Off We Go

The first post to this blog was written 7 days ago, just before my adventure began. I didn't get to post it until Friday (5 days after surgery). This is my first update.

The surgery itself wasn't a problem at all. My surgeon had said from the outset that he did not even want me uncomfortable during this process, and he was good to his word. The only discomfort I had to deal with was the binder around my middle, which was to support things internally while I recovered. It was too tight, and cut off my urine flow. After 12 hours I was really "full of Piss and Vinegar" and very uncomfortable. My RN suggested a catheter, which I gladly agreed to, and once it was in place, I filled one bag and half of a second in less than 10 minutes....Talk about needing to Pee!

The remainder of my hospital stay was wonderful. I slept, and was wakened for food, breathing treatments, and walking around the floor. No stress, no responsibilities, and as much sleep as I could endure. Since I was on a morphine pump, every time I woke up, I hit the button, and pretty soon I was snoring again....I tell ya it was great!

Finally reality had to set in, and on Thursday morning the doctor said "It's time to head home"... You have never seen a more disappointed woman than I was.

After removing all the tubes and wires from my body, I was headed home. My boyfriend picked me up, and got me safely home and tucked into my own little bed. I went back to sleep. (Hey, even after they take away the morphine pump there's a whole lot left in your system.) I stayed crashed for most of that first day.

Second day home (that's last Friday) I was up and at 'em early. 6:30 a.m. does qualify for early doesn't it? Spend most of the day trying to remember to drink. Water is ordinarily my favorite drink, and putting away 2 gallons in a day is no trouble. When your stomach suddenly goes to the size of your thumb, you discover quickly that you can't handle more than a swallow or two at a time, and at that rate, 56 ounces takes a while. Fifty-Six ounces is the goal for someone with gastric bypass surgery because you have to stay hydrated, and sipping is the only way to accomplish this amount.

Watched a lot more TV than I normally do, and spent a long time in my recliner, but my BF was there with me, and he took good care of me, so I had nothing to complain about.

Spent about an hour on-line checking e-mails, and setting up this blog.

Now for the statistics....

First week.... Total Pounds Lost are eight - yep that's right a little over a pound a day.

I've completely stopped my diabetes meds, and my blood sugars are staying between 130 and 160. Sounds high until you discover that my usual counts before surgery were 225-245, and that was taking 3 meds a day. So I'm thrilled.

Blood Pressure is staying down with only 1 med twice daily, instead of 2 meds twice daily, so that's cut in half.

All in all, not bad. I'm off for my shower, and perhaps a short trip to the local flea market for an outing, to reassure me that there really are people out there. Take care and I'll see you again soon.

Kate

The Adventure Begins

Tomorrow is the Big Day. I’ve been working for almost a year for this and now that the clock is ticking down I’m surprised that I’m still not frightened, or nervous, or anything but peaceful.

My name is Kate and I’m heading for a Gastric Bypass Operation tomorrow. Gastric Bypass, commonly called stomach stapling, will be, hopefully, my step towards health. I have diabetes, Type II, High Blood Pressure, high Cholesterol, a stomach disorder called Gerd, and gouty arthritis. Some folks would say that’s not all surprising since I am almost 60. In fact I will be 60 in a matter of months. 5 to be exact.

I’ve been overweight for as long as I can remember. Well, that’s not technically true, I was underweight in the second grade


I became obese when I was 24 and in a very unhappy marriage. I had no physical relationship with my husband. We shared the home and business we started. We even joined a church, raised our daughters in that church, and to the world looked like a happy couple. Through those years I was miserably unhappy, but didn’t know what to do about it. Hubby became more and more remote, both in our personal relationship and in our business relationship. With each of those years I gained weight until when I finally left home, sometime in year 23, I weighted in at approximately 135 pounds overweight. On a frame that was 5’5” that is way too much weight. My friends and family had asked me over and over why I was so heavy, and all I would say is Hubby likes me this way.

