It’s only a tool…..whose the fool?

Week 6

So I was back at work and people were starting to notice my weight loss. It’s nice but I didn’t feel worthy of praise. I still felt fat….just less fat.

My recent slow weight loss had really brought me to a new low.

I could not figure out what I was doing wrong.

The mantra of the newly sleeved besides “sip,sip,sip” is “its only a tool”.

A gastric sleeve is not a miracle it’s only a tool. I felt like a massive tool. I had gone through all the pain, spent the cash and now I couldn’t even lose half a kilo. Something, somewhere had gone terribly, horribly wrong.

Fortunately my dieticians appointment was on the Wednesday. I saw this appointment as my great white hope.

On the Monday night my family and I went to the tennis to watch Roger Federer. I so love him. I had planned ahead and brought a yoghurt for dinner. By the time I went to open it, it felt warm and there was a bulge in the lid. Yuck. I decided I just wouldn’t eat, but then after the tennis my kids asked for frozen yogurt. I decided on a whim to have a small dollop (it weighed 50grams). I felt so bad afterwards. Not physically bad but guilty for having eaten it.

I tore myself up over that frozen yoghurt.

 

My dietician soon set me straight.

My dietician is so lovely. She endured reading my food diary which I shoved under her nose and forced her to read. I disclosed that I had a frozen yoghurt (in much the same way an alcoholic discloses the sip of beer the night before). “Hello my name is k and I am a big fat ass who can’t stop eating”.

I told her how bad I had felt. She said that I was doing everything right. She said that I was trying to “overachieve” at the calorie counting. She said I was not on a “diet”. I had to stop approaching this like a diet. This was a long haul process. The only thing I was to count was protein.

She emphasised over and over again that I would lose weight because I was eating such small portions. She did say that my protein was too low. She sold me a tin of beneProteIn which is tasteless and can be added to most food. I had searched everywhere for this and it was sitting in her cupboard the whole time. Great.

Her final measure of success (or not in my case) was to weigh me. According to her scales I had lost 6.7kg in 5 weeks. She reported that she was happy with that. I reported that I was not.

Me: I could have lost that much weight without surgery

Dietician: (said sweetly with a smile): yes but you didn’t did you?

Ok so I deserved that. It’s just that I expected to lose weight a bit more rapidly surviving on air as I was.

Bummer.

The highlight of my week was a male colleague sidling up to me and saying “I make it a policy not to comment on a woman’s weight but I have to say that you have lost so much weight”. I owned up to having surgery. I had worked with him for 15 years so I knew he wouldn’t buy that I had pulled off any weight loss over Xmas. He said that he thought I was brave and determined.

I haven’t ever thought of myself that way. I guess I just see myself as having a chronic problem that needed treatment. I mainly just feel ashamed that I had the chronic problem in the first place. I also feel ashamed that I couldn’t control my willpower to do this without surgery.

I had a spate of people telling me that they couldn’t understand why I had the surgery as they never ever saw me as fat. I asked them if they had gone to specsavers. I had that one brief delusional moment that maybe I wasn’t actually that fat and that possibly I would have remained healthy. Like the way I look at photos of myself as a teen and see a normal size 12-14 girl. I would give anything to look like that again yet at the time I thought I was sooooo fat. Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

God this was such a roller coaster. I wanted to stop the ride and get off. It was a bit too late for that.

Doctor I think you forgot to remove my brain

week 5

I had such a low loss at Xmas that I was positive that this week I would lose another big number.

Nope. 300 lousy grams. I was so despondent. I seriously felt like buying a magnum and pureeing it.

Once again I had stuck religiously to the rules and I had nothing to show for it. I could have peed and lost that much weight. Gross but true.

I began to lurk on forums for sleeve support looking at any thread that was entitled weight loss stall. I found some people reporting on a stall at week 3-4. Ok maybe this was just a process that I had to get through.

One night I was up until 1am combing obsessively through the forums for an answer.

There were so many opinions: inadequate fluid (huh not sure how that one works), inadequate protein, menstrual cycles etc. I came to the conclusion that my body was just stupid. I knew I would fail at this. My metabolism is so slow that it can’t even cope with 300 calories a day. I would be one of the few failures.

AND I HAD EXERCISED…..NOT FAIR AT ALL.

Everywhere I looked in the forums it seemed that people were dropping weight like they had dropped a small personal item. Oops excuse me just step over that weight I just dropped. Sorry chaps how careless of me to drop that weight right there don’t bother picking it up I am done with it.

