Hi, friends!
Please don't be mad. It has been an exceptionally long time since I posted and updated you fine folks and that is not okay. Things have just been... nuts. Bananas. Bat-shit-fucking-crazy. Some of it is related to weight loss, most of it hasn't. None of it probably constitutes a good excuse to have been gone this long, but I hope that you will forgive me. I would promise that I will never let it happen again, but that would make me a liar and I may be a lot of things, but dishonest is not one of them.
So, quick recap: the last time I updated I had reached week 3 post-op. I had just started on pureed foods, and shared that my first non-beverage meal was some pureed potato soup. To sum up that week and the week that followed, it sucked. Purees suck. I worked hard to grow a mouth full of teeth that would allow me to avoid liquid food and goddammit now I remember why. Christ on a cracker-that-i-could-not-eat, it was bad. I spent most of that two weeks subsisting on the same liquids I had gotten sick of in the first two weeks, because suddenly they were my good old standbys. It's funny how quickly you can learn to NOT be sick of something when your other options are unnatural and frankly, offensive.
Around the beginning of week 5, I started on soft foods, which, by my program's definition was anything that could be mashed/cut with a fork. Look, when I tell you I stretched that definition to its limits... At the beginning of this phase, I rejoiced in eating things that required any semblance of chewing, but I quickly got tired of mashed potatoes. I did try some meat but our guidance was to avoid anything too dry, and that applied to more things than i thought it would. Thankfully, there was never really anything I didn't tolerate very well, although I did briefly worry that I was going to be one of those folks who end up with an intolerance for red meat. Steak and potatoes are the way to my heart, and since I'd already come to terms with the fact that my steak and potato consumption would change drastically, the thought of not physically being able to tolerate them broke my heart. Crisis averted though. Me and beef have none (get it? I have no beef with bee -- okay fine, if I have to explain it, it's not funny. sheesh!), but I have found that some greasy foods don't sit well. It's weird, though. Greasy meat-type foods? Bad. Real bad. I basically can't eat hamburgers unless we cook them ourselves. But greasy non-meat food doesn't bother me. Fine by me, though. I like burgers but the greasiness of restaurant burgers has always squicked me out.
Overall the soft food phase was a relief from the puree disaster but I was REALLY read for real life.
Finally, towards the end of week six. I felt ready to move to the "forever" phase a few days ahead of schedule and gave some non-soft food a shot. I can't remember now what I had but it was probably a vegetable. Again, everything has been well tolerated and there hasn't really been anything I've discovered that I can't eat. I'm still not allowed to eat rice, pasta, or untoasted bread until six months after surgery, which is fucking GRUELING to a degree that I never thought possible. I've had some toasted bread here and there, and an occasional low-carb tortilla, but i can definitely tell the difference if I push it too far and have a sandwich with TWO slices of toasted bread, or if I take bites that are a little too big of those bread-like substances. As such, I've been mostly avoiding bread unless it's really, really worth it. I don't need toast with breakfast, and sandwiches are acceptable wrapped in lettuce or in a bowl. Tacos, however, need tortillas, and I will hear nothing to the contrary. I can only eat one small taco, though, and I use the ones with the lowest number of carbs I can find. So far, no real issues. Oh, also, I'm a sucker for a good peanut butter cracker.
The forever phase thing has gone pretty well overall. I'm still navigating grocery aisles and trying to find reasonable alternatives for my previous go-tos. There has been a bit of a learning curve as I have come to realize that even some of my previous "healthy" snacks are just not a good idea, at least for now. On the other hand, we're in an age where low-carb/low-sugar lifestyles are essentially de rigeuer and there are 'keto' versions of EVERYTHING. I'm not following keto, per se, but it does work out in that keto stuff is generally low sugar/low carb which helps for things that I miss enough to try and find a substitute for (say it with me: WAFFLES).
However, it hasn't all been sunshine and roses. And a lot of this has contributed to why I just haven't been posting as much. Part of it is just that I am lazy and busy and overwhelmed and can't put my thoughts into words, but the rest has been out of sheer avoidance because of these things:
- A few weeks ago, I started having pretty bad pains under my rib cage on the right side. Like, couldn't lay on my stomach anymore pain, even though I had been doing so successfully since approximately a week post-op. Being, well, me, I ultimately went into doom-spiral and was convinced that any of a number of things were going wrong. My pouch was stretching. My gall bladder was borked and exploding. I was having a heart attack (despite the anatomical unlikelihood). I had sprung a leak. I was thisclose to requesting an escort to the emergency room when I learned the real source: I was full of gas. And poop. Turns out that futzing around with your insides can impact where your gas pains settle in, and mine just so happen to be right where my gallbladder is now. That's not traumatizing at all! Also, as anyone who has had this surgery will tell you, this whole new way of eating really fucks up your shit. Like, for real. Immediately post-op is generally the worst because anesthesia and pain meds both contribute to constipation, so they send you home with a prescription for Colace. Since I was taking that as directed, I starting having BMs pretty early on when I came home and didn't really consider that the Colace was the ONLY reason that was happening. And when everything you're consuming is liquid or liquid-adjacent, your poop doesn't have much of a choice either. HOWEVER... start throwing some real food in there, and then still be in a position where vegetables (aka fiber) are not entirely comfortable yet, AND have a tiny tummy that has a harder time accommodating lots of fluids to keep things moving... it turns out stuff just kinda... stops. And gets stuck. And I'm not going to go into any further detail than that because ugh, yuck (and ow!) but suffice it to say that I was not in a great place and was regretting my life choices.
