Describe your behavioral and emotional battle with weight control before learning about bariatric surgery.
Warning..this is a lonnnnnng story :)
I started out rail thin as a child. I developed bad eating habits when I went to stay for summers with my grandmother. Lots of home cooking. She was just showing me love the best way she knew how...with comfort food. I ate biscuits and sausage with loads of butter for breakfast every single day. Discovered croissants and ate one every day! I gained weight and began being teased by everyone including family. My brothers were naturally slim. My parents didn't have weight issues until after age 40. Being overweight as a kid was a horrible experience for me, as it is for most. People didn't know then that bullying and teasing was so dangerous for a child's self esteem.
I had my wisdom teeth removed at age 15 and had quite a bit of trouble. Wasn't able to eat and lost 25 pounds in about a month. This was a major moment in my life. The boys that used to tease me now wanted to date me. I was beside myself!
I kept the weight off for about 3 yrs. I was very active, going dancing every weekend. According to my mother, I ate very little. Don't really recall that. I've always been a food addict in my own mind.
When the weight started piling on from my poor food choices, I tried to act like it didn't worry me. I was miserable but kept on eating.
I would try every fad diet you can imagine, with very little success.
When I was 21 I was about a size 14. I met the man that is now my husband when I was 22. He was a little bit overweight himself, came from a family who loved to eat. He loved me for who I was. We went out to eat almost nightly. Ordering appetizers, extra dressing, extra cheese and of course, dessert. We both really packed on the pounds. After we were engaged I joined Jenny Craig because I wasn't going be that "fat bride" in the giant wedding gown. Well, I wasnt successful and guess what? I became the "fat bride" anyway.
Four years later we had a beautiful baby girl. Surprisingly, I didn't gain weight during my pregnancy. In fact, I lost 20#. My doctor warned me of how dangerous it would be for me to gain a lot of weight during the pregnancy. I decided to eat what I wanted but cut the portions in half. It worked. Since Chris shared with me, he lost too! Of course, I gained it back within a few months.
A year later I heard about Lapband. With my family's support I had the surgery in Sept 2005.
I lost 50#. Then I just stalled out. I was convinced it was because I refused to give up my sweets addiction. Food got stuck every time I ate so I didn't think I could handle a fill. I didn't like the staff at my surgeons office so I just didn't go. I wasted 7 yrs. No progress and I had developed severe reflux that required rx medication daily.
I finally went to a new doc and found out I had a huge hiatal hernia. The doc told me the hole in my diaphragm was large enough to put his fist through. This is what had caused the really bad reflux and also what made my food get stuck so easily. I was also able to eat more than I should have and that was from the position the band was now in. When he repaired the hernia he had to unbuckle/rebuckle the band. He told me he moved it up as he felt it had been positioned too low. The plan was to slowly fill my band back up and start to lose weight again. I developed severe pain in my left shoulder and down the left side of my torso. This pain felt exactly like the pain we have following laparoscopic surgery. I was assured that it would resolve with time. It was post op "referred pain". Very few people actually know that the pain we have from lap surgery is not an actual air pocket in the shoulder. It is caused by the gas they use to inflate your abdomen...it presses on the diaphragm. Your brain gets a mixed message as it can't interpret pain from this area. It then makes your left shoulder hurt. Sounds crazy but it's the same thing that happens when the left arm hurts during a heart attack. Referred Pain...it's a real thing.
I kept complaining to my doc. He said it could be adhesions (scar tissue) that might be developing at the surgery site. The pain was so bad sometimes it would take my breath away and I would gasp out loud. I found that pain meds didn't help. The only thing that helped was to lay down on my side and put all my weight on that shoulder. This went on for 11 months.
Now... Besides that...there was another issue.