I absolutely knew that I had stuck to my diet like glue. I had not put a foot wrong (well except for the jellybelly mini jellybean I had sucked on and spat into a tissue). It was not the only thing that felt sucked.

I felt completely sucked in and fooled by the gastric sleeve hype. I pictured my surgeon skiing in France laughing at the poor fat people who had paid for his holiday.

I was completely and utterly devastated. Both my dietician and my surgeon were on holidays. I couldn’t eat so there was nothing I could do except to keep on going. As I have said many times if I could have fallen off the wagon I would have.

What that poor loss did do was made me start wanting food again.

Like chips, lollies, icecream you know just your standard junk food. I thought about chips all day long. I wondered how much it would hurt if I ate them. Not too bad if I chewed a lot….a chewed chip would be soft right?

I felt like the surgeon had only done half his job. He had taken the part of my stomach that made me hungry but he had left behind (silly man how careless of him)  that part of my brain which makes me crave food.

If you are a surgeon reading this I have found you a quick get rich scheme. All you have to do is work out which part of the brain says “give me those chips NOW” and remove it. People would pay $$$$$ for that.

Fortunately I didn’t eat the chip. I sip sip sipped and I slurped on pureed fish (surprisingly not as gourmet as it sounds!). I just wasn’t willing to endure the pain nor the humiliation of being rushed to hospital for an emergency chip removal.

Which is not as ridiculous as it sounds.

There was a story on one of the forums about a woman who ate a piece of the colonels finest deep fried chicken and needed surgical removal and repair of the leak she caused by eating something that she had no business eating 3 weeks after surgery. Her shock in that post still amazes me….what was she thinking? I don’t know why she thought that was ever going to end well. Then I realised that she was literally out of her mind. That part of her brain made her want that chicken and damn the consequences. I could so relate to her.

Even more scary was a comment which said that the person who had started one of the gastric sleeve forums had herself failed to lose weight and keep it off. This was not reassuring. How could I have not seen this before? Imagine being so motivated as to start a forum….and then tank at the very thing you are handing out advice about. Thank god these things use made up names so she only had to endure cyber humiliation. Needless to say she no longer runs the forum.

I obsessed over the scales. I made my husband check them a thousand times. Maybe they were malfunctioning…a girl can dream! I would stand on them a thousand times. Nothing. I even started wishing for my period (yep you read that right) just so in my mind I would have an excuse as to why my weight loss was so low.

My appointment with the dietician was not for another week. I didn’t know if I could make it that far.

I started filling in a food diary just to make sure that I was eating a small amount of calories. I was averaging 500 calories per day. The particular app would prompt me at the end of the day that I had eaten too few calories for “safe” weight loss. Whatever that means. I briefly considered that I wasn’t eating enough. Yeah again, a girl can dream ok?

The only highlight of that week was dinner with my BFF. She was very encouraging. She urged me to keep going. She said that I needed to stop worrying so much. God love her she even supported my theory of not eating enough (the sign of a true friend: one who will go along with your  crackpot theories and not even counter with a shred of logic).

The only thing I had to hold on to was my looming appointment with my dietitian. Perhaps she would know where I had gone wrong?

And I STILL wanted those chips. God I was doomed.

Well now that wasn’t so bad

week 4

The days after Xmas went fast. We laid around doing not much of anything. Just what the doctor ordered (as a matter of fact it wasn’t what he ordered I was supposed to start exercising).

So I did.

We went on a long walk. There was much whining by the kids who complained how long and far we walked. Even when we stopped at the corner shop for a lolly each they did not stop. It actually worked well for me because I walked so fast just to get home asap and shut them up.

I had a bit of pain following that long walk. I blamed the kids for making me overdo it. They were so painful I was almost jogging on the final stretch (almost but not quite).

We had to cut our usual week long holiday short to attend my cousins wedding on the 30th of December. I had not been to a wedding in ages and of course it was typical of my bad timing that I had two weddings looming in ten days.

Techinically at end of week 4 I was allowed to move from pureed food to soft food. I wasn’t really coping with the pureed food so I wasn’t keen to embark on soft food.

So I packed a small esky in the car for the wedding. At first I sipped on water. I was still finding plain water sharp and uncomfortable so I took very small sips just to look like I was participating. Finally someone found me a cup of oj and I added a dash to the water to make drinking bearable. I didn’t think it was a good look to pull out a sippy cup at the function.

One of my cousins reported seeing mashed potato in the kitchen so I felt sure that I would be able to participate in some part of the meal. When the mashed potato was served it was with a cheek of beef on top. Given I don’t eat meat I couldn’t face the mashed potato.

