Almost Four Years Post Weight Loss Surgery

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Erika

I weigh 145lbs, at 5’6″, and I wear a size 8 in pants and a med or large in shirts (my b00bs are kind of big, still, compared to the rest of me. They’re also deflated). My BMI is 23, which is in the normal weight range. My lowest weight, in which I kind of resembled skeletor, was 130, at which time I wore a size 4 — and they were loose — and a med in shirts. I wore a lot of shirts back then because I was freezing all the time. Below is a pic from 2009

2009: It was probably 95* out and I was cold.

I have complications. These are mostly due to the fact that a key component of my surgery is malabsorption

The most commonly quoted absorption percentages following DS are approximately 20% of fats, 60% of protein, 60% of complex carbohydrates but 100% of simple carbohydrates. The 2005 study by Gagner et al. [68] demonstrated that DS surgery decreased fat absorption by 81%

Gagner performed my surgery in 2008. I email him regularly with questions or concerns.

When I was visiting my parents, my dad asked if I regretted my surgery due to my complications. He did not specify a complication. He could have been talking about

1. Being hospitalized in 2009 for dehydration and malnutrition

2. My first butt surgery, in 2010

3. Which healed poorly and led to the most recent butt surgery, Assgate.

4. Iron-deficient anemia from malabsorption.

4. The sheer amount of time I spend in the bathroom every day.

Another complication is my gut flora, which seems to change daily — based on what I eat — so I take a probiotic called VSL3 every day to keep it in check.

Sometimes My Chemical Romance does not like sharing a bathroom with me. Sometimes I don’t blame him!

I’ve also nursed in here. Yes.

Sometimes my extra skin causes chafing that leads to sores. But there’s no way I’m ever having surgery again unless I’m in dire need.

In all, I do not regret my surgery. It’s not entirely the free pass to eat whatever I want that I hoped for. It’s not as easy and thoughtless as I want it to be. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. But I can’t say that if I’d continued at 270+ lbs, I wouldn’t have had equally-sucky complications.

Last week, when I fell completely on my ankle and broke my foot, one of my first thoughts was, I’m really glad I only weigh 145. This would be a lot worse if it happened four years ago.

Night before my surgery, in 2008.

Filed under: Daily Life, food, weight loss surgery | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Longevity after Weight Loss Surgery

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Erika

I have a weight-loss surgery twin, Amy. We met in our surgeon’s office in Miami, the day before our surgeries. I was nervous and talking even more than usual; she was nervous and quiet to the point of being standoffish. We had the same exact surgery on November 4, 2008: a Biliopancreatic Diversion with a Duodenal Switch. She had a superfast recovery, even making her hospital bed the next morning and walking the hallways. I was in so much pain that I kept nodding out from all the narcotics. She left early to go back to Texas, missing her 7-day post-op appointment. I stayed — and got a prescription for dilaudid because I was still aching in pain.

We’ve stayed in touch ever since then, talking on the phone at least once or twice a week. She eventually got over her standoffishness, I eventually let her get a word in edgewise. Together I think we’ve lost about 300lbs.

We both have side effects, although they are polar opposites. I think it speaks to the nature of our surgery, which is that our intestines are re-wired to work differently/hardly at all. We both follow our vitamin regime, which includes all the fat-based vitamins, as well as calcium and iron, and get our labs done regularly. We’re both doing okay. And yet, Amy is always nervous.

There’s not a vast amount of research on our surgery; it hasn’t been around for that long. Scientifically, it’s the most effective way to lose weight and keep it off. And that’s really all it says. Go forth and lose weight — thanks to malabsorption! Amy is incredibly anxious about the long-term implications of malabsorption, especially with regards to vitamin K and calcium, assuming that we’re going to get old and brittle and frail. And I’m… not. Actually it’s not that I’m not worried about it, it’s just that I don’t think I can do anything about it.

As I’ve mentioned before, life at nearly 300lbs is a giant suck. Had I stayed at that weight, I know I’d have issues — diabetes, hypertension, asthma, heart problems, the list goes on. With this, I may someday have brittle bones, or I may have some issues with clotting — or I may have no more problems than the average woman who lives to be 90 (which is my plan). I’m doing my best to mitigate the malabsorption by taking my vitamins and getting my labs drawn, but I accept that I may have complications. I’ve already been hospitalized for dehydration that was never really explained or fixed, I’ve already had a hemorrhoid-turned-fissure-turned-fistula that needed surgical repair, I’ve already gotten iron infusions, I’ve already made less breast milk for Porcelain — all because of the surgery. And I also credit it with making that pregnancy last 42 weeks and Porcelain weighing less than my other full-term babies.

It’s a trade off. I give 20 vials of blood every few months, and take 30 pills per day. I can run around and chase my kids and carry Porcelain everywhere and shop at H&M. I’m going to live to be 90.

Filed under: Daily Life, friends, weight loss surgery | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Complications after weight loss surgery: “I’d rather be fat.”

Posted on April 24, 2011 by Erika

No you wouldn’t.

Or, that’s because you’re skinny.

Okay, maybe you’re not skinny. Maybe you’re average. Maybe your BMI puts you in the overweight category, or even obese. Maybe you struggle to find clothes that are slenderizing – but you can still shop at Target.

When I tell people about my chronic diarrhea — and yes, of course, I tell people about it — most of them say, “I’d rather be fat.” When I was hospitalized for dehydration twice, I’m sure some of my friends thought that.

Honestly, I am not a huge fan of my chronic diarrhea. It does inhibit me in some ways — I doubt I’ll ever go camping unless it’s a special camping site with private bathrooms — and I’ve been hospitalized twice for dehydration when nothing would stay in. I don’t like it when I feel kind of nauseated when I eat too much sugar in the absence of any protein. I didn’t enjoy getting iron infusions while pregnant with Porcelain because my body had so little iron leftover after what she took. There are aspects of my life post-weight-loss surgery that give me some pause.

(If you want to read about a Biliopancreatic Diversion with a Duodenal Switch, you can find some here. And here. And some research studies here.)

But being fat — being morbidly obese, being nearly 275lbs at 5’6″ with no clear limit in sight — I wasn’t a fan of that either. It came with complications too. My blood pressure was rising, I was pre-diabetic, and when a piece of my liver was sent to the lab it came back as severe fatty liver, like what an alcoholic would have. I was tired and lethargic. I wasn’t able to enjoy spending with my kids the way I can now (sometimes). Or my dogs.

And oh, the sweat! Moving 275lbs around is not easy. The regular sweat. The underboob sweat! The sweat-dripping-into-my-eyes-and-blinding-me sweat!

The comparison is not FAT versus SKINNY WITH DIARRHEA AND A FISTULA.

The comparison is fat with potentially life-threatening complications that would not have improved on their own and skinny with definitely annoying complications but I don’t think they threaten my life and I can help them somewhat by what I eat. 

I rarely regret having my weight loss surgery. I can’t say never — right afterward surgery, when I was in a lot of pain, I thought, “My god, why didn’t I try Weight Watchers one more time?!?!?” — but every day I’m glad I did it.

Filed under: weight loss surgery | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 413 other followers

%d bloggers like this: