Sleeve Gastrectomy: Stories

I haven't been fat my whole life. I went through 3 pregnancies and managed to look great in a bikini weeks later.... And then I became pregnant again...High risk pregnancy..In the hospital more than 6 months on constant steroids and bedrest ( and encouraged to eat ANYTHING & EVERYTHING as I was having trouble keeping food down). I didnt gain a considerable amount of weight but I became lazy. Within a month of delivery I was in a size 14, the biggest I had ever been but still far from obese. While I was home on maternity leave, the lazy & bad eating habits that was a breeze to deal with in my 20's became my biggest fear. Before returning to work in 6 months, I was up to a size 18 and pregnant AGAIN.... Again on bedrest with the steroids, I didnt gain much weight but I was still that size 18 post-partum.... I have never been able to get that weight off again. I am stuffing myself into a size 20, I need to be in a size 22.

I come from a family of obese woman. My mother, also didnt get huge until well into adult hood, but is currently about 375 lbs. My grandmother died of obesity related illness....Most of her adult life she was over 500 lbs.

While my grandmother was sick, I promised her I would never get fat. I was nearly 30 when she died and I wasnt fat, so I assumed I had it made... I would get fat like she and my mother...but here I am...

I have no co-morbidities (but neither did my grandmother for most of her life, then one day BAM!) I am getting this surgery before it is too late. My "baby" is now 11 years old. If I was going to lose it I would've by now.

so I totally forgot about updating this.... I had surgey on Thursday Aug 30... surgery went well... I went home Saturday morning though I was offered to go home on Friday....Liek many, I had trouble taking even a few sips of liquids.... in some pain but not enough to keep pushing the pain pump the nurses were annoying me to push.... a Tylenol and peace and quiet would've been fine..... The nurses get you up often which I expected..and though I didnt always feel like it, I tried to get up once an hour to walk to nurses station and back... The pain in the butt was the other health care folks.... I had one lady trying to force a home health aide on me... another trying to say I needed a walker & bath aides ( insurance ripoffs).... when I refused to sign for those services, they'd keep coming back, most often during my sleep times.... I became VERY irritable and got nasty enough that they stopped coming.... A week or so later, I went back to ER in pain mostly from vomiting too much... in the end I was dehydrated... a few weeks later, the vomiting was not much better... I was admitted back to hospital....at this point I was also battling diarrhea... Dr basically said I was a slow healer... during my VSG surgery I had a hital hernia repair... the repair hd in the next 2 or 3 weeks came undone... my stomach was also way more swollen than it should've been at that time. Dr was considering a revision to Gastric bypass. I was NOT having that. I fought it tooth and nail. My Dr didnt agree but agreed to give me another week to try and get swelling down enough to get my esophagus from up inside the hernia where it was now lodged. After being able to hold down my liquids for a few days, I was disharged from hospital....kept on liquid diet for additional 8 weeks which gave my stomach time to heal some... I then progressed to pureed foods for 4 weeks...Honestly, I stayed more on liquids during this time because I was scared of rushing things.... I didnt have energy to walk around my house. Suddenly about 12 weeks post-op I started getting burts of energy and was ready to go back to work ( I couldve went back about 8 weeks post-op but I was in no rush) Im now 4.5 months post-op and down 71 pounds... Im 70 pounds away from my goal of 130 pounds... Im exercising 5 to 6 days a week, both cardio and weight lifting.... I cannot stress how important it is to do strength training and to begin after 4 weeks.... you dont need heavy weights at first...just enough to keep you from getting muscle atrophy... not only will you lose weight faster, you will not be skinny yet cant lift a bag of potatoes. I still dont have a GREAT appetite.... I force myself to eat many days... when I "cheat" I dont feel guilty either... I acknowledge it and wake up the next day with a new start. My goals are 600 to 800 calories per day... no more than 30 grams of carbs...90+ grams of protein... if I make that, all else is negotiable. Regrets?? NONE!!! well thats not true...I wish I had done it sooner