The Blog

I went to the hospital this morning for the pre-op testing. I filled out some paperwork, asked some questions, and then they took about 2 quarts of blood from me. It was fun.

On the way home, I called my husband to update him on what happened there. I was expecting him to be silent with the same reluctance to talk about anything involving the surgery, but it was different this time. I made the joke about 2 quarts of blood and he chuckled about it. I think he likes it when I keep him updated on every single aspect of this. It’s still going to happen very very soon, and there isn’t enough time for him to get completely into it, but everything helps, and not arguing with him about how wrong he is to react the way he knows how to, is helping.

My in-laws think I am going to the hospital to have my gall bladder taken out. That’s true, but they don’t know that I’m going to come out of surgery and stay a night in the ICU with drainage bags coming out of my stomach. I won’t be eating anything for many weeks. The surgery is on a Wednesday so that morning I’ll drop the kids off there, as usual, and then Charlie and I will go to the hospital. The surgery is going to take about three hours. Afterwards I’m going to be in recovery for a while and then I’ll be spending the night in the ICU. It’s a standard precaution they take because of the type of surgery it is. If something bad happens, it usually happens very quickly and a quick response is what is needed.  Staying in the ICU would provide the quickest response time. Visitation will end at 8pm. If I’m allowed to get up and walk around, I’ll try to walk around and visit some others who will be having the same procedure that day. It will be New Years Eve and Charlie won’t be with me. I’m a little sad about that but there’s nothing I can do about that.  I’ll stay there all day on Thursday, walking around, and drinking an ounce of water every hour. I’ll be able to shower and all that stuff too.  I’ll be put in a private room for Friday so Charlie and the kids and his parents can come visit whenever they want to. I’ll spend Thursday night at the hospital and then, depending on how I feel, I can leave on Friday.

When I get home, I’ll have to be very careful about the kids jumping on me. They are both so playful. The only restriction that I will have is to take care of the incision wounds and no heavy lifting.  I’ll keep myself busy with cleaning the house and straightening up… as long as there is no heavy lifting.

I’m getting butterflies in my tummy.

Just wanted to post an update. Since I last wrote, I’ve been to see the Clinic for final appointments with the psychologist, the nutritionist, and Dr. Sonnanstine.  This was on December 19th. The psychologist wants me to provide her with my records from some follow up sessions I had with another therapist back a while ago. I put in the request to get the records sent to her, but I’m a little worried about it. She didn’t want to clear me unless she was sure that I came off some antidepression/mood altering meds with Dr. supervision. I didn’t. I took them for two to three months, then got tired of having to remember so I just stopped. I went to my next appointment and told the doctor that I had stopped taking them. He didn’t seem alarmed and didn’t tell me anything adverse about it, so after that visit, I just stopped going. Only god knows what he wrote in the chart. He was kindof an asshole anyway, which is mostly why I stopped going to him. All he did was stare at me while I figured out what to say to him. It was annoying. I’m hoping those charts will reach the clinic therapists office today, but I”ll be in the hospital today for my pre-surgery testing so I’ll just stop up there and make sure it gets done.

The nutritionist was impressed at how much knowledge I retained from the classes that i took those few months ago. I’m ready to go through whatever I need to go through food-wise during the recovery and afterwards. I’m committed to this change because I know it will make my life happier in at least one aspect. She gave me some samples of the UnJury protien supplement that I’ll be having an intimate relationship with once my surgery is over. 

I’ve been reflecting a lot on what exactly I expect this surgery to do for me. I have come up with a few things:

• Only someone who’s been fat can tell you how sad it can be to have random people, strangers, and even family, talk about you and treat you like you are sub-human. It gets old and some psychologists would say it is just as bad or even worse than being abused physically. Imagine if you are living with or in day to day contact with someone who just finds it amuzing to constantly insult and hurt your feelings about it.  Well, that’s what I dealt with in school, and I still deal with it now. Except now the words aren’t so loud. I hear people comment about my size all the time, but the things they are saying aren’t as hurtful as in school, they are just more factual. I was walking in the mall the other day and I overheard someone talking about how my shoes are worn down on the sides. It hurt to hear it, but it was a fact. I walk on the sides of my feet because I’m so big. I must look so huge from behind. I wouldn’t know cause I can’t see myself from that angle.
• Another thing I consider will be changing is the cost and overall space my clothing will take up. Smaller clothes means they can fit more in drawers. Less overflow when it comes to the clothes I have. I’ll also be more comfortable in wearing pantyhose and heels. Which I love to wear. Cause I’m a girly girl like that.
• Lower cost in groceries. I eat like a pig right now. I won’t be eating those large quantities afterwards. And I’ll be spending more time feeding my husband good things. Because I have to make/puree/grind up good and healthy foods to eat. So, I’ll make more to serve to him and the girls.
• Activity. I was laying in bed the other night and it just popped into my head that I used to play tennis, and I was really really good at it. I haven’t been able to play because of my weight. I can barely breathe going up the stairs, let alone running back and forth on a tennis court. Our plans to move back to Atlanta should be exciting because I’ll get to play some tennis with my mom again.

Charlie is still having a hard time about the surgery.  Because of the insurance and timing, it was scheduled on somewhat of a ‘fast track’ and he didn’t really get a chance to absorb it.  My surgery is next Wednesday and I think he would have liked to meet with the doctor or at least attend one of my group meetings.  What he fails to remember is that I asked him to do all these things with me back in February when I started pursuing it. He didn’t want to, or couldn’t because of work, so I just went to the meetings and asked all the questions without him. Now he’s mad stating that I never considered the ordeal that he would have to go through with this.  I understand that, but I’ve spent the last 8 months talking about this. There was a lapse of about three months in there where I didn’t really talk about it at all, but that was before UHC changed their policy and I was able to get approved.  I haven’t told his parents about it. I’m not sure if I should just wait until the surgery is all done before I do that. I’m not sure if that’s wrong or not. Charlie’s mom will be out of her mind thinking about it. I think if I just tell them after I’m out of recovery then that would be best. I hope that’s the right decision. They know I’m going in for surgery but they only know the first part, getting my gallbladder removed. I’m going in for surgery at 7:30am on Wednesday and they told me that I would be there until Friday, possibly Saturday, depending on how I feel. Actually, now that I think of it, I should tell them before I go to the hospital. They’ll worry, but they need to know before hand. It’s just the right thing to do.

I am realizing that I don’t really care too much about what other people think about me going through with this surgery. I don’t care if people are worried about me. The only thing I care about is me not being a burden on people and making sure that the kids are taken care of while I’m in the hospital. I want my husband to just see that and help me with that. I know it sounds selfish to want him to give so much without questioning me, but that’s what I want. I don’t want to by psyched out about this surgery. It’s a major surgery and I’m going to feel like shit. It’s all very valuable to me and I want it to happen.

I just ate this sandwich for lunch and it was great. It comes with chicken and a nicely mixed spinachy pesto-like spread. I had mine with a tiny bit of mozzerella, tomatoes, lettuce.

I highly recommend it.

Update: It gave me the poops…. I’d eat it again though.

Well, it’s been a bit of time since I last wrote so I’ll catch up on this personal documentary.

Last week, on Friday, I had another gall bladder attack. I had eaten some holiday chocolates and unfortunately, they triggered the unending and unbearable pain that I can only imagine is similar to a heart attack.  I tried to stay at work, but ended up bawling and going home. On the way home, I called the doctor and they said to go to the hospital. I called my husband to let him know and he seemed to get mad at me about it. I felt as if he was angry at me for inconveniencing him with all of my problems.  I was in a lot of pain and I was scared. I was calling him to get his input on what I should do. He never gave me his input, he just told me how pointless it would be to go to the hospital if they aren’t going to do anything. I’m not sure what I don’t like about him saying that, but it just seems to me that if you’re on the phone with your spouse and they are crying in pain, then you would suggest that they do whatever it would take to get the problem resolved. Maybe I’m just taking things wrong.

So, regarding the GB surgery. The last I had heard from them was about three weeks ago when they pretty much told me to wait until someone called me to scheduled surgery. So, finally today I get that call.

My surgery is scheduled for December 31st, 2008. Quite symbolic of a new year I would say.  I have no idea what to think right now. I believe that I need to start eating like I am going to have to eat after the surgery.  But then again, I’m going to not be able to eat anything after surgery. The ‘Last Supper’ dilemma has begun.

Before I actually get to the GB surgery, I need to do a couple of very very important things. I understand that I have some kind of addiction, or dependence, on the way food makes me feel. When I get upset, I grab onto it like a teddy bear and use it to comfort me and make me feel less alone. I also grab it and shake it and tear it apart because it’s there and it’s something on which I can take out my aggression. 

My husband and I sit in the evenings and talk for sometimes up to an hour about what to have for dinner. ‘What do you want for dinner?’, ‘I don’t know, what do you want?’. This goes on for a while until we just give up and order something out. This gets quite expensive and very aggravating. We’re extremely fat because of it too. My poor kids, they have no idea what it’s like to eat at the dinner table. We eat in front of the TV. It makes a horrible mess and we’re so ghetto we hardly pick up after it. The carpet under the coffee table looks horrendous. This goes back to my previous post about being lazy. When you look like crap, and feel like crap, you stop caring about other stuff around you looking like crap. It’s all a downward spiral of sad and pathetic loser-like behavior.  I’m way worse than my husband about it.

The thing I need to figure out, is exactly what it is about food that makes me feel better about anything. I use food to comfort my feelings, but usually afterwards, my physical being feels horrible. So, am I cow-towing to my brain and neglecting my body? I would say the answer to that is yes. So, what I need to figure out, is how to get my brain and my body on the same page. My body knows that with exercise and a healthy diet, my body feels good. I’m more comfortable, I feel less ogre-like.  What tells my brain that exercise and a healthy diet are good?  How does my brain feel good exactly?  There is pride that my brain would feel after deciding not to eat that huge bowl of ice cream, or the pride I would feel after walking two miles on the treadmill. Pride would be immediate. So, the immediate satisfaction for my brain would be pride, and the immediate satisfaction for my body would be less discomfort.  Food has now and in the past provided immediate mental comfort with delayed physical discomfort. I want food to provide less mental comfort and more physical comfort, which is the way it should be. I want to eat because my body needs food, not because my brain needs comfort. Everything just got jumbled and all mixed up in my brain about what food is supposed to be about.

If I don’t get that under control, the surgery is not going to be successful. For me personally, the pain and discomfort that will come with eating improper foods (at the beginning anyway) will be a strong deterrent, but after my stomach is healed, then I need to have the tools and mental strength to understand the consequences of abusing food. Otherwise, I will be right back where I started, only worse. I can’t imagine there is anything worse than looking in the mirror and realizing that you just gained back over 100 pounds, after having gastric bypass surgery. Where do you go from there?

It’s amazing how food really has an affect on your moods and overall physical and mental well-being. I chose not to eat a big dinner last night and amazingly enough (sarcasm intended), I slept comfortably and didn’t feel like total crap the next morning. I sware sometimes when I wake up I feel as if a big mass is stuck at the bottom of my stomach. I imagine it to be the previous night’s dinner that never made it down the tubes before I went to bed.  It’s no wonder someone would feel so bad waking up with that inside them.

Here’s something interesting I read at mytotalhealth.com (http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/how-food-affects-mood.html) regarding proteins and carbohydrates and how they chemically break down and change the chemicals in your body.

• Boost your alertness with protein. Protein foods are broken down into their amino acid building blocks during digestion. One amino acid, called tyrosine, will increase the production of dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine. These neurotransmitters are known for their ability to increase levels of alertness and energy. No one eats pure tyrosine, but eating foods high in protein will give you a slight mental boost. High protein foods include fish, poultry, meat, and eggs. If you can’t eat those, try high protein foods that also contain significant amount of carbohydrates, such as legumes, cheese, milk, or tofu.
• For relaxation and anti-stress, eat carbohydrates. Eating carbohydrates will trigger the release of insulin into the blood stream. Insulin goes about clearing all the amino acids out of the blood, with the exception of tryptophan. Tryptophan is an amino acid that normally gets crowded out by other amino acids in its attempt to cross the blood brain barrier, but when its competitors are out of the way, it enters the brain en mass. Once in the brain, the tryptophan is converted to serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that has the effect of reducing pain, decreasing appetite, and producing a sense of calm, and in too large a quantity, inducing sleep. Research has shown that dieters tend to become depressed about two weeks into a diet, about the time their serotonin levels have dropped due to decreased carbohydrate intake. Healthy carbohydrate foods to turn to for anti-stress include whole grain breads and crackers, whole grain pasta, rice, cereal, and fruits. …(continued at  (http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/how-food-affects-mood.html) …..

I weigh 304 pounds as of this morning, December 9, 2008.

I have never weighed this much. I feel like the inside of my body is weighing me down. My back and chest are in constant pain from Gall Stones. I was supposed to have my gallbladder removed months ago but I never went back. I’m hoping they will be able to remove it when they perform the Gastric Bypass.

I wear a size 3X in pants and in shirts. My shirts I order from a catalog because I can’t find shirts long enough to cover my huge hanging stomach. My pants I get from Wal-Mart. They’ve apparently started designing pants that cater to people with huge hanging stomachs.  I have dark spots on the sides of my face where the fat has bulged out from my cheeks. I have a very large double chin. My face is swollen to the point of not looking like my face anymore.

