Good Morning. Do we change?
This is an interesting question for me because I spent a lot of time thinking about how much I had changed before I had my surgery and it wasn't just because of my weight because I have spent much of my life obese.
About 3 years ago I started getting sick. It was gradual but I got to the point where I couldn't function. I rarely left the house except to go to the store. I remember that I would only fill up my tank on my car about once a month or so. I completely shut myself off from my friends. I stopped seeing my kids much. It wasn't because I was overweight because when it started I was a normal size. I just was so fatigued. I would see my boyfriend once a week and usually he would take me out to lunch and I got to where I dreaded that because it meant I had to take a shower and get dressed and that was such a big effort for me. I would go days without showering or changing my clothes.
The worse part was that I became very apathetic. I didn't care about anything. I just didn't have the energy to care about anything. I didn't even care about how sick I was. I was too sick to care. The bottom was in March, 2010. I had promised my daughter I would take her to Phoenix for a wrestling event. She was very big into the WWE at that time and she had a friend that she met online that lived in Phoenix that she was going to meet up with. I agreed to this because I had so much guilt over how bad of a mother I had become. I didn't go anywhere or do anything with her so I felt I should do this for her. I wanted her to have good memories, not just memories of me laying around doing nothing.
We had made the plans 6 months before and I remember then worrying about how I would be able to do it. There were all kinds of events that we were going to. I couldn't see how I would be able to do it.
Right before we left I had my hair cut. It had gotten really long and I could barely comb it because it got so tangled, probably because I didn't wa**** or comb it too often. I was so stressed out about how I would be able to take a shower, comb my hair and get dressed every day for 4 days. It seemed impossible so I got my hair cut so at least I could comb it.
The trip was a nightmare for me. There was a lot of walking involved and I just couldn't do it. I would find a place to sit and stay there while my daughter and her friend did their thing. I would spend 4 hours just sitting there waiting for my daughter instead of going to the exhibits and participating. I did no sight seeing or anything, I just prayed for it to be over soon.
I had been seeing my doctor and having all kinds of tests done and they couldn't find anything concrete. My memory was also shot and I was having a hard time putting things together. After all the tests came back normal, breathing tests, sleeping tests, thyroid and all the other things they look for with fatigue I started looking on the internet with my symptoms and one of the things it suggested was secondary hyperparathyroidism. Then it clicked that I had a malabsorptive surgery and that my vitamin D had gotten very low, almost undetectable, and my doctor had mentioned something about my calcium being high, which was also a symptom. I went to my doctor to have a PTH test and I also contacted someone I had known who had the same kind of surgery I did and knew a lot about it. She directed me to the list of labs I needed done and told me that my apathy could be from vitamin deficiency.
I brought the list to my doctor and had my labs done. My PTH was pretty normal, not as high as I expected. Many of the tests I had requested for some reason weren't done or I wasn't given the results to. I thought that my labs were ok and not the reason for my fatigue. I just didn't have the energy to ask or even realize that the results were incomplete. I did have very low ferritin (it was 7) so my friend suggested I ask for an iron infusion, which I had but it didn't help me feel better. I also started on the D50s and vitamin A at her suggestion.
By this point I decided that the reason I was so sick was because I had WLS and because I hadn't taken all the supplements I should have. At the time of my surgery I was only told that I needed to take a multivitamin and about 1500 mg of calcium citrate. I don't know if I was told that I needed to supplement my ADEKs or I read about it online but I had been taking the chewable ADEKs (which was about all I knew about in 2002) but when I started regaining weight I mistakenly thought that I was also absorbing vitamins along with calories so I stopped taking them.
