I remember about 11 years ago receiving a phone call from a marketing person that wanted to know if anyone in the household needed to lose 100lbs or more. At the time I probably could have lost 100lbs to get to a normal size and so I answered yes. When the person told me they were calling to offer me free stomach stapling surgery I quickly without a second thought said “no thank you” and then told my husband about the call and we chuckled a little about how dangerous that was and that you’d have to be crazy to want to risk your life in surgery for something that with a little will power could be done without. OK, so call me crazy. It’s now 11 years later and I’m still overweight, more than 100lbs and my health is starting to fail. I am on medication for high blood pressure, acid reflux and should be on medication for diabetes but did not bother going to the doctors for testing because I knew that my upcoming surgery would cure that. I am also experiencing heel spurs (cause unknown) and pain in my right arm from an auto accident on November 6th, 2002. I read about Carnie Wilson in People Magazine and started thinking this surgery idea might not be so bad, look how great she is doing! Then I heard about a friend who was considering it and then she did have it. I saw her 2 months post-op in July 2002 and she had already lost 67 pounds! Now I was really interested in the surgery so I asked my doctor about it. I left work early on a Tuesday and decided to stop at the post office on the way home. I happened to receive a package in the mail from Umass with all the information I needed to get started in my endeavor. As luck would have it, the first requirement was to attend two meetings that are only held once a month (the 2nd Wednesday of each month) at Umass Hospital on Lake Avenue in Worcester, and my first meeting would be the very next day. The requirements are as follows: Your bmi (body mass index) must be 40 or greater, mine was 46. You must attend 2 meetings (2 month process-approximately 200 people at these meetings) Once you’ve attended the 2 meetings you can call and have them add your name to the list, then you have to wait for them to call you to set up your first appointment with the behavioral medicine department. They will call you within approximately 3 months (the waiting list is very long as this surgery is becoming so popular). Once your name is on the list it’s pretty much carved in stone that you must wait your turn no matter what your medical condition at the time. If you are 10th on the list and they just called person #9 to give them an appointment which could be 3 months later there is still the slight chance of getting in sooner. This happened to me, somebody changed their mind and cancelled so I being the next person on the list got their appointment which was scheduled for October ????, 2002 and I took it gladly. At my first appointment with the surgeon on November 19th, 2002 I didn’t meet the surgeon himself but met with his assistant-not exactly sure of her title but she was very nice. They weighed me in, briefed me on the surgical procedure and asked what my major concerns about the surgery were. Then the told me I had to meet with the dietician and the behavioral med. departments and have all paperwork forwarded to them before I could set up my next appointment to meet with the surgeon. The surgeons office called to schedule an appointment with the dietician they are familiar with and a date was set for January 15th at 9:00am. That seemed about 100 years away at the time. I met with the Psychologist on Oct ??? (the appointment cancelled by someone else) and proceeded to fill out paperwork (a lot of which felt like triplicate duplication). The entire appointment lasted a little over 2 hours. The psychologist then needed me to meet with the dietician, keep a food journal for a couple of weeks and get a 2nd appointment with her because we ran out of time. My follow-up appointment was scheduled for November 26th, 2002. I met with Dr. Sharenow (the psychologist) on November 26th and the appointment seemed to be going great until I mentioned the fact that I thought I was eating more than normal knowing that soon I’d be unable to eat very much. That was all I needed to say to unfortunately discover, you are often required to attend another months worth of behavioral medicine group classes meetings. These classes are held weekly, they try to teach you how to eat slowly and to be more aware of your eating habits. Though they are informative, they also prolong the process. If after the first set of classes the psychologist feels you are not ready you may be required to take additional classes. Dr. Sharenow made it a manditory requirement for me to attend one months worth of classes. They were already booked up for the December classes so she scheduled me in for January. At this point in time I began to feel very depressed because of the time and waiting involved. I am not a very patient person, I felt like this was killing me. It was the first time I’d ever actually experienced real depression. I had never had that feeling of