Category Archives: Bariatric Surgery

Just Not Meant to Be

Posted by Sephira in Bariatric Surgery, Dieting, General and tagged with , , , ,

Despite my frustrations on the weeks where I don’t lose much, obviously I am losing weight consistently, and after thinking it over for a while, I’ve decided not to have the surgery.

I had told my doctor in the beginning that if I was going to do it, it had to be no later than the very beginning of August (and even that was pushing it) and even though I got all my stuff done early, the last appointment I needed (for an EGD), they couldn’t schedule until the end of July. Which, of course, pretty much screwed me (since they still have to submit everything to the insurance and wait for it all to be approved). I’d already been having some doubts anyways, so rather than try to cram everything in last minute (and hope it all somehow managed to work itself out), I took it as a sign and cancelled the whole thing.

Honestly, I’m glad. The more I thought about it, I really, really was uncomfortable with messing around with my insides. I mean, if they’d done it when I went in for my first appointment, that would have been fine, but giving me all this time to think about it – not good. XD Besides, I’m already able to restrict what I eat – most of the time anyways – so physically making my stomach smaller doesn’t seem like it will make that much of a difference. And I’m worried that if I have days when I feel like I’m starving, I don’t want to not be able to eat if I want to. I want to lose the weight, but I also don’t want to be totally miserable while I’m doing it (at least not more so than I already am).

I will still continue to work on losing the weight and I will still continue to follow up with the doctor regularly (they have a non-surgical team as well), maybe not every month, but at least every 2-3 months. That way I have some sort of accountability. If I try to do it on my own I will totally failsauce. Definitely don’t want to do that. Plus the oldest is getting married in early October, so I still have a good reason (well… at least another good reason) for keeping on keeping on. With a bit of luck, I could be under 300lbs by then (or at least pretty close), which would be AWESOME!!!

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Playing Catch-Up

Posted by Sephira in Bariatric Surgery, Dieting, General and tagged with , ,

As you may have noticed, I disappeared for 5 years. I’d love to say that in that time I lost all my excess weight, but that would be a lie. In truth, I’ve gained about 15 more pounds and am officially at my wit’s end.

Somewhere in the last 2 years, I developed heel spurs in both my heels, along with chronic Achilles tendonitis in both as well. So any grand plans for getting better at exercising (I even joined a gym last year), kind of went right out the window. Walking, or even standing, is pretty excruciating a good bit of the time, which of course, limits the sorts of exercising that I can do – I mean, it’s hard anyways, at this weight, and generally, walking is recommended, but when you can’t even do that, it really sucks. I’ve seen several doctors about the issues and none of them have been very helpful. A lot of… well it should clear up if you lose weight… but no real suggestions on how to do that properly, if I can’t actually exercise.

I came to the realization recently however, that if I keep on the way that I am, I’m going to be wheelchair-bound within the next year or so, and with an active 16-year old autistic son, this is not an outcome that I can accept. After much consideration, I’ve decided to have bariatric surgery. It’s not an ideal solution, and the idea of having to take nutritional supplements for the rest of my life seems like a daunting prospect, but I just don’t see any other way. It’s clear that regular diet and exercise aren’t going to work (I’ve been eating less, cutting out sweets/sodas. etc… without much success) so taking more drastic measures are all that is left to me.

I do have to spend the next 4 months on a fairly restrictive diet, due to my insurance requirements, and I can’t gain any weight during that time. Once my insurance does approve everything, my doctor is going to do a DS Switch. Anyways… I will be documenting my whoos and woes here as journey on my way.

Starting weight: 390 pounds.