Newest Side-By-Side Pic.. A Litte Pick Me Up...

Nothing like a side-by-side to really make you see your progress...

I was submitting the first pic for a contest at the tattoo shop I frequest and said GEEZ, that doesn't even look like me anymore!!  Hubby agreed and said maybe I should do a side-by-side and compare... So, they're not the greatest pics of me ever, and please excuse the hair in the first pic and my pajamas in the second, but HOLYCRAPMONKIES...

And now I just had to post it pretty much everywhere.  I'll have to keep this pic on my computer for those depressed days when I feel like all of this pain just isn't worth it...

Friday Update...It Could Always Be Worse..

So... Next Thursday is my Radiology test... I'm scheduled for an upper GI with small bowel follow through.  Another "drink this gross stuff and we'll watch you digest it" kind of thing.  Oh, yay!  Can't wait for that...

On a positive note, Yesterday I was brave and ventured into new clothing territories... I found out that size 14 jeans are comfy.  Not even tight... might be into a 12 sooner than I though.  Of course I only bought one pair of 14 jeans, but hey, they fit.  I got brave enough to finally buy new drawers (panties or underthings, for those of you more delicately inclined).  No more size 8s, hello size 6! I also got a few sportsbra options since I'm supposed to be moving and shaking a bit more on days when I'm not so pukey.  I'm not sure I can get used to this one... It feels like someone's hugging me constantly.  It does make me stand up a bit straighter, but I'm getting claustrophobic or something.  I'm so used to wearing clothes from 140 lbs ago, that stuff that actually fits right makes me uncomfortable.

I found some sleevers on MyFitnessPal, so now I get to read other people's food diaries that are a bit closer to my own, though I still get jealous of people recording that they ate a cheeseburger or a whole sandwich.  I'm still in mourning over bread.  I miss bread.  Not so much the sweets, like I thought I would.  I miss bread... sandwiches and toast and rolls and a big slab of homemade bread, warm with butter... Yeah.  I miss bread most of all.  Ooooh, and ice cream.  Ice cream was a go-to therapy kind of thing.  Now one or two babyspoons of ice cream makes me sick for hours.  Dumping sucks.

I've stayed off of the sleever boards for a few days since I've been angry and depressed.  I understand that this "journey" is different for everyone, but the boohoo-poorme posts enrage me sometimes.  "Poor me, I ate a whole pizza today!" "Poor me, I only lost 12 lbs last month!"  Makes me want to smoosh their nose into my blog like a dog that pooped on the carpet.  "Poor me, I lost all of my stomach, most of my small intestines, and I've been on liquids and mushy food for almost a year!!"  Dammit.  I know, not very sensitive of me,  that's why I don't respond to those posts.  Not everyone deals well with my snarky kind of insight.  I have come to accept that.  And I do have my own Poor-Me days, so I guess I don't have much room to talk.

I'm not dead.  I'm not back on a feeding tube, or a PICC line for my nutrition.  I'm not flayed open in the hospital waiting for a staph infection to be cured.  I'm not 400 lbs.  It could always be worse.  I have to keep remembering that.  That helped me get out (or at least partially out) of that big depression I've been going back and forth with these past few months.  It could always be worse.

So, there's my insightful advice for you.  This sucks.  Pureed food sucks.  Puking sucks.  Feeling lethargic and malnourished sucks.  Loose skin sucks.  Scars suck.  Abdominal pain sucks.  Not being able to eat what you want, or drink what you want, WHEN you want it sucks.  But, it could always be worse...

*knock on wood that I didn't just jinx something*

Anyone have a ladder I can borrow?

...or a rope, or some stairs... Anything to get out of this seemingly bottomless pit I've been in lately...

According to a bajillion websites, depression is rather common after WLS.  I've been reading up on it after realizing that I can't seem to get myself motivated.  I've talked to my primary doctor, but since I've had so many revisions, my medication choices are severely limited.  I can't take anything with an "extended release" formula, I can't take any medication in a solid form (no pills, no capsules).  I haven't had much luck breaking open capsules and mixing the contents with water or soft foods, they usually just come right back up.  You would think there would be a larger market for liquid antidepressants...