I didn’t manage to get out to the car as I was too busy talking (this will not come as a surprise to my family and friends). At one point someone gave me a tiny canapé serving of risotto. I took one intending to push it around and prod it with a fork just to look like I was eating.

I took one small bite and was shocked when I managed to swallow it pain free. Gosh this was progress. I stopped after three teaspoons I didn’t want to push my luck and I called it dinner.

The highlight of my night was when the bride stopped by my table and whispered in my ear about how much she used to weigh. I had never really thought of her as overweight so I was surprised at the number she whispered. It was very inspiring to see her looking truly stunning and no bigger than a size ten. She had achieved so much and she radiated happiness and well earned pride in her lovely figure. She had done so well that she needed to order a second dress in a smaller size.

It gave me extra determination to get through the night not feeling cheated.

On the last day of week 4 New Years was celebrated. We went to a friends. I took my dinner of mashed avocado, feta and sweet chilli sauce as my New Years treat. I managed about 3 teaspoons.

I was starting to get the hang of attending social occasions with a lunch box. The only thing I felt terribly cheated about was my lack of champagne in hand. For some reason it wasn’t the same toasting the new year with diet cordial!!

Then I realised that this year the same resolution I made every year would actually be achieved in 2015. I had no choice. In 2015 this weight was coming off and staying off. How inspired and motivated I felt……who was I kidding? I would have traded my first born for a glass of bubbly.

Tis the season to be jolly….blah blah blah blah bleh

Week 3

This week Xmas was looming large.

Food was everywhere.

My first challenge this week was lunch at a friends. I made potato and leek soup to share. There was zero protein value but I didn’t think my friends would appreciate lentils added to it! It turned out ok and I made it through another social function featuring food.

Again I knew I couldn’t physically eat any of the food piled in front of me and if I did I would be sick, I wasn’t hungry but I still wanted some of that food. Your mind is a strange thing.

I keep telling myself that no one goes to bed at night thinking about the lovely food they had that day…..but fat people go to bed feeling exhausted from just being.

I helped my daughter make a gingerbread house. More food. And a cookie cut out Xmas tree. More food.

I went grocery shopping for Xmas day and for supplies for the week we were spending down the Coast. More food.

I catered a BBQ for friends. I made my favourite salads and a pavlova from scratch. I was not sure why I chose to torture myself. Perhaps I would have been better off making steak and kidney pie? (I don’t eat meat).  I sipped on diet cordial and had a yoghurt. Lucky me. I ranted at myself for being foolish enough to have surgery right before Xmas.

I decided that I couldn’t spend Xmas day eating pureed lentil casserole for the hundredth time. I went on a mad recipe hunt.

My husband says that I not only socialise around food but I also enjoy the recreational pastime of cooking. He is right.

A friend of mine summed it up nicely. She said that she does not really enjoy food that much. But I do. I enjoy creating it, cooking it and eating it. She likened it to someone asking her to give up alcohol for life and identified with how tough that would be. I guess food for me is like every other vice we all have.

The idea of finding a nice Puree for Xmas day helped me cope with all the food that I was around. I finally found one right under my nose in the handouts from the dietician. It was a simple recipe blending smoked salmon with ricotta cheese (low fat of course), dill and lemon juice. For Xmas day I was going to have broccoli pureed with Apple sauce to accompany the salmon.

Sorted.

Then I got bored again. Usually at this time of the year I am in a frenzy cooking entrees, rocky road, Xmas cake and other Xmas treats. I love my family but I had to draw the line at making rocky road. I just couldn’t face it this year. No one seemed to notice that I didn’t make it. Given the mood I was in they probably weren’t game to ask!

I mooched around the house feeling sorry for myself. I still had some pain especially up under my rib cage on the left side. The pain seemed unrelated to eating. One night I convinced myself that I had left my run too late and was having a heart attack. I woke up in the morning so all good.

I noticed that I was drinking more of my optifast and having a bit more of my yoghurt.

The ever present gurgling sensation (very unpleasant and kinda like eating with reflux) when I ate was slowly disappearing. It appeared that my insides as well as the outside was healing.

We drove around looking at the Xmas lights. I enjoyed this because it wasn’t an activity involving food. Have you noticed that everything about Xmas is associated with food? Xmas carols? Bring a picnic. Xmas presents for work colleagues? Chocolates. Xmas lunch, Xmas dinner, Xmas breakfast…..you get the idea.

