piggyangel
8/24/06
besides the weight i think im doing ok, I have been working on this process of the surgery for about 4 mnths and finally have an approval for my surgery. I got approval on my first attempt. On 8/28/06 i have my ultra sound for my gall bladder and on 8/31/06 i find out my surgery date. More to come on that. i have been heavy since forever and i have tried many different diets and exercise has been my friend but to no avail. i have to wait patiently for my surgery date but after years of being overweight whats a little more time??.. will keep u updated..
8/31/06
I have a date its september 27th. its a little less than a month from now. i had my ultrasound for my galbladder on 8/28/06 but its not locatable so i may have to do another one (YUCH!!) anyway i have bipolar so i have to make appts and see both my couselor and my psychiatist more often or the surgery is off. From what i understand the depression can get pretty bad so the dr. wants to make sure im in the best of hands and have the best chance. So more dr's appts for me. until next time.........
9/14/06
well just a week and a half away from surgery.. they found my ultra sound for my galbladder and its fine so i dont have to re-do the ultrasound. im getting really nervous about the surgery. i think its normal. ive had to find a new counselor that takes my new insurance so i had one appt with her and more to follow.. well until next time nothing really to report.
9/26/06
Well this is the day before my surgery. I just had my pre-op appt. blood work, urine test, chest xray, and ekg. all was ok. Im working on getting up my nerves to settle down. im getting a bit nervous. but i hope after this surgery i will be able to lose weight and keep it off. im not able to get excited yet but i think its cuz this idea keeps creeping that i will be the only one that the surgery wont work on. Maybe i will be the one that has some horrible something happens to. But i must stop thinking this way. I was weighed today and my starting weight is 248. so wish me luck.
10/3/06
I am now 6 days post op.. what a ride. I was in the hospital for 5 days not due to a major issue but bcuz i couldnt get down anywhere close to 64oz of water so they wouldnt let me go until i could drink water. I couldnt take the percaced for pain meds due to an allergic reaction. So my alt was tylenol which i didnt take as often as i should have due to a high tolerance for pain so i didnt realize that the reason i wasnt drinking water was bcuz i would get severe stomach cramps which turns out to be pain for me.. well duh!!!! so a nurse put it all together for me and since then just call me water girl. so i got to get out of the hosp yesturday. tho i have lost about 9 pds already. not having any type of eating issues. not having water issues anylong. just having a bit of pain.
10/8/06
hello its me again. wow what a ride. so far i have lost 19pds in 10 days. let me tell u a little about what i went thru. I was poked a proded and the recovery was not what i expected. I had a IV in my neck and a drainage tube in my side. I had 6 other holes in my tummy and couldnt take the meds for pain. I IV removal was the worst thing i experienced. Im still having issues with water and cant seem to get anywhere close to the amount of water they want me to drink. I have tried crystal light, propel, tea, and straight water and nothing is appealing. I eat the amounted foods quantities and on a schedule but i cant seem to do the drinking thing. My mind wants every food that i cant have but i redirect and eat what im suppose to. On the 11th i can increase my food intake. well until next time. good luck to all..
11/28/06
so far i have lost 40pds// i had a issue with throwing up all the time. every thing i ate other than yogurt. I went to the dr's with my hubbys insistance and i had a stricture/ I had to go to a gi specialist and he used a gi tube and a balloon to open up my esphogus so i can eat again. I also found out that i have two ulcers which i have never had before so now im on meds for that.. besides that it took a month for me to lose any weight no matter how much i couldnt eat. any way im on the losing end. talk to u soon... good luck... 427p/mt
1/1/07
well ive lost 53pds so far. things are going ok// having real issues with eating/ everything makes me hurt or ill. I have a few things that i can always eat so im not starving but eating new things is all trial by error. there are some things that i could eat when i got out of the hospital that i cant eat anylong but sugar gives me no issues but meat makes me gag. I have my 3 mnth follow up at the end of this mnth and they should be taking blood, and urine to find out how my body is taking the new change so i will update u when that happens. 128p/mt
1/29/07
well here i am..... doing ok except for my two (yes two) ulcers. I was very ill the other day and throwing up blood from the ulcers. now I really have to watch what i eat due to th ulcers. My gi doctor gave me 6 mnths worth of prescription of aciphex to cure them but they are tough to deal with. I have to be very particular with what i eat due to the acid and that pretty much cuts down on anything other than bread and yogurt. I have lost a total of 65pds so far im doing better. talk to u later..