I've been depressed for a while now.  I guess after having so much hospital time and so many complications, depression is to be expected.  I've been trying to deal with it, but my patience is wearing thin.  I'm starting to get irritated and cranky at my family.  My kids are starting to avoid me when I'm upset, and my poor hubby tries to help as much as he can... I feel worse for making them put up with me. 

Teenagers get a bad rep, sometimes.  They make me crazy, but all in all (especially compared with some of the kids that I've seen come through this house) my kids are awesome.  They do chores after some prodding, and ask if they can get me anything... They stay out of trouble. They're good kids.

My hubby as been wonderfully supportive though all of this medical nonsense.  He's truly the best guy ever.  He's taken off a lot of days from work to take me to doctors appointments and tests and procedures.  He makes me tea and brings me a blanket when I'm not feeling well and stuck on the couch...  He lets me hug him and cry on his shoulder when I'm in the middle of a depressive fit...

So, if I have a great supportive family at home, why am I still so damn sad?  That's the most frustrating thing by far.  I know I'm depressed, now what do I do?  I'm hoping this is just a phase and it'll pass soon.  I've been burying myself in depression websites trying to find an answer.  I've been reading a lot of forum posts and responses, looking up statistics, and trying to sift through all the technical jargon on medical websites...  I wish I would have done this before I had surgery back in May...

My best answer so far has been that fat cells also store hormones.  As the fat cells are diminished, weight is lost, but more hormones are released into your bloodstream.  Great, so as long as I'm still loosing weight I'm going to be on constant PMS mode??!!?!?

WLS patients are up to five times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.  That is startling.  If the percentage is so much higher in WLS patients, why is this never really addressed before surgery?  I mean, I am nowhere near THAT depressed.  If I was, I'd hope to have the sense to check myself in somewhere...

I'm also in a serious Food Mourning stage.  I used to bury my depression with a pint of Ben & Jerry's.  Now I have to face my feelings head on.  I miss being able to use food as a comfort and a crutch.  Now food and I have a tense, iffy relationship at best.  I've been Clockwork Orange-d.  Food is my violence.  Now just the thought of food makes me rather queasy.  Viddy well, brother. Viddy well...

Blah...

The past few days have been more of the same.  Don't wanna eat.  Have to eat.  Occasional yarking.  Trying to get more water in.  Nothing really new.

This morning I woke up and just couldn't get myself out of bed.  I knew I had to get up... I even had to pee... I just didn't feel like moving.  So I just stayed there, looking up at the ceiling, talking to myself in my brain.  Trying to find motivation.  After a while, the hubby walked in to see if I was awake...   He kissed my forehead and put his hand on my waist and promptly said "Pelvis!"... I cried.

It wasn't his fault.  I'm sure he doesn't believe that it wasn't his fault.  I've been having issues with what I see in the mirror for a long time.  But all at once, my new boniness hit me.  I can feel my ribcage and my pelvis when I lie down.  I can feel my pointy pelvic bones when I sit on a hard chair.  I can feel the cords in my legs behind my knees and at the top of my thighs.  I can see my clavicles and feel the divots in my shoulders.  I can see the cords in my knuckles instead of the fat little dimples that used to be there.

When I was 400+ pounds, I didn't much like what I saw in the mirror.  At times, I still see the same fatgirl in the mirror that I saw back then.  But now nothing feels the same.  I still feel fat, but now I'm fat and bony at the same time.  That doesn't make much sense to me, but I don't like it.

I was never really good at accepting compliments.  My family taught me that there's some kind of snark behind every nice word.  I haven't quite unlearned that.  Now when someone says how good I look now, or something about how I've lost so much weight, I just want to scream.  Don't you see how horrible this is?  I'm lumpy and bony and weird now!  I hate it!  WTF?

I guess I'm just having a pityparty kind of day.  I read through the archives on WeightySecrets.com and commiserated with many of them.  I know how they feel.  I never expected the whole WLS thing to be "easy"... I just didn't know how much harder this would be than just being fat.

When I was fat, I had no comorbidities.  My blood pressure was a little high now and then, but nothing too bad.  I had no sleep apnea, no diabetes, no cholesterol problems... none of the usual suspects.  I was just fat, so I got tired easily and I would sweat more than your average thinner person.  I gave all that up for this.  This lifetime of being borderline anorexic.  A lifetime of constantly watching and planning my food and water intake.  A lifetime of vitamin and mineral supplements, protein supplements, constant nausea, dehydration, and clothes never fitting for more than a week.

