I think he was. Creepy Guy is a guy who was making deep conversation with my nine year old daughter in the pool. Without going into a long drawn out story, I have decided to change my fitness membership to a club that has a pool and leaving this hotel for good.

SO with all of these thoughts in my head, and having watched The Walking Dead last Sunday, I had nightmares that were horrific. I mean, these are the kind of nightmares where I am afraid to go back to sleep at 3 am.

I had been worried about whether when I go to see my surgeon on Monday, whether they would just schedule me in, now that I have been diagnosed with sleep apnea. But I just now called the doctor's office and they said that I would still be going through the rest of the four months of dieting. That reassures me, because I believe I have more to work through mentally before I do this.

I am trying to settle myself down and relax. It's just hard when there is so much at stake and I keep asking myself:

Am I really unable to do this on my own?
Am I really this fat? - I don't really feel that fat, but apparently I am. I see it, but there is a subtle disconnect.

Ug. Well, I have to go get my driver's license renewed today and return library books. I could also do some housework first, which I should do. I am just being lazy woman today.

Decision Making Process & Sleep Study

I have been all over the map since I started the five month insurance mandated diet, which is required prior to weight loss surgery.

At first I thought I would be able to just whip right through it. Not so. I am weighing in today, after the first month or so of dieting and it has not been easy. I don't know if I have lost any weight, because the scales are just all over the place.

I have quit the diet twice and then climbed back up on that bad horse again. It has been hard. I have logged daily and tried to exercise, but many times I have fallen short.

Here are a few of my downfalls:

1. Vanilla Oreos and Black Coffee
2. Nutella and Peanut Butter  - I ONLY crave peanut butter when I am dieting.
3. Reese Cups
4. Popeye's Chicken
5. McDonald's Egg McMuffin (no meat or muffin)

Other than these, I am doing ok.

Well, I am pretty stressed.

I had a sleep study. It was fairly awful. The bed and pills were hard and the cords connecting me to the machine were so short that I could not turn over. The room got hot and I had a terrible time sleeping.

However, I was diagnosed with apnea, having stopped breathing 44 times in an hour of sleep. So I guess it's the CPAP for me. That also means that I no longer have to stick to 40 as the minimum BMI that I can have to still have the surgery. I can go as low as 35 and still qualify. That means I can lose more weight on my own.

This gives me the ability to really give the remaining four months of dieting a full shot and see what I am capable of doing and whether I would relapse or not.

I also started seeing a therapist. I want to get past some childhood issues. Lots of abuse in our household as a kid. My parents are both dead, so I can't confront them, but my father sexually abused me as a kindergartner. I am finding that this is at the core of a lot of body-related and anxiety issues for me. My brothers and sisters completely don't believe me, but another family member was also abused by him and she and I have been able to talk about it.

So I am not just imagining it.

I have a lot of work to do. I even have a self-hypnosis disk to try that, because, well, what if it worked? I want to try everything that I can before I go under the knife.

Empowering Assholes?

I was sitting in the living room, tired and still groggy and was thinking about a dream that I had the night before, about being asked to dance and being told that I had to put on a body suit and makeup before I could dance with these other ladies, because "If you are going to dance with us, you have to be READY, no matter how fat you are."

It took me back to several times when men or boys have really been awful to me about my weight. Said terrible things. Then I realized, I don't even know who these people are. Ten, fifteen, thirty years later, they don't know me, either, but I have allowed their words and actions to  have power over me.

What would they think if they knew? Most likely, they might say, "I don't even remember that." "I was totally smashed and thought it was funny." "We were just setting up a prank and waiting for someone to walk into it."

I have given power to these words and actions and they have shaped my life. How sad that is. How blind I have been.

Time to stop empowering assholes and live my life.

Am I Taking On Too Much?

Today I send in my transcripts to apply for college through the University of the People. It is a bachelors degree in computer science. This is big for me, since I quit school after my junior year to get married, basically we were both running away from home.

Two years into the marriage,when I realized where things were headed, I got my GED and did some remedial work in algebra at a local community college. I later took some classes in programming and in database management, but I had limited time and money.

So now my packet goes off. This is a tuition-free school. You pay only for taking a test at the end of each course. That translates into a cost of about $4000 for the entire program. There are no book or software costs, all is open-source.

I am worried about the math, but honestly, I am pretty bright and I am sure that I can put my mind to it and deal with it.

I gave up the idea of college when I started comparing the costs of school against the amount of earning potential that I have left in my life. I am 49. Traditional and online school in this field would cost me over $40,000 for the same degree.

I like the idea of learning this way. I am excited and scared. More excited than scared. I got my high school transcript and I wanted to look at it to see how (bad) I did. But it had to remain sealed. Maybe it's best forgotten. My mind wasn't really there, back then.

I found out about this school via a TED Talk, which can be found here.

Feeling More Centered, Less Panicked.

Let's preface this by saying that I am Peri-menopausal. That means that I am in that grey area before periods cease, but have been having hot flashes since I was 43. I am 49. As a survivor of incest, I am very unlikely to go to a gynecologist for help, but I am probably more anxious recently, because I am kind of PMS'y.

Although one never knows. I have gone eight months once without a period and then had three in a row thirty days apart.

Who knows how this works.

But my last post was from a terrified me. I had googled "weight loss surgery problems afterward". I do NOT suggest that anyone do that. Wow. Many were horror stories from the seventies. Horizontal stomach stapling was a nightmare. People died after that.

I am still hearing stories from time to time, but I am trying to lower my risk taking by doing the following:

• Exercising every day so that I am in the best shape I can be for surgery.
• Reading up from CREDIBLE sources, about this surgery.
• Talking to my doctors about what to expect down the long-term road, such as vitamin needs, aging, osteoporosis, stuff like that.
• Making sure that I keep remembering that I have five or more months to make this decision and it is my decision.

I might get hit by a bus tomorrow. I might have the surgery and live a healthier life and live to be ninety. I might end up getting cancer like my parents did.

Who knows the end, except God? And he's not tellin. But he's not telling me not to do this, either.

I have the same feeling that I would have if I was at an amusement park and standing in line at the roller coaster. Will I go on? Will I die if I go on? Will I enjoy it? Will it make me happy?

And yes, I am THAT scared of roller coasters.

I think I am going to schedule that GYN appointment. I am pretty sure my dead father isn't going to be the doctor.