someone else having control over my destiny like Dr. Sharenow seemed to have and seemed to enjoy (though that was just my feelings and should not be taken too literally). Me not being patient, I had to try to get an appointment with the dietician sooner so I left my name at the Barre Health Center just in case and I lucked out with another cancellation. I now had a dietician appointment on December 20th at 3:00. This particular dietician delt only with pre-op diet and not post-op but that was OK with me. Once I had the appointment with the dietician and had scheduled the eating classes in January I called the surgeons office to schedule an appointment (this is still 12/20/02) figuring that it would be in February after my classes and all the information they needed would be available. The appointment was set for January 23rd at which point I asked the receptionist if the fact that I had those classes in January would be a problem and she said no. The classes were held Monday evenings after work from 5:30 to 7:00pm, they sometimes ran a little late but not very often. There were approximately 15 people in the class. The classes were informative but didn’t make or break my dietary plan. Even though I found myself eating more because I knew it wouldn’t be long I wasn’t gaining any weight. On January 22nd I received a call from the surgeons office telling me they hadn’t received any paperwork from the dietician or the psychologist. Without this paperwork I could not keep my appointment with the surgeon. I told them that I hadn’t finished the classes and that I highly doubted Dr. Sharenow would “sign off” on me. I emailed Dr. Sharenow anyway and she was reluctant at first but decided to let me be. She emailed the surgeon and his receptionist to say I had completed all requirements in her department (even though I still had a follow-up with her and one more class to attend). The dietician sent her information immediately upon my first request. I met with Dr. Griffey on January 23rd and he was very nice. He must have read what my major concerns were regarding any complications with the surgery because he tried to reassure me that they had come a long way in the anesthesia department and I shouldn’t worry about that aspect. My biggest fear was not coming out of the anesthesia. Immediately after my appointment I called to schedule a surgery date. A tentative date was set for April 9th, 2003 pending insurance approval. Now I just needed to pray that the insurance would cover this procedure for me. I had done a lot of research throughout this entire procedure via the internet at www.obesityhelp.com. I found that if I had a letter, written from me to the insurance company and had the surgeon’s office submit it with their request it might speed up the approval process. The norm is for the insurance company to reject the first request and then approve the second request, which would be accompanied by the personal letter. It worked and I was approved in exactly one week from the date the request was submitted. I knew the approval time because I called the insurance company daily to see if any requests had been submitted. They were very helpful and friendly and didn’t mind my calling which was quite a surprise to me. Exactly one week after they had received the request (at which point I stopped calling) the surgeons office called to say I was approved. I was so happy. Things were really starting to happen. It wasn't long before I started to get nervous and scared. Throughout the process I was pretty open with almost everyone I knew and told everybody up front about my journey. I found that most people were happy, some were sad or worried. My family, thank God, was very much behind me and happy for me. Toward the end of the year (December and into January) I started to wonder if telling people was the right thing to do. Many people would come up and ask if I had a date yet and ask how it was going and that only added to the irritation of trying to be patient. On a positive note-when I was only days away from surgery and my mind started to think that perhaps this was too drastic a step, I remembered all those people I had told, there was no way I was going to run around telling everyone I chickened out! This was a done deal. Now the hard part begins- The day before surgery I was instructed to not eat the entire day, clear liquids and broth only. This is apparently their method of cleaning you out. Well it worked. I lost 10 pounds that Tuesday and went to bed with a pounding headache. I felt much better when I woke up early on Wednesday morning. We headed off to the hospital. In the meantime I am still in denial and won’t believe this is all real until they knock me out. I was admitted and brought to a series of rooms where I disrobed and waited to be operated on. They came and got me about an hour later and wheeled me up to another room where there were several people being prepped for surgery. My surgeon had a really cool patriotic bandana on which I found to be uplifting. When they brought me to anesthesia the last thing I remember after being told to