Well, only a little over four months, and already my weight loss has seriously slowed down. Only 8 pounds since the last time I posted on Day 100.
I am wondering if this is what my endocrinologist and OB/GYN warned me about when they suggested that I have this surgery. I was told then that I would never be a "normal" weight because of my PCOS, but I could lose some of what was making me so miserable.
Dear God, I hope that this isn't "it". I don't eat a lot of junk - heck, I can't eat *anything* with more than 10 grams of sugar or 10 grams of fat. I've been exercising and everything like I am supposed to, but only eight pounds in 24 days.
On the bright side, I'm not freezing anymore, even though I should be in about another week. Turns out, that particular issue is PMS related. Nothing quite like being bitchy, tired, *and* cold, all at the same time.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
As The Scale Turns - Day 100
My husband told me the other night that he thought the doctor's office hadn't told me enough about what to expect in the days after my surgery. Sure, they gave me a lot of information about the surgery itself and what to expect during recovery, but very little about the changes that I would go through as the weeks progressed into months and my body kept changing.
I wonder if that is just the nature of surgeons: they are so preoccupied in the actual procedure that they really don't know how to get involved and pro-active in the life changes that come as a result of what they accomplished.
I went back to the doctor's office several weeks ago, and I had all of my questions lined up: Is it normal to have a change in your drive after this surgery? Am I supposed to keep drinking the protein mixes? Is it okay to switch from Flinstones vitamins to adult chewables? You know, questions like that. Instead of the doctor, though, I got the nurse practitioner, and I got the feeling from her that she didn't finish that much school because she was that smart, but maybe instead she just worked really, really hard and promptly forgot everything as soon as the exam was over. I don't mean to be disrespectful to her, but I've met other professionals that just seemed to be rather, well, dim, but they were just willing to work hard enough to "get through it". After a couple of answers like, "Oh, don't worry about the vitamins anymore..." and such as that, I threw the rest of my questions out and figured that I would just do my own research. I just might be better off that way than taking what she said as gospel.
So what's new? I am freezing at night now. Night before last, I was shivering and shaking so much that my husband got up at two in the morning and got an electric blanket for me - in July, no less. I've always been the kind of person that could generate enough body heat to get through just about any temperatures, but now, now matter how many blankets, I can't even overcome the AC keeping the house at 72 degrees. That's not to say that I can't get overheated outside during the day, because that's not the case, either. It's mostly at night, and then I freeze like it's mid-winter in Minnesota or something.
Something else that is interesting is the lumpyness. It's not like cellulite, but when I rub my hands over my arms, I can feel a million tiny little bumps under my skin. Husband says that it is because the body doesn't lose weight evenly, but takes the fat from where it can most easily obtain it. He says that I will smooth out later, and I certainly hope so. While it's not something that you can see to look at me, it sure does feel weird.
I am starting to look too small for my skin, showing signs of droop and sag. The worst places are under my arms, where I am getting the "granny sag", and across the tops of my thighs, where you can see where the skin is starting to just hang there. I wanted to talk to my doctor about that, too, and ask him if there was something that I could do to minimize that and how much of it just time would take care of, but like I said earlier, I didn't trust the nurse practitioner to give me a thoughtfully considered response. (Please don't get me wrong - I've met nurses that I trusted more than the doctors, but she just wasn't one of them.) Anyway, I really, really want to try to avoid any more surgery unless I just have to, and my doc is one that just takes it as a matter of course that you must have more after your bypass to correct the skin issues, etc. Maybe you do, but I'd like to be really certain.
I am such a weenie. :)
One really nice side effect of this surgery is that everyone in the house has lost weight since I started being really careful about what I fix for us to eat. We still do the traditional sit-down dinner every night, so I have to make sure that whatever I fix is "safe" for me. My daughter has lost her baby fat belly, and my husband has lost about 40 or 50 pounds (but he's been dieting, too. He says that he doesn't want to be looked at as the fat slob with a skinny wife, so he works pretty hard at it.)
I am not going to have a blasted thing to wear when school starts. All of my clothes fit in one dresser drawer. It's a big drawer, but still... I can't shop ahead, either, because I have no idea what size I will be in by then. I have boxes and boxes of "fat clothes", and I have no idea exactly what I am going to do with them. I guess I need to find a consignment shop and throw them out. We've threatened to have a rummage sale, but I have more stuff than I could honestly expect to get rid of at just one sale.
I still get nauseated sometimes, especially when I eat too fast or try something new, but that is to be expected. I've lost my taste for sweets, which is really good since I can't eat them anymore. Even Splenda doesn't get it. Wild, huh?