4/4/07
Well it seems its been a really long time since i've updated but im here now. i have now lost a total of 80pds. Im now 170pds which feels great to me. Im 20pds away from my personal goal and 40pds away from what i should be shooting for. I havent had too many issues about with the surgery other than i still cant do meat of any type. i keep trying and am quickly reminded why i cant do meat. Other than that im working out at a gym and have a trainer helping me. the gym im using has a pool and water arobics so i have a way to get excersize while im having fun. Im a little concerned that i wont be succesfull cuz i have a hard time remembering to measure my foods but i talked to my surgeon and he says my wieght loss right on target. he says that cuz i only had a about a 120pds to loose i will loose wieght slower and so hes not concerned. I went to my support group last night and shared my concerns with no sex drive since my surgery and they told me that it was all in my head. I dont believe that tho. i cant believe that i had a great sex life before and now i could care less. At least my husband understands and he dont push me, hopefully this wont last too long..well ive talked ur ears off...until next time..good bye
10/16/08
well its been quite some time since i have updated on this site. its now 25months since my gbs surgery. i have been maintaining my wieght at a healthy 124pds but still not able to eat meat & fighting with ulcer issues. I have had many eating issues and my counselor is very concerned with my wieght (he's thinking im too small) but i just ignore his concerns and refuse to listen to anything he has say about my wieght. we would talk about it but i would just not listen. well i talked to my surgeon about my wieght loss and he's not concerned even tho i was still having ulcer symptoms but they couldn't find any ulcers anywhere. after two years of ulcer meds and no trace of an actual ulcer but the symptoms my surgeon was talking about a exploritory surgery to either look and see, remove excess stomache (the portion that is left behind in the body cavity after the gbs) or gbs reversal. That was until the 23rd of sept. on that day i had a perforated ulcer.
Photos
245lbs me and miserable |  | 149 me and feeling a whole life better |
Aug 10'
Whoo Hoo!!!! hip hip horray..........although I'm excited I can't eat ANYTHING.......and sick constantly!!!!!
so it's a win of sorts but definatly not a great experience right now.
1/13/10
Well its me again, it seems that I haven't updated this page for an extremely long time. I was taken aback when I had the puferated ulcer (the ulcer they couldn't locate) the ulcer that burst was sitting inbetween my pouch and small intestine surgical line so that is why they couldn't find it. I had emergency surgery to safe my life that day. After the surgery I went down to 98pds. In the time since then and now I have gained weight and am now back up to 130. Every one seems to be happy that I'm now at a healthy weight, I no longer look as tho I am starving is what everyone says. I'm really concerned cause I have gained weight and my biggest concern is that I will never stop loosing weight again. Up to today the only issues I have had was the emergency surgery but for the last two days I haven't been able to eat anything without pain and it seems to be getting stuck in my esophagus. I'm not sure if i have another stricture but I can promise u, I don't feel well. At first it started with foods the other day and it seems this evening I'm having issues with drinking liquids too. I'm a full time student now and no longer working due to layoffs so needless to say I no longer have health insurance. So if this don't clear up by tomorrow or gets worse I get to sit in the ER to see if I can get some help with this issue.
1/13/10
I also have to say that the main reason I lost so much weight in the beginning after surgery, the first year, I had a gallbladder issue that my surgeon refused to hear about, the surgeon was so please with my weight loss that is all he concentrated on, as a cap in his feather. I was looking for another surgeon to get my issues addressed but couldn't change surgeons due to the way their offices were set up, u get the surgeon they give u and no other surgeon will take u on, anyway, I finally had a sit down talk with my surgeon and explained to him that I felt he was ignoring my concerns and treated me like a hypocondriac but after listening to me again, he ordered some tests and discovered that my gallbladder had actually quit working. I had sand instead of rocks. I had surgery within a few days and since then all those issues were resolved. The reason I tell u this is if u feel that u are having issues and u are not getting the correct attention from ur surgeon go and talk to him/her make them listen, don't allow urself to go thru what I did for so long, I suffered greatly and could have died if I didn't get thru that surgeon. Good luck, I will update if i end up having to go back to the ER for help with my current issue.
10/18/10
Well, I'm back again. I know I haven't been here awhile. I never mentioned that I divorced during my time as a looser. My ex-hubby couldnt handle the fact that I went against his issues and had the surgery and so he related to a mutual friend that now making love to me was like sleeping with an old lady due to the excess skin. That truely hurt me deeply, we were already having issues but this was the absolute end for me. When I confronted him he, of course, denied it but I heard it from many other mutual friends too. Since then abt 4yrs ago, I got over the divorce, not an easy greivng time for me, I moved in with my sis due to lossing my job and losing lots of me, not just weight. While I lived there my sis had a best friend who happened to be male. In all the years of her knowing him I never met him, he lived in another state. one morning in December last year, he emailed cuz he recognized my screen name from my sis's forwarded email and we hit it off very well. He came to see me last x-mas and we went on a week's vacation together during the New Year's holiday, What a great time, we continued dating and he moved here to Colorado to be closer to me. Well that man is now my hubby, I just got married in July of 10. My new hubby wants me to be happy so he is going to pay for my plastic surgery, I'm not saying I'm not happy don't get me wrong, I never asked him to, this is coming from him. All is right with the world and me, but my hubby knows how I feel about he excess skin I have and he wants to put me at ease and help me accept my new me, I need a breast life and agumentation, a tummy tuck and a butt lift.