Coincidentally Xmas day was a Thursday….weigh in day. I was so excited about my weigh in this week. I had essentially lived off air all week and was expecting a big loss. The pyjamas I had bought for the hospital only three weeks ago were hanging off me.

I ran right past the excited kids at the Xmas tree and straight to the scales. Where I found out that for starving myself all week I had lost the grand total of a kilo. Wtf? My husband unthinkingly followed me on to the scales and noted he had lost two kilo’s. Seriously? Merry Xmas to me.

I was completely devastated and found it hard to get my head back in the game of Xmas. I could not understand what I had done wrong. I went over and over what I had eaten. But I had followed my diet to the letter. Maybe it was the damn protein? That’s all I could think of.

Despite this, I had my optifast for Xmas breakfast while the fam enjoyed bacon, eggs, toast and juice. If I was on a normal diet I would have given up in that very moment. Good thing for me that I had the whole small stomach, eat, be sick consequence to deter me.

My husband very sweetly spent half the morning trying to gee me up. He assured me that my body was just being sluggish and that i would lose a large chunk of weight next week. It was alright for him he had lost 2kgs just by having an optifast for dinner!

I think everyone must have anticipated how down I would be feeling and over compensated with presents. I did very well. I got numerous vouchers to purchase the new wardrobe they all faithfully believed I would be needing. I wish I had that much faith. My dad made me laugh when he stipulated that his generous present was not to be spent on handbags and shoes. He knows me far too well.

I also received a very thoughtful present from my husband and children of a magic bullet to enable me to Puree food easily. My daughter and husband had spent hours shopping for my presents which also included t2 products (sugar free of course my daughter proudly informed me), some new red canisters for coffee and tea which I had been unable to find and some very nice sketcher shoes for walking. They got the wrong size (my husband thought I might lose weight off my feet lol)!

The best present was from my Mum who had hunted high and low for a “zinger everything” water bottle. You put fruit in the bottom like lemon, lime, strawberries, mint or watermelon and it infuses into your water to flavour it. I took a picture to demo my new sippy cup.

I have strawberries and lemon in the picture which is nice and refreshing.

I did feel immensely loved on Xmas day I must say.

My next challenge was looming at my mother in laws where our tradition is to spend the days after Xmas lolling around, admiring her lake view and Eating of course!

A quarter of the way there

Week 2

i am so glad I was still off work. Feeding myself was turning out to be a full time job.

For some reason I thought that I would have this surgery and I would hardly ever think about food again!,, not so people.

Firstly, I needed to concentrate on WHEN to eat. I was not hungry and could have easily have gotten through the day without eating. Clock watching became my new pass time this week. I was watching it like a factory worker due to punch out.

I had to stop drinking half an hour before I was going to “eat”. I had to wait half an hour after “eating” to drink again….First I had to remember to eat…..on and on it went.

Secondly, I needed to work out WHAT to eat. Every meal had to have protein. My “target” was 50 grams of protein per day. I don’t eat meat so this required a large amount of strategy on my part.

My stepmother makes a meat free tomato lentil casserole so I asked her to make that for me. I puréed up a whole batch and lived off it all week. I will get the recipe from her and post it on here. It is so nice and the lentils help with protein.

I also made a chick pea and kumara Moroccan soup. I alternated the two.

Breakfast was easy I stuck with an optifast. I actually don’t mind them and with 17g of protein it seemed like a no brainer to me. I tried the suggested half a pureed weetbix but frankly I felt so awful after it that i decided to steer clear.

I could not get through a whole optifast for breakfast so I would save the remainder for late afternoon and even then I was unable to finish it.

The aim this week was to “eat” half a cup of Puree per meal. I managed only a third of a cup. The best protein count I could manage was about 25g. I kept having visions of my muscle mass (not that there is much of it) getting eaten away while the dreaded fat hid and sniggered.

On Tuesday I drove for the first time with my friend who had her knee op. We laughed about how together we made a whole person! She had a stomach and I had two good knees. We went out to lunch. This was my first experience eating out and I was pleased with how it went.

We fluked going to a cafe that offered protein shakes. I had a rockmelon protein shake for lunch. I drank about 150 mls and got the rest in a takeaway cup for dinner. I was truly a cheap shout now!

On Thursday my daughter and I went on a big outing to my BFF’s house and then on to see my surgeon. I loved being out and about again and I planned ahead and brought my own lunch. Yay for me.

