I haven't written in awhile because pretty much everything for the last 3 months would come out self-pittying drival.
I've thought many time of changing this blog's title to "Exercising is BULLSHIT" because that's pretty much how I feel... maybe 90% of the time.
At the gym, I can look forward to any combination of: nausea, dread, embarrassment, shame, feeling clumsy, self conscious, and stupid. Every now and then I will take a class and feel good!! Have the AHA, I know what I'm doing! moment. But most of the time I feel exactly like I'm back in [elementary/middle/high school] gym, standing in front of the others doing something stupid... In class, I have this irrational fear that the name calling will start at any minute. Logically, I know these women don't even know I'm there. Everyone is just there trying to make the most of their own hour and they don't care what I'm doing, but it scares me to death.
I stand there like an idiot and I get tears pricking at my eyes. The constant negative internal monologue pipes up with all SORTS of awesome things like how stupid I am because I can't "get" what everyone is doing and how I deserve to be fat because this exercise shit is easy for everyone else BUT me and these feelings are punishment for being fat. If I could just control myself, I wouldn't have to go there and feel stupid every day.
It's exhausting.
I'm considering going back on anti-depressants again. They don't solve anything, but induce a certain degree of numbness that at least help the day pass and keep the mantra of self-hatred a little quieter. I stopped taking them because I wanted to "feel." I really don't think I want that anymore. I wanted to "feel" the good feelings and I don't even seem to feel those much anymore so I think I'll re-examine my options.
I've lost about 20 lbs since I started all this back in April, but I don't consider that much of a win. I wouldn't say I have body dysmorphic disorder in so many words. I just have this talent for seeing every bit of fat I still have. Even if my waist or my calves or whatever have trimmed just a tad, my eye immediately falls to the love handles, the ass dimples, the rolls. I see only the bad.
Even better, before when I've lost weight and gained twice that back, I'll dig up a picture from the time when I was losing - A picture I'll REMEMBER seeing/taking. A picture where I told myself how fat I looked... and this time, ONLY THIS TIME, after the effort has been wasted, I will look at the picture and marvel at how good I looked... when I could NEVER see it before.
On January 14, 2009, I had lapband surgery... and I wish I could go back and undo things. I've been miserable. I was ill-prepared. My new doctors refer to how my surgery was initiated as me being a "heartbeat with insurance." I walked in to the office, told them I wanted to surgery, they checked my insurance and scheduled it. I had only met my surgeon one time before he cut me.
Waking up afterwards and having to suddenly transition to something I was totally unprepared for... the first two weeks after surgery were like torture. The suggested recovery time is two weeks and it's true: one week for your body, the whole time for your mind. If I had gone back to work after just a week, the first time someone brought in a take out hamburger for lunch, I would have gone postal. I would see a bowl of cereal on TV and start crying.
I did lose weight. About 60lbs. But it was pure misery. It is medically induced bulimia. It never worked the way I was promised. I was told I would feel fuller quicker. My entire life I feel like I've been ruled by my hunger... this idea was a dream come true. No, I never felt full. I was never able to eat and feel any sort of satisfaction. It was more like dread. To feel ravenously hungry, manage maybe 3 bites and -no matter how much I pulverized the food- feel intense sensations of discomfort. If I was lucky it was just sort of like choking, if not... well, the first time I experienced food getting stuck/rubbing on its way down, it felt like an ice cream headache in my stomach.
Imagine being out to dinner with your family and having to fake a smile and pretend like you are listening to the conversation all the while considering how much longer you can pretend to eat before you run to the bathroom to throw up. And like bulimia, imagine doing all this while you think about your friends/family talking about you after you've left because they know what's happened.
It just goes to show: be careful what you wish for. I always wished for a "clockwork orange diet" - something that would give me no choice. Eat properly or experience some sort of horrible sensation. That's exactly what this was: it took away my free will.
At one point, my stomach became irritated and the band pinched it shut completely. I couldn't even drink water. I ended up in the ER with a doctor who didn't know a clue about bands. I had to walk them through taking fluid out. I was brought a selection of needles and told to pick the one I thought looked like "the one." He poked me a dozen times before he thought to get an ultrasound machine to help guide his efforts. He finally managed to drain out about half my fluid. I felt so relieved to be able to eat without getting sick... that I went out and gained 20lbs in a month.
Oh, and that scenario happened after one of the other things no one warns you about: my surgeon abandoned me. No one warns you beforehand that your surgeon is probably motivated by cash. The cash is in the surgery NOT the aftercare. Your surgeon may very well do as mine did and follow the cash far away from you. What happens then? No one else will touch you without a fat "new patient fee" - anywhere from $500 to $3,000 depending on your situation.
Slap a sticker on me: I'm damaged goods.
I even learned that I've damaged my esophagus due to the food backing up (they warned me in the ER: the esophagus is not your STOMACH. There should be no DIGESTION going on there!!)
I was also starting to fall prey to another thing no one warns you about: "Soft Calorie Syndrome." You don't eat what you should, you eat things that go down easy: soups, ice cream, squishy soft burritos. High calorie things. The thing I craved the most after all this time was SALAD. I couldn't even eat SALAD because the consistency was all wrong. A piece of tomato down the wrong way could make me sick and irritated for a week!
