Hello everyone...
Well, I'm a few days over 4 months post op now, and boy what a crazy past month and a half or so it has been. This is probably going to be a quite lengthy blog entry, but I have a lot to share, so prepare yourself.
I guess to start off, I should tell you what chain of events happened starting back in the beginning of September. This is when I found out that I was going to become homeless if I staying in Las Vegas, NV. I won't go into detail about the hows and the whys of this, but lets just say it should not have happened. Regardless though, it did happen. This started a downward spiral of sorts into not eating so healthy. Since I was out of work, stopped getting my unemployment a couple of month prior to this time, and my husband was unable to help out as much as he would have liked to, this led to me really only eating what was available to eat that was in the house already. Things like chips, Ramen noodles, and canned spaghetti-o's, to name a few of the unhealthy things that I was putting into my body. Needless to say, I was NOT meeting my daily protein requirement, nor was I getting in most of my other essential vitamins/minerals, although, this is also in part, as well, due to the fact that I ran out of my supply of supplements too.
Skip forward a few weeks to near the end of September, when I made the trek back out to Virginia to take up residence with my husband again. I should have jumped back on the bandwagon here, with my eating habits and such, and did a half assed job, but still was falling short. The husband and myself, started resorting back to some old habits of eating out on most nights, and while this in and of itself is a problem, my entree choices were also an issue, as I wasn't picking the best items from the menu either.
On top of all the stress I've been dealing with the last month and a half or so, I have discovered that losing the 50+ lbs since surgery, that I've been experiencing more and more days of increasing intensity pain, pains in new areas and of different character than my norms, and a few new symptoms to boot. To make matters worse, all the stress and lack of nutrition, have really worn my body out. All the doctors, expect my surgeon, were very enthusiastic about the idea of me losing the weight and were 100% positive that by losing the weight, that it would resolve my pain problems. Boy were they wrong on that one.
Now I know a lot of you will say that the reason for all these new aches and pains is my lack of nutrition, etc. Well, let me stop you there by addressing the fact that the new pains and symptoms started appearing before the beginning of September, when I added a million and one to my stress levels and began eating poorly again. I will vindicate you some by agreeing that the lack of nutrition, stress, etc., is certainly not helping the situation any, however, I am positive that this did not cause it to appear.
As for present timing, I'm pretty well settled back here in Virginia again, and beginning my hunt for a doctor(s) that will be able to help me find out what is going on with my body and help me deal with this pain and my other symptoms. I started with my primary care doctor out here, who decided to try me on Butrans, and while I am willing to try anything to curb this pain and try to have as normal a life as possible, this stuff just doesn't cut the mustard. I gave it a full week, which it says relief may take up to a full 3 days to take effect, and I have gotten nothing good out of this medication. Not only has it not helped at all with my pain levels, it also has brought on intermittent severe nausea and an itchy, red rash where I placed the patch. Now, the rash could be due to the adhesive or the medication, and it's hard to tell which, since I'm not entirely sure. So, I'm waiting for a call back from their office today to find out what they are going to do, plus they are also supposed to be referring me out to a pain management specialist, as well.
I also wanted to address the issue of regret, as recently, I've been getting asked quite a bit if I regret having has the weight loss surgery done. I also watched an interesting documentary recently that addresses the issue of weight loss and it's effect on the perception of a healthy weight in this country. If you have Netflix, I would recommend giving it a watch. It can be found here:
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/America_the_Beautiful_2_The_Thin_Commandments/70209265?trkid=496624
So back to the issue of regret. I wouldn't say I regret it, exactly, but if I had to go back and make the choice again, I can't say with 100% certainty that I would.
1) I can still eat just about anything I want to, just not in the amounts I used to be able to. This can pose a problem in itself, as in if you don't have the willpower to, most of the time, stay away from the types of foods that put you at an unhealthy weight in the first place, getting the surgery will be for not, as it isn't foolproof, and you can regain the weight you lose just by continuing to eat the same types of foods that made you unhealthy in the first place.
2) I've off and on have problems with nausea and vomiting. (way more than I was warned about and/or expected to have) I particularly had a bad time with vomiting throughout the month of September, when my stress levels were higher than they had been in a long time. Pretty much anything I tried to eat, almost immediately was vomited back up. Since I was on some antibiotics for a sinus infection, extremely stressed out and not eating properly, it's hard to tell which of these were to blame for the almost constant vomiting, or if it might have been a combination of things. Since I'm starting to get my eating back on track, and my stress levels are back down, mostly, I haven't had nearly as many problems with the vomiting. One of the other things that kind of goes into this category is when I drink water. My drinking water has to be cold, or there is a good chance I will vomit it back up, and especially true if I drink room temperature water too fast and/or too much at one time. There are times when I just want to sit and gulp water and I can't do that anymore.
3) If I had known before my surgery, that losing the weight would cause me to have more pain from my chronic conditions, in addition to new pains in new areas that are of a new character than my then current normal pain(s), I can certainly tell you that I might have not done this. I had this surgery done to become healthier, and reduce my pain, not cause it to get worse.
So in conclusion for this blog entry, life has been quite crazy the last month and a half or so, and I've had a wide array of emotional "trips" throughout this time as well. Right now, as far as the surgery goes, I'm loving the smaller body I have, I feel more sexy and attractive at times, than I did before I lost the weight. I however regret having it done a bit, only because I was not prepared for, nor did I want to have to deal with more pain than I was in prior to surgery. The other concerns I listed in this blog are up in the air items. They do not influence me to as notable a degree when thinking about if I would go through surgery all over again.
So Anywho... I think that's enough for now. Til next time....
