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My Story

When I had my Gastric Bypass surgery I never thought that I would end up speaking about what some would call the “Reality” of it. I know that there has to be people out there that will benefit from my experiences, good and bad. I never imagined that my life was about to be consumed by dealing with my health on a daily basis. I have always had this notion that once I got skinny that I would be a lot healthier than when I was heavy.

I started this journey in the spring of 2003, at that time I had tried every diet that was out there and that included diet pills, weight loss centers, gyms, etc…So you name, it I did it. Then I started researching RNY weight loss surgery. I discovered that it has the same health risk as having gallbladder surgery…So, how bad could it really be?!…Yeah right, if I knew then what I know now, then I probably would have made a different decision about having this surgery. After the pre-screening process was completed in February of 2004, I was approved to have my surgery in March. I was so elated that I couldn’t stop crying! I was finally going to be thin! That night my husband and I went out and celebrated. I had struggled for so many years with my weight and now it was going to go away. I thought this surgery would make all my problems go away and that everything would be wonderful. Wow, was I naïve!

The doctor estimated that the surgery would take between 2 and 3 hours. The doctor came out of surgery and told my family that I was in recovery and that the surgery was a success. I can vividly remember the moment that I woke up and the realization of what I had done had hit me. My mind kept screaming “how could you let things get so out of control that you had to go to this measure to get your weight back on track?” I just didn’t know how to handle all of the emotions that were going on. This was the beginning of me having to face things in my life that I would normally have masked by eating food.

Looking back, I would say that the first week was probably the easiest it was ever going to be on me and my husband. Because after that week things started happening that they rarely discuss pre surgery. Things like the psychological aspects, protein deficiency, problems with nutrient absorption-pernicious anemia, malnourishment, acid reflux issues, the list goes on and on. Most people are not aware how dramatically things can change when you have this surgery. So, I have begun to chronicle my journey here. I started this website to reach out to others who may be in the same situation, or considering this surgery and looking for another perspective in order to make an informed decision. To make everyone realize that this is not an easy way out, but a life changing decision. And not always with the best results you may assume it will have. On my website, you can follow me as my Doctor(s) and I try to find solutions to all the health issues that I face now; and are welcome to join in with your own experiences in the forum.

Journey of a lifetime...

I started this journey in the spring of 2003, at that time I had tried every diet that was out there and that included diet pills, weight loss centers, gyms, etc…So you name it I did it…I started researching RNY weight loss surgery…I discovered that it has the same health risk as having gallbladder surgery…So how bad could it really be…Yeah right, if I knew then what I know now.then I probably would have made a different decision about having this surgery…Adding to my research I found out that I had to go on a weight loss diet with my family Physician for 6 months so my insurance would cover it…All I had to do was come in once a week and they check my diet and see if I lost weight…Little did they know I wasn’t following a diet, I thought I really want this surgery and if I want it then I’m not going to follow the diet and I’m going to eat whatever I want…Big Mistake, I probably gained an extra 60 pounds by the time I went to have the surgery…Anyway after I started my weight loss regimen, I begin searching for a Bariatric doctor. I found one close to home that was highly regarded as one of the best in the state of Indiana…I booked an appointment and went to his practice when they were having an open house…We got to talk to him and he decided that he would rather do the RNY instead of the Lap Band on me…The Doctor felt that due to my age and the fact that the lap band could slip, I might not have the desired weight loss that I was looking for…He gave me his office number to contact and begin the application process…When I contacted his office they were happy to find out that I had already been following a exercise regimen for the last 6 months…There were a few things I had to accomplished with them before I could have the surgery…The office staff sent me a packet of information to fill out and also make appointments with a couple specialists…

My first appointment was to see a psychiatrist to evaluate how my mental condition was…Hello, can I just say what a joke this was…I didn’t realize how easy it could be to fool a psychiatrist when I wanted something so bad…Little did I know that deceiving was not the best thing for me to do…In my evaluation I can remember the doctor asking me a question about my family history of depression…I lied straight through my teeth and calmly said no, there isn’t a family history of that…The next couple of questions had to deal with how my friends and family would accept the new me and if I felt they would be supportive of my decision…I just told him that everyone would be there for me and that they thought I was making the best choice for me…If he only knew that I had never asked anyone for their opinion on this…I felt that this decision was about me, and no one was going to get in my way…Pretty much that was all he wanted to know…Wouldn’t you think he would like to find out the real issue going on inside of me? He just signed my paperwork and that process was over with… On the way home I kept thinking about the questions that he had asked me and how I thought at the time were so trivial, later on I would realize that maybe he asked me these questions because they would eventually come true…

My next set of appointments had to do with my internal exams…The first one was a GI tract test, in which they make sure your stomach is healthy…I had to drink this awful medicine so that they could see everything on X-ray, and then it was off to do a round of blood work…Secondly they had me do a breathing test which would determine how strong my lungs were…This test went well but I had to take home this device to do breathing exercises for 2 wks straight, to get my lungs open and strong so that I wouldn’t get pneumonia…I thought to myself OK I can do this but the embarrassing part was that I had to wear a breathing mask for 2 wks as well…Talk about looking like a freak, here I was with my breathing tube and mask and I had to go to work looking like this…At this point every one knew what was going on and they of course all gave me their opinions…I ignored them and moved forward with what I thought was my greatest goal in life, and that was to be skinny…

In February of 2004 I was approved to have my surgery in March…I was so elated that I couldn’t stop crying…I was finally going to be thin…That night my husband and I went out and celebrated…I had struggled for so many years with my weight and know it was going to go away…If things would only be that easy for me…I thought this surgery would make all my problems go away and that everything would be wonderful…Wow was I naïve…

The Surgery...