At the surgeons I was weighed and I had lost another 2kgs making my total weight loss 12 kgs. The surgeon was happy with this. I very greedily wanted another 5 and was disappointed. He showed me photos of my surgery. My new stomach looked like a cocktail Frankfurt. Soooo tiny!

Also I discovered that I had a belly button hernia. So that’s what was at the bottom of the vortex all this time (and not the spare change I lost in 1995).

The surgeon was not a bit concerned about my lack of protein or my third of a cup vs half a cup intake. He repeated his mantra about the very small and tight sleeve he had made and said that he did not expect me to be eating normally for 12 weeks….yikes!

He charted my weight loss on a graph similar to that used for babies. He noted that I was a quarter of the way through losing all of my excess weight already. Wow. That cheered me up no end.

On Friday I returned to work. I had run out of sick leave so this was a necessity. It was the last day before the office closed for two weeks. Of course there was an elaborate food affair planned for this day.

I drank water surrounded by champagne and platters of cheese and samosas. Even the water was painful because I had been drinking diet cordinal up to this point. I didn’t think my sippy cup would be a good look at a work function. Eventually I resolved this by adding a dash of oj to my water.

I got through it but I felt very anti-social like I was on the periphery and not really participating. It was probably my lowest moment in the past few weeks. I kept wondering why I had done this to myself right at Christmas. Why didn’t I just wait until January? Why did I do it at all?

Had I banished myself to being a wallflower at social functions in the future and would I lose friends because I had lost interest in food. Let’s face it we all find those “diet” people a bit tedious when you have to go out to dinner with them.

At at the end of the night one of my best friends who had attended the function professed that she felt guilty eating in front of me but then added “think of it this way next year you will be able to eat AND you will be wearing a fabulous frock”. She was right of course I just had to hold onto this.

 

Hooray for the Purée…..said nobody EVER

Day 7-8

So at the one week mark according to my dietician and surgeon you can start puréed food.

I was excited just to road test my new stomach with something other than liquid. The dietician had devised an eating plan with suggestions for the puree stage. The first suggestion was half of a very runny weetbix. So I diligently made up the half a weetbix with skim milk and hot water until it was a thin soup. I had a teaspoon to try it. It was bad it was very bad. Painful and gross.

I decided to give up on Puree and stick with liquids for another few days. I was happy with my decision. Given the discomfort I had I would have readily agreed to stay on liquids for the rest of my natural life. However the dieticians literature said that I should try again in two days time. Bummer why am I such a stickler for the rules?…..

Day 8

OK I know I said I would try Puree again but in my defence I had to go to school to watch my little boy win the academic award for his year. I was a proud mama bear and I didn’t want to miss out. So optifast for breakfast again. The tried and trusted option for breakfast (they should make that their slogan or how about Optifast “never makes you vomit”…I should go into the ad business). I managed about a third of it again.

After the award presentation I got my mum to drop me off at a friends house (yes it felt like being in high school having my mum drop me off at a mates house but I wasn’t up to driving my seven seater tank). I love hanging with my friend TC. We both had operations days apart (hers wasn’t a sleeve) so we were quite the pair! We both laid around feeling sorry for ourselves and it was great! We even had her daughter at our beck and call! This afternoon cheered me up no end.

Then it was off to the toddlers preschool party. Truth be told in a mother of the year moment I had actually forgotten all about this party. Luckily my mum was on the ball and reminded me! I also forgot that I had paid for food for everyone. The food was the usual preschool fare but I felt a bit forlorn missing out. Not that I would eat a party pie or sausage sandwich but my mind was playing tricks on me about fairy bread. I LOATHE fairy bread but here I was wishing I could have some. I had no idea what this was. I suspect it was something some people who have been sleeved refer to as “mouth hunger” or “brain hunger”.

I wasn’t hungry, I felt queasy, I was tired yet my brain kept telling me that fairy bread looked nice. Fortunately my tender stomach won the debate and I avoided the fairy bread like the plague.

The party did however give me some insight into my friendship with food. I felt like I wasn’t part of the celebration without a drink or food. With Xmas coming up this really scared me that my head was already asking for food that I am not allowed.

As we were walking home I realised that the gas pain had finally GONE. I dont know whether it was the extra activity or just a timing issue. I didn’t care which it was because the gas pain was GONE. Yeeeeehaaa.

I was exhausted after my big day out and fell asleep on the lounge by about 8pm! I think I was exhausted from telling my brain to cut it out.

5 kilograms in 6 days!!

Day 5-6

Day 5 started and ended the same as the others. Continuing pain from the gas and sip,sip,sipping. My children made me a diet jelly. I managed it better than I thought I would. Thanks kids. It was nice to have a break from Optifast.