So yes, you can tell that mentally I'm not in a really good place right now, BUT:
This summer I found a new place in DFW that would actually help me without costing an arm and a leg. They drained most of the fluid out and gave me relief again (after the scary weight gain, I had gone to a cash only place called Fill Centers USA and had gotten cinched back up... Fill Centers has also just gone out out business! Yet another reinforcement to the idea that having this thing inside me is a liability!) but this time I was already armed with the diet and exercise program I was following and have lost instead of gained.
Everyone at the new place was kind and welcoming. They answered my questions. I participated in an educational class about my options (band removal and revision to "sleeve" seems best for me... more extreme than the band, less extreme than bypass) and feel like I walked out of my first visit more informed and prepared than I ever was before. I have been visiting my GP about efforts and turning in my Weight Watchers progress graphs to them on a monthly basis. I did have a phone consult psych eval... and did ok - I know you'd never believe it from reading all this. I don't think this is going to solve all my problems. I just think that my weight has caused so many of my problems that removing it could very well make a whole lot of things better. I've never been anywhere near a healthy weight, I want to get there and judge for myself what the view from the top is like.
I know the recovery will be hell, but I also know that I've been there before and I got through it.
My new choice is as follows: leave the band in and hope they will stay in business for any length of time so I can get my aftercare, take the band out and rely purely on my own willpower to continue my weight loss efforts (I am extremely skeptical: I've never managed to keep up with my weight loss efforts before, why would this time be any different? Worse than never losing weight is having been there several times and sliding all the way back again), take the band out and convert to the "sleeve."
The proposal for the sleeve is currently being reviewed by my insurance. I no longer qualify with my BMI, but there might be a loophole: I lost less than 50% of the weight projected for me by my original surgeon. As it stands, I might have about a 50/50 shot. I was not turned down outright - they requested more information regarding my original surgery weight. If they were going to turn me down, they probably would have done it already... and yet they still could.
So the possible outcomes are so many and so varied, I am literally paralyzed right now. I feel like I couldn't even begin to choose what actually might be best for me. They could call me tomorrow and say "ok, let's do this thing" and I would just freeze. I don't know what's right for me. I wrote down everything I could think of today and thought maybe if I put it out here, someone will think of these items in some way that hasn't occured to me yet and maybe that will give me the puzzle piece I need in order to make the right decision.
(found this today: http://www.gastricsleeve.us/gastric-sleeve-vs-gastric-band.html - it's a side by side comparison of the sleeve and the band)
Here goes:
1. Do nothing – leave the band as is (4 ccs):
a. Band slips or erodes which could lead to minor corrective surgery or major surgery because a septic condition develops.
b. My stomach plays roulette with me. I get occasionally sick from internal swelling I cannot predict or control. Band squeezes my stomach shut for no reason and I end up in the emergency room again faced with doctors who don’t know how to help me.
c. I put up with the minor discomfort. I do not really lose any more weight, but I do not gain it either. Bready things like bagels still make me occasionally sick. Eating steak is still hard.
d. With the 4ccs still in my band, I am hugely successful at my dieting and exercising; I lose ALL my weight and never gain it back again. I am healthy and happy.
e. I stop dieting/exercising just like I always do. I start gaining the weight back slowly, 20lbs at a time. End up at 400+ lbs within 2 years.
f. I lose all my weight, but realize this does not make me happy either. I find something else to be depressed about.
2. JUST remove the band.
a. I gain back a huge amount of weight in a short time – at least 125lbs or more in a year. I end up back where I started: unhealthy, feeling horrible and putting major stress on my joints again. Probably make contact with another doctor about ANOTHER surgery.
b. I gain back all my weight, but slower – maybe more like 2 or 3 years… but I still do it.
c. I continue doing my diet and exercise. I may not lose, but I do not gain.
d. I die during surgery.
e. Without the band, I am hugely successful at my dieting and exercising; I lose ALL my weight and never gain it back again. I am healthy and happy.
f. I lose all my weight, but realize this does not make me happy either. I find something else to be depressed about.
3. Remove the band and are converted to the gastric sleeve.
a. I die during surgery.
b. My new stomach develops leaks, which require additional surgery.
c. I experience some other side effect, which damages my body and/or requires additional surgery.
d. I go through the surgery, heal, but am miserable. I am still sick and/or uncomfortable, but unlike the band: now there is no way out. I have irreversibly altered myself and must suffer the consequences for the rest of my life. I am vitamin starved and sickly. My hair falls out.
e. This procedure is exactly what I want: I heal and do fantastically. I am no longer ruled by my hunger. I eat to live instead of living to eat. For this reason, I am hugely successful at my dieting and exercising; I lose ALL my weight and never gain it back again. I am healthy and happy.
f. This procedure is exactly what I want… but only for awhile. Old habits take over and I stretch out my new stomach. I gain everything back only this time my new small-turned-big stomach is now thin like an overstretched balloon.
g. I lose all my weight, but realize this does not make me happy either. I find something else to be depressed about.
....
Well, what do you think?
