Tag: gastric bypass

Third Anniversary

On January 19th, 2022, three years ago today, I went to my first in person appointment at a weight loss clinic in Chelmsford, MA. The point of the visit was just to establish my vitals and book the next appointments. They measured my height at six feet four inches tall and my weight (the whole point of the visit) at 452 pounds.

Three years and one gastric bypass surgery later (that was May 4, 2022) I honored this special day by stepping on the scale for the first time in six months. 222.6 pounds. A difference of 229.4 pounds. Oh, is that all?

I’m actually WAY up since my last weigh in, on June 5, 2024. I was 203.4 on that day. I guess it’s time to start dieting again, eh? Naw, they always told me my weight would bottom out and then start going up again. At some point it will find its happy equilibrium. I am guessing that would be around 240 or so, but who knows. I would just like to keep the total loss above the 200 pound mark. That’s my only goal, really.

Maybe I will weigh myself again after we come home from Disney World in a couple of weeks. I bet it will be down pretty significantly on that day. We’ll see.

Happy Weight Loss Anniversary to all who celebrate.

French Toast

Oh, the bliss! I feel alive again!

Pre-gastric bypass surgery (2.5 years ago) I was a big fan of French Toast with Maple Syrup.

Post-surgery, where sugar can make me super sick, I avoided French Toast. My wife would make it for the kids and I’d have something else.

We were discussing it last week. There is nothing in French Toast itself that would make me sick. It was just the maple syrup that was a risk. I realized that was the only reason I hadn’t partaken in the delicacy.

Knowing that Jen was going to make it for breakfast today I went looking for sugar free maple syrup and I found some. Fast forward to today’s breakfast and I’m in!

It was delicious. Soooo good!

Body Image Thoughts

This is going to be a gastric bypass surgery post. If you don’t want to read about how fat I was, then now is the time to bail out. I promise I won’t be mad. Hell, I’m tired of thinking about how fat I was.

Okay. Still here?

It’s been 2.5 years since I had the surgery. I’m still down something like 210-220 pounds over that time. I still think the whole experience has been nothing short of miraculous.

But…

Over the last couple of weeks I have been having moments of confusion. I walk past a glass door and see my reflection and I feel totally weirded out. That’s not me that I see reflected in the glass. I am a 450 pound behemoth, not this miniaturized freak I see in the glass.

I look down at the floor in front of me and I see my shoes looking back up at me. That’s not me. If it were me I would see my gut protruding out so far that it completely blocks my view of my feet. Shoes? What shoes?

I look at myself in the mirror and see this weird, alien face with loose skin hanging off his neck staring back at him. I don’t see me. I don’t see the fat face with the skin stretched smooth over the cheeks that are so puffed up I look like Dizzy Gillespie wailing over some Bb dominant 7 chord.

What the hell, Robert? It’s been 2.5 years. You have looked like this for a long time now. Surgery was 2.5 years ago, but you hit the 200 pound lost point over 1.5 years ago. Why aren’t you used to being this new you yet? What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you accept the new reality?

I don’t know. I had over 30 years of being a grossly overweight adult. I had just a few years of being 400+ pounds, but that seems to have been long enough to make it permanent in my tiny little brain. I think the real question here is, why now? It’s been a long time since I felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me when I saw my reflection. It’s been a long time since I held up the clothes that I am wearing now to those that I wore before the surgery. Why am I weirded out now when I wasn’t a month or two ago?

Is it a holidays thing? Does the upcoming Thanksgiving dinner feast and the knowledge that I won’t be able to participate like I used to somehow trigger some weird body image thing? Is that going to happen every year? Am I somehow, perversely nostalgic for the time when I was so heavy that I couldn’t go for a 100 yard walk without feeling like my heart and my lungs were going to literally explode in my chest? That better not be the case because that sort of thing was so soul crushing that part of me just wanted to die to get it over with. No way am I thinking back fondly to that. At least not consciously. But sub-consciously? Maybe? Damn, I hope not.

What is it about November 2024 that has me in such a weird body image frame of mind? I don’t get it. Maybe I should walk past glass doors and see myself reflected back more often so that I just get over it and get used to the new normal. The new normal is better in every single way. 99.999% of the time I feel that and I literally rejoice in it (seriously), but those other weird surprise moments… that 0.001% of the time… it’s like dude, what the hell is wrong with you?

