Six Year Surgiversary

If you don’t like self congratulatory posts, please feel free to ignore:

Six years ago today I took a significant step to change my life for the better by having weight loss surgery.  I had worked in 1998 to lose a significant amount of weight with a radical diet and copious amounts of exercise. Unfortunately, I fell back into old habits and gained all of that weight back over the next few years.  Thankfully, my former employer offered weight loss surgery as a medical benefit for those who met certain criteria (all of which I met and then some). The only catch was that I had to travel to Memphis, TN to have the surgery performed and stay in the area for two weeks in case there were any post surgery complications.  After I had gone through a psych evaluation and months of nutritional education classes, my lovely and supportive (and I’m sure deathly nervous knowing her) wife, along with my then 2 year old daughter and my late mother, packed up and drove to Memphis. 

I knew things would go well and some of my nervousness was subsided (although I didn’t have too much as once I had made the decision to have the surgery 10 months prior, I knew I would go through with it) when I heard a familiar voice and recognized a familiar face in an old high school classmate (Tina Thomas) who in a very Small World moment, was working in the pre-op room at the hospital there.  Surgery went well, my recovery was a bit touch and go (had some blood sugar issues early on), but through the help and company of my wife, my daughter, my mom, my in-laws and finally, my father over the next two weeks, I was fully recovered and released to head back to Louisville to begin the next phase of my life.

Critics and skeptics of the process will typically say that Weight Loss Surgery (WLS) is the easy way out.  I would respectfully disagree.  While it can be quicker, there’s very little that is easy about retraining your brain to eat differently and deal with the frustration of having eyes WAY bigger than your new stomach, not being able to eat or drink certain things you’ve enjoyed your entire life, and the nausea you can feel when you overdo things. I did get through the process, and actually easier than I thought, and easier than I’ve heard from other WLS recipients, so I definitely feel lucky at how things turned out overall.  My primary care physician was against me having the surgery and advised against it, but in the years since has remarked on a few occasions that if everyone would have the results I have had, she would recommend everyone that really needed the surgery should have it.

Some numbers to show where I was and how far I’ve come: 2006 vs. 2012

Weight:  then 420 – now 260 (I’ve reached a low of 240 and am still shooting for my overall goal of 225)

Waist:  56in – 40 in (my original goal here was to be able to buy pants in any store I walked into – CHECK)

Body Mass Index: 51.1 (morbidly obese) – 31.6 (obese – eh, what’re you gonna do?)  

Shirt size:  4XL – 2XL (which is mainly due to me liking looser shirts, I can wear XL in some shirts)

Blood Pressure: 190/150 – 140/80 (Still not ideal and have meds to maintain it here, but I’m an easily excitable guy - ha)

Diabetes: Type 2 – N/A (Biggest improvement, don’t have to monitor blood sugar at all)

The biggest issue I have these days is maintaining a consistent energy level throughout the day due to how I’m wired and the absorption of nutrients from what I eat & drink.  I take various vitamins (B-12, iron supplements, etc to aid in this regard).  Until the past few years, I didn’t find it too hard to maintain a lower weight, but I’ve found over the past couple of years that if I don’t exercise regularly and am eating the wrong things, extra weight can definitely find it’s way back to my body so I’ve been trying to exercise more regularly and eat much better over the past few months. 

Ultimately, I think I’ve done well with it and the end result has been that my body mostly protects itself from my bad habits and lets me know when I’m overdoing things or eating things I really shouldn’t. It’s not foolproof as I’ve found I can go back to where I was if I’m not careful, so I keep on top of things as much as I can for myself and my family, and the anniversary of my big change is always a day I try to take and remember where I was, how far I’ve come, how little I still have to go to reach my goals and what I need to do not to regress, so thanks for reading if you made it this far. Making this so “public" is part of the process too, so thanks to my wife for her support through all of this as well as any and all of you who have given me encouragement along the way as well.  THANK YOU!!!