I was so sick and I wanted to feel better so badly that I decided that the only thing that would help me would be a reversal of my surgery. I blamed my problems on the fact that I had WLS and regretted making the decision to have it. I made an appointment with my surgeon and went to see him and begged him to reverse me. I was told that it couldn't be reversed but it could be revised to make it so I didn't malabsorb so much. They were more then willing to do that because they had been having a lot of people who had the surgery come back with all kinds of health problems and they stopped doing the surgery at the hospital and were doing a lot of revisions. I believe the reason they had so many problems is because they had no pre op education whatsoever, at least in 2002 when I had my surgery, and no real post op care after wards. I was basically left on my own after the surgery and left to my own devices. After a few years of living with the surgery the fact that I had WLS began to be secondary in my life and it stopped revolving around WLS. I was busy living my life, as they say.
Anyway, at this point I had regained 100lbs from my lowest post op weight, 70 lbs in about a year, and I was scared to death that after I was revised the weight would really pile on. I figured that if I could gain that much weight that fast with malabsorption I could really do damage without it. I didn't even care about losing weight at that point, I just didn't want to gain any more. My surgeon suggested that I have my stomach made into a RNY pouch and I agreed. My sister and my cousin both had RNYs and they were doing good, much better then I was, and I didn't really look into it or think about it. My surgery was scheduled for 8 days after my first appointment with my surgeon so I didn't have any time to think about it. I just wanted to feel better and fast.
I had my surgery on 7/23/2010 and I also decided that I was going to use my surgery as a reason to clean up my eating and detox off of the refined carbs that I was consuming a large quantity of. I also started taking more vitamins. I was hoping that I would recover quickly and get back to normal.
I was very disappointed when I was 6 weeks out and even though I was losing weight I still didn't feel much better. Finally, after being on this website for a while I found out what labs I needed and for the first time I had a complete set of labs done six months after my revision. They weren't as bad as I expected but that may have been because I had already started supplementing many of the things I needed. My D was still very low and most of my results were in the normal but low range but nothing drastic.
It took nearly a year but I finally started feeling better on a consistent basis. Over the year I started having better days where I could get dressed and do things but then I would get fatigued for a few days. Gradually the days I felt better were more often and the days I was fatigued grew less. I would say it was right around my first surgiversary that I was mostly better.
Now I feel like I used to feel, before I got sick. I would say I am about 90% better. I still have some bad days but at least I get up and take a shower and get dressed every day. That is a victory for me. I care about what I look like again. For over 2 years I didn't buy any clothes. I wore the same things every day, sweatpants with a drawstring and t shirts. I wore those sweatpants from 150lbs to 220lbs and they just kept stretching so I didn't realize how much weight I was gaining. I never went anywhere so I figured I didn't need any other clothes. Also, 2 years ago I was laid off of my job that I had for about 9 years. I think that helped contribute to my depression even though by the time I was laid off it was a relief because my fatigue had made it so difficult to work.
Now I am looking into going back to work or perhaps taking some classes. I finally feel well enough to where I think I can work again and in fact want to find a job to get out of the house more. Before I didn't get bored because I didn't have the energy to do anything anyway. Now my daughter gets upset because I am never home. I bought a bike and I like to take rides on it. This is such a big thing to me because I remember when I was so sick my doctors kept bugging me to get some exercise and I thought they were crazy. I could barely make it upstairs at night. How was I going to be able to exercise. I remember once trying to go on a walk with my daughter and I barely made it down the street and I had to turn back. There is a little store about 2 blocks away and I would try to walk to that and it seemed like miles. Now I can ride my bike for miles. Hard to believe for me.
So when you ask if I have changed the answer is yes, I have changed back into myself. I have a life again and I care again. That to me makes everything worth it.
Sorry for the book. I really did try to keep it short but I guess I didn't do so well.
About 3 years ago I started getting sick. It was gradual but I got to the point where I couldn't function. I rarely left the house except to go to the store. I remember that I would only fill up my tank on my car about once a month or so. I completely shut myself off from my friends. I stopped seeing my kids much. It wasn't because I was overweight because when it started I was a normal size. I just was so fatigued. I would see my boyfriend once a week and usually he would take me out to lunch and I got to where I dreaded that because it meant I had to take a shower and get dressed and that was such a big effort for me. I would go days without showering or changing my clothes.
