My Bariatric Surgery Adventure

Today was a day of small victories. It’s been over two days since I’ve taken any pain medication.   I’m feeling pretty good other than a twinge once in a while where the surgery took place. Also I had my first visit to the Joslin Clinic to meet with my endocrinologist. I was most anxious about this visit, since I had not not seen her since May and this would be my first visit with  her after surgery.

The other small victory was that when I left the hospital I gained some weight from fluid and weighed about 323 pounds. As of this morning my scale in the bathroom indicated  my weight as 310 pounds a loss of 13 pounds in a little over a week. This in and of itself was a great encouragement for me to continue on what has become a somewhat dull menu of liquids.

When I got to the Joslin,  I registered  and waited for the nurse to take me in. When the nurse finally called me, she put me on the scale and said  my weight was 303 pounds. I knew that was wrong, but I would take it.  Actually I went back and re-weighed myself. We then went through my diminished amounts of medication and she took my blood sugar and my AIC, a measure of your blood sugarlevel over three months.

My endocrinologist  came into the room and after a short discussion was very pleased to see that I had finally, after years of her encouragement, had  finally gone through with bariatric surgery.

She reviewed my blood sugars and actually asked that I reduce the amount of insulin that I take for the 25 units of Lantus to 20 units of Lantus each day. That is a reduction from the 200 units of long-acting insulin I was taking prior to surgery. This is a great victory for me since having the surgery was primarily a way of controlling my diabetes.

The visit ended with an even better surprise when my AIC came in at 5.6 that is normal for people without diabetes. While Jodythinks that my diabetes will go away entirely because of the surgery, I am just encourage by the fact that I am now taking about 1/10 the amount of insulin that I took prior to surgery.

I’ve decided that weight loss surgery is a matter of small successes and small victories as you lose your weight and more importantly as I adjust my medications. Other than a lousy cold, today was a pretty good day.