- Once I finally solved THAT mystery, I had finally gotten to a good place where I was clear from a medical standpoint to actually participate fully in my own life, coming out of the near-constant state of exhaustion, etc. But then I spent a day on my feet having quality time with my boys and did... something to fuck up my foot and spent another couple of weeks in excruciating pain. We switched Lucas to a new school/daycare, and his first day there was scheduled to be June 6. So, we had his last day at his old school be the Friday before Memorial Day, and kept him home with us for an entire week for some extra Mommy & Daddy time and to spoil him a little bit before we sent him off to this big scary new school. We still had to work Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but we decided to both take off on Friday, June 3, and treat Lukie to his very first "Yes Day". For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it's essentially an entire day where Lucas got to decide what to do. No matter what he asked for, unless it was unsafe or otherwise impossible, we said "Yes". The only caveat was that the two things we HAD to do that he could not veto were a) go to his new school to meet his teachers and drop off paperwork before his first day, and b) go pick up his new glasses that had arrived at his eye doctor's office. Now, most of you haven't had the good fortune of meeting my kiddo, but he is quite possibly the chillest, most mellow kid I have ever met. He has his moments where he throws a tantrum or completely loses his shit for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHATSOEVER, but those are reserved just for us when we are at home (lucky us!). Otherwise, he is very "go with the flow". Frankly, it confounds me because this is very much NOT my style and I do not go with any flows without knowing where they're going first and if I need to bring a sweater and a snack. I guess he gets it from his Daddy. Anyhoo, I say all that to say that he is basically always completely content to just hang out at home and/or follow us around on errands on the weekends. Like, he's gotten more creative and imaginative and interested in new activities as he's gotten older, so we play a lot more games and do a lot more crafts now than we used to, but otherwise, he's just along for the ride (although he does usually also want to know if the ride includes a snack. He totally gets that from me). When we first presented him with the wonder of Yes Day, he wanted to go to the grocery store. The big one with the good snacks (Wegmans, duh). We explained to him that we would go to the store over the weekend, but that he could pick whatever he wanted, no matter what... and he was flummoxed. We gave him a few options and eventually he decided that he wanted a new toy, he wanted a Happy Meal for lunch, and he wanted to go to the playground. And he wanted to watch TV. Really? That's it? Consider it done, kid. It just occurred to me that I have completely veered away from the point of this story. The bottom line is that I wore presentable shoes to meet with the staff at our new school because I wanted to wait until we'd paid our deposit to show up at drop-off with a messy bun, no bra, oversized t-shirt + leggings and purple Crocs. First impressions, you know. Well, for some reason, despite the fact that these presentable shoes (black Tieks, thank you very much) are typically insanely comfortable and I don't usually have any trouble wearing them for extended periods of time, being out in them all day killed my feet. After the daycare meetup we picked up his new glasses and then introduced him to Five Below for that new toy he wanted. Genius move on his part because neither Derek nor I had ever shopped there before and we have ADHD and make bad choices so we were there for likely over an hour (cuz who the fuck keeps track of time when the walls and shelves are lined with cheaply made diversions!?) and Lukie made out like a bandit. Not gonna lie, Derek and I did too. But my feet were dead. I was exhausted from a surgery-recovery-perspective and my right foot was protesting. Over the course of the next two weeks, any time I spent more than a couple minutes on my feet at a time, my right foot would essentially light itself on fire.
