HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Next week is my 2nd year "birthday", marking 2 years since my Gastric Bypass Surgery.

In those 2 years, I have lost a total of 145lbs, gained 15lbs back, gone from a size 22/24 to a size 10/12, played roller derby, injured my kneed playing roller derby, consequently stopped playing roller derby, became an Executive Director of a non-profit organization, got married, got divorced, lost a number of friends/supporters, met some new lifetime friends, assisted others on their weight loss journey, shared my story with hundreds of people, fell in love again, cried openly, found a blog that at first glance could be mistaken for mine (http://losingoncemorewithsurgery.blogspot.com), had ANOTHER surgery (Gall Bladder), moved, bought a car, and I haven't even begun to explain how I feel! 
I can't thank you all enough for following my story, supporting my journey, and listening to my ramblings.

2011 was a year full of adventure and changes; 2012 will be a year to remember.

Happy New Year!

The Video is up!

As promised here is my testimonial for Dr. Ameri.  Thank you again to Sue for recording this for me!
Happy Holidays everyone!

Testifying!

Giving a testimonial was terrifying!  And yet, I got through it and it was awesome.  I'm going to get the video up as soon as I can, but I need to say a big, big thank you to all of my friends.  I have the most amazing support system.  And I have to say a very special thank you to my friend Sue.

Sue, thank you for coming to this meeting, supporting me throughout these recent tough months and taping my testimonial tonight.  It means a lot to me that I have you in my life.

To everyone I met tonight, you can do this.  You are going to get through this surgery and change your life.  If you need a pick me up, have questions, or just need to talk please contact me and I will do whatever I can to help.  Stay tuned for the video!

Track Marks?

I once again have a railroad on my belly.... or a zipper...or little bugs....I had ANOTHER surgery!

I was opened up again on Thursday, November 16th at 1:30pm and this time, Dr. Ameri took a souvenir...my gallbladder.  My Gallbladder was gross...super gross....so gross that it needed to be removed.  So gross that when it was removed my surgeon told me that I had "an ugly gallbladder".

Let me tell you, it was a horrible experience.  Most of the people I had spoken to had told me that the surgery was relatively easy.  That the healing time wouldn't be so bad.  That is SO not true. I spent 14 hours in the hospital in level 10 pain.  Unable to move, breathe, talk, pass gas, eat, or relieve my bowels without help or pain.  And when I tell you that my gastric bypass surgery was easier, know that I went back and watched the old videos, I read the old blogs, and it was still an easier surgery.  Not only did the gas stay with me for the entirety of my healing time so far, but so did the gas pain, the bloating, and the inability to do anything by sleep sitting up and drink water.  UG!

Highlight of the past 2 weeks....Thanksgiving.  I was able to eat, I was able to walk around, and I got to spend time with my family whom I love very very much. Wonderful day, I hope yours was fantastic as well.

Low-point....having my roommate come into my bathroom, while I sat on the toilet in almost blackout pain to save me from passing out and hitting my head on my sink.  For the record, I called her, well text messaged her, from my toilet because I knew that something was wrong and couldn't do anything on my own.  I needed help, or I would have been found the next morning passed out with my pants around my ankles on the floor of my bathroom.  Nothing good about that.  Thank you Gloria for helping me that night.

So tomorrow, Wednesday November 30th I will have my staples removed, all 10 of them.  And then we will see how I'm feeling.  There is a possibility that I pulled an ab muscle...but if that's the worst of this left, I can handle it.

Gallbladder surgeries are very common after gastric bypass.  My surgeon says that 1 out of every 4 patients will need to have their gallbladders removed.  A friend of mine who works at the hospital, and the wonderful nurses who helped me this time (Thank you A4 RN's) think those numbers should be half of every patient.  This is a common side effect, and it's a painful one..at least for those who are post-op.

How did I know I needed surgery?  I realized something was wrong with my gallbladder because my feces were white. That's right everyone....I had pastel poop!

Dr. Oz taught me to watch my poop...that was a great way to diagnose a number of ailments.  Mine was white...or almost white, which is NOT normal.  So I saw my Dr. and when he pressed on my abdomen, where my gallbladder was located, it was tender.  NOT PAINFUL, just tender.  An ultrasound showed that I had a single, LARGE stone in my gall bladder.  A 7 millimeter stone.  That is roughly the total size of a normal, health gallbladder.  The bile duct out of the gallbladder is roughly 1.3mm large....so my stone just stopped up the works. No bile could get out, and yet I could store it....hence the ugly gall bladder.  Watch your poop everyone.  If I wasn't, I wouldn't have discovered this issue until much later...and it probably would have been an emergency removal.

Next up....a testimonial.  Dr. Ameri holds monthly support/informational meetings for people thinking about weight loss surgery or who have already had one of the surgeries.  At each meeting he asks a patient to give a testimonial about how their surgery went, and how they have had continued success.  On Tuesday, December 13th I will be the person giving a testimonial.   I am honored to share my story with those who are thinking about or have had weight loss surgery.  I'm going to ask if i can record the testimonial for my blog, and for my boyfriend who has a work obligation.  So stay tuned for information on that.

Thank you for sticking with me...for sticking with my lack of posts...and for sticking with me throughout my vast number of changes. My commitment to the blog hasn't changed, but boy has my life changed.  I will continue to change, but hopefully it will always be for the better.

Who Are You?

I have been away for too long.

So much has happened and I don't have enough space to tell you about all of it. Let's start at the beginning...it has been 1 year and 11 months since my Gastric Bypass Surgery. My peak weight loss has been getting down to 150 for a total loss of 145lbs. (Almost as much as I weighed at that moment!) I am currently sitting at 170lbs. What is scary is that I've gained 20lbs since I hit my peak weight loss and at least half of it has to do with medication. It's tough to know that there is almost nothing I could do to take some of that weight off...it's just there...until I'm off the meds.

What are these meds that I need to take now. Birth Control. That's right, I'm on the pill again after 11 years! There are a number of reasons that people go back onto the pill, heavy periods, bad cramps, ridiculously bad clotting, and birth control. Since I wrote last I've gone through MANY changes...but the biggest is that I got a divorce.

That's right...Alex and I broke up after over 5 and a half years. She was such a source of support and encouragement for me. She made me feel good about who I was and where I was going. But I had fallen out of love with her...and needed to make sure that we were both going to love and be loved the way that we deserved. In June I breached the subject of breaking up and in September our divorce was final.

For the record, I love Alex and want NOTHING but the best for her...but I am not in love with her and I haven't been for some time.  Alex is amazing.  Everyone who meets her loves her, and I miss her every day.  I miss my friend, I miss my companion, and I miss my confidant.  But I do not miss Alex, my lover.  Luckily, we have a number of mutual friends and we still have a fur child to take care of, so I hear from and about her from time to time.  Alex, if you read this, I am happy that you are doing well and I honestly want nothing more than for you to be happy.  I'm sorry that I was not the person who you needed me to be.

To add some confusion to all of this, I am also in a new relationship.  I think that I was finally ready to find my other half, and although I was not looking for anyone to come into my life, this man side swiped me and my heart.  I have a boyfriend.

That's right world, I said boyfriend.

This person could have been anyone.  Please do not think that I left a woman because I needed to be with men.  I was with an amazing person for a long time...and I happened to find yet another amazing person who made my heart sing.  This second individual could have been a man or a woman, it just happened to be a man.  What I will say is that THIS man is very supportive, understands my past and my surgery circumstances, and has fallen in love with me.....and I with him...even though I have saggy extra skin and the face of a 16 year old boy.

OH YEAH! Did I mention that when I turned 31 in June I developed Cystic Acne? Awesome.

SO all of this sounds pretty bad...and seems to have NOTHING to do with my surgery. Well, in some ways you are right. But, I'm a confident woman now. The Lindsay of 2 years ago...fat Lindsay...would not have left Alex in order to be happy. I had become content with being ok. I had become content with the fact that I would never be 100% happy. I could live with only being happy 80%. That is NOT the way anyone should ever live. If I hadn't had my surgery I still would have come to that conclusion, just not as quickly. I would have stayed with Alex, and had a decent life where I was just ok...but not truly soulfully happy. Everyone needs to follow their heart, and a wise friend of mine told me that "Matters of the heart blondie, you can never control matters of the heart." And it's true.

At the end of all of this, anyone thinking about having gastric bypass, anyone supporting those having gastric bypass, think about where you are now and KNOW undoubtedly that it will change. I am not saying that everyone who has surgery will leave their loved ones...I'm not saying anything of the sort But what I am saying is that you are going to change. You are going to change in ways that you didn't think were humanly possible. Your boundaries, your fundamental beliefs, your ID can and will change. Be prepared...and have the a system around you to support you through this change.

Don't be afraid of who you are, who you were, or who you become. No one can be anyone other than themselves...and YOU are amazing.

Goals and the Future

Who doesn't make goals? I am pretty sure that we all do. But what happens when you reach that goal?

My goal of loosing 130lbs is complete. I've officially lost 140lbs...and yet I feel like I could loose another 5. Maybe another 10. Is that the weight loss curse?

Please do not misunderstand. I am amazed, thrilled, and in awe of the transformation that has taken place in me both outwardly and inwardly over the past year and 4 months. But I just can't escape the feeling that I have so much more to do. I am hoping that working towards having some skin removal surgery will help me feel better about this new body. The only thing I see when I take off my clothing is folded skin....which is gross by anyone's standards. But when I have clothing on I feel like a million bucks.

It's funny....I've been told by a number of people over the past couple of days that they never saw the big girl that I was. Honestly, neither did I. I was still flirty and being hit on by men and women. I was still going out and having fun. None of this has really changed since I have become smaller. I do notice more people looking at me and smiling now. But that's really it. Maybe personality can transcend the outward appearance of a person more than society lets on.

Do not get me wrong...there were always people who were laughing at the fat girl, or who judged me based on my weight. These are things that I only recognize in retrospect though, I didn't see it that way at the time. But someone who is friendly, and tries to assist you at any time, whether big or small, someone who smiles and laughs and treats you like an equal (or at least tries to) maybe that is what matters and what people remember. Not the fact that the person helping them is large.

What do you think about this? Everyone has had issues with weight one way or another. Whether you're trying to put it on or take it off. Have you ever experienced this phenomena? Do you think that size matters? (The size, aka weight, of a person...get your mind out of the gutter!)

Put your answers in the comments!

You Asked for It......

I've been getting requests for new comparison pictures so here they are!

HOLY COW!  I just amazed myself a little bit.  I don't think that I realized how different I looked...until now. 

Thanks for requests!