So Far, So Awful

Well, looks like Friday is going to be one seriously shitty day for ol’ Robbie and his rebuilt guts.

I had more sleep last night than any day for about a week. I should have awoken feeling right and spiffy and good. Nope. I woke up with stomach pain. Lots of it. I never wake up with the hunger pains I get when I haven’t eaten for a few hours. I don’t know why that is, but this morning that was exactly what I thought happened. I got up, went down cellar to do my exercise for the day and have a bottle of water. I thought that would alleviate things, at least for a little while. After the exercise was done I could have breakfast and I fully expected that would be the end of that.

Nope. Exercise made it worse and I only got a few ounces of water down before I decided to stop and have breakfast. Unfortunately, eating didn’t help at all. Nope, this is not hunger pain. This is something else. Shit.

I sat there, staring at the walls for a while and then tried to power through these aches and pains. I played some guitar and did some laundry and then went upstairs. In the past, when these out-of-the-blue stomach pain issues hit me (I think there have been five since having the gastric bypass surgery on May 4, 2022… maybe six. I’m losing count) the only thing that gives me any relief is laying down on the floor on my side, curled up in a ball. Yeah, I don’t get it either. Today has not been nearly as bad as the really bad times, but I tried it anyway. I went fetal on the floor in front of my desk and just stayed like that for about an hour. It helped and by 9:00 I was able to get up and punch into work.

That was an hour ago. I’m starting to feel worse again, but is that because I have been up for four hours and have only had four ounces of water? Is it because it’s been almost three hours since I had anything to eat? My water bottle is staring at me. I think I am going to try to have a drink and see how it affects things. Wish me luck, oh my readers and only friends.

I was able to take some pictures in an effort to crank out the photo a day thing. Here’s one that I did not add to the photo a day photo album on Flickr…

Here’s another that I did not add to the photo album. The record is The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, side one, by Genesis…

DSC_2948

Here’s the one I added to the Flickr album. This is the winner. Robin, of course. Photo a day 27/365.

27/365

Random Lunchtime Thoughts

Just some random things going through my tiny little brain right now.

I don’t get hungry anymore. In this post-gastric bypass universe I go from feeling comfortably satisfied, skip right past normal hungry feelings, and catapult straight to oh my god I am so hungry it hurts why does my stomach hurt so much?

Normally that isn’t a big deal. I have something to eat and I feel better. Some days though, like the last couple of days, it gets a bit annoying. Some days I just can’t get out in front of the problem. I eat something, then an hour or so later I feel the hunger pains coming back. Normally I can go about three hours without any issues. Sometimes, like when I was visiting my father in the hospital and had other things on my mind, I could go twice that without my stomach perking up at all.

Today I finished breakfast at around 8:00am. I started feeling it at a little before 11:00am. I was drinking water at the time and had to pause for 15 minutes before I could eat again so I didn’t get any food into my empty stomach until 11:20. I had a quick snack. I was done at 11:26. The hunger pains were back in full force by 12:11pm. What the hell, bro? I went on lunch at 1:00pm so I made myself wait to eat anything more. I didn’t want to fill my new little stomach pouch before lunch and then throw off my schedule even more. I was able to sneak in a little water which helped a little but come on, stomach… you have to do better than 45 minutes, right?

Change of subject. Television shows that are currently being worked through.

  • Mindhunter on Netflix. I’m about 3/4 of the way through the first of two seasons. It’s creeping me out. Good stuff.
  • Only Murders in the Building on Hulu. I think I am an episode behind. The new season is good. I was nervous when I heard it was moving to Los Angeles, but so far it’s firmly grounded in New York where it belongs. It is also nice to have Paul Rudd back again.
  • Agatha All Along on Disney+. Episode three is out today, I think. I’ll watch it tonight. I’m enjoying it so far.
  • Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. The last couple of episodes feel like a small step back in terms of quality. Word on the street is the next two (the last two episodes of season two) are going to be spectacular. I’m all in.
  • Dark on Netflix. I liked the first season. I’m halfway through the second season and it is struggling to hold my attention.
  • The Orville on Hulu. Season three is a bit of a slog. The episodes are WAY too long and not good enough to justify the time commitment. It’s not bad, it’s just not that good.
  • Futurama on Hulu. Gold. Absolute gold.
  • Exploding Kittens on Netflix. It’s not bad, but I’m having a hard time staying invested in it.
  • Coming Soon: Penguin on Max. The first couple of episodes are out but I haven’t watched them yet. I’ll get to them soon.
  • Coming Soon: Daryl Dixon season two on AMC. The new season kicks off this coming Sunday. I’ll be there.