That story was easier than telling them that I was alone, raising out daughters, and had been celibate for 14 of those 23 years. Yes, we lived in the same home, shared the same bedroom and bed, but we were celibate, and it wasn’t my idea. I ate for comfort, and I ate because I was a good cook and it validated me I my own eyes. Good food deserved to be eaten, not wasted, so I cooked, and ate, and cooked, and ate.

Now, here I am, almost 60 years old and still overweight by almost 100 pounds, and looking forward to having my stomach stapled. I’ve tried almost every diet that’s come down the pipe. Some of them I actually lost a little weight, but go off the diet and the weight comes back, along with more. I’ve reached the point in my life that I have to limit my caloric intake to 400 calories or less a day to make the weight come off. I have an extremely sedentary life style, not because I really want that, but more because I broke my back about 8 years ago, and I just can’t do the walking and exercise I should without experiencing great pain.

The decision to do bariatric surgery has been a long time coming. I started looking into the lap band process, and thought it was a good idea for me. I talked to my doctor and was surprised when she said flat out NO. She is a very open minded doctor, and has been extremely aggressive in trying to help me get my diabetes and other medical problems under control, so when she said NO I was amazed. So I asked her why, and rather than talking to me about it, she gave me medicines that were supposed to block my appetite. Turns out they were anti-depressants. Sure they killed my appetite, but they also put me into a semi-stupor.

After a couple of months on the anti-depressants, I decided to do some more research into gastric solutions. I did more research on the bypass, and even asked my current boy friend (aged 61) to go with me to a seminar on the gastric lap band. (I had been widowed a couple years earlier). He said yes to my request and I scheduled an appointment for both of us. We went that night not really expecting much. The surgeon who held the seminar was young, and seemed well informed as he presented so many statistics on how gastric procedures were helping thousands of people get different medical problems under control. I was also impressed with the success rates he quoted.

A couple of weeks later I spoke to my doctor again, and to my pleasure she said…”Do some more research, and come back. We’ll talk, and then make a decision.” I headed for my computer at home, and Google. I searched for lap band and bariatric surgeries and found literally thousands of web sites dealing with the Lap Band procedure.

While doing my research I came upon the Gastric Bypass. The more I read about the procedures, the better I liked what I found. Safety was an important issue, and the safety statistics were so good I could hardly believe it. Success rates in helping to get various co-morbidities (that’s what they are technically called) under control was absolutely astounding. Most statistics showed upwards of 60% improved for everything I had, and some showed even better.

While I was doing my research, I had chest pains and what I immediately thought was a heart attack. I spent a week in the hospital, having all kinds of tests run. At the end of the week I was pronounced healthy, with no signs of heart attack. My Cardiologist warned me that this could be merely a warning of what was going to be a massive heart attack if I didn’t do something about my weight and the associated problems. I spoke to him about the lap band and the bypass procedures. He was pleased that I knew about them and told me he encouraged me to pursue it. He said he would do what he could to help me through the hurdles I would jump to make the surgery possible.

I went back to my Primary Care doctor and told her about what I had learned in research, what my cardiologist had told me, and that I wanted to apply for coverage through my health care program at work. She agreed to help where she could, and then came the year of jumping the hoops.

The insurance company turned me down because they decided, in their infinite wisdom that was not sick enough or over weight enough to qualify for either process. I was taking 14 meds daily, and my co-pay for each med was $6 per month. You can do the math. When I pointed this out to them the reminded me that surgery was a very expensive proposition and since I had just had an emergency appendectomy, they didn’t want to approve a second surgery.

I went to several more seminars, and was told that since my body mass index was not forty I would not qualify. It seems that my HMO still did not think I was sick enough or fat enough to have the surgery. Finally I found a champion in an insurance specialist in a bariatric clinic who helped me to word things, and give information that finally convinced my HMO that I did need the surgery. She was wonderful and gave me the right wording to satisfy the HMO. Now I had a year of doing this and that to complete my qualification.

I spent a lot more of the HMO’s money during that year. I visited a dietitian and tried using a 1200 calorie diet to loose the weight. After 3 months I had gained almost 20 pounds. We then went to a medical weight loss clinic, and took shots and appetite suppressants. After 3 months there I had lost a total of 3 pounds. I was spending $20 a week on the meds, another $20 co-pay for the clinic, and who knows how much the clinic billed the HMO. Then started all the other doctor visits. I had to see a sleep doctor and take a sleep test. We had to document my Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Then we had to use a CPAP machine which forces air into your nasal passages to help you breathe and not wake up to breathe. I had been sleeping for a documented 52 seconds between wakings. That was a total of 52 seconds each minute I was “sleeping” the other 8 seconds I woke up, took a breath, changed positions and went back to sleep. That’s No Rest.

After that I had to go to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist, where a camera was put through my nose and down into my stomach to be sure that the passage ways weren’t blocked by anything. Next came a CAT scan to be sure that there were no obstructions or other things wrong. That’s when they discovered the cysts on both my kidneys.

Off to a Renal specialist I went. I was poked, prodded, X-rayed and a lot of other embarrassing things, but finally was pronounced well. It seems that there is something called Polycystic Kidney Disease. Evidently this causes cysts to grow on the kidneys that turn cancerous. I didn’t have that, I just had some water filled cysts on my kidneys. The Renal specialist said as long as they were not uncomfortable I didn’t need to do anything about them. They weren’t, and still aren’t so I’m letting “sleeping dogs” lie.

Next on the list was another trip to the cardiologist to document that my heart would stand the strain of surgery. I got a clean slate there very quickly. My cardiologist was thrilled I was going to pursue this further, and wrote my insurance company a nice letter, recommending I be allowed to have the surgery.

Then I was told that the insurance required an upper endoscopy and a colonoscopy. This was both to document my health and because at this age I hadn’t had either before. The endoscopy procedure introduces a small camera on the end of a long tube into my throat and down into my stomach, looking for signs of deterioration due to the GERD (a funny name for acid reflux). Seems that acid reflux can cause cancer…(what doesn’t any more?) No sign of bad wearing, and I am as healthy as an overweight woman of almost 60 can be.

Colonoscopies are sorta the same as endoscopies, except they look at your intestines and bowels. A similar type of camera is introduced into your rectum and bowel and up into some of your intestinal track. The doctor looks for things called Polyps. From what I learned I picture them as kinda like moles on the inside of your intestinal system. The doctor says I’m clean as a whistle, no polyps.

A couple days later I got a call from that same insurance specialist who told me that I had finally qualified and she was now setting up the schedule for my surgery and support groups. She handled everything from a meeting with another dietitian, to scheduling the actual surgery.

Well, that catches you up to where I am tonight, and how I got here. Tomorrow is the big day. I’m having the gastric by pass at 2 p.m. tomorrow. My life will change dramatically after that. Instead of a “stomach” I will have a pouch that is about as big as my thumb, Instead of sitting down to a nice Sunday Dinner, I will be drinking clear liquids next weekend, and I’ll never eat like I am now.

I’ve deliberately given up all solid food for at least 2 weeks, and maybe more like 4. I’ll never again enjoy popcorn, or ice cream, or sodas. I’ll eat mostly protein, and soft vegetables like squash, but not like potatoes (baked, mashed, or otherwise). Two slices of pizza with everything on it is a thing of the past, and I’m going to learn to love soups.

The good thing about all of this is I’m hoping the surgery and resulting lifestyle changes will also allow my diabetes of go into remission (is that the right word?), my high blood pressure to go back to normal (something that hasn’t been for almost 25 years), my cholesterol to approach normal again, and my GERD to disappear. The way I think about it, I plan to make the changes that will allow me to live 20 or more years longer and be in good health while doing it.

I know there are no guarantees, but I’m hopeful, and statistics are on my side, so who knows, it might work.

This blog will be my way of sharing this journey with you. I plan to put down here my feelings, my struggles, my baby steps, and my victories. I hope you will come along for the ride, and maybe, if you are what the doctors call Morbidly Obese you will be encouraged to start a journey of your own.

Tomorrow, 2 p.m. the biggest adventure in my life starts. Come along and lets see where it takes us