Now, the reason I'm on here today. I got a letter from obesityhelp.com to ask me to update everyone on my progress 4yrs out. Well here goes, I am in pain from whatever I eat if im not on a strict diet. I have several food intolerances which include, but are not limited to: oil, complex carbohydrates, sugar and lactose. One of these type of intolerances is bad enough but to have all 4, really bites. I get asked all the time "what do you eat" and I really have a hard time thinking about that. I eat what I can until it makes me sick. I avoid sugar & complex carbohydrates to avoid the severe hypoglycimic reactions I get (this is the dumping), If I have milk or oil (the cooking type) in any form I get ill and I'm in the bathroom like clock work. My hubby & I fugured all this out with the help of my dietician, which I pay for out of pocket cuz my insurance don't pay if there is no diagnoses of diabetes or something, Anyway, I have to say that I have to be very dilagent about what I consume or I'm down for the count. The reason I am telling you all this is because of my experience today...I am very low on iron, so low that my dr & GI dr wanted me to take iron suppliments otc x2. So I did this starting, in late August, and about a week later I just started feeling not so good. I couldnt get my ulcer pain under control (remember these are the ulcers I dont have, now I dont have 5 of them....hee hee) and I was in alot of pain constantly. I went to my dietician and went through my vitamin book and found out that I could be taking the wrong type of iron so I went to vitamin cottage and got the right type in liquid form. Well I can promise you that the pain I experienced was nothing I could describe, each and every time I ate I was doubled over in pain. I ended up in the ER for this issue & they found nothing, no suprise there. I stopped taking the liquid vitamen & began to feel like me again, and talked to my dr about it. He set me up on iron infusions cuz my iron level was still extremely low, Well today I went to get my first infusion and they usually do a test run to make sure there is no allergic reaction, well guess who had an allergic reaction? yep u guessed it, I got so ill so fast & I was about to pass out when they quickly removed the iron & gave me IV benadryl. Now, I have to go back next week to try a different type they claim nobody has an allergic reaction to... we will see
Until next time
Piggyangel
12/22/10
here I am again,
well i did take the second iron infusion but I put it off about 3wks out of fear that I would have another allergic reaction. Before I took it one of the rny patients from this website suggested I ask my dr about benedryl IV b4 the infusions but my dr said that he didnt think that was a good idea and had me take benadryl pill form b4 the infusions. The infusions went fine, I had a total of 3, one each week, and I was feeling so wonderful, until, I guess the affect worn off cuz now Im back to where Im feeling the same blah as before. I was told by the clinic that this would happen and I would probably have to take a series of these infusions for my body to get caught up. I was feeling so good, not tired and had color to me, like a normal person, but I cant schedule any of them again cuz i'm out of town for about a month and dont know if my dr is able to schedule medical procedures out of town, so I will wait til I go home.
until next time Happy Holidays
Piggy Angel
May 25, 2011
Wow!! how time flys when u get involved with life. Well at this point all I really can say is that I am ill. I don't know if my symptoms are the root cause of the original RNY in 2006 surgery or the 3 subsequent surgerys (within 3 yrs) since. All I know is that I have multiple symptoms that either plague me daily, weekly, monthly or every once in awhile, my only true concern is that i get back on the mend soon. Of course my main focus is my weight........ah my weight.......truely getting tired of the constant concern of this issue and would absolutely embrace NEVER having to address this issue again BUT, as we all have learned or you will soon discover, if you have not had the surgerythat is, but are planning on going through with it, YOU WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!!!!. I have had friends that have come close to death, had one friend pass away, others have had serious mal-nutrition side-effects, internal organ issues and friends whom accompanied me with thier surgery dates and never got off the ground on the weight loss track or began to be successful only to revert to thier past behaviors and weight and never looked back, mainly blaming the surgery rather than the issue that caused the weight wether it be a health issue or a mental issue or both, I am not blaming or judging, this is infact tough either road you chose to take. I myself still, after 5yrs + 7 months - 2 days still have the naggingh seed in the back of my mind that i will fail and chose to NEVER return to my old body shape. AS of my health, who knows what the heck is happening. There are a few things that could be causing me health issues that can be easily addressed and some that are not. today I am going to my dr. to see what the actual course of action is to discover the root of the issues so I can address them or fight them. Either way, knowledge is power & I simply can't live like this any longer, this is now affecting my quality of life. Let's hope that it is not what my Dr and holistic friends are suspecting ( the "C" word) and it is something along the mal-nutrition/allergy arena. I'm only scared of not finding the cause so I can address the issue ASAP & get back to living, loving and laffing instead of dealing........write soon
PiggyAngel
Let go of Power to Him & watch your love grow!!!
Surge on Info:
Surgeon: Brock Bordelon M.D., F.A.C.S.
Insurer Info:
united health care, ppo
I had blue/cross blue shield at first when i started the steps towards wls and up to the approval period with insurance and my dr's office told me to expect to be turned down on the first request so i was expecting the denial letter. My dr's office re-submitted
