Finally, the Weight is Over

Been reading up on it, and gall bladder removal (cholecystectomy) is a complication in 10 percent of GBS patients.  Gallstones affect about 30 percent of us, but not everyone has the dang thing yanked out. Some doctors take out the gall bladder while they’re in there.  Some will only do that if there are stones or sludge present.  Mine got a complete bill of health barely a year and a half ago, before the GBS.  

This was a bad one–I’ve seldom been so miserable for so long.  Hours in ER waiting rooms, both at Alton Memorial Hospital, which was useless, and Barnes Jewish in St. Louis, which was of some use.  Horrible, ravaging pain, which has yet to completely diminish, but is distinctly better.  This all because I am not just one in a million, I’m one in ten.  I hate statistics.

Oh well, there are worse things - could have ended up with a bleeding ulcer or hernia.  Think I’ll take the gall bladder, all things being equal.  At least, thank the good Lord, it’s done!  Thank you, Dr. David Linehan of Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, MO.  You rock!

Have been struggling of late, with my first post-op complication (and one hopes, my ONLY post-op complication!).  My gall bladder is going into spasm after everything I eat after the hour of 10 or 11 a.m.  And yes, I’ve tried eating the same thing for lunch and dinner as I do for breakfast, but it still goes into spasm.  I have no freaking idea what’s going on. 

My primary care provider (love that man) has contacted the surgeons directly that he wants to have yank this malfunctioning organ, and they are supposed to call me to set up an appointment to talk to them about getting this done.  I hope to hell they call this morning.  I’ve been off work for a week, am looking at even more time off post-surgery, and need to get this done quickly.

If you’ve ever wondered what gall bladder spasms feel like, it’s much like having a balloon in your chest that someone is blowing up.  Only the balloon has hammers, blunt objects that protrude on every side.  It is bloody awful, and makes me squirm madly, trying to find some position, any position that will diminish the pain and will let me breathe.  Hope to get this resolved soon.

Thoughts from the shower about losing lots of weight:

Shaving your armpits becomes a complete pain in the butt.  Yes, when I was fat, I was even fat IN MY ARMPITS.  They became, thereby, convex, with an outward curve.  They are now concave, and damned hard to shave.

You can wash all your business while you’re in the shower.  This has cleanliness implications that pretty much boggle the mind.

I had to retrain myself on how to wear a towel wrapped around me without it falling down all the time.  For the last 30 years or so, the towels haven’t actually gone all the way around me, so it was a moot point.

My surgery was one year ago today, and it’s important to me to record where I am right now:

All my labs were perfect when I went to see my primary care provider today to discuss the results. 

I’ve lost 144 pounds as of this morning.  One year ago, I weighed 303 pounds.  Today, I weigh 159.

One year ago today, I wore size 30 t-shirts, size 26-28 jeans.  Today, my size 12 jeans are getting loose, and I’m in women’s medium shirts.

One year ago today, I was 5′1″ tall and super obese according to the BMI standards.  Today, due to regaining the height lost to the pressure of the weight, I am 5′2″ tall, and am merely overweight.

Here’s the comparison of measurements:

Body part     9/19/05     9/26/06 - today

Neck             17″            13.75″        -3.25
Shoulders     25             14               -14
Chest            44              35               -9     
Breasts        50.5           39.5            -11
Midriff           41.25         30              -11.25
Waist            49              29              -20
Stomach       62              39              -23
Hips              60              42               -18
Thighs           34.5           23              -11.5             
Calves          19              15.75         -3.25
Ankles           11              8.75          -2.25
Bicep            16               12              -4
Forearm       14               10.25         -3.75       
Wrist              7                  6                -1

I’ve lost over 130 inches, and 144 pounds, and I am extremely happy with my progress and my health.

OK, the title of this one is a reference to Little Women.  If you never read it, you still should.  Love that book, if not least because Jo is my favorite, and the only one of the bunch that isn’t relentlessly cheerful.  Much better than the movie.

My particular Slough of Despond is my first plateau.  Been stuck at 135 pounds lost for over two weeks.  Rationally, I know the weight loss isn’t over–that I will lose more weight, it’s just a matter of time.  Emotionally, it’s really a struggle.  I’m still 18 pounds from my goal, which I think is a pretty realistic goal. 

Most people lose 70-75% of their weight above ideal.  I weighed 303 when I had the surgery, and the “ideal” weight for my 5′1″ height is 109 pounds.  (As laughable as that is).  So you take 303, subtract 109, and you get 194 pounds.  Multiply that times 75%, and you get 145.5 pounds, which would leave me weighing 157.5 pounds total when I lose 75% of my excess weight.  Right now, I weigh 168.  My goal was 150 pounds, so I’m shooting for a 78% weight loss.

This is not unreasonable, and I can still make it.  I’m only 11 months post-op tomorrow, so there is still time.  Most people continue to lose weight until their 16-18 month mark, so there’s still plenty of time.  Right?  Right.  Just got to keep on keeping on.  If this sounds like a pep talk, it’s because that’s what it is.

OK, we’ve  been on what was scheduled as a week-long vacation for eight days now, and two more to go after today before we get home.  Typing this out in a Holiday Inn in Alton, Illinois, while my husband gets the work done that he had to be here to do today.  We’ll be here tomorrow, though we’re switching hotels, as his company’s paying for tomorrow night.

This trip has taught me a lot about how to cater to my gastric bypass needs while traveling.  It’s also taught me that I’m an Internet JUNKIE!  I was up in the wilds of Wisconsin for six of the last eight days, and I was in electronic withdrawal.  No cellphone or Internet.  Though I could have checked my e-mail on my sister-in-law’s dial-up connection, after watching it take five minutes to load a page I just gave up.

Anyway - eating for gastric bypass on the road. 

1) Take a cooler if you can.  It’s a hell of a lot easier if you travel by auto and can take a cooler for things such as string cheese, cottage cheese, and drinks.  I’m still gnawing on the string cheese that I brought from home and have toted into and out of numerous hotel rooms.

2) Keep your pills cool and dark.  I kept my pills in the top level of the cooler, so they weren’t actually in the ice.  Another good thing about traveling by auto is that no one is pawing through your many medications and supplements wondering what kind of hypochondriac you are. 

3) Celebrate your freedom!  Traveling has gotten me away from that unholy interest in what the bathroom scale says on a daily or twice- or three-times daily basis.  Probably a good thing, but I’m itching to get back home and see if I’ve lost any weight.  Going to be hard to restrain myself ’til the morning after, as I only weigh in the a.m.

4) Let ‘em look!  Since I’ve often been eating all three meals on a given day in restaurants, I’ve gotten used to the funny looks when I take my supplements with my morning cottage cheese.  Altogether, I take over ten pills, so it takes a while.  I just keep my eyes on my newspaper, take a bite, take a supplement, take a sip of water, and repeat ten times.

5) Know your proteins and other food contents.  Knowing the basics of what foods contain what protein amounts has been invaluable.  I know how many grams of protein (approx. 20) a chicken breast has in it, and about what 4 ounces of meat looks like (it’s the size of a deck of cards) and that four heaping teaspoonfuls of cottage cheese is about 4 ounces and about 13 grams of protein.  My dietician requires 56 grams of protein a day, and I shoot for 60-65 each day.  So far, I’ve been making it. 

6) You don’t have to eat it just because they serve it.  I feel more like a normal person than a patient after this last week.  It’s kind of like getting the agoraphobe out into open spaces again.  Little by little, I’m realizing that I can cope with the diet I have to eat without getting all het up about it.  The fact that Denny’s served me eight ounces of cottage cheese and another eight ounces of fresh fruit didn’t mean I had to eat it all–not that I could have anyway.  I ate what I could and left the rest, just like a real person.

7) Don’t wait too long to eat.  I’ve learned, as well, that if I leave it too long, I can eat more than I should at a single sitting.  Had to attend a family funeral on Wednesday–ate lunch around 12:30, and then didn’t eat again until nearly 9 pm.  I was nearly ill with hunger, and then ate a little too much of Texas Roadhouse’s Southwestern Chicken.  It’s grilled chicken covered with a black bean and cheese sauce.  Tasted wonderful–and racked my digestive system up like a pool shark racks up the billiard balls.  I survived it, but it was bloody painful. 

That’s it for now–happy traveling!

Have a feeling that yesterday was way Freudian.  Here’s the deal - went to a lunch that was the last obligation I had to the job I departed from about two weeks ago.  Ate a little bit of fajita chicken meat, nothing else.  Enjoyed the luncheon - one old friend from a previous contract position, one new friend from the university where I worked until two weeks ago, and one other person from the university. 

Felt fine after I got home, and ate some crackers and cheese about 2 pm.  Within a half hour, I was throwing up.  I continued to upchuck for the next six hours straight, pretty much.  Felt much worse if I laid down, just hurting all over in the area below my ribs.  Finally, about 8:30 pm, the chicken exited in almost exactly the same shape it went in.  Felt better immediately.  My basic mistake was, I think, not getting any kind of sauce with it, and it was just too dry. 

So, why Freudian?  Let’s see–had to get the last job out of my system.  Couldn’t stomach what they fed me.  And possibly even that someone was a chicken, as in cowardly… :)  not sure who.  Pick any moral of the story you want.  But whatever it was, it was an ending.  I can finally move on to what I’m supposed to be doing.  Writing.  Onward and upward!

Crockpot Chicken Spaghetti Sauce

4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, flash frozen
1 can of Campbell’s Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 can of Hunt’s No Sugar Added Spaghetti Sauce
1/2 lb. of mushrooms
Garlic (powder or fresh, your preference) to taste
Onion (powder or fresh, your preference) to taste

Turn the crockpot on low and put in the can of soup, the can of spaghetti sauce, and the chicken thighs.  If you like, you can just wash and slice the mushrooms and add them, the garlic and onion, whether powdered or fresh, to the mixture, then leave it all in the crockpot for eight hours.

You can also slice the mushrooms and saute’ them in a teaspoon of olive oil along with the garlic and onion, and add them to the mixture, then leave in the crockpot for eight hours on low.  Either way works, but sauteeing the mushrooms adds a little more flavor. 

When the chicken’s fully cooked, stir the mixture to shred the chicken, and change the crockpot to warm until it’s time for dinner. Serve over rice (my husband’s preference) or spaghetti.  Should feed three or four people, especially if one’s had gastric bypass and doesn’t eat that much.

We had leftovers the next night, and I served the chicken sauce over toasted garlic bread in an open-faced sandwich - my husband loved it!  I just ate the sauce by itself, as it’s about the consistency of sloppy joes, and added parmesan cheese.