take deep breathes was a sudden loss of being able to breath. I remember saying that I couldn’t breath and being very frightened and that was it. The lights were out. The surgery took about 4 ½ hours and went pretty smoothly except for my liver having a huge fatty lobe that needed to be pinned up out of the way and somehow a vein was severed in the process so it needed to be sewed together again. When I awoke I had several people standing over me yelling my name. I was coherent in no time and my first visitor showed up shortly after, my Aunt. Then my husband arrived (he had to wait for my Aunt to leave) and stayed with me. I had a tube going down my nose and into my stomach. This tube was sucking blood from my stomach I guess. It was not a pleasant experience and it hurt when they pulled it out. I also had a tiny cut under my stomach fold that I had put some bacitracin on. I could feel the dampness in my skin fold and couldn’t wait to get washed up. The first really bad feeling I experienced was not being able to drink anything, water, ice chips, nothing. I could use a cup of ice water to swab a sponge across my lips and that’s all. When I finally was allowed to drink I was only allowed 1oz of water per hour but at least I got something! The pain pump came in very handy. I think I used it more to help me sleep than to kill the pain. Not that there wasn’t any pain, there was, but it wasn’t that bad, it only prevented me from being able to sleep. There were three shifts of nurses each day, some were happy and helpful and other were nasty and made you feel like you were putting them out when you needed something. I made sure and rang the bell whenever I needed anything, especially water! When it was finally time for my first foods I was brought sugar free jello-yuck, ate a couple of bites and didn’t want anymore. Next they brought me beef broth. Well after the anesthia I found that my sense of smell was hightened 10 fold so to drink the broth was out of the question. I actually felt as though I were out in the pasture with a cow, I could even smell the hay! After being home for a few days and on day 6 or 7 they gave me a verbal ok to try cottage cheese. The carnation instant breakfast was started to wear out its welcome. The cottage cheese was good and I kept it down. I made the mistake of salting my first dish though and it was too salty to eat so I had to throw it away. The first thing I drank that tasted like heaven was V-8 juice which I really like anyway and the salt was so nice, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. After my successful attempt at cottage cheese I decided to try a fried scallop and a litte piece of fried fish with the batter removed, they tasted great and didn’t upset my stomach. The next day was Easter Sunday and we headed to my mothers for dinner. I had a tablespoon each of potato and squash and a tiny piece (what used to be ½ a bite) of turkey and ham. I ate that and felt very full but didn’t overeat to feel too full. I knew it wouldn’t be long until I could eat just about anything but felt a growing concern about the quantity of food that I could eat without feeling too full. I would often get that feeling after just a few bites of well chewed food, especially meat. My first attempt at any sizeable amount of meat was a small steak fried in butter from Schwanns, their meat is pumped with juices and tends to be more tender than the store bought. I was so happy I was able to eat about 4oz over a 4 hour period, steak has always been a favorite food of mine and I was hoping to still be able to eat it. Although now whenever I try eating any steak or chicken it’s not worth the bother. It just doesn’t settle easily. I am now 7 weeks post op and down 44 pounds. I am finding that meat of any kind is not sitting too well in my stomach. Just a few bites, chewed to mush, makes me feel too full and generally yucky. I am eating things that I know I shouldn’t but the stuff I should be eating doesn’t sit well. My goal is to at least consume 50 grams of protein a day. There is no way possible for me to do this without the aid of protein drinks. I have found a drink that contains 55 grams in one 8oz serving (ProBlend 55, available on-line or at any GNC store). The shakes come in vanilla or chocolate but both have an annoying taste, almost like drinking flavored chalk or something. I usually add 2 scoops of the powder to 8 oz of water (instead of milk-found it tastes better) and then I shake it to death, pour it over ice, and drink it with a straw so I don’t have to taste it as much. I’m also supposed to be taking one chewable multi-vitamin, I have flintstone chewables at home and centrum ones that I keep at work. I have to take a vitamin B12 and 2 regular strength rolaids per day. I try not to forget my supplements but sometimes I do forget. I should be drinking at least one of those shakes per day also but the taste is so annoying I usually drink one every other or every three days, when I start to feel weak. I have found that I can eat junk food, even potato chips, which is not a good thing but at the same time I don’t feel it’s a bad thing. At least I feel like I’m getting something as a treat. I only eat a small amount, knowing that I probably could eat the whole bag if I wanted but I didn’t go through such a risky surgery just so I could mess it up with junk food. I love sugar free frozen popsicles, which is surprising because I usually don’t go for the fake sweeteners. My blood sugar levels returned to normal shortly after I had lost about 30 pounds and I also stopped taking the zantac for acid reflux. I will have my blood pressure checked soon. I would love to get off the atenelol medication for that. I have heel spurs, which are very painful on my right foot. That has made excersize very difficult for me. I also have an injured shoulder from an accident last November 6th involving 4 vehicles on Route 290 in Worcester. On April 16th I started to experience severe back & neck pain, upon which my chiropractor who I’d been seeing about my shoulder and arm scheduled me for an MRI for both areas, my shoulder as well as my back and neck. The MRI is scheduled for June 7th so that is preventing me from even doing arm excersizes to try to tone as I go along. It’s now 9 weeks and I’ve lost exactly 50 pounds since April 8th (day before surgery). People are starting to comment on my weight loss and telling me how great I look. I’m starting to feel better, and starting to finally get a little more energy. I had my follow-up with the dietician. At first she was concerned that I was losing weight too fast and not getting enough nutrients but after speaking with me she realized that I’m doing things right. I’m taking my multi-vitamin (and then some) my calcium and my vitamin B-12. Drinking as much as possible while still maintaining enough room for food at least 3 times per day (even if it is only a few bites at a time). I’m finding that I can get around easier and can even fit in public seating a little easier. I’ve already had to clear out my size 26/28 clothes and bring back my old 18/20 and 22/24 sized clothes. I have dieted so many times that I finally learned not to give away my clothes every time I lost weight because I’d always gain it back and then have to go out and buy new clothes again. I think I’m safe right down into size 16, at which point I will need to go shopping! I’m very happy that I’ve had the surgery and know deep in my heart this was the right decision. This time I'm giving the clothes away!!! OK-IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I'VE UPDATED: TODAY IS OCTOBER 20, 2003 I HAVE LOST A TOTAL OF 91LBS!!!!!! I ACTUALLY GOT TO SHOP IN THE REGULAR SIDE OF THE FASHION BUG YESTERDAY-WHAT A FEELING THAT WAS. TRIED ON A PAIR OF BLACK SILK XLG PANTS AND THEY WERE TOO BIG!!! YEE HA!! I FEEL GREAT, HAVE LOTS OF ENERGY NOW AND LIFE IS GOOD. I AM A LITTLE SAD THAT MY HAIR IS FALLING OUT AT A PRETTY GOOD CLIP WHICH WAS TO BE EXPECTED AND WILL GROW BACK BUT IT'S NOT A GOOD FEELING TO LOOK IN THE SHOWER DRAIN AND SEE ALL THAT HAIR. I HAVE NOT STARTED TO EXCERSIZE YET BUT HOPE TO SOON. I LOVE MY NEW LIFE AND HOPE TO HAVE PICTURES UPDATED SOON. KEEP THE FAITH AND PRAISE GOD!!!!! LIFE IS GOOD 7/6/04 Down 130lbs to a great weight of 134. I wear anywhere from a size 8 to 12 and still feel great. Can do anything I want for excersize without dreading it-Next step is skin surgery. Will update after that! Keep the faith and stay happy. MARCH 1, 2005 Everything is done, I'm healthy, happy and closing in on my 2 year anniversary! I had abdominoplasty and breast lift with augmentation last September and love my new body. I squeezed into a size 5 jeans recently-I can't believe it myself. I've been talking to lots of people that are getting or considering this surgery and yes I'm all for it. Sure there are risks but there are more risks staying morbidly obese. I can eat whatever I want now, even steak (good quality and careful chewing of course). I go a little overboard with the sweets that I've worked my way up to but watch the scale every day. I try not to let my weight get above 140. If it starts to get higher I just take a little easier the next day (skip a donut or two lol, seriously). My bad habits right now are coffee and cigarettes which I started smoking again after quiting for 10 years back on June 4 of last year when Joe died. It just takes that one butt and you get back into it....I'll quit eventually, I've come to far to let them get the best of me. I started working out a little but can't seem to make the time in my busy day to do it on a regular basis...poor excuse I know. I'll get some good excersize when the spring comes around I'm sure. My arms have a little sagging skin as well as my upper thighs but I don't care, not out to look like barbie, just happy to be thin. Had a dream recently that I still looked fat even though I knew I wasn't, it was my first weight dream, very strange. Sometimes I'll catch my reflection in a window or mirror and feel surprised to see a thin me. I still feel the same on the inside even though I look very different on the outside. Call or email me anytime, always happy to answer questions. Pictures coming soon!