I can't undo it.  I can only carry on.  I'm trying to stay positive and do that "tomorrow will be better" thing, but damn, when is my tomorrow?

Oh, the many ironies of my daily life...

So, today has been a sucky day for food so far.  I just don't want to eat.  Anything.  Don't wanna.  I'm not feeling too nauseaus, I'm not yarking every few minutes, and I'm not in too much pain today... I just have no desire to ingest anything.  I keep finding things to do around the house so I don't have to sit down and eat anything.  I've done 3 loads of laundry, picked up the boys' stuff from the living room, and even cleaned up the "mancave" around my husband's desk... I realized that I'm doing this so I figured I should probably put it into text, acknowledge, and overcome.  So there it is.  I have to eat.  I have to make a protein shake or something.  I did manage to eat two slices of cheese this morning (10g protein, yay!)... and I'm trying to keep sipping on some Crystal Light since it's about 85 degrees in the house.  This is just really hard today.  I'm not hurting too bad, so why can't I just suck it up and eat something already??  Gah!!

Anywho, one of the more ironic parts of the whole food situation is I am a baker.  I've been on disability since May 2011 and I'm not allowed to go back to work until we get this whole nutrition/vomiting thing under control.  So to supplement my sad little disability check, I've been exchanging baked good for donations towards my medical bills.  I used to send out noms now and then to friends just as a simple gift.  Some of my friends thought that I should get paid for my work and started dropping money into my PayPal account, especially since they know all about my medical stuffs and work situation.  They shared baked goods I had sent and they told people... who then told more people... who then told more people...  And now I am sending out, on average, 4 packages a day of baked goods.  I'm rather famous (infamous) in our ever expanding social circle.  I've been dubbed The Queen of Noms.  The Cupcake Lady.

I can't eat a cupcake.  They make me violently ill for hours on end.  I have days, like today, where I absolutely abhor food.  Today, I mailed out 8 dozen tiny pies, 3 dozen cupcakes, and assorted truffles, muffins and chocolates to 6 different states.  I am constantly surrounded by food that used to talk to me.  Cupcakes all knew my name and yelled very loudly from the kitchen.  Chocolate pies were a weakness.  Chocolate was my fatgirl crack.  Now I have to have someone else home when  I bake because I can't even taste the frostings I make to check them, they might make me sick.  My tolerance seems to be right around 7g of sugar at a time.  The difference between yummy and ohmygodimgonnadie is somewhere between 5 and 6 jellybeans.

Like I've said before, I use the MyFitnessPal program on my phone to track my intake and make sure I'm getting enough protein and water in every day.  I occasionally read through some of the forums there, or poke through my friends' food logs just to live vicariously though other people's food.  Sometimes it makes me jealous.  Sometimes it just makes me sad.  I miss food.  Even when I hate food, I still miss it.  Food was like my long term abusive boyfriend.  It hurt me physically and emotionally,  It complicated my life, It even made me hate myself sometimes.  But I loved it.  And even now, knowing the havoc that food brought into my life, I still mourn my loss.

Now that food is no longer my addiction, I have become the dealer.  I am the supplier.  I am the pusher.  I am causing dietary havoc in the lives of people I like.  Watching the mailman cart off the 6 outgoing packages of noms today left me with a twinge of guilt.  I feel bad for selling cupcakes.  How silly is that? 

A protein shake will not assuage my guilt, but it will give me the fuel I need to keep rolling along as the Baking Machine.  I will keep supplying the demand... My guilt is still overwhelming somedays, but I have to admit, when one guy raved on and on about the triple chocolate donuts I sent to him, and how they were fantastic and sooo much better than any other donut he's ever had, I still didn't tell him that they were baked and not fried... and made with pumpkin puree instead of eggs and oil...  I just smiled and said thank you.  ...occasionally I send out low fat, low sugar noms without telling people.

I'm not a horrible person all of the time...

A Timely Update....

