Surgery is no finish line

Great thread. 

Epic post !!!

frisco

I couldn't have read this post at a better time! Thank you and others before for keeping this site REAL! 

Gary

Thank you for your in MY face honesty...

I am not looking for anything "instant" or easy........what I am toting around right now didn't jump on my 5 foot 6 inch frame overnight.

I know nothing in life worth having is easy, and I am personally to the point in my life, that this life I have is worth so much more than

what I am doing with it due to the way I talk to myself and how I have allowed myself to be taken away from me.......I have always given and

done for everyone but myself.......NOW its my turn. 

Thank you again

Lynne

I still attend regular support group meetings even at 6 years out.  I am often disheartened by the pre-ops in the room who look at the surgery as the finish line - in reality it is the starting gate.  Everyone thinks the hard work is getting through all of the health clearances and finally getting approved.  The honeymoon period seems to enforce that thought process as for many the weight just peels off.  So many don't realize that the surgery was the physical part of this process and that they have to work on the mental part of the process.  The few who get that concept find it less difficult to succeed. 

You are so right! It's a lot of hard work and dedication. Thanks for your post and good luck to you.

Robin

Gary,

How absolutely right you are.  

For me, my surgery was not a miracle but a gift -- a chance to be a participant in my own life rather than a spectator, and not leave my husband with two sons to raise on his own.  That said, by no stretch of the imagination was the gift unconditional -- I can keep it only if I take care of it.

I remember going to the nutritionist a few weeks after my surgery and her telling me that she wanted to take me up to the ward and have me talk to some of the post-ops there.  Apparently, one of them -- who was still sporting the nasogastric tube and struggling to drink a 4-ounce container of juice in twelve hours -- had asked her, "When can I start eating Big Macs again?"

I don't know what she said, but I do know what I would have said:  "Um, like, never."

I am willing to admit that I had my surgery -- a procedure that isn't even done anymore -- back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and that recovery and diets and all that has probably changed significantly in the time since.  However, I can never wrap my head around those who post on this forum that they are having issues eating bread or eggs or meat two or three weeks out -- dear God, at that point in my recovery I was still gagging down Cream of Wheat that was more like Water of Crap.

I haven't had the issues with regain that others have had, and in fact have continued to lose weight throughout the decade and a half since I had my surgery (although most of it, as with most of us, in the first year) for one reason or another.  I'm currently facing issues with malabsorption, but that is the first significant problem I have had that I can link directly with my surgery.  Why?  Probably a lot of things -- but mostly, I believe, because I have honored my gift.

Every day is still a struggle on some level -- for me anyway.  My gift took away my preoccupation with food, and for that I will always be profoundly grateful.  Oh, there are days when I would trade just about anything for a cheeseburger, but they are blessedly few and far between.  I am grateful for a forum like this where those of us who have passed some of the milestones on the road can help others who are behind us.  Being among those who understand the totality of the struggle -- even if we never experienced this problem or that issue -- is tremendously comforting.

As Gary points out, the surgery is just the beginning -- of a lifetime of looking out for yourself, of doing the right thing, of making the right choice, of guarding against the fat voices and the negative voices that still live in our heads no matter how much or how little we weigh.  And to laugh, just a little, every day at those who said we who had this surgery "took the easy way out."

Oh, if they only knew.