Weight this January: 294
Weight at surgery: 274
Weight this morning: 218
Current size: 16/18
PS - a word about insurance... Blue Cross Blue Shield not only turned me down for this surgery back in October of last year, but they left me stuck with over $500 worth of doctor bills. I filed a grievance, and they had until December 2, 2006 to respond. I called several times even after I changed insurance companies to try to find out why I was never notified of their reasoning or response to my grievance, and finally about a month ago, I was told that they never acted on my grievance AT ALL. I filed a complaint with the state insurance commission, and then I called the state department of education. I figured that since they were the ones who negotiated the terms of my coverage, they might have an interest in BCBS's failure to respond and provide the coverage agreed upon in our contract. To make a long story short, it took the lady in the state department of education's insurance department fewer than two days to get that matter straightened right out, and and I should have a refund check from my doctor's office within a day or so. The letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield informed me that "an administrative decision" had been made to go ahead and pay the claim. I sure wish my current insurance company would sue them for the cost of the surgery, too.
I wonder if that is just the nature of surgeons: they are so preoccupied in the actual procedure that they really don't know how to get involved and pro-active in the life changes that come as a result of what they accomplished.
I went back to the doctor's office several weeks ago, and I had all of my questions lined up: Is it normal to have a change in your drive after this surgery? Am I supposed to keep drinking the protein mixes? Is it okay to switch from Flinstones vitamins to adult chewables? You know, questions like that. Instead of the doctor, though, I got the nurse practitioner, and I got the feeling from her that she didn't finish that much school because she was that smart, but maybe instead she just worked really, really hard and promptly forgot everything as soon as the exam was over. I don't mean to be disrespectful to her, but I've met other professionals that just seemed to be rather, well, dim, but they were just willing to work hard enough to "get through it". After a couple of answers like, "Oh, don't worry about the vitamins anymore..." and such as that, I threw the rest of my questions out and figured that I would just do my own research. I just might be better off that way than taking what she said as gospel.
So what's new? I am freezing at night now. Night before last, I was shivering and shaking so much that my husband got up at two in the morning and got an electric blanket for me - in July, no less. I've always been the kind of person that could generate enough body heat to get through just about any temperatures, but now, now matter how many blankets, I can't even overcome the AC keeping the house at 72 degrees. That's not to say that I can't get overheated outside during the day, because that's not the case, either. It's mostly at night, and then I freeze like it's mid-winter in Minnesota or something.
Something else that is interesting is the lumpyness. It's not like cellulite, but when I rub my hands over my arms, I can feel a million tiny little bumps under my skin. Husband says that it is because the body doesn't lose weight evenly, but takes the fat from where it can most easily obtain it. He says that I will smooth out later, and I certainly hope so. While it's not something that you can see to look at me, it sure does feel weird.
I am starting to look too small for my skin, showing signs of droop and sag. The worst places are under my arms, where I am getting the "granny sag", and across the tops of my thighs, where you can see where the skin is starting to just hang there. I wanted to talk to my doctor about that, too, and ask him if there was something that I could do to minimize that and how much of it just time would take care of, but like I said earlier, I didn't trust the nurse practitioner to give me a thoughtfully considered response. (Please don't get me wrong - I've met nurses that I trusted more than the doctors, but she just wasn't one of them.) Anyway, I really, really want to try to avoid any more surgery unless I just have to, and my doc is one that just takes it as a matter of course that you must have more after your bypass to correct the skin issues, etc. Maybe you do, but I'd like to be really certain.
I am such a weenie. :)
One really nice side effect of this surgery is that everyone in the house has lost weight since I started being really careful about what I fix for us to eat. We still do the traditional sit-down dinner every night, so I have to make sure that whatever I fix is "safe" for me. My daughter has lost her baby fat belly, and my husband has lost about 40 or 50 pounds (but he's been dieting, too. He says that he doesn't want to be looked at as the fat slob with a skinny wife, so he works pretty hard at it.)
I am not going to have a blasted thing to wear when school starts. All of my clothes fit in one dresser drawer. It's a big drawer, but still... I can't shop ahead, either, because I have no idea what size I will be in by then. I have boxes and boxes of "fat clothes", and I have no idea exactly what I am going to do with them. I guess I need to find a consignment shop and throw them out. We've threatened to have a rummage sale, but I have more stuff than I could honestly expect to get rid of at just one sale.
I still get nauseated sometimes, especially when I eat too fast or try something new, but that is to be expected. I've lost my taste for sweets, which is really good since I can't eat them anymore. Even Splenda doesn't get it. Wild, huh?
Weight this January: 294
Weight at surgery: 274
Weight this morning: 218
Current size: 16/18
PS - a word about insurance... Blue Cross Blue Shield not only turned me down for this surgery back in October of last year, but they left me stuck with over $500 worth of doctor bills. I filed a grievance, and they had until December 2, 2006 to respond. I called several times even after I changed insurance companies to try to find out why I was never notified of their reasoning or response to my grievance, and finally about a month ago, I was told that they never acted on my grievance AT ALL. I filed a complaint with the state insurance commission, and then I called the state department of education. I figured that since they were the ones who negotiated the terms of my coverage, they might have an interest in BCBS's failure to respond and provide the coverage agreed upon in our contract. To make a long story short, it took the lady in the state department of education's insurance department fewer than two days to get that matter straightened right out, and and I should have a refund check from my doctor's office within a day or so. The letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield informed me that "an administrative decision" had been made to go ahead and pay the claim. I sure wish my current insurance company would sue them for the cost of the surgery, too.
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