Well, we're a little closer to an answer now.  I had another upper EGD this morning at the hospital GI lab.  The horribly expensive Prevacid SoluTabs have helped and my frankenstomach ulcers are healing.  The ulcerations in my intestine are also looking better.  Unfortunately, while scoping my small intestine, the surgeon discovered that my jejunum has twisted causing a slight obstruction.  He was able to get the scope through the obstruction with "some wiggling and a bit of force," so he believes that fluids are passing through fine, but this may be the reason I've been having so much trouble with solids.  My last food intake was around 8pm, my last drink of water was at 11pm.  When the EGD was done around noon today there was still remnants of solids trapped in the intestinal twist.  Food is getting trapped at the sight and being forced back upwards, thus causing the ulcerations and the massive amount of pain I've been having. 

Now I have to go for a barium test to identify how bad the twist has obstructed my intestinal movement.  I'm going for an "Upper GI with Small Bowel Follow Through" on May 3rd.  That was the earliest appointment I could get.  I have to watch for signs of the twist getting tighter and may be in for an emergency room visit between now and then...

For those of you just joining us, I have a modified gastric bypass.  I originally went in to get a gastric sleeve and stomach polyp removal done May 23rd, 2011.  By the middle of June, my sleeve had fully strictured and healed itself shut.  I was given a much unwanted bypass in July.  This was followed by another modification surgery every 2 months due to strictures and over healing.  Surgery #5 was in January. I have lost most of my actual stomach tissue (except for a 1cm x 3cm band at the end of my esophagus), I have lost all of my duodenum (the first part of the small intestine), and my frankenstomach is now made of my jejunum (the second part of the small intestine).   Hello, I am the 0.001% Poster Child.  I am a walking Complication Machine. 

And the machine rolls on....

Not much to update... I still suck at blogging...

So, the surgeon didn't know why I'm still in so much pain.  He thinks it could be due to frankenstomach/intestinal ulcerations.  Now I'm on Prevacid Sol-Tabs that cost me $150 for a 30 day supply... that's WITH insurance.  The generic was pulled from the shelves, so I'm forced to buy the brand name.  This is the final option in a long line of acid blockers I have tried.  I do seem to tolerate them much better than the other ones, so at least they stay down most of the time.

I have another EGD scheduled for 4/13 to check and see if this has healed anything, or more likely, if it has began healing things.  I still may need a surgery to remove the permanent stitching.  The surgeon believes that the stitching may be causing some of the ulcer problems I've been having.

I'm still mainly on a soft diet... mostly protein shakes and chili (very mild, I can't see to eat anything spicy), cheese, and sugarfree pudding.  I get adventurous now and then and try to eat something a bit more solid, but my frankenstomach usually just sends it back up.

On the positive side, I'm down over 140 lbs and looking into buying some size 14 jeans... I still have trouble seeing it.  I get a little freaked out by the mirror sometimes.  Just waiting for my brain to catch up, I guess.  I read in a blog long ago that surgery is the easy part, the hard part is working with your non-modified brain.  Brain modification is difficult.

So, almost 11 months after my first surgery, I'm still never hungry.  I have to remind myself to eat by watching the clock.  Every 3 hours or so, I have to eat something or I tend to get light-headed.  Getting fluids in isn't too bad most days, but eating is still really difficult for me.  My relationship with food has changed sooo much.  It used to be a friend... a comfort.  Now I must eat to live.  Food is fuel.  It's a necessary evil in my daily routine.  Sometimes, food isn't too bad.  Some days, I hate food.  Seriously hate it.  Now when I'm angry or sad or depressed I have to face and deal with it.  It was so much easier to just bury myself in a pint of ice cream or a bag of cookies.  I no longer have that option.  It has taught me a lot about my emotions and my reactions to them.  Taking food out of the equation has completely changed my coping mechanisms.  It makes dealing with teenagers that much harder.  But I have to.  So I'm trying to learn as I go.  What else can I do...?

So, I'm just trucking along... waiting to stop vomiting.  Once I stop vomiting so much, I can go back to work.  I miss work.  I don't necessarily miss my job, per se, but I miss being a productive member of society.  Some days I feel useless.  I have deemed myself CouchLump on those days.  I think a lot of the anger and depression will go away as soon as I can get back to some semblance of "normal" in my day to day.  Until then, I deal...