Dude… that’s a shit load of TV. I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten a couple of shows too.

I have some linens that I took from my father’s apartment. The plan is to donate them somewhere. My sister suggested the MSPCA at Nevins Farm in Methuen. It’s right around the corner from my house. I wasn’t sure if that was something they’d take so I Googled it today. Sure enough, they take bedding. They don’t take pillows or knitted blankets though. If I have any of those I’ll have to bring them somewhere else.

I also took a combination turn table, AM/FM radio, CD player, cassette player from his apartment. I haven’t found a home for it yet. I am thinking that tomorrow I’ll plug it in next to my desk and listen to old Rush records on vinyl while I work. That sounds like a good plan to me.

Okay then. Here’s hoping the hunger pains are taken care of for a few hours at least. I’m crossing my fingers… and symbolically crossing my bypassed digestive system too… whatever that means.

Stomach Dance

Me and my stomach have been doing that gastric bypass patient dance all day today. We’re having trouble getting along. We need to work together but today we’re causing problems for each other.

I have eaten three meals. Each meal came with a stomach problem of varying degrees.

I had a protein bar for breakfast. I went a little too fast and felt that blocked/stuck feeling. It wasn’t bad enough to become nausea or to produce large amounts of extra saliva that I have to spit out. I tried gagging it up but nothing came. I had to pause eating for about half an hour before the blockage was gone and then I was able to finish.

I had a burger (cooked on the grill) and some french fries for lunch. The burger went down without any issues. The fries though. I only had about four of them and I should have stopped at three. I felt a little blocked again. I think I was going too fast this time as well. It was never bad enough to require any spitting up. I don’t know how long it took to pass, but it wasn’t long. As soon as I declared myself done with lunch I was off to my father’s so it was probably a couple of hours before I even thought about eating or drinking anything else.

I had a big piece of chicken and a little bit of white rice for dinner. Well, it was big for me. about three ounces. The chicken went down fine. The rice felt a little off. I only had two small fork fulls. I was okay afterward though. I stopped in time to avoid any problems. When I finished dinner I was a smidge below my daily protein goal. I waited about 20 minutes and then had a little tiny protein bar snack. It went bad. I think this time I took too big a bite and it got stuck for real. I gagged up a tiny bit of it and have been spitting out saliva for about half an hour now.

So there we have it. All summed up. Three meals, three stomach issues. Yippee. My doctor told me that in almost every case when there is a stomach problem after eating it’s really the patient’s fault. In all three cases this was my fault. It actually makes me feel better knowing that. If it’s something I did rather than something going on with my new stomach, then it’s something I can control.

220 pounds lost since the surgery. Yeah, these sort of things are 100% worth it. Absolutely.

Sugar Crash

My last two check ins with my weight loss surgery surgeon included a lot of talk about low blood sugar incidents. What triggers it, how to fix it, what it feels like.

Just the other day I was thinking about that subject and how it feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve had a low blood sugar episode. I pondered, what is it that I am doing now that is preventing the issue that I wasn’t doing six months ago? Whatever it is, I am happy about it because going a long time without that particular side effect was making me happy.

Fast forward to today. I’m in the grocery store, grocery shopping and I started feeling a little foggy headed. My hands started shaking. I felt weak. Aw, damn it. I thought about it the other day and jinxed myself. My days-without-a-low-blood-sugar-incident streak is officially over.

I sat in the car and had something to eat and felt a little better. I still feel a little beat up but that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is I jinxed myself and that makes me sad. Maybe I’ll work on some music to cheer myself up. That would be both fun and productive.

Fun with Gastric Bypass Life

Fun with Gastric Bypass Life. I had a nice dinner. Chicken curry, a little white rice, and a little sweet potato. Nice. Maybe 5-6 ounces of food in total. No problems. My stomach was happy. No foamies, no discomfort, all was right with the world.

20 minutes later, without warning, I puked up the whole thing.

Sure I lost 220 pounds and I wouldn’t change a thing and it was 100% absolutely worth every side effect I have to deal with, but… the fuck?