I remember the night before the surgery; the doctor said that all I could have to eat was either beef or chicken broth. You would have thought the last night as a heavy person I could have had a Hamburger, Fries and a chocolate shake LOL…

We left the house around 3:30am. I wasn’t really nervous, just anxious to start my new life. I arrived at the hospital around 4:30am, the hardest part was waiting for them to call my name, because the more I waited the more my anxiousness was turning into nervousness, but my parents were there and were very supportive. They were trying to make me laugh, and if anyone in this world can do that it is my parents. The nurse finally called me back. I met with the anesthesiologist. He asked if I had any questions for him. I said no just don’t kill me. He started laughing... that’s about the time the doctor came in. The nurse gave me a shot to relax me, At this point I was expecting a gurney to take me back to surgery, but instead they just had me walk back. I felt like I was at a crossroad, actually I was… either I was going to die during the surgery, or I was going to die of morbid obesity. I remember getting on the operating table and looking at the staff that was there. I looked so big compared to all of them. It is funny, but I never realized how big I had become until that moment. I was so ashamed that I had let my weight get so out of control.

The doctor estimated that they surgery would take between 2 and 3 hours. At that point they put me under. 1 ½ hours later, the doctor came out of surgery and told my family that I was in recovery and that the surgery was a success. He explained that I had not lost much blood at all, which for me was good to hear.

I can vividly remember the moment that I woke up and the realization of what I had done had hit me. I started to panic and asked the doctor to reverse the surgery. I was freaking out due to seeing all of the tubes coming out of my body; thank god I didn’t have to have a breathing tube put down my throat. I wasn’t mentally prepared for what had happened and it was so hard for me to grasp that my new life was about to unfold.

In about 1 hour after surgery the nurse made me get out of bed to try and walk… this is a part of the recovery process to help ensure that you do not get blood clots. My first experience with walking didn’t go as planned. I didn’t even make it to the door. It wasn’t that I felt pain, but I was so mentally exhausted. My mind kept screaming “how could you let things get so out of control that you had to go to this measure to get your weight back on track?”

The second day was stranger than the first… I remember they had brought me something to eat. It was the start of my 6 week liquid diet. They brought in this 2 oz cup and I just thought “you have to be joking, that is not going to fill me up.” To my surprise I was only able to finish 1oz. I then thought “how was I supposed to drink 64 oz of water a day?” They also started in incorporating baby food into my diet. I could handle it but food did not appeal to me at this time. They also brought in some grape juice, bad mistake… that is when I had my first dumping experience. I just remember feeling dizzy and sick all at once. After that happened I realized that I would need to watch everything that I put into my mouth.

After the first few days had past, things went great. I would get up and walk every hour or so. The nurses wanted you to walk but I was taking it to the extreme. I just didn’t know how to handle all of the emotions that were going on and walking was a way I could get it off of my mind. This was the beginning of me having to face things in my life that I would normally mask with eating food.

I did end up meeting some really good friends while I was there. I even met a lady that was having the surgery for the second time. In that first week I lost15-20 lbs. My mind could not grasp how much weight I had lost, I still felt like a fat person that was struggling with food…

The beginning of a new life...

The day finally came that I got to go home…I walked out of there thinking things were going to get better…I was so nervous having to make such a long drive home…My insides felt like jello and I was afraid they would fall out on the way home… When we got home I started crying because my husband was going back to work on Monday…I was going to be alone and that really terrified me because if something happened and I didn’t know what to do, who would be there for me? At that point I called my mom and asked her to come down and be with me, she agreed to come down…I was scared to sleep in my bed because I didn’t want to roll over on my stomach, so I made a bed on my couch and slept there…The first morning alone at home I realized I didn’t have a nurse coming in to give me my daily shot to help with blood clots…I thought I would have my husband do it for me, let me tell you that was a HUGE mistake…Instead of being gentle he drew his hand back with the needle and jammed it in my stomach, leaving a big purple bruise…I said screw this I’m doing it myself from now on…Looking back, I would say that the first week was probably the easiest it was ever going to be on me and my husband…Because after that week things started happening that they rarely discuss pre surgery…

I remember one day I started my period and thought o.k. this is normal, I didn’t realize that I would be on my period for the next three months straight…I guess that I really never had a normal period while I was heavy…Other thing that happened during this time was that my balance was so off that everytime I would get up I would become dizzy and I couldn’t shake it off…My mother suggested that maybe I needed to call my doctor and see if they could give me something to stop my period…I called my doctor and got a prescription which was only 200 mg…I took one and 15 minutes later I started bouncing off the walls…I couldn’t get up on my own and I felt like my body was leaving it’s self, it was like an out of body experience…This lasted for about half hour, that was when I realized that my body was never going to be able to handle a normal dosage of medicine again…

During the first few weeks I realized that I wasn’t missing real food…It’s like my new stomach would not know what to do with regular food if I decide to eat it…When Josh had supper I was so full from drinking that if I smelled food my stomach would get upset…

Another problem was the psychological aspect… I felt like an addict going through rehab, and actually I was an addict, a food addict…Suddenly I had to face issues that I had ignored for most of my life…In the past I would just eat and the pain would go away…Now I had to face these issues like I never had to before…I also could not grasp what was happening to my body…I didn’t see any changes at all but my clothes kept falling off of me…When my mom and I would go walking I would see people that I knew and they would comment on how good I looked…At that moment all I could think was Yeah right I haven’t changed one bit…

One morning I woke up and found hair on my pillow, they said this could happen if I wasn’t getting enough protein…Not only that but my body was going through shock from not eating as much as I used to eat…I was only 2 months out of surgery when all of this was happening…So at that point I decided to cut my hair as short as possible, I walked out of the hair salon looking like G.I. Jane…Not only was I fat girl but now I was short, fat and almost bald headed…Not the most flattering look to have as a girl…At that time it was so hard to look at myself in the mirror because I felt so hideous…

Relationships...

I realize that in all Relationships things change over the years… I just didn’t realize that once I had this surgery much of my relationships would change, not only with my husband but also with my closest friends. Most people are not aware how dramatically things can change when you have this surgery. You are no longer the fun to be with fat friend…

When I was heavy I would just be grateful to get a guy to look in my direction. It would not matter to me how the guy looked, I just wanted to look good for him. I just wanted to be desired. I think that a lot of people who are heavy tend to date anyone who will show them some attention because deep down we just want to feel closeness with someone. And yes… I was one of these people. I, like everyone else, had a certain look that I liked in men, but I felt that I would never have a chance to be with a person like that, so that led me to be in some horrible relationships… How could anyone ever love me when I didn’t love myself, how true is that old saying? When I first met the man that would become my husband, I was a size 16 and he was this little guy that I felt was no bigger than my thigh. He was smart...funny...and had good things going for him, and to be honest I thought to myself “I’d better strike while the iron was hot”… Over the next few months he became my best friend; he was smart funny and had good things going for him. I thought that I had just got the best catch ever… but this would all change when I had my gastric bypass, how I could have foreseen that my world was about to be turned upside down?

Once I started to lose the weight I began to notice that guys were looking my way, talk about a shock. I have never had this much attention paid to me in my entire life. One day a guy, that I would have loved to have dated when I was single, looked in my direction. I thought to myself “why in the world is this guy looking at me”? That’s when it hit me. Would this guy have looked at me when I weighed 300 pounds or would he have been the one to make fun of me with his friends? I just stopped and stared at him, one part of me was elated and the other furious. I wondered “how is this fair”? I would be frustrated with my husband because I wasn’t free to explore this attention that I had been craving for so long. I know that this sounds mean, but I am just trying to be honest because this does happen. I know that we have all heard stories about how marriages end in divorce after weight loss. It seems like either your spouse becomes jealous because of all of the attention that you are now receiving or now you have the life that you have always dreamed of… and deep down how does that make someone a bad person? To this day I sometimes want to escape and try things that I never had the opportunity to try before… But in the end I think “how is that far to my husband who stood by my side no matter what size I was”? Let me tell you, this life is not as easy as I thought that it would be. I have also lost a lot of friends because I was no longer the fat friend that made people feel good about themselves when I was around. I felt like I became competition to them, even though I was married. If they were really my friends then they would accept me no matter what my size was, this became very hurtful and caused me to lose a lot of what I considered close relationships.

I think that prior to having this surgery each of us needs to be in close contact with a therapist for at least 6 months to try to get to the root of the cause of our individual obesity. I think that many of us would make a different decision about having this surgery if our emotional state was in check… Let me state this loud and clear “LOSING WEIGHT DOES NOT FIX EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS”. It actually makes you have to deal with them because you no longer have the drug known as food to turn to. I felt as if I was battling a drug like heroin, when I could no longer turn to food to comfort my feelings. I think for the first six months post op I would think about getting a divorce every day because I just wanted to escape my life and start all over. Please believe me when I say if you do NOT have the most supportive friends and family before having this surgery then you will lose many of them during your transformation. I just want to put this out there because most people do not like to discuss how this lifestyle change will affect your relationships. My husband felt like he didn’t know what to do, he was blindsided. He was trying to be so supportive of me but didn’t realize that my disease was not something that he could control… I can’t count how many tears have been shed trying to keep my relationship with my husband together, while also trying to adapt to the new life I have been given… It can sometimes still be a struggle when given the attention that you have craved for so long…

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