The worse part was that I became very apathetic. I didn't care about anything. I just didn't have the energy to care about anything. I didn't even care about how sick I was. I was too sick to care. The bottom was in March, 2010. I had promised my daughter I would take her to Phoenix for a wrestling event. She was very big into the WWE at that time and she had a friend that she met online that lived in Phoenix that she was going to meet up with. I agreed to this because I had so much guilt over how bad of a mother I had become. I didn't go anywhere or do anything with her so I felt I should do this for her. I wanted her to have good memories, not just memories of me laying around doing nothing.
We had made the plans 6 months before and I remember then worrying about how I would be able to do it. There were all kinds of events that we were going to. I couldn't see how I would be able to do it.
Right before we left I had my hair cut. It had gotten really long and I could barely comb it because it got so tangled, probably because I didn't wa**** or comb it too often. I was so stressed out about how I would be able to take a shower, comb my hair and get dressed every day for 4 days. It seemed impossible so I got my hair cut so at least I could comb it.
The trip was a nightmare for me. There was a lot of walking involved and I just couldn't do it. I would find a place to sit and stay there while my daughter and her friend did their thing. I would spend 4 hours just sitting there waiting for my daughter instead of going to the exhibits and participating. I did no sight seeing or anything, I just prayed for it to be over soon.
I had been seeing my doctor and having all kinds of tests done and they couldn't find anything concrete. My memory was also shot and I was having a hard time putting things together. After all the tests came back normal, breathing tests, sleeping tests, thyroid and all the other things they look for with fatigue I started looking on the internet with my symptoms and one of the things it suggested was secondary hyperparathyroidism. Then it clicked that I had a malabsorptive surgery and that my vitamin D had gotten very low, almost undetectable, and my doctor had mentioned something about my calcium being high, which was also a symptom. I went to my doctor to have a PTH test and I also contacted someone I had known who had the same kind of surgery I did and knew a lot about it. She directed me to the list of labs I needed done and told me that my apathy could be from vitamin deficiency.
I brought the list to my doctor and had my labs done. My PTH was pretty normal, not as high as I expected. Many of the tests I had requested for some reason weren't done or I wasn't given the results to. I thought that my labs were ok and not the reason for my fatigue. I just didn't have the energy to ask or even realize that the results were incomplete. I did have very low ferritin (it was 7) so my friend suggested I ask for an iron infusion, which I had but it didn't help me feel better. I also started on the D50s and vitamin A at her suggestion.
By this point I decided that the reason I was so sick was because I had WLS and because I hadn't taken all the supplements I should have. At the time of my surgery I was only told that I needed to take a multivitamin and about 1500 mg of calcium citrate. I don't know if I was told that I needed to supplement my ADEKs or I read about it online but I had been taking the chewable ADEKs (which was about all I knew about in 2002) but when I started regaining weight I mistakenly thought that I was also absorbing vitamins along with calories so I stopped taking them.
I was so sick and I wanted to feel better so badly that I decided that the only thing that would help me would be a reversal of my surgery. I blamed my problems on the fact that I had WLS and regretted making the decision to have it. I made an appointment with my surgeon and went to see him and begged him to reverse me. I was told that it couldn't be reversed but it could be revised to make it so I didn't malabsorb so much. They were more then willing to do that because they had been having a lot of people who had the surgery come back with all kinds of health problems and they stopped doing the surgery at the hospital and were doing a lot of revisions. I believe the reason they had so many problems is because they had no pre op education whatsoever, at least in 2002 when I had my surgery, and no real post op care after wards. I was basically left on my own after the surgery and left to my own devices. After a few years of living with the surgery the fact that I had WLS began to be secondary in my life and it stopped revolving around WLS. I was busy living my life, as they say.
