Anna_M
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1-26-08 Wow 2 years have come and gone since I had surgery. What a miracle this surgery has been for me.
It's the best thing I ever did for myself. I'm sure I've said that more than once in this bio..but it's true.
I thank God everyday for giving me the gift of life "again". I'm one of the lucky ones that have had no complications from this surgery and can eat anything and everything I did before. And I do eat it.. I just don't eat as much of it. At my lowest I weighed 144.. I'm at 154 now and have been for about the last 7 months I'm happy with it. I feel good and I'm healthy and that's what's important.
It's not the numbers on the scale that should guide you..it's how you feel at the weight you're at.
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2-06-07 I did my 'after' surgery part of the research program. They did another liver biopsy to see if there is still fat around the liver after losing weight.. I'm happy to report my liver is 'fat free'!! I thought this would be very painful and frankly I was a little scared to do it..but it really was nothing..they have you turn on your left side and stick a needle between two ribs and numb the area then poke this long needle thing in your side and it nips a piece off of your liver...feels like you got kicked in the side and hurts for a little while. They did offer me demoral but I didn't need it. That was day one of research. I stayed in the hospital until the 8th doing all the research at once.
Day 2 the 7th of Feb. muscle biopsy and fatty tissue biopsy. They numb your thigh and dig around with this long scissor looking thing and nip pieces of your muscle off. Again great news..no fat around the muscle! Then the fatty tissue biopsy...last year they just numbed my tummy and poof took out a piece of fat.. done deal... this year..not so easy! They numbed my tummy and dug around for awhile.. the Dr. said, I have good news and bad news... All this here that we see is not fat..it's all excess skin.. You have NO fat in your tummy!!! woohooo!! Bad news..we have to find fat from somewhere..soooooo roll over..lol They took a fatty tissue sample from my butt cheek even then she said, you really don't have much fat back here either.. I feel like I should be putting fat IN instead of taking it out!! LOL
Day 3 of the research they did the pet scan..you are hooked up to a bunch of IV's and they are putting all kinds of things through your body..and you go and lay in an open MRI machine for about 4 hours...2 hours at a time with about a 30 minute break in between..in that 30 minute break someone comes and does a heart ultrasound taking all kinds of pictures of your heart pumping. So not a big deal alot of laying around on the 3rd day...but I do get a bad headache I guess from all the fluids they put through the IV's. Then the last thing on the 3rd day is a full body scan that does your BMI..my BMI this year 23!!! I'm normal woohoo!! All in All the research is not to painful and hopefully will help them figure something out for other obese people. I signed up for the research thinking it was just going to be a before and after thing..but it actually goes on for 3 more years! I do get paid for it so it's ok. I made $600.00 for 3 days worth of poking and proding.. liver biopsy only takes about 2minutes..the other two days takes about 4 hours each day.
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1-29-07 I just returned from Vegas! We had a our one year surgiversary get together. I met some wonderful people in Vegas. Angela, Chris (turtle head), Karyn, Ronna, Jaci, Amber and Teresa. I can honestly say that what you see online is how most of them are in person! It was a great time that we shared together. Angela and Chris and I roomed together ..we were all a little nervous having never met before..but after just meeting at the Airport it was as though we'd known each other all along! I truly made some great friends that I will continue to keep in touch with and hopefully get to see again. While we were in Vegas we took pictures of our "fat" clothes and lined them up in the hall and we lined up behind them to see how much further the line of clothes went.. it was pretty amazing! Our official photographer (turtle head) ;) took 500 pictures so I'm sure they will be up on the site soon!
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1-20-07 On my first year anniversary I weighed 146lbs. I'm thrilled with the sucess of this surgery. My health is 100% better and my life is full of wonderful adventures now.
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I'm a 46 year married to a wonderful man for 30 years. We have two grown children and 3 beautiful granddaughters and a grandson due Jan. 9th.
I started my journey in Sept. 05.. I went to the Dr. for a my annual female thingie ;) And asked if she would give me a referral for Bariatric surgery. (we are retired military) so this was the way it had to be done.
She sent the referral and things were on there way to getting done. I was lucky enough to be sent downtown St Louis, MO to Barnes Jewish Hospital. I knew that I wanted the surgery for along time so I wasn't really nervous at all.
I met with Dr. Eagon in Oct. 05. I had to see him twice and go to two group meetings... see the nut. and the physc eval. All went well.. The Dr.'s office called me the end of Dec. and we set the date for Jan. 20th, 2006.
I had already agreed to do some research programs for obese people... I did three of them.. a pet scan..muscle biopsy (sp) and they took fat from my liver during surgery and from somewhere else..lol
For those research programs they paid me a total of $500.00 which paid for the Nut and Physc visit which was $450.00. Since they wouldn't take insurance that was a nice way to get the money.
January 20, 2006, Day of surgery. No complications at all and went home on the 22nd.
On my 7th week when I was able to start eating real food... It wouldn't stay down I was throwing up everytime I ate... I called the nurse she scheduled me for an endoscopy three days later... They put the tube with the balloon down my throat...found that the stoma had started to close up and reopened it.. I left with a little sore throat that lasted for 2 days.. I've been able to eat very well since!!
I don't regret one minute of this venture that I'm on.. I'm looking forward to reaching my goal...but if I stayed where I am now..I'd still be happy... I feel so much better!!
