Weight Loss journey...

Okay, I've had health problems for ever, I'm now 41 and it started about a month after I was 30, I had a severe bout of Gastro Enteritis which did untold damage to my bowel and so it started... 14 operations in 11 years, each op meant bed rest for up to 3 months, each op meant weight gain, weight gain meant less and less mobility until I weighed 24 stone and 12lbs or 348lbs or 158kg, more than Frank Bruno on a fat day carrying a couple of weight lifters!


I had further bowel surgery on 24th July 2009 where they removed several feet of bowel and far more stomach than they had originally planned due to severe ulceration and having to detach my liver & spleen from my stomach wall.
My stomach is now about 2.5cm's diameter x 20 cm in length. The average human stomach is approximately 10-15 cm's at it's widest point so I've probably lost 90% of my capacity.


This is great news for weight loss and great news for all my stomach and bowel problems but it is major surgery to both go through and recover from.
Although it is early days (6 wks at the time of writing this) I am struggling hugely with both the physical and emotional problems.


Those who know me very well, know that with anti-depressants I can function almost normally but without I have a tendency to try and do away with myself. Since the surgery I find taking & keeping tablets down long enough for them to make it into my system very difficult, so am battling quite hard to keep my spirits up some days.


As for the physical, I'm doing okay had to go into hosp for 3 days as my operation sites had swollen and no food or water was getting through so I needed to go on a drip whilst the swelling was going down.


I can only eat about a quarter of what I was told I'd be able to and am sick an awful lot.
I have been told that (in order of importance) I have to to drink 1.5 - 2 litres of water a day, eat protein then Calcium and anything else after.
I roll 1 piece of wafer thin ham into a cigar and nibble that for breakfast with about 125ml lactase free milk as I can no longer tolerate milk sugars!
Lunch is a slice of chicken breast about 4x3 cm's and a wafer thin cheese cracker and dinner is a couple more cheese crackers and half an oxtail cup-a soup with a teeny bit of marmite melted in and if I'm lucky it all stays down!


I seem to have gone backwards over the last three weeks because initially I could manage a little yoghurt, porridge, mashed potato, toast and marmite but I can't keep any of that down now.
I wonder if I tried too much too quickly and am now paying the price for pushing myself too hard.


Some days I'm pretty lethargic but others I'm buzzing with energy, I've been swimming 3 or 4 times since and the last time I managed 3/4km which is amazing!
I can walk around town without stopping, I'm sleeping better, still 5 to 7 hours but I'm not waking and my husband tells me the snoring is getting less and less! (shame his isn't). Things are improving in the bedroom ;-)

I really can see a future whereas 7 weeks ago I was terrified I was going to die in my sleep from a heart attack or a stroke. Two things have allayed this fear, the battery of tests they performed before my operation showed that my heart had no fatty tissue or enlargement due to my weight gain and all other organs were functioning perfectly and since starting to lose weight I have been able to do more and more each week.
They did find however that I obviously hadn't developed terribly well whilst in the womb, I knew I had small kidneys very low down in my pