The Journey Begins
What Have I Gotten Myself Into
Before I began my journey as a weight loss surgery patient, I had my questions about what happens in the pre and post operative process. I thought that someone had their stomach reduced to a fraction of what it once was and one had to eat smaller, healthier portions of food. I had no clue as to what the patient experienced mentally during the journey of choosing to have either gastric sleeve or gastric bypass surgery. I didn't know anything about the meetings with the doctor and nutritionist and the beginning of tracking what I ate, keeping my calorie count between 1,200 and 1,400 calories as well as having a letter approval from my primary care physician. I was able to opt out of the psychological evaluation because I was a personal pay. It's hard to say if it would have made a difference from then to today, I'm not sure but having counseling post-operative isn't a bad idea, no matter who you are.
It was almost 6 months from the time I had my first consult with a bariatric surgeon to surgery date. I was counting my calories and watching what I ate from September to January and on surgery day, 1/20/2020, I had gone from 251.3 to 227 pounds. A total of 24.3 pounds lost in close to 4 months. In my mind, that wasn't too bad. Two weeks before surgery, I had bloodwork drawn and came off my hormone patch for 8 weeks. I also began taking the vitamins I would need post-op. Why a variety of vitamins post-op? When a person has weight loss surgery, vital nutrients aren't absorbed very well due to the smaller size of the stomach. It takes supplementing ones diet with a multiple vitamin, B12 and calcium/magnesium in order to maintain good health. Many bariatric patients take other vitamins like biotin, a probiotic, zinc just to name others. Biotin is a popular vitamin to take to help with hair loss pos-op. (Yes, there is hair loss after weight loss surgery.) I also began a liquid diet in order to shrink my liver for easy access to my stomach via laparoscopy. Those two weeks were not a good experience. No matter what I did or how I mixed the shakes, I had a hard time consuming them. I stayed hungry the full two weeks and it seems like I drank more water along with the shakes then than I ever have. I am very grateful that I only have to do that once in my life. I couldn't do it again, at least I don't want to ever have to do it again because it was not a good experience. It was during those two weeks that my mind was going in all kinds of directions. I was looking forward to beginning a new journey to a new me. At the same time I was scared to death. I was wondering if I had made the right decision to have a majority of my stomach cut out in order to become healthy. I really struggled with that and my husband heard all about those struggles too. I am immensely grateful for his patience and understanding during my journey. I couldn't have done it without him.
Please know that any kind of weight loss surgery is a tool that helps in weight loss. It keeps one from eating too much food at one sitting. It is up to that person to make the right food choices in order to lose weight.
Arriving to the hospital at 6:00 a.m. is challenging enough but I live in Alabama very close to the Georgia line and my surgery was in Rome, Georgia, a 30 minute drive from where my husband and I live. The line for the Central and Easter time zones is at the state line between Alabama and Georgia so, instead of leaving at 5:30 a.m. to be at the hospital at 6:00, we had to leave at 4:30 a.m. to be there at 6:00 a.m. Being tired with the potential of being grumpy at 3:00 a.m. is an understatement. I was too nervous to be grumpy though. By the time we got to the hospital, I was pushing a nervous wreck. I got signed in, taken back to be prepped and I was ready to go to surgery not long after 7:00 a.m. Eastern. During surgery, Dr. Ryland Scott my surgeon did repaired my hiatal hernia along with removing 80% of my stomach. When I came out of surgery and Dr. Scott spoke with my husband, he said that the surgery took a bit longer than expected because he had a real struggle with my hiatal hernia. I apparently gave him his workout for the day. I was now on the other side of my journey. I was beginning to learn a lot of new things about my new stomach and a new way of eating. I also began a new thought process about food. It has definitely become a long term learning process for me. One that I believe will stay with me for the rest of my life.
There is more to my story and I'll be sharing it with you in the days and weeks ahead. Stay with me, it's going to get interesting.
Charlene
About the Creator
Charlene Fuller-Gosset
Charlene here and I'm currently in a retirement mode doing all of the fun things I didn't get around to doing while I was working and taking care of my parents as they aged.
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My Journey to Health
Being overweight seems to be the new norm in America and the world these days. There are so many wonderful eating establishments in communities big and small with servings that are twice the size of what we were once given. More people are going out to eat than in the past for a variety of reasons. Some folks don't want to cook or they don't have time to plan and cook a meal for their family. Some people have such crazy schedules that getting a bit to eat on the run is the best they can do. Others are just lazy to one degree or another. For me, I've always had a love to eat. When I was young, I would eat when fed. As I got older and trying to deal with puberty and a wide range of teenage emotions, food would become comfort. As I entered adulthood, I'd often eat out of boredom along with being a bit lazy. When I was 19 or so, my mother took me to Weight Watchers and began my first of many diets. I learned what to do and how to do it so well that I became a professional dieter. Whenever my weight began to climb, I'd get a nudge from my mother and I'd diet again. I learned to lose the weight but never how to keep it off. I loved eating too much for that. I made it through my 20's, and 30's dieting like a crazy person. I'm certain I gained and lost the same 50 pounds several times over. I always stayed around 160 or 165 and wore a size 16 jean and dress pants. It was when I went back to school to complete my bachelors degree while in my 40's that all of that changed. I was getting up before the sun did and going to bed long before it went down. I worked all day and was in class by night. I spent far more time in my vehicle than I wanted to but I was after something I wanted and I was determined to get it. It was at this time my weight went over 200 pounds. Trying to take the weight back off after 3 years of burning my candle at both ends wasn't easy. I tried and tried until I gave up at least until I heard about Optifast on the radio. The morning show host was doing the program and was having success and I figured if it worked for him, it could work for me. It was a whole new program for me because all I did was drink shakes 6 times a day spaced 3 or 4 hours apart. I did see success. I lost 60 or 70 pounds doing 800 calories a day. Anyone could lose that way, right? I would have reached my goal weight if my mother hadn't gotten sick and was diagnosed with cancer. My life came to an end as I knew it as I began to take care of my parents on a full-time basis. My mom passed away six months after diagnosis. From there, I took care of my father until he passed five years after my mom passed. I wasn't able to take care of myself until after I folded my parents home and business and began living at home with my husband full time that I realized that I need to do something, but what? It was 2019 when my husband retired and we moved to be close to his family and I got a new primary care doctor. I had to reestablish a relationship with new doctors and I asked him about doing a lap-band. He told me that it wasn't being done any longer and I'd have to do one of the two surgery options: Gastric Sleeve or Gastric Bypass. I consulted with a weight loss surgeon and decided to do the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy also known as VSG. There were a lot of things I had to do before surgery but I got it done.
By Charlene Fuller-Gosset3 years ago in Longevity
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