Day 6 I had a big outing to see the dietician. I found her very helpful. She talked about my eating habits pre-sleeve.

One thing I have noticed since I stopped eating is that I was a seagull before the sleeve. I would always swoop on the kids leftovers and snack as I was making their dinner (which I didn’t eat because I was having a “healthier” meal-  except that by the time I ate my dinner, their leftovers and sampled what I was cooking for them the “healthy part” was a furphy).

I was completely honest with her about what I ate and when and the most important part of why I ate. She had a questionnaire to fill in. Do you eat when bored? Yep. Do you eat when tired? Yep. Do you eat when sad? Yep. Do you eat when you are happy? Yep. Do you eat all frickin’ day? Yep (I just made that one up but it should have been a question in my opinion).

Even when I have been gravely ill in hospital I still have managed to eat.

This is the part that I have a hard time understanding, how the sleeve will change my relationship with food. The main difference I could see so far is that I am not hungry at all and the thought of food makes me queasy. I know this will change over time and I will no longer feel queasy at the thought of food….so how will I manage if I am bored, tired, sad or happy? Hmmm I think I need to put some more thought into that one.

The dietician had some really good information about what to eat and when. The main sell is that you have to have at least 50 grams of protein per day. This sounds a lot easier than it actually is. When you are eating a third of a cup of purée twice a day it is hard to get sufficient protein. Optifast has 17g of protein. Ooookkkaaayy. So I am doing the math here (and I am usually hopeless at maths) but drinking only half my optifast gave me 8.5g. Then a third of a cup of yoghurt 2g and some more of the optifast and I was still 30g short. Yikes.

So having discussed my protein deficiency and giving me a vitamin list that improved the share price of Blackmore’s overnight, I had to weigh in. I was absolutely astounded when I realised that I had lost 5kgs in 6 days. I felt like I was a contestant on the biggest loser (without the ugly weigh in crop tops, talk about maximum humiliation). Yay me. God starvation really does work.

So all up in two weeks and 6 days I had lost 10kgs.

I said that I would post some FAQ’s here are the top 5:

1. Can you still drink alcohol? (Trust me if you know my friends you will not be surprised that this is the most commonly asked question):  After 12 months I can drink a little wine (no bubbles) but only in small amounts remembering that I no longer have a stomach to absorb it plus it’s empty calories. So probably not is my answer. I could be a very cheap drunk.

2. Will you have scars? This wasn’t a biggie for me. It’s not like I am going to be modelling a bikini at the beach in this life. Yes I have some scarring in about 5 different spots on my stomach. The wounds are bigger than I thought that they would be, some are approximately 5-7cms, which doesnt sound too bad but it freaked me out when I first saw them.

3. Ok this one is a little delicate but it has cropped up ALOT! Seriously, my friends have no boundaries at all. Do you get constipated? No you are not eating food remember? Food is one of the key ingredients for constipation I would have thought.

4. How much weight will you lose? This depends. The most my surgeon would commit to was a “realistic result” of 25kgs. God all this pain I want to at least make it worth it!! My goal is 40kgs. We shall see who is right but fingers crossed its me.

5. Can you put the weight back on? Yes if you aren’t careful and eat bigger and bigger meals to stretch your stomach. However it is meant to be permanent. There are horrible stories in forums about people putting their weight back on but the research done thus far indicates that most people keep their weight off and that’s what I am going with. Like the proverbial ostrich in the sand.

To blog or not to blog….that is the question

Day 4

On day 4 the gas pain continued. I walked seven laps around our house trying to shift it. It didn’t work. I knew there was a reason that I hate exercise. Endone my friend I love you.

I struggled through the mandatory optifast and I got through a third of it (and that was after sipping at that sucker all day).

My mum God bless her went to the shops and returned with something to try and make a clear soup. I tried I really did but there was no way that I could go near it without heaving.

Now I have had a problem with blood clots in my lungs before so as a result I was on daily injections of clexane which I had to give myself. I forgot to give myself the injection before I went to bed last night so I stupidly spent the whole day vigilantly monitoring my legs for the slightest sign of redness or pain. Nothing happened except that I noticed my legs are hairy and dry.

The other thing not contributing to my wellbeing was that I felt hot. My temperature hovered around 38degrees but when I checked the surgeons literature it basically said to push the panic button if your temp got to 38.5. So that was good. I still has half s degree leeway.

I loved writing stories as a child.

