My Last Refuge - Gastric Surgery

[Robin Uppal 2]

Dear All,

My name is Robin Uppal from North India. I am marketing & sales professional. After struggling with weight loss, I finally took the plunge on 15th June 2012 to get my Gastric Sleeve Surgery done from Apollo Hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab, India through my Surgeon Dr. Arindham Ghosh. His counselling sessions helped me a lot to mentally prepare for the surgery. I weighed 136 Kg before surgery with a BMI of 52!!! I had constant pain in my left knee and blood sugar was going off charts! The idea of surgery scared me but as my sister had undergone the procedure from the same surgeon 7 months ago, her pep talk helped a lot too.

I came to hospital on 14th June and underwent all tests including trial in OT room which was scary. Early morning I was taken to OT at 8.00 am and knocked out by anesthesia and woke up in recovery room around 1.00 PM!!! It was scary to gain consciousness attached to machines all around. I felt heaviness in my chest & my back hurt a lot due to my straight posture. All I could tell my wife when I saw her was to massage my back. The first day post surgery was tough. I was send to my private room around 7 Pm same day and I was walking a bit too!

The pain was not that bad but the discomfit on first day was really tough. I had disturbed sleep, heaviness in chest & some pain even after strong pain killers I was having! The second day things were better and I was only irritated with the Angie up my nose for drainage & the urine pipe! It really tested my patience! I was getting clear liquid diet every 2 hrs but could slowly increase my intake. I was released from hospital on 4th day and felt really good as I had lost 3 kg already & my knee pain was gone too!!!

First week was alright with liquid diet but second week was again sooooo tough as I was getting hunger pangs! I was so sick of all drinks already & didn't know how I will go through few weeks of those! I found that sticking to liquid diet more tough than getting the surgery done! In the second week, I am down 7 Kg already so am motivated to move ahead. I joined back work on 26th of June but am having a tough time with weakness & loss of energy. I feel listless & am having difficulty focussing at work. I have increased my protien drinks (YUK) but not helping much. My doc says its psychological but am having hard time even climbing stairs or holding conversations. Maybe it will get better when i start solid food? God, I can kill someone for food at this moment!!! I have also started getting irritated for no reason at all too! I have lots of patience but looks like I have to work more on it. This all seems so unfair sometimes. I have already started avoiding social occassions as I know food & drinks will be around. I don't allow family members too around me when they are having food!!! I can see my life changing around me & I hope this will all be worth the effort!!!

[MinaT 669]

It will be worth the effort. A lot of the issue is head hunger, but trust me, when you see other's eating, if you ate it the pain would be so not worth it.

Give your sleeve time to heal. My doctor believes in 5 weeks of full liquids before putting food in. At 3-1/2 weeks out my tummy is still swollen, it's visibly swollen and I lost a lot of weight, but my tummy looks like a watermelon still.

I hate shakes, they make me gag, but I do my best with them. Drink as much Fluid as you can. If you can find something called Isopure (not sure if they have in India) it's a clear Protein drink in Green Tea flavor, grape, orange, try those, to help you get down more Protein.

I avoid social occasions too. There's nothing wrong with doing that right now while we are on liquid phase, no reason to subject yourself to feeling tortured. I eat with my family now, and I grumble while they eat their steak and potato, and I'm having a few teaspoons of cream of nothingness, but in the end - it's worth it.

When your tummy is all healed, you will feel better at all social functions, you will be able to eat a little bit, but you will be able to socialize more with a prouder feeling and you won't feel so inhibited.

I never ate at social functions because I was embarrassed to be the fat girl eating. All social occasions, I felt embarrassed to eat in front of others. It's a month or so out of your life which will give you back the rest of your life.

Get some sublingual Vitamin B12 and make sure you take all your chewable Vitamins in. Also, remember this, inside the fat in your body there are hormones, as your body burns fat, these hormones are released through your body, it will cause mood swings, you will cry or get upset easier, and it's just hormones, realize it and move on.

If you ate the food you wanted right now, you would be in so much physical pain and even worse pyschological pain than you would believe.

Believe you are worth this struggle right now, and you can do it! I promise!

[Miriam 50]

Definitely NOT psychological - it took me six weeks after surgery till I regained my energy, and I've heard of others whose bodies only bounced back after three months. Your body has just undergone a huge shock (major surgery) and is continuing to be shocked by the drastic reduction in food intake. It WILL get better, but it might take some time. Then, I can assure you, you will have no regrets whatsoever.