Fill after fill...and nothing changed. I had no restriction. I could eat anything and everything I wanted. Big fluffy dinner rolls even. My 10 cc band was now up to 9.2 ccs and they told me I now had esophageal dilation. My food was slowly digesting in a new "pouch" my body had made in my esophagus. They emptied my band and told me to do liquids for 3 wks and come back to try again. No guarantee it would resolve but "We'll seeeeee." I was so angry. It had been 8 months, $500 on fills and I had gained #15! I was not willing to try the liquid option. I tried doing soft foods and limiting my quantities. I needed a new plan.
My insurance has an obesity exclusion. I was told gastric bypass was my best option but that the exclusion was impossible to override. I sure couldn't afford it. Did not qualify for Care Credit. I was so depressed.
October 2012-I saw a billboard for revision and called the doc. The staff assured me that 90% of the time they can get around the exclusion due to health problems my band was causing. I booked an appt right away. The doc seemed great. His office was in a very nice building and furnished very nicely. He ordered an EDG and performed it the following week. Assured me the staff would get it covered. A month later they finally told me I had approval. Scheduled my surgery for 12/14/12. But while I was waiting...friends in the medical field started telling me this doc did not have a good reputation. There was even an article written in the local paper (The Observer) about a major surgical mistake he had made.He had performed a gastric bypass on a woman that had gone in for a tummy tuck. (She had already had Bariatric surgery prior to this) The article stated that she now must be fed thru a tube in her stomach. I was so nervous but I told myself that many people were involved in that mistake. The person who booked the surgery. The staff that interviewed her in pre-op. The OR staff and of course the doctor himself. I wanted to believe he was not a bad doc. Afterall, he was the only one that had been willing to try to get my insurance approved. What was that?
Then, another source told me a doc that knows him stated that I'd be better off using a doc that had never performed a bypass. That's how bad he was!
Now I was flat out terrified to use him. I found out after some investigating that he had given vague codes to my insurance company to get that "approval". It was a verbal, not a written approval and the claim would certainly be denied after the real codes were billed. That is, unless he planned on lying about what had actually been done in the OR. I found that this doc was desperate for patients. Even received and email offering me a free movie pass for every patient I could refer to him. Ridiculous! I have since been told he is in trouble with the medical board. I want to warn other people so that he doesn't hurt anyone else. But, since all of my info is only here-say I am afraid I could get into trouble for posting his name. If anyone has a suggestion on how to help others, please tell me.
I, of course, cancelled my surgery right away. I asked around and was referred to who I think is the best surgeon in Texas. Dr. Nick Nicholson. I went to his seminar and was floored. He explained things so well. I learned new facts that I have never even heard. (example: look up the word Grehlin... It's a chemical our bodies produce that drives hunger...never even heard of it before!!)
I had been told by the quack doc before that he could remove my band and perform the bypass at the same time. Dr. Nick explained that this was very dangerous. The tissue becomes very swollen just while removing the band. If he then runs the staples for my new pouch...they wouldn't be secure once the swelling went down. The staples would be too large and I could develop a leak!! Thank God I found him!
So, I was able to get a loan after all. I had my band removed on 12/13/12. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy! Easiest recovery I have ever had. Went out to eat on the way home from surgery.
I had my bypass on 1/29/13 and I'm now on day 11 of recovery. This liquid diet is a killer!! I have 10 more days of this and then I get to progress to soft foods. I can't wait!!
What was (is) the worst thing about being overweight?
Missing out on simple things like going to a water park with my daughter.
Crossing my legs.
Tying my shoes.
Mostly it's the emotional pain. My husband has lost all but 10 pounds of his excess weight. He is supportive, handsome, funny, charming, loving and doting. I feel he deserves to have an attractive wife. He loves me for who I am...but I can't wait to have better self esteem and know he's just as proud of me as I am of him!
If you have had weight loss surgery already, what things do you most enjoy doing now that you weren't able to do before?
Had revision from Lapband to Bypass on 1/29/13. On day 11 of recovery. No major changes yet.
bizzybeejen
