Tag: health

Cheer Me Up, Cat

I’m in the office today and I am struggling a little. It’s my stomach again, but this time I don’t think it has anything to do with gastric bypass. Not directly. When things went bad last week I changed my diet out of fear of a relapse. That has lead to a lingering issue that I would explain further, but we’re already deep, deep into TMI territory so I will shut up.

Suffice to say, am I feeling things because of these lingering issues, or because I need to eat something soon, or is there some other reason I haven’t considered yet? The analysis nerd that lives in my head is fascinated by all of this. The rest of me just feels uncomfortable. I really am weird, aren’t I?

Anyhoo, as is usually the case when I work from the office I managed to snag a quick photo for today’s photo a day challenge entry before I left the house. This one is a classic. Robin was on the living room bay window. The curtains were closed, but I saw her jump up there and I pulled the curtain open just enough to slip my iPhone inside and snap one.

250/365
250/365

Look at that mug, would ya? Just look at it! Think she noticed me? Good kitty was totally busted. HA!

Changing the subject, tomorrow is my birthday and I took a vacation day because hells yes I did. I need to go back to Lens Crafters to see if they can adjust my new glasses. They are really tight along the side of my head and they hurt. I like them tight, just not that tight. I also plan to play my guitar at an absurd volume. It’s a celebration day after all, or something like that. I’m going to turn 53. That’s too old to still be celebrating birthdays, but I need an excuse to crank my amp and this is as good as any. I’m hoping the questions my non-human digestive system are asking will be answered by then. If they are… then I could be visiting that sugar free bakery again.

Those are questions for tomorrow though. For today we just need to decide if we want to do a normal lunch or a meal replacement/protein bar work around. I’m leaning toward a real lunch, but that back fired on me four days ago. I’m sure I’ll let you know, what with me being the King of TMI Posts and all.

Two Year Anniversary Weigh In

I can’t believe it has been two years. It simultaneously feels like yesterday and a thousand years ago.

Saturday (two days ago) was the two year anniversary of my weight loss surgery. The full gastric bypass procedure that my guts and I went through on May 4, 2022 has changed my life, health wise.

When I list off the best decisions I have made in my life, Marrying Jen is first by a landslide. It is first by a tidal wave. Not just marrying her, but going on that first date, moving in together, meeting the kids, all of it. That’s number one and nothing else even comes close.

It’s a close call for the second most important decision in my life. It might be going back to school in 1997 and everything that came with it over the following seven years or so that lead to my Bachelors degree. If it’s not that, then it’s getting the gastric bypass surgery. From a health care stand point, the surgery is definitely number one. Even after all of this time I still cannot believe how different I feel. It’s starting to become less impactful as I am more and more removed from my former self, but I’m still close enough to the changes that when I stop and think of it I still can’t believe it.

I weighed 452 pounds when I started the process. I weighed about 431 pounds when I actually went under the knife. On Saturday I celebrated the second anniversary by stepping on the scale. I weighed 211.2 pounds. One decimal point placement away from a Rush reference. Ah, hells. I am down 220.2 pounds since surgery and 240.8 pounds since deciding to have the surgery. My brain can’t wrap itself around the idea that I have lost more weight than I currently weigh. I lost the equivalent of a mildly overweight adult male.

It hasn’t been easy. It will never be easy. I am always at the mercy of my newly redesigned stomach. Every now and then it’s going to rebel and show me who’s boss. It happened last Friday and it destroyed me for about 18 hours. Here we are three days later and I am still not quite right. I had a plan for lunch today and I scrapped it because my stomach was feeling weird. It was a little pain, a little gassy discomfort, and a little bit just a sense of being wrong. I’m on edge right now for all things stomach so I errored on the side of caution and went with something very light and simple and small for lunch. We’ll see how I feel in a few hours when it comes to dinner time.

Would I recommend this surgery to everyone? I don’t know. I don’t think so. The variables involved are a combination of how bad is your situation and how difficult is the post-processing. I almost went through with this thing a few years before I did, but the idea of all of the restrictions post-op scared me away. Never eating sugar again? Never drinking soda again? No, I wasn’t up for that at the time. Then in 2022 I was in such a terrible state with my weight that suddenly those brutal restrictions (not to mention the changes to how you eat and when you eat and how you chew and how you swallow your food and all of that) seemed like a small price to pay.

It worked out for me. I don’t want to be the kind of guy who encourages people to go through this sort of thing. You need to come to that conclusion on your own. For me though… I would do it all again in a heartbeat. No question. No hesitation. It is the best decision I’ve ever made for my health. Apart from being with my wife and my family, it’s probably the best decision I’ve ever made, period.

Wish me and my new digestive system a happy 2nd anniversary. Many happy returns, you wild and crazy, temperamental stomach.

I Owe Two

I owe the universe two blog posts tomorrow. This is just a reminder to myself to not forget about them.

First, I didn’t write a happy two year gastric bypass surgery anniversary post. I mentioned it, but didn’t write anything about how I weighed in and was down a whopping 0.4 pounds over the last month. I will write something about that tomorrow.

Second, I have to write the next NHL Playoffs Predictions post. I knew the last game of the first round was tonight and I was waiting for that to wrap up, but I didn’t realize that the first game in the second round was also played tonight. I am technically both on time and late. That’s like some Schrödinger’s level shit right there.

So we all have that to look forward to tomorrow. I betcha all can’t wait! Also, game one of the second round series between the Bruins and the Panthers is tomorrow night. Revenge? We’ll see, Bruins fans. We’ll see.

To Do List

  • DON’T BE SICK (not 100% by any stretch right now, but optimistic about my prognosis)
  • Jen and I need to pick up our new glasses. Progressive and transitions? That’s crazy!
  • Drive to Vermont
  • Hear my step daughter sing with the VSO! Wicked!!
  • Continue to not be nauseous or vomit. Very important. Also, no stomach pains. Pretty please.

Yesterday was the Worst Day

Yesterday was weird from the get go, stomach wise. I felt a little off, but not too bad.

Then I had lunch. I was off enough that I should have avoided lunch, or at least the normal lunch that I ended up having. I took my last bite, according to my food tracking spreadsheet, at 1:54pm. 10 minutes later it started. The “off” stomach turned into real stomach pain. I tried to ride it out, but by a little before 4:00pm I had left work sick.

The drive home was a nightmare. The stomach pain kept getting worse. I had to pull over once for a surprise foamies, then again for a foamie false alarm, then again to actually puke into a cup. It was a little paper coffee cup and my aim was spot on. I was impressed with myself.

When I finally got home I ran to the bathroom, puked again, cleaned up the mess, and went to bed. I’d sleep for 20-30 minutes then have to move to a new position. Always on my side curled up in a ball. If I straightened out the stomach pain was too much.

Fast forward to this morning. So far I’ve had a few ounces of water, the first anything I’ve had since 1:54 yesterday. It is 9:21am now and I am feeling okay. A little like a wrung out dishrag, but okay. I have a ton of errands to run this morning and I’ve already given way too much information so I am going to wrap this post up now. I might have more thoughts on this mess later. We’ll see.

The moral of the story is this: When I see my doctor in two weeks for my two year check in she is going to ask me if I have had any Dumping Syndrome. This time I think I have to answer yes. Shit.

Oh yeah, and today is the actual two year surgery anniversary so I am glad I got that crap out of the way yesterday so I can celebrate today. Yippee, babie! Happy Surgery-aversary to me!

The Best Time of Day

Daily writing prompt
When do you feel most productive?
View all responses

I’ve actually thought about this topic quite a bit in recent years. I may have even written a post or two before. The answer is, simply, that I used to know the answer but I don’t anymore.

In my younger days I was 100% a night person. Through high school and college (all the different times) and even into the start of my career in programming I did my best work at night. When we got to 8:00, 9:00, or even later, my brain would clear up in some weird way and everything became noticeably easier for me. Writing, working on math, reading comprehension and retention, analysis, writing music, playing music, it all worked better later at night. That was my time to do my best work. It was clear and obvious and it always worked for me.

Today? I still can do good work later at night, but is that when I am most productive? I think now it might be early in the morning. I had to change my daily routine after the gastric bypass surgery. I needed to start exercising every day and I needed to make sure I had breakfast, where for decades prior to surgery I rarely if ever ate breakfast, and that lead to my days starting earlier and earlier. Now I find that very early in the morning, we are talking sunrise early, I am able to get a lot done. First it was exercise, then it was exercise and just random things around the house, then I added guitar playing and writing and recording, and now I even sometimes will log into work a few hours early and get some things done.

It is a really odd feeling for me. I had about 50 years worth of feeling like a vegetable early in the morning and now I’m suddenly full of piss and vinegar* at the start of the day and I don’t know what to think of it. It also means I need to go to bed earlier in order to not be comatose by lunch time, which by extension means much of my usual best time of day is spent sleeping! What the hell is up with that, Robert?

So the answer to the question of the day is an honest I don’t know. Can a person have two most productive times of day? Or is it possible that my best time is slowly transitioning from the traditional time to a new time? I don’t know. If I ever figure it out, I’ll share the news with you all.

*I am pretty sure I have never used the phrase, “piss and vinegar” before. I don’t think I have ever spoken it or written it or really even thought it… and somehow using it here makes me feel like more of a senior citizen than I have ever felt prior. I am 10 days away from my 53rd birthday… is it possible that on some subconscious level I am totally buying into the idea of being a crusty, grumpy, old man? It very well could be!

No Regrets

Daily writing prompt
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
View all responses

There are a few I could use for this prompt. Mostly things that I have talked about at length in other prompts. I am at work right now and have a ton of things going on, so I will be brief today. You won’t have to dig far back to find more details, I don’t think.

Was getting married a risk? Do people see marriage as a risk? What about proposing? I ask because my gut tells me that will be a common topic of discussion today, but for me it is not. Getting married was not something I saw as a risk, it was something I saw as destiny. I wanted it so bad that I never saw it as something to be nervous about. It was something I couldn’t not do, know what I mean? It’s been almost 15 years since we said, “I do” to each other and it’s still far and away the best thing I have done. I could never claim it was a risk. Nothing could be further from the truth.

So what do I write about then? It has to be my college experience. Or should I say experiences. I started college in the Fall of 1989 as a music student with a focus in sound recording. I dropped out after the Fall 1991 semester. That was a risk. I still view that as much one huge failure in my life. It turned out to be the right move, but it’s still a massive fail.

In October 1992 I went to a tech school in Boston that doesn’t exist anymore and did a one year program studying sound recording. I graduated with excellent grades but struggled to find work afterwards. Going to that school probably counts as a risk, but it’s a low risk. I didn’t have much of a shot at success. Not due to the school, but due to my personality. On some level I probably knew all along that I was just stalling to keep the real world at bay for a year. I ended up doing warehouse work and being pretty miserable.

In the Fall of 1997 I went back to school. That was the biggest risk. I had a job. I was doing poorly but sort of getting by. Going back to school full time at the age of 26 was a tough choice but I was hopeful that it would pay off. It took a while to graduate, including changing schools once, but I did and I got a job and I started a career that I like and then I met a girl on myspace and she was amazing and you know the rest based on what I wrote a few paragraphs back.

So stopping what passed for my life in my mid-20’s and starting over was a major risk for me, but it is one that I don’t regret at all. I am very happy with the way things turned out.

Food Fun

My staff and I just went out for a group lunch. I ate too fast. It was really good and I got carried away so now my gastric bypass surgery’d stomach is complaining. I am dumb. I am bad at following directions. I am bad at eating in this new stomach pouch kind of world.

Oh well.

Here’s my photo a day challenge pic for today. I took it just after I finished my morning exercise at around 6:00am today. It might end up being the cover of Quarantine Tunes Volume Eight. The jury is still out on that one though.

236/365
236/365

First Time at Work

Well, gastric bypass surgery fans, I just had my first mildly annoying post-surgical experience while at the office.

I scheduled a snack for three hours after breakfast. It was a protein bar. Not a big one, not a small one, just a Goldilocks style protein bar to tide me over until lunch and to avoid the empty-stomach-stomach-aches I get when I wait too long between eating anything.

I was fine until the last bite, then I felt the upset stomach that is a harbinger of The Foamies. That state I sometimes find myself in where something is hanging out just outside of my redesigned little stomach pouch (pouch is the technical term for it, I swear) and my body starts over producing saliva to help break it down so that it can get into my stomach. I end up spitting up a lot, and I sometimes end up gagging up whatever is stuck enroute.

Yes, it can be gross. Yes it can be uncomfortable. Yes it is annoying. It’s not really a bad thing, it’s just a thing.

The reason it is noteworthy today is because it was the first time it happened in the office. It’s not the first time it happened during work, but the previous weekdays between 9-5:30 instances were all while working from home. I had to excuse myself and go to the men’s room to spit up saliva and wait to see if my last bite or two of protein bar would come back out to say hello. They didn’t. I was all better again after about five minutes. No harm done. No co-workers grossed out.

I am going to keep a spit-up cup at my desk though. Hopefully I will never use it, but hopefully if I need to no one will see.

As usual, I feel I must state in closing that this is sooooo worth it. Yeah, it’s annoying and all but it is absolutely worth it given the weight loss and all of the other benefits to my health and well being. 100%. I would do it again in a heartbeat.