On day 4 I was reading some article on improving your health and reducing stress. One of the recommendations was that you write a blog. They set out how to go about it.

Many of you will know that I don’t have Facebook (much to some peoples’s frustration who insist on issuing invites only on FB thus necessitating a “special” text to the only person/idiot in the world not on Facebook).

I just don’t like Facebook because a) the lack of privacy and b) who on earth would be interested in anything going on in my life? I would never be so presumptuous to think anything that happens to me is worth wasting the precious time of my friends. Also I particularly loathe the political rants and the cutesy sayings and the way people who could not get off their chairs all jump on some cause like they are actually doing something good… ,(Whilst I am not on Facebook I will occasionally hack into my husbands page and I find it just makes me mad reading about peoples thinly disguised racism and food porn….now I love food but what is THAT about?).

So I was somewhat surprised to find myself pecking away at my first blog. It may have just been the happy effects of the endone but I suspect there was a greater need for me to “out” myself publicly and to ensure that the fear of public ridicule would be enough to motivate me into sticking this thing out (although given my stomach was permanently removed that horse had well and truly bolted).

I was surprised at how long I spent deliberating about whether I would say in my blog how much I weighed.

Like a closet smoker I didn’t think anyone really knew how much I weighed. When I really thought about it I figured that I was about as effective as hiding my weight as the person who stands around the corner from home having their last drag of a ciggie and then furiously spraying impulse (we all know one of those)!

People had eyes in their heads they could see how much I weighed. It’s like the actual number had some sort of mystical quality that only becomes real if you tell someone else what it is. So I decided to name and shame myself.

I actually wrote the blog mainly for myself but then I got carried away with the public ridicule aspect and texted every person I ever knew alerting them to my blog. It could have been the double dose of endone I took!

In any event, one of the best things that happened was two friends both texted me to tell me how much they weighed. One of them commented that she too had never told anyone what she weighed but she figured if I could do it so could she. I actually felt like I had done something good. Maybe I had removed some of the stigma associated with what at the end of the day is only a number.

I think these two texts in particular inspired me to keep going. Also I received text after text from people telling me how much they were enjoying my blog and urging me to keep going. I guess I had something to share now. Something interesting and worthwhile. But if not another person ever reads this blog I would be equally as happy.

Given that a gastric sleeve is still not common place surgery (in the circles that I move in anyway) I have been asked loads of questions.

Hopefully I can answer some of those universally without repeating myself a hundred times. So in my next blog I am going to write some FAQ’s.

 

Home again home again jiggety jig

Day 3

The surgeon came in and said I could go home but not without repeating himself about my tight sleeve. Enough already!

I have a friend who thinks a stint in hospital sounds lovely: 3 meals delivered, lying around all day, drugs for pain. But the reality is far from different. They don’t leave you alone between asking invasive questions “have you had your bowels open?” (My favourite awkward question of all time) to invasive procedures. A hospital, far from being a sanctuary, is noisy and obtrusive. Therefore, I should have been glad to be going home right?

I was not. My little boy scared the life out of me. He is very exuberant and jumps on you like a puppy. I was terrified he was going to jump on my tender stomach. I was still very sore and it was an hour and a half drive home.

I was also worried how I would cope on my own regulating my fluids, tablets and eventual eating.

The only instruction from my surgeon was to drink one optifast per day.

This seemed somewhat ridiculous when I was struggling with water.

Once home I managed to lay on the lounge before my little boy came running. A large pillow guarding my stomach absorbed some of his impact. He was just so happy to see me.

I was exhausted.

I had read on some forum somewhere that if you add diet cordial to the water it softens it to make it easier to drink. I could not believe the difference something so simple could make. I started to manage sipping water at a greater rate.

The post-op fluid stage is very unexciting. I was not hungry at all and had to force down the optifast. My “diet” was basically air and diet cordial.

It’s a very strange feeling not to feel hungry when you know that you have not eaten in 4 days. Just weird.

Going to bed in my own bed was weird too. It was hard to get comfortable not being a back sleeper. The hospital beds made it easier because you could electronically adjust the incline etc. (surprisingly when they actually did find a bed for me I was relieved that it was so comfortable)

I ended up spending most of the first night in an armchair. When I did finally get to sleep I dreamt about food. Whilst it seemed that my stomach was happy to live without food, my brain clearly was not and was busily sending me some sort of subliminal message while I was sleeping. I can scarcely remember the dream except that it was about food and I was happy. Oh dear. More work required on the psychology of not eating.

 

Mummy why is your tummy still fat?

