Been A While
It has been some time since my last post. To bring you up to date I have now lost a total of 63lbs of which I have lost 40 lbs since surgury on November 12. I struggled through some really bad bouts with head hunger(craving things that I would never had been able to digest).
I continue to decrease my insulin use. I can attest that gastric by pass surgery is a great way of dealing with diabetes. I can also attest to the fact that weight loss is still a long and hard struggle for me.
I am tired of taking very small bites and chewing until all of the flavor in any food is drained. I can only eat small portions of any one food at a time. A couple ounces of turkey and I am done. Drinking water is a long process. I have been better able to swallow my medications but it is still one pill at a time.
I will be starting support session once a month at my program in January and I can hardly wait. I feel it is important to learn from others who have had the surgery. I am on some of the list serves for weight loss surgery and some of the issues I can relate to but many I cannot.
I think writing this blog is a great release, but I have been suffering not so much from writers block as feeling inadequate to the task. Most of what is going on in my life is pretty mundane and I have been reluctant to put it in the blog.
But this is my journey and I should be recording it even if only a couple of people are following my thoughts.
Right now I am having no regrets about the surgery, but I am sure when I hit a plateau I will. It is part of this long and difficult journey. Right now I am struggling with a loss of identity as a fat man. This has been my identity most of my life with a couple of side trips into dieting. Most people only know me as a fat man. At my current weight I still am a fat man and mentally I probably always will be one even if I lose the additional 80 lbs I would like to lose.
With all of its downside and the scorn you get for being a fat man. you also have a distinction from the rest of the world. You certainly don’t look like the standard issue person. You create an indentity that people remember. While not always flattering it puts you apart and sometimes that is not a bad thing.
Please continue reading, because I am still processing all of these changes and will be modifying my thinking as I have more time to contemplate the full impact of what I have done.
I encourage comments and questions and hope to be better about answering.
SMALL VICTORIES
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.
