Rubydoobie

Surgery was July22, 2013; recovery time four weeks. No major problem other than morphine is not my friend.
 
The weight is coming off at a rate I can enjoy. Any faster and I'd have to go to work in a sack. Lol the slow weight loss allows me to purchase a few new clothes. All of my 22-20 size pants don't fit and I can assume my skirts won't either.
 
I don't get upset if the scale does not move. I just look in the mirror and can see the difference in the inches I've lost.
 
Best advise, follow the program outlined by your doctor, go to all follow up appointments, ask when and how often you will need blood work done. Continue to get your fluids in everyday. Take your vitamins and supplements, they are very important. Eat protein first.
 
When you are unsure, ask your doctor. We are all different so the way your doctor may have trained and performed the procedure will be different and the instructions you follow will be different from someone else. That does not make it wrong, just different.
 
Join a support group that is up lifting, I don't stay on this one much any more due to some bad vibes of folks and I've had to block them. I do check in from time to time because there are good people asking great questions and need help. Have more than one support outlet.
 
Lastly don't judge. How and why we became over weight is personal. How we opt to lose the weight is personal. When you start to judge, please stand in front of the mirror to ensure you include yourself in the mix. If anything play it forward, be a good mentor and friend. There are some out there that will truly benefit from it.
 
Stay true to the journey.
 
Karen

I've just had my one year post op check up appointment this morning and I feel very positive after receiving wonderful feedback from my provider. Although my losses have slowed dramatically these last two months, Adam told me that I am 100% successful and ahead of the curve in terms of my success with the surgery.
My husband and I have really been focusing on getting more activity and my daily calories are in the range of 800-1200 a day - with protein first as always. I met with a trainer last week who has set up a program of simple strength training and cardio to help me get to my goal, which is a healthy BMI <25 - at 5'3" that is 140.
 
Hubby, who also had a VSG two weeks prior to my own, is essentially at goal and is focused on building muscle. I am statistically right where Adam projected me to be (175) though the number has been back and forth between 175- 178 these past weeks. Just about all of my co-morbidities are resolved - though osteo-arthritis does not have a resolution but rather is managed, my pain and mobility is astronomically better than it used to be.
 
Adam said that even if I do not lose another pound I am absolutely healthy - and that I have completely turned my health around from what it was 3 years ago. It feels great to know that I have made such great strides - finally, I am getting this monster under control. I showed him the alternate height/weight chart that factors in age and he said that absolutely as we get older it is fine if those numbers are a bit higher - it is still considered healthy.
 
I have a tendency to rip myself to shreds and to look upon myself as a failure, a history of depression, anxiety, and disordered thinking can tend to do that and I had started to do the same thing with my weight loss progress, beating myself up mentally because I had not yet achieved my ultimate goal - feeling like a failure and forgetting to celebrate the magnificent successes I have achieved. Feeling down because of all of the excess skin, the terrible toll so many years of carrying so many excess lbs. does to one's body - feeling guilt that I had done this to myself, defeated.
Feeling that I would never have ultimate success - it was a bit of a reboot to know that I am already a success in the eyes of this medical practitioner who was with me every step of the way with my surgery, the hematocrit levels that dropped to 19, the internal bleeding that followed, the multiple blood transfusions, the incisions that opened up at home when they finally let me return home from the hospital after a week - and sent me back to the ER. I was miserable for about 8 weeks after my surgery - it certainly took me a bit to recover.
 
I feel wonderful now, and am close to goal. I need to cherish the journey and recognize the incredible positive changes that my family and I have made over the past few years. It certainly takes a bit of practice to treat oneself well - just like this ongoing physical metamorphosis, it is a process, and there is no finish line. I will get to that goal eventually

How long has it been? How long since I felt like I was the right size and weight and everything about my body was acceptable?
 
And, bigger question... Where did this bloated, waddling, unhealthy, wide loaded woman come from that keeps showing up in my mirror and in pictures that get taken with my family?
 
Looking in the mirror is so hard, especially in the evenings when I'm getting ready for bed and seeing "all my glory" and realizing I really am as big and ugly fat and tired looking as I feel. Arrrrggghhh!
 
Is that really me? How did I let myself get to this point? I sit in a dressing room, my cute little teenage daughter (13) trying on adorable trendy little outfits and dresses. I see her spin and pose as she gets in a pink princess thing. She walks back in to try another one on. I'm sitting on a bench holding several hangers of other dresses and feeling tired, again. I look over at the mirror and see myself and I lose it. I cry and almost start sobbing right then and there. It hurts so bad. I used to look like her and I thought I was fat. Is that what doomed me to this? Was it because I didn't thank God for how I looked then? Did I take it for granted?
 
 
Honestly, I have thought I was fat from eighth grade (5'7", 130 lbs) when I began to get taller and a little wider in the hips than my little petite and pretty and girly classmates. That's the same age as my youngest daughter. I already hear occasional little comments she makes of herself and things that are not just perfect. I want to make her see how beautiful she is and embrace it!
 
When I look back at pictures from that time in my life (high school years), I wanna go back and slap her (myself) silly for not appreciating how pretty I was. I really had such an adorable figure. No, I didn't have much in the way of boobs, but I had curves in other "right places." I got attention from boys. I looked great and was tall and thin really, until I had my second child at 22.
 
In all truth, I know a lot of the explanations and reasons that I am in this place physically. I know there are a variety of things to blame from four pregnancies, perhaps a few medical causes, nutritionally bad choices, laziness, pain, bad marriage, stress, genetics, environment, and probably a few I haven't read about or dealt with yet.
 
Now in the last three years I come to the point where I have these little break downs like in the dressing rooms multiple times, or getting ready for a night out or to go to church and just sit in my closet and cry and hate myself. I've done it getting out of bed (rather, heaving myself out). Mentally being in a state of fury at my limitations that I know are self-imposed when I try to help my daughter move out of her college apartment and I can't even carry a 15 pound box down a flight of stairs without having to rest 10 minutes and huff and puff like I ran a mile.
 
This place is my "low point"... my "end of the rope". I'm at the bottom and exhausted enough to finally admit I need MAJOR HELP. And THAT is what brought me to WLS and specifically VSG.
 
There is a change in my focus that has helped me transition slowly, day by day from disgust with where I let my weight go and my new found hope and belief in myself I have begun to feed little by little with that hope. I can do this... I can do this... I really can be healthy and fit again. There is a tool I can use that I never really considered. Thanks to where I am in my life, the fact that we have good insurance through my husband's job and the support and encouragement he has showered on me constantly... I'm ready.
 
I'm feeling that by this time next year, I'll be looking in mirrors and pictures and saying "WOW, I knew that pretty girl was still in there somewhere under all the fat."