The Ragamuffin at a Year
It has been one year today since Dr Darryl Stewart removed 80% of my stomach and rearranged my innards.
The day of surgery I weighed 230 pounds. Today I am at 125, give or take. I’ve lost 14.5 inches from my waist, 18 from my hips and 9 from each thigh.
Prior to surgery my Ferritin was 9 and now it is 31. Still awfully low and so I am looking at an infusion, mostly to bolster it high enough for my supplementation to maintain a high normal. My A needs a little pick up but my B12 is through the roof–it’s tasty so I enjoy taking it. My D level is a thing of beauty at 94. All in all, my labs are lovely. Though I have been supposed to do a stone risk profile for a week now but keep ‘forgetting’–even losing weight doesn’t alleviate the weirdness of peeing in a jug and keeping it in the fridge.
Chloe and I enjoy long walks we couldn’t easily take before surgery. I’m more energetic than I’ve been in a long while–even with the anemia. I feel like less an embarrassment to my kids. I’ve begun playing a game with myself, where I see just how easily I can fit through tight spaces–like between cars in a lot.
I’m in size 6 pants and 4/6 shirts. I’m still shopping thrift stores, just because I can’t quite bring myself to believe I should by ‘real’ clothes in these sizes.
I still see my thighs in particular as gargantuan tubes of yeasty dough. While I’m not totally sold on the idea of plastics, I have discovered I can pull my skin on my legs up like a pair of pants. It’s disturbing. Also, my grand and glorious bosom is no longer. More like deflated and droopy. However, a good bra provides nice camouflage.
I’m eating pretty much as I please. I usually have a couple strips of bacon and a soft boiled egg for breakfast. Oddly, I seem to be hungriest in the mornings and early afternoon. Evenings I’m not terribly hungry, which makes dinners out a little anticlimactic.
Now that I seem to be settling into maintenance mode, I’m looking forward to where the next year takes me.
Pre-op Me (With Dr Stewart's Sue)
More Recent Me (With Slim Shady)
I hate shopping, I never know what to buy. I'm the one who finds a t-shirt that "will do" on a clearance rack and buys one of every color. I'd happily submit myself to 'What not to wear', if it is still in existence, just to have someone tell me what to put on my person.
You (and the good doctor) look like a couple of 16-year-olds!
Congratulations! Now talk to me about how you got such a wonderful D.....
Duodenal Switch 08/09/06 - Dr. Paul Kemmeter, Grand Rapids, Michigan
HW: 282 - 5'4"
SW: 268
GW: 135
CW: 125