Friends, listen to me right now. I just had major abdominal surgery and learned the hard way that my body does not respond to fentanyl. I have endured pain. I have endured pain that I could not control. This? This was 1000x worse. What was originally just pain in the top of my foot, not new to me, generally disappeared with rest, became searing, burning, tearing pain in my big toe and pointer(?) toe. Totally uncontrollable, painful to the touch, did not respond to ANY form of treatment (although the one thing that would've likely worked was ibuprofen, but I can no longer take NSAIDs so Tylenol was my only choice). Lidocaine did not work. Rest/Ice/Compression/Elevation? More like Bullshit/Ow/More Ow/Could you fucking just kill me now, please. I struggled through it on my own for about a week - worked an extra day from home when I was scheduled to be in the office so that I could stay off my feet. Stayed at home by myself in bed over the weekend while my family went and did fun things because I couldn't fucking move without wanting to end it all. Finally decided after going into the office the following Monday (so 9-days post Yes Day) that I could not self-manage anymore and we went to urgent care. We were there for an inordinate amount of time due to an emergency situation that demanded the attention of the only physician on site apparently who could perform/read/authorize an x-ray. We sat in the waiting room for a while, then went and got dinner, then went and waited in the waiting room some more. Finally got called back and the pain was at like, an 8 out of ten. Got a few x-rays. Waited for the results. Result: Three hours at urgent care to be told my x-ray was clear, probably tendinitis, we'll wrap it up for you but otherwise go home and stay off it. -_- I worked another few days from home, this time per doctor's orders. No relief. No information. This went on for another week or so before I finally was able to get an appointment with a podiatrist. Had a new set of X-rays done and lo and behold, I have bone spurs right at the first joint of three of my metatarsals. This didn't entirely describe the pain, though, because the searing awful pain was in my toes, not at the site of the spurs. They didn't hurt to touch and by that point, although that was where the pain first started, it wasn't painful anymore. The conclusion, finally, was that there is an entrapped nerve between these spurred metatarsals. Not really sure what the long-term solution is (although surgery is the remedy for the bone spurs), but I essentially begged for a cortisone shot so that I didn't have to play anymore "wait and see", and I'm glad I did because I've been pain free since. I'm still nervous to do anything too strenuous or any excess walking/standing, but I can at least stand up/walk around for more than 5 minutes a day. Progress.
- And then, finally (if you've made it this far you win an internet brownie point), and maybe even the primary reason I haven't felt inclined to post... I'm stuck. I have been stalled at my current weight for weeks now. I've been doing all the things I'm supposed to do. More importantly, I haven't been doing the things I'm not supposed to do. There are things I could be doing better, including being more active (given the whole foot situation) and getting more water in, but overall I am consistently meeting my protein goals and consuming an appropriate amount of calories. I have tried to stay positive because I know that a stall around this time frame is pretty common, but I feel like I should've gotten past it by now and... well... I haven't. This, again, has left me to doom spiral and doubt my ability to be successful at this. I've felt like I'm condemned to being fat forever because my "last resort" can't even help me. I literally had more than half of my stomach taken out and I'm not getting any smaller. There have been quite a few days where I want to quit and just do what I want to do and eat what I want to eat because if surgery and following all the rules can't help me, what's the point? It's frustrating. I'm frustrated. I want this to work more than I've ever wanted anything ever (successful adoption of Lukiepoo aside). I want to know that I am capable of losing weight and being healthy, but at this point, I don't even know anymore. It's crazy to me how I assumed significant weight loss was a foregone conclusion following surgery because I knew I would do the right things so what could go wrong, right? Me. I could fucking go wrong. My body is going wrong. I haven't brought it up to my program nurses yet because I'm not sure I'm ready to hear the platitudes about how everyone loses at different rates and to just hang in there. I'm also not sure I'm ready to hear that I've fucked this up somehow, or that some people just can't lose weight, so I'm stuck this way. I'm also trying to remind myself that absolute worst case scenario, I do still have the option of having my gastric sleeve converted to a gastric bypass, and I am leaving that on the table until I'm told otherwise, but I don't know anything about how the conversion process works and if I'd have to go through another entire 6-month program in order to have insurance approve it, or how long I'd have to be "unsuccessful" for it to even be considered.
I'm just so... sad. Frustrated. Angry. Upset. Heartbroken. Dejected. Worried. Hopeless. Things were looking so good at first, especially with the significant weight loss I had between the start of the program and surgery day, but it feels like nothing has really happened since.
Anyway, this is basically why I haven't posted. Because this is all I've had to talk about -- disappointment and fear. And that's not a good look.
I promise that I will make an effort to update more frequently. I can't promise it will be frequent, but I will do my best. Please just send me all the good juju and wish this weight off of me.
I don't have any updated photos yet, but for the sake of consistency, my current stats, at 10 weeks post-op.
HW: 346
SW (program): 308
SW (pre-op): 282.6
SW (surgery day): 272.3
CW (7/7/2022): 259.2
Loss to date: 86.8 from highest; 23.4 from pre-op; 13.1 from surgery day.
I could use any well-wishes you've got to spare. I'm struggling, here.
<3 <3; Me
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