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My journey through VSG surgery

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WLS try number three

I've been rejected for surgery twice now (once on the day of surgery) due to health concerns that I won't bore you with. I'm trying one more time. I found a doctor about an hour away who might be willing to work with me, provided he gets letters of clearance and the 2 week liquid diet I'm on improves my lab scores.   The 2 weeks were technically up yesterday, but because of the long weekend I have to wait until Tuesday to get my blood drawn. The surgeon also wants me to get a fibroscan of my liver, to see if it's shrunk. I've been trying to schedule this fibroscan for 2 weeks, and so far nada. I spoke to someone at the hospital Friday who said that even after the test is ordered, I'll have to wait a week to have it for insurance reasons. I'm really hoping the surgeon doesn't make me stay on this liquid diet all the way until whenever I can get the fibroscan! Ingesting nothing but diet drinks and protein shakes is making me nuts. Yesterday was my birthday, and it was a pretty big bummer not to be able to have anything but liquid.   I'm trying very hard to be positive, and view this as training for when I eventually get the surgery. I'm sure I'll be frustrated by how little I can eat then, too. I'm just trying to deal with the hunger a little bit at a time . . . I'll tell myself that I can cope with it for 15 more minutes, and then at the end of that time I'll focus on 15 more. I'm also trying to point out to myself when I'm just head hungry--which happens a lot. Even on the scale of liquid diets, mine is fairly strict, and I'm sick of everything on it. I crave stuff, but that's head hunger. I do not actually need pizza or Chinese food to survive. I watch a lot of DVD's and take naps to suck up time.   Even still, the end of this liquid diet can't come too soon for me!
G33kg1rl

G33kg1rl

0
 

Why it will be worth it

I'm not too sure if anyone reads these blogs, so I'm mostly writing this for my future self. I want something to look back on so that I can see progress and feel like I made the best decision for myself.   Life at almost 200 pounds overweight is not so hot. Everything hurts, all the time, especially my back and my legs. Climbing stairs is a minor torture, and picking things up off the floor is almost beyond me. It's hard to put on my socks. It's hard to clip my toenails. I can't rush out to the store and buy a last-minute outfit for some unexpected event, because even the "fat lady stores" don't stock my size. I have to order things off the internet. Putting on seat belts is hard. Clipping my toenails is hard. I have high cholesterol, fatty liver disease, severe sleep apnea, and borderline diabetes. Walking anywhere is so painful that I've thought about zipping around stores in one of those electric carts, but I'm not yet ready to be "the fat lady on the cart" that people snap pictures of on their cell phones and send to their friends. I've only been this heavy for maybe 7-8 years, and it's already wreaking havoc on my body. God only knows how I'd feel in 10 or 20 years if I didn't do something drastic now. If I'd even be alive in 10-20 years.   I realize surgery is going to hurt. It might hurt a lot, and there's a chance that it'll hurt for a long time. I've read some pretty hair-raising stories on these forums. But being really, really fat hurts too.   If I start to regret the surgery in the future, I hope I look back on this entry and remember.
G33kg1rl

G33kg1rl

2
 

8 Days Until Surgery

I have just over a week to go and I am totally freaking out. Too nauseated to eat much, too jittery to sleep. I don't know how I'm going to put up with another week of this. I don't know what my problem is--I don't even have a strict pre-op diet to follow. The surgeon's office told me to just stick to clear liquids for 24 hours before surgery. Other than that, I can still eat what I want. Well, okay, I could eat what I wanted if I weren't sick from nerves.   I'm an avowed coward, and I keep worrying that I'm going to be in terrible pain. For complicated reasons, I can't take Tylenol, and NSAIDs will be off-limits post-surgery. My hepatologist's office seems to think I'm just going to "tough it out." AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ::deep, rattling wheeeeze:: . . . ha. I get my whole mouth numbed up just to have my teeth cleaned. If they're going to kick me out of the hospital without pain meds, I'll just insist on staying in the hospital an extra day or two, nursing my drip. From what I hear, I should be okay after the first few days. I just don't want to be lying there feeling like someone stuck a knife into my belly 5 times. (They will actually have stuck a knife in my belly 5 times--I just don't want to feel like it.)   I also have a collection of rampant What-Ifs running around my brain. What if I feel so sick afterward that I can't eat or drink? What if I make a wrong move and pop my stitches? What if I have a leak? What if my currently-supportive family gets annoyed with taking care of me before I'm able to do things on my own? After all, I'm not supposed to lift more than 5 pounds for 6 weeks. That's a lot of fetching and schlepping to delegate to the relatives. What if I have disastrous complications and just keel over and die?   I know that some of these things are not terribly likely, and that in my case the risks of the surgery are less than the risks of doing nothing. But damn, I am a nervous, twitching wreck.
G33kg1rl

G33kg1rl

0
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