Tag: weight loss surgery

Personal Time

My company gives us all 16 hours of personal time each year. They also give us weeks upon weeks of vacation time. The difference is that the personal time is meant to be used in small chunks at short notice, while the vacation time, which they don’t actually call vacation time, can only be used in four or eight hour chunks per day and is supposed to be booked in advance. The other difference is that vacation time can be carried over from this year to next year if needed while the personal time disappears on January 1st.

What does all of this mean? I had five hours of personal time left in the bank and I used it all up today. Robbie will not be having any time vanish on January 1st this year. I started my weekend five hours early, babie!

How did I celebrate this happy surprise of a half day? I ate my lunch too fast and made myself gastric bypass sick, that’s how! Yes! Well played, Robert the putz! I had a hamburger again to have another test of the sugar free ketchup. Yes, it does taste like ketchup and no, it is not disgusting! What a treat! It was such a treat that I ate way too much per bite and plowed through it all way too fast and got something stuck in my stomach tract and had a full on case of the foamies.

I am better now that a couple of hours have gone past. I’m okay!

Happy weekend plus five hours of personal time, everyone! WOOHOO!

18 Month Weigh In

Today is the 1.5 year anniversary of my gastric bypass surgery. In celebration I stepped on the scale and I surely wish I had given it a miss this month.

My exercise routine has been greatly reduced over the last couple of months, partly thanks to Covid, partly thanks to travel, and partly thanks to hurting my back. There have been a lot of days where I should have exercised but did not. The result? I went up 10.8 pounds since last month’s weigh in. Yikes! I am at 215.8, which is still miraculous. I am not complaining here, not even a little bit. I just want to get back onto the exercise track and get back down to around 210 or maybe a little less.

Better luck next month, right? See you again on December 4th! I’m going to a hockey game in Vermont on Sunday December 3rd and I took Monday the 4th off of work. I can celebrate my 19th monthiversary with a day off! Sweet!

How’s Your Back Feeling

How’s everyone’s back feeling today? Everyone out there in internets land feeling okay?

I woke up feeling okay today, after two days of feeling significantly less than okay. I’m not 100% by any stretch, but I am okay. I tried doing my morning exercise but it triggered the back pain again so I stopped. I am going to have to get it in a little at a time. Also, my desk chair in my office space was a little painful but I put a pillow between my back and the chair back and I’m fine now.

My stomach issues are much better as well, but still not 100%. I have been a little queasy this morning, but it hasn’t stopped me. I had my usual breakfast and I am half way to my liquids goal for the day. I’ve been taking it easy and going slow and while it hasn’t been back to normal, it’s been doable. I am planning to go to the post office at lunch time to drop off the film that I ordered developing for the other day so that is going to put off my next meal for a bit. I think I will be okay though.

Keeping my fingers crossed for no back or stomach back sliding today. Continue to feel better, Robert. You can do it!

The Struggle Continues

The issues from yesterday are still around today. My back is still in serious pain. Tylenol helps, but I’m seeing evidence that each dose wears off faster than the last. That’s not good.

The stomach is still an issue too, but is it really? I barely ate anything yesterday, and it’s been a smidge over 12 hours since the last time I had even the smallest bite of anything, and that was just a single piece of bread. When I woke up and my stomach was off, was it just because it was as empty as my little rewired, redesigned, butchered stomach can be?

I’ve had a little water this morning along with my morning vitamins and another dose of Tylenol. The 15 minute break between drinking and eating just ended. I am about to try eating a protein bar. Will I feel better afterwards? Will I feel worse? I haven’t a clue, but I’ll let you know when I know. Wish me luck, universe!

The Crappy Day Continues

I had a bowl of soup for lunch. Campbell’s Chicken Noodle. Classic. I thought that was safe, given that my stomach issues were fading at the time.

Nope.

The lunch time soup sat in my stomach like a dead weight for hours. At the same time, the back pain came back to me all fresh and new. I had some Tylenol before lunch and it’s safe to say it worked. I had some more about an hour ago and it’s working again. I haven’t had anything to eat in about 4.5 hours and I have to have something, but what?

I think I am going to just try a piece of bread or two. Maybe bread and butter. Something light and simple that hopefully won’t nuke my digestive system again.

Let’s see how this plays out.

