Life After VSG

Today I woke up 80 pounds lighter than I was when I started my weight loss journey four months ago. I am a new person, not only physically but mentally as well.  If you’re keeping tabs, this is the third part in a series I’ve been writing about losing weight. This hasn’t been an easy adventures but your support makes all the difference. Thank you.

Just to get you caught up if you have missed the first two issues, I decided to have a vertical sleeve gastrectomy, which is a surgical procedure to permanently reduce the size of the stomach. A smaller stomach fills up faster, making you feel full before you start overeating.  Using surgical staples to section off most of your stomach, the surgeon creates a long vertical tube (or "sleeve") about the size of a banana and disposes of the excess stomach for good.

When I woke up from surgery, I remember pushing the happy button a lot. This magical device was supposed to deliver pain medicine at will. I also remember the very kind nurse telling me, “It’s only going to work once every six minutes sweetheart.” When I registered what she was saying to me, and I’m sure it took a few minutes, I decided sleep seemed like a better option and just closed my eyes.

When I woke up, I really wasn’t in pain anymore. Until I looked at my phone and saw an obvious pocket-text message from my boss that said “L You” followed up with “Ah. Pocket dial. That sounded bad.”  Even in my recovery state of mind, I found this to be hysterical.

The only problem here is that laughing after a majority of your stomach has been removed doesn’t feel pleasant. So I would laugh, then cry out in pain and then laugh again. Such is the cycle. But honestly, I was completely off all pain medication within 48 hours.

Let me tell you peeps, recovering from surgery was a breeze. Recovering from a life-long food addiction was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. In fact, because I take pride on being the best drama queen I can be, there were moments when I seriously questioned whether I would ever feel joy in my life again. If I couldn’t eat what I wanted when I wanted to eat it, what would my life possibly be like? In the required two-week resting period, I ran through an array of emotions, including complete despair.  No exaggeration, I would lay in bed and dream of food.

But within a week, I was down 10 pounds. And then 20. One day I woke up and realized food wasn’t the first thing I thought of. It got easier and letting go of the hold food had over me meant I had so much more time and energy for other things. I hate to be so serious here but after everything I had been through, I finally landed on an emotion I could embrace.

Gratefulness.

I am so grateful to the team at the Bingham Memorial Weight Loss Center for treating me with compassion and supporting me through one of the most difficult phases of my life. I can’t name names because there are too many but, let me tell you, I owe these people my life. They took an overweight, self-doubting and self-hating person and turned me into someone who can’t wipe the smile off her face.

-->

I feel like I have the rest of my life to live now instead of hiding away in my room. My husband and I took our girls to Lagoon last October and I actually rode the rides. Well, all of them that didn’t require me having a death wish. For the first time in ten years, I just enjoyed being at an amusement park instead of spending the day convinced people were staring at me.  It this experience plus hundreds of others that bring joy to my life instead of food.