So what do I put on the no fly list? The chicken curry and the sweet potatoes were the same color (approximately) so which one caused the problem? I don’t know.

Another Weird Morning

I wrote about some stomach weirdness yesterday. I am pretty sure I know what it was, and it was not gastric bypass related. I am not going to say specifically because it goes big time into TMI territory. Suffice to say it happened again today and it has thrown off my whole daily routine.

I got up, felt a little off, but started my day as normal. I was trying to drink a water bottle while doing my daily exercise but after about 10 minutes and 12 ounces of water I was hit with a mild case of The Foamies. Something was trying to get into my stomach but was having trouble along the route and must have gotten stuck. I didn’t feel like anything was stuck, but I got into saliva over-production mode and had to stop exercising and take care of it. It was involved enough that I had to go upstairs and ride it out for a while.

Once I felt better I ate breakfast, which I never do before I finish my exercise for the day. At that point, the whole morning workflow is down the toilet. I still had 35 minutes of exercise left to do so I restarted. I ended up doing the whole daily goal instead of just finishing the first attempt. Due to that I managed to hit all of my Apple Watch activity goals for the day. Well, not the 12 stand-hours goal, but the exercise and move (calorie) goals. That’s nice.

Now that I’m punched into work for the day I think I am back on schedule. I just hate it when the routine goes south like this, even a little bit. I feel pretty normal now. Whatever it was seems to have passed. I felt that way yesterday too and then it came back before lunch. Let’s see how things progress today.

Good luck, Robbie.

I Miss It So Much

I’m having a weird stomach day. Not a bad day, just a weird day. That’s not what this post is about though. This post is about caffeine.

I used to consume caffeine by the truck load. I took it in caramel colored, carbonated form. Soda. Decades of Coca~Cola followed by a few years of Diet Pepsi. I just couldn’t get enough of that sweet, sweet, bubbly caffeine.

Then I signed up for elective weight loss surgery. I met with a dietitian at one of my first consultation appointments and was given a list of things that I had to say goodbye to forever. Both caffeine and carbonated beverages were on the list. I knew it was going to be tough but I also knew I was up for the challenge. I had my last ever soda that day.

Now here we are, about two and a half years later, and I would KILL for some caffeine right now. I have had a moderately decent night’s sleep each of the last three nights. I should be feeling fine in the exhausted department right now but I am not. Quite the opposite. I’m really tired. Back in the days prior to February 2022 I had so much caffeine each day that it barely affected me. Now? After over two years cold turkey? I bet even the tiniest sip of a caffeinated drink would leave me wired for hours on end. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Ah, for the good old days (he said sarcastically because the good old days included weighing over 400 pounds and he never ever wants to go back to that again).

Yeah, as nice as it would be to have a little caffeinated pick me up right now, I wouldn’t. No, I like the way I feel these days and I don’t want to do anything that will make me sick. Nope, while I miss it today I do not miss it enough to start thinking about how things used to be. No nostalgia here, my friends. I’ll trade a sleepy afternoon for being able to walk up a flight of stairs without feeling like I am going to die. That’s a trade that I win easily.

As for my stomach being weird today, I don’t think it’s diet or bypass surgery related though what else could it be? I woke up at 4:00am this morning (bladder: I’m old, it happens) and my stomach was pretty upset. I actually said out loud, “uh oh.” I whispered it. My wife was asleep and I didn’t want to wake her. I went back to bed and fell asleep immediately. When I woke up at 5:15 I felt better. Half an hour later I was doing my morning exercise and drinking some water and I felt off again. I paused on the water for a while and felt better again. I ate breakfast in the car on the way to work and it went fine. A little before lunch I felt a little queasy. I thought I was hungry and I think I was. I had some chicken for lunch and felt a little better at first, but then started feeling off again. I stopped eating for a while and eventually felt a little better. I had a snack and it went fine. That was about 90 minutes ago. Now I am drinking some water. In about five minutes I am going to have my last round of daily vitamins for the day. Here’s hoping things continue to feel okay through that. I expect I am going to have to have something to eat before I leave work today. There will be too long a gap between my after-lunch snack and dinner. My stomach is scheduled to be empty and angry starting around 5:30 tonight. I’ll have something small and then I should be okay for dinner.

Until then… dreams of that sweet, sweet caffeine. Sigh.