In the meantime… cat picture.

51/365
51/365

Sick Day

Didn’t we just go through a whole sick thing?

I woke up with back pain. That’s new. Yesterday Jen and I did a bunch of moving things around in her office and that involved me lifting heaving things and picking them up off the floor and putting them onto a table and back again, over and over again. I think I strained my back a little. It woke me up a little before 5:00am and then made it really difficult to fall back to sleep.

On top of that I was, gastric bypass recoverally speaking, really fucking stupid and I ate WAY too much last night. I knew I was doing it as I was doing it and for some reason I just kept doing it. Like some kind of moron. I felt okay when I went to bed, so I assumed I would continue to feel okay. I did not. My stomach was a gassy, achey mess this morning and it was all my fault.

Those two things combined made it virtually impossible for me to do anything. I tried to go through my morning routine, but 12 oz of water with my vitamins and a two-protein bar breakfast just made the stomach situation that much worse. Also, the existence of the stomach situation made the back situation that much worse.

Generally speaking the treatment for any gastric bypass stupidity is patience. Eventually it will work itself out. I think I am feeling that now. I feel better. Far from 100%, but better. That’s good. My back is a little better too, but it’s still there. The jerk.

So the moral of this particular story is this:

Don’t be a friggin moron.

QED

IKEA Explosion

I had one job today. Put together the day bed we got from IKEA.

It came to us in four boxes. None of them seemed terribly large but once I had all of the boxes open and the pieces separated it sure felt like a lot. The instruction book was only 2436612457 pages long. I think I am a little more than half way through it all but I am toast and will finish it after I sleep a lot and recover.

My stomach has been okay today outside of another one of those 3+ hour stomach aches. I finished lunch at 2:30 and at about 5:30 my stomach was hurting. Jen made a wonderful chicken and quinoa dish for dinner and it solved my problem. I have a long way to go to hit my 80 grams of protein goal though so I think I am going to go have a protein bar or something.

The season finale of Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is on tonight. I need to brush up on my French. Wish me luck.

Stomach Fun

It’s been an eventful day in terms of gastric bypass life today. My stomach has not really been a team player. I think if I am being honest with myself I cannot blame today’s fun on my stomach. I have to put all of the blame on myself. Which is really the same thing, isn’t it?

Twice today I have had stomach pain caused by my poor little redesigned stomach pouch being too empty. Three hours after breakfast and three hours after lunch I had stomach pain bad enough that I had to eat something to make it go away. As my doctor said when I told her about the occasional hour-three-pains, duh you’re hungry. I thought about adding something to my lunch in the hopes that it would keep me full for longer, but I felt pretty stuffed when I finished lunch and I didn’t want to risk overdoing it. Looking back, I wonder if I should have pushed things a little more. Probably not.

The next fun came during dinner. I had a couple of ounces of chicken on my plate along with a scoop of instant mashed potatoes. I had finished the chicken without issue but I really wanted to get into those potatoes, babie. Just call me a red haired Irish stereotype. I had what I thought were a couple of small bites but either they were bigger than they should have been or I just ate too fast because my stomach felt a little blocked. Something was keeping the last bite or so from getting into the tiny little redesigned stomach pouch and that leads to some real discomfort. Worse than that, it lead to those few bites of instant mashed potatoes coming back up for an encore. Yikes! Sorry about the gross TMI here folks, but I need to document this stuff for posterity… or something like that. It wasn’t bad, just a couple of blasts and it was over. This happens with mashed potatoes once in a while (not very often, but enough to spot patterns) and as usual I felt better almost immediately. I still paused on eating for about half an hour and then I finished my dinner without further issue.

The last bit of stomach excitement is happening as I type this and it really is a non-issue. I don’t like going to bed without having eaten something. It probably makes my sleep less than ideal, but it is WAY better than waking up in the middle of the night with those empty stomach pains. I try to be full when I turn in for the night and tonight I think I may have over done it a little. I was a little behind on the old protein goal so I had a small protein bar to get over the hump. Then 20 minutes later I had some crackers. The two things combined were a little too much and now I feel SUPER full. Not painfully full but a little uncomfortable. I am going to try and stay awake for another hour or so to make sure I feel better before I lay down, but hindsight tells me I should have skipped the crackers. Oh well. It’s hard to gauge what my stomach will need at night so I may actually have to eat something else before I sleep, but I doubt it. I think food and I are done with each other for the night.