Anyway, at this point I had regained 100lbs from my lowest post op weight, 70 lbs in about a year, and I was scared to death that after I was revised the weight would really pile on. I figured that if I could gain that much weight that fast with malabsorption I could really do damage without it. I didn't even care about losing weight at that point, I just didn't want to gain any more. My surgeon suggested that I have my stomach made into a RNY pouch and I agreed. My sister and my cousin both had RNYs and they were doing good, much better then I was, and I didn't really look into it or think about it. My surgery was scheduled for 8 days after my first appointment with my surgeon so I didn't have any time to think about it. I just wanted to feel better and fast.
I had my surgery on 7/23/2010 and I also decided that I was going to use my surgery as a reason to clean up my eating and detox off of the refined carbs that I was consuming a large quantity of. I also started taking more vitamins. I was hoping that I would recover quickly and get back to normal.
I was very disappointed when I was 6 weeks out and even though I was losing weight I still didn't feel much better. Finally, after being on this website for a while I found out what labs I needed and for the first time I had a complete set of labs done six months after my revision. They weren't as bad as I expected but that may have been because I had already started supplementing many of the things I needed. My D was still very low and most of my results were in the normal but low range but nothing drastic.
It took nearly a year but I finally started feeling better on a consistent basis. Over the year I started having better days where I could get dressed and do things but then I would get fatigued for a few days. Gradually the days I felt better were more often and the days I was fatigued grew less. I would say it was right around my first surgiversary that I was mostly better.
Now I feel like I used to feel, before I got sick. I would say I am about 90% better. I still have some bad days but at least I get up and take a shower and get dressed every day. That is a victory for me. I care about what I look like again. For over 2 years I didn't buy any clothes. I wore the same things every day, sweatpants with a drawstring and t shirts. I wore those sweatpants from 150lbs to 220lbs and they just kept stretching so I didn't realize how much weight I was gaining. I never went anywhere so I figured I didn't need any other clothes. Also, 2 years ago I was laid off of my job that I had for about 9 years. I think that helped contribute to my depression even though by the time I was laid off it was a relief because my fatigue had made it so difficult to work.
Now I am looking into going back to work or perhaps taking some classes. I finally feel well enough to where I think I can work again and in fact want to find a job to get out of the house more. Before I didn't get bored because I didn't have the energy to do anything anyway. Now my daughter gets upset because I am never home. I bought a bike and I like to take rides on it. This is such a big thing to me because I remember when I was so sick my doctors kept bugging me to get some exercise and I thought they were crazy. I could barely make it upstairs at night. How was I going to be able to exercise. I remember once trying to go on a walk with my daughter and I barely made it down the street and I had to turn back. There is a little store about 2 blocks away and I would try to walk to that and it seemed like miles. Now I can ride my bike for miles. Hard to believe for me.
So when you ask if I have changed the answer is yes, I have changed back into myself. I have a life again and I care again. That to me makes everything worth it.
Sorry for the book. I really did try to keep it short but I guess I didn't do so well.
WLS 10/28/2002 Revision 7/23/2010
High Weight (2002) 240 Revision Weight (2010) 220 Current Weight 115.
I appreciate you telling your story. That could be any one of us and your story should be retold every now and then.
Thanks,
--g
Thanks,
--g
5'1" -- HW 195/SW 187/GW 115 July 08/CW 121 Dec 2012
******GOAL*******
Starting BMI between 35 and 40ish?
Join us on the Lightweights Board!
DS on Aug 9, 2007 with Dr. Hazem Elariny
While physically, I have a ways to go, mentally I am a different person. I was completely reclusive and filled with depression, panic attacks, and social anxiety. I am no longer depressed, have had zero panic attacks and love hanging out with people again. I'm reuniting with people I haven't seen in years. It's been wonderful. My state of mind is completely different. I have hope, I have optimism.
Once I have my back surgery in October, I have a feeling my life is going to explode! I can't wait.
Thanks for this post. It is so uplifting to look back and see where we came from and where we are now!
Once I have my back surgery in October, I have a feeling my life is going to explode! I can't wait.
Thanks for this post. It is so uplifting to look back and see where we came from and where we are now!
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