Tag: surgery

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?

That was Tough

The point of this blog is to bear my soul to the universe (no it’s not, there literally is no point to any of this) but how can I accurately do that without sharing any specific details about the current situation?

Let’s just say that it was tough today. I was at the hospital with him for a smidge more than five hours. Most of that time was quiet and uneventful. The rest? Yikes.

Being there was tough for me. I can’t even imagine how tough it was for my father who actually experienced everything.

I’m home now with my wife and my step daughter. We’re watching The Fall Guy and I’m trying not to stress over things.

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.

Appointment Day

I am meeting with the surgeon who will (please please please) eventually carve up my stomach today. The appointment is about two hours from now.

I am starting to freak out.

Why?

I don’t know. It’s not like I am going to get sliced up today, it’s just a meeting. We will hopefully discuss the two surgery options and decide which one to go with. I can’t imagine she’s going to look at me and decide I’m not worthy and just tell me to go fuck myself up a tree or something.

The future of the human race is not in the balance here. I need to calm my idiotic self down.

One hour and 56 minutes to go.

Stop freaking out.

My brain is Mush

The last two days rank high on the list of most insane days I’ve had at work over the last 16 years. Just nuts.

Today is my father’s birthday. He had surgery. It went well. Happy Birthday, Dad!

I need a drink*.

*I don’t drink

Surgical Success

Dad is out of surgery. They said he did excellent. What a relief!

This week has been a crazy, nutty, maniac of a week even without my father going back to the hospital I am very thankful that his piece of it went well as all of my work pieces of it are circling the crazy drain.

Big thanks to the staff at Tufts.

Send Your Happy Thoughts

My father is going to have surgery today. Serious surgery. I am fully confident that everything will go well. It’s not routine, but it’s as close to routine as something this big can be. I am also scared shitless. I’m sending all of the red head vibes I have to offer and I’m hoping everyone else will send all their happy thoughts as well.

Procedure – Part 2

My father’s cardiac procedure is done and he’s back in his room. Everything went well in that they have enough information to move on to the next steps. The next steps, however, sound seriously terrifying. That’s okay though, we knew that was coming. The only question left is when does it happen and who handles it. I am trying not to freak out over the possibilities.