Day 2

The gas pain was still making my life a misery. I was still scared to drink. And to make matters worse I couldn’t swallow a tablet which meant that every time I needed endone I would have to swallow this foul liquid endone. The drug manufacturer had not invested any money into making it “pleasant tasting” as I guess they figured that you would be so desperate for the pain relief that you would drink it even if it tasted like pain thinner (and it did and yet I still drank it so clearly the drug manufacturer got that bit right).

The liquid panadol was worse. Now I have tried kids liquid panadol and it tastes ok but this one was beyond the pale. I kept tossing it in the sink and asking for endone which was not as bad as the panadol.

Well to be completely honest I would have done that anyway even if the panadol tasted like cherry pie…!

But what is with that? You have just had surgery on your stomach and they insist on giving you every medication orally. Hello? It’s called a suppository people. The liquids were so abhorrent that even a suppository panadol was looking good. I did suggest this to the nurses who looked suitably horrified by the idea. I guess a suppository is not the highlight of a nurses day.

The lady in the bed next to me was still coming first place in the gastric sleeve Olympics and she was allowed to go home.

I felt like such a loser and to make matters worse even I could see she had lost weight. God I had been surviving on air and she had been scoffing the jelly, yoghurt AND the iceblock. Yep she was a true champion at this.

I have without a doubt the most supportive friends and family. The texts and calls while I was in hospital were constant and they really did help distract me from the pain which on day 2 was only marginally better.

My kids and Husband were so supportive of me having this surgery. I was so happy that my daughter actually got it when she said “mummy I know you are doing this for us”. She is only 11 so it was lovely to hear.

My husband is very enthusastic and whilst he is not overweight he is determined to lose some of the middle aged spread and has rallied me by drinking optifast shakes at night. Thanks comrade.

My mum, dad and stepmother have all been very supportive and they are always on hand to do washing, cooking, picking up kids etc. Their love and support is given unconditionally. They don’t care that I am fat but they know it will kill me in the end. I think they were all worried but they understood why the surgery had to be done.

My friends are just incredible.

There are too many of you to mention but a special shout out to AW, MB and AK who always know the right things to say. Although I have got to tell MB that the idea of a white pants suit is not inspiring me (she enthusiastically told me I could wear one when I lost all of my weight….she must have forgot that I am pale and would look like a polar bear! Not to mention that I don’t think I will ever be that skinny). MB has also fought a battle with weight and recently she won that war….for good. She is very inspirational.

I have been friends with KN and JH since we were 5. Out of all my friends they have witnessed first hand the ups and downs of my weight. They have also been cheerleading from the benchess willing me on. When we were growing up they could happily eat a lunch of Kit Kats and chips while I sat there with an apple!! It still amazes me that we have been friends for 35 years. I could easily have hated them and their skinny jeans (not a typo) instead.

My friend KN made me laugh when I was telling her how I could not have alcohol for 12 months she said “sorry Krissy but I am glad I am not fat”! She loves her beer or Canadian Club so it is a good thing that she is blessed with the thin gene.

I have many many work friends who have motivated me and supported me to get to where I am post surgery. LG, TC, MB, AW, JK, BC, NW, SV , CS, JT thanks so much. Two of those friends have fought their own weight demon and won. They are both very inspirational (although very painful to go out to lunch with but admirable in their discipline…I guess there will be 3 of us being painful at future lunches!) . My job is not well paid, and the conditions can be trying but honestly these ladies make turning up worthwhile.

While I was in hospital I received two lots of flowers from them and it made my day.

I also could not believe how supportive many of my husbands family are. They either rang daily or traipsed up to the hospital to visit me and give me flowers.  I really appreciated the fact that they are behind me (and hopefully there will be less of me for them to be behind soon).

My very brave mother drove an hour and a half with my three boisterous kids to visit me. I hadn’t seen them for two days so thanks Mum. I decided to walk my mum and kids down to the hospital lobby. As they were leaving my 4 year old said very loudly “mummy why is your tummy still fat? I thought they chopped it all off”. I think he had visions of someone taking a chainsaw to my considerable middle and slicing it right off. Hmmm some more explaining required there. God I hope he doesn’t talk about this during pre-school news!

So on day 2 I was buoyed by overwhelming support and friendship and it really did make the day go quicker.

A nurse commented on how many flowers I had. I told her that I had got them for being fat. She looked a bit puzzled. That’s the kind of friends and family I have. I had not needed surgery because I was sick. I had done this to myself. They loved me anyway.