The Pain. I am in constant pain and discomfort. The pain is a symptom of my gallbladder issues and the discomfort is from weighing over 300 pounds.  I can’t sit comfortably unless I am leaning backward or forward with my legs sprawled out. Needless to say I never wear my skirts anymore. I used to love wearing my long skirts. I felt so pretty. Not anymore though. I wear the same kind of pants and rotate among 6 different shirts. The same thing day after day.  I wear comfortable shoes, and they are rather nice looking, but of course I don’t wear heels because my back would buckle. Flats for me. Always.  My pants are pulled up above my waste because that’s the only place where they will actually stay up. Any lower and I have to constantly fight with keeping them up above my huge hanging belly fat. I see guys that wear their pants underneath their apron of huge hanging belly fat and I don’t understand why that seems more comfortable to them. I can’t sleep anymore. I toss and turn all night because I can’t breathe or because my back and stomach are killing me.  If I lie on my back, I feel pressure under my chest and also start snoaring unbelievably loud. I snore anyway though. It doens’t matter which position I sleep in.  I am a belly sleeper, but because my stomach is so big, it’s pushing my lower back into the air, causing my back to arch which gives me insanely painful muscle cramps in my sides and when I wake up I feel like someone has jabbed an ice-pick under my ribs.

I am lazy. I am always tired and therefore don’t do anything around the house. I used to keep a clean house. I used to not have clutter everywhere and I used to like to keep the bathrooms and floors clean. I used to not get out of breath running the vacuum cleaner and I used to pick things up off the floor if I stepped on or tripped over something.  My children are learning horrible habits from me right now.

My marriage is in shambles. We aren’t intimate. We aren’t active. We look at each other with sadness. He looks at me and I feel like he’s given up. I look at him and I feel like we could be so much happier. It’s so simple to make him happy, but something inside me is sad and depressed. I have made him sad and depressed in some ways.  I am hurt though. And I feel like I will be hurt again. I’ve gone through a lot of in my relationship with my husband. I feel like I stood by him through a lot of painful and hurtful times. I feel like I’ve lost myself. I feel like we could be so much happier if I didn’t feel so horrible about myself. I can see how it’s not so fair for me to neglect him just because I feel that way.

Work. I’m good at what I do. I’m smart. I’m clever. And I’m a leader. But people don’t see that in me. They see a smart, clever clown who is good to make people laugh and bring up an interesting point now and then. My size is distracting and unprofessional. Many underestimate the strengths of fat people. I do, and I’m fat.

Self Image. I feel like I would be beautiful if I didn’t have so much weight hiding me.  I am pretty and funny and attractive and popular. I am not able to be the person I know I am.

These are facts that I have lived with for a very long time. These things depress me, but they don’t make me hate myself. I love myself. I love myself enough to know that my appearance is going to change and that the people around me are going to change the way they look at me. I am so looking forward to when that happens. But when it does, I’m also going to remember that I’m just me. I’m the same me that was here before and I’ll be the same me that was here afterwards. I have habits that need to change, and this surgery isn’t going to change them for me. I have a mind that needs to be trained, and this surgery is going to help me with that. As I shrink, I will become more and more motivated to take advantage of my lost size. Working out, playing with my children, being active and intimate with my husband. All these things are important to me. All of these things are the reason I’m about to go through this adventure with my body. Through the good times and bad, I will remain focused on the new things that I am able to do, and let go of the things that no longer support a healthier me.

I want to call the doctor so badly right now.  I think they’d yell at me though.

Well, on December 2, I was approved for gastric bypass.

I’ve been pursuing approval for a little over 7 months now. The doctor had submitted my information for approval right at the beginning but I was almost immediately denied because United Health Care required 5 years of documented  history of obesity. I was about 2 years short of that. I have been morbidly obese for many years, but had never really experienced any of the co-morbidities that are so common. Until now.  So, I had been making more regular visits to my PCP so I could be prepared with the documentation they needed. I called the doctor’s office to talk to the insurance handler about changing insurance and she said that she was going to go ahead and submit my information one more time.

While I was waiting for that submission to go through, I had to make the decision on health insurance. My husband’s employer had their open enrollment. I submitted on October 27th, and I had until the 31st to make a decision on health care options.

A week later, I got a denial. This made me sad, but it didn’t surprise me because I knew I hadn’t had the 5 years of documented history. Surprisingly though, the letter stated that I was denied because they were missing the letter stating my psych clearance, which I had gotten during the program classes.  Also in that letter is when I read that UHC now required only two years history. I called the psychologist’s office to get the letter and they submitted everything again in an appeal and I was approved.

Now, I can’t stop thinking about it. The doctor’s office hasn’t called me yet to setup the surgery. I called them the day after I found out I was approved and they told me that it would be about two weeks before I would get that call. That’s two weeks after they actually get the letter from the health insurance company approving the surgery.