So four instances of stomach issues over the course of a single day. That is a lot more than usual for difficult days and given that most days are issue free it’s WAY more than normal for the average day. None of it was really too bad. I mean the vomiting was unpleasant but only for a couple of minutes and as soon as it was over I felt fine. All in all it wasn’t bad. I’d rather a full on easy day, sans-problems, but as problematic days go this one was pretty good.

In closing, I will quote the band Traffic, whose legendary self-titled second album was released 55 years ago this month, and say who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Weight Loss Goal

Daily writing prompt
What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?
View all responses

Right then, I have to make this quick. Today is my work from the office day and I have an actual morning commute ahead of me.

The hardest personal goal I’ve set for myself has to be losing weight. I had to take some brutally extreme measures to achieve it, but I got there… for now at least.

My whole life I’ve been overweight. I believe morbidly obese is the correct term. I was always able to lose some weight but I was never able to keep it off. You know, the way it is with almost everyone. I would lose 20 pounds over the course of a few months and then gain 30. I would lose 40 and gain 60. Lose 30 and gain 60. By the time I got to my mid-40’s, weighing 400 pounds was almost normal. I was so out of shape that simple tasks were becoming difficult. Walking up a flight of stairs would leave me out of breath and in pain. My back and my legs hurt all the time from carrying myself around. Once the pandemic hit the yo-yo weight loss went out of control. Suddenly weighing 450 pounds was becoming normal and I literally felt like I was going to die on most days.

At some point along the way I had talked to my doctor about weight loss surgery. I went to an information session at a clinic in Chelmsford, MA and it scared the holy hell out of me. The surgery itself was terrifying, but the work needed to be done afterwards to stay healthy was worse. It was so intimidating. I would have to watch every bite of food I ever eat for the rest of my life. I would have to monitor my intake of liquids and proteins forever and I would never be able to eat sugar again. Also, eating too fast or not chewing thoroughly enough could make me feel really sick for short periods of time. It all just felt like too much.

Then the pandemic happened. My father had a heart attack and my mother’s dementia was advanced beyond the point where we could take care of her. Suddenly mortality was very close by and very real. Suddenly my weight and my health as they were became much more terrifying than the weight loss surgery process. I went back to my doctor and then went back to the same clinic and five months later I went under the knife for gastric bypass surgery. I literally had a doctor butcher my digestive system.

It worked. I lost almost 250 pounds over about a year and a half and so far I have been able to maintain that loss. The work required to stay healthy is immense and it has been very difficult at times, but I feel like a different person and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. In the past I would have considered surgery as taking the easy way out. Now that I know how difficult the post-surgery world is, I no longer think it’s a shortcut or cheating. It’s a different sort of challenge than just dieting, but it’s still a difficult challenge.

Now all I have to do is stay on the right path for the rest of my life and I hopefully will maintain the achievement of my weight loss goal. Fingers crossed, right?

Month 17 Weigh In

Today is October 4th. My gastric bypass surgery was 17 months ago today. It’s time for an official weigh in. Are we ready? Am I still gloriously sub-200 pounds?

No, of course not. Don’t be silly. I dropped into Onederland thanks to Covid. I even said at the time that as soon as I started to feel better I’d hop back into the low 200’s. That’s precisely what happened. I am at 205 exactly this morning. That’s up 6.6 pounds since my sub-200 fun on September 22nd, 12 days ago when I was at the height (or was it the low point) of the Covid journey. The happy news is that I am still 0.6 pounds below my 16th month weigh in, so we’re “officially” down… or some crap like that.

My BMI is at 25 again, which is the exact line between healthy weight and overweight and sort of where I expect to be. My total weight loss since the surgery is 226.4 pounds (102.69331 kilograms, according to Google), and my total weight loss since the first weight loss clinic appointment on January 19, 2022 is 247 pounds (112.037 kilograms).

So there we have it. My 17 month weigh in is complete. Up next is the 1.5 year weigh in on November 4, 2023. Will I maintain and still be around 205 or will I drop into the sub-200 Onederland once again? Let’s all join in and find out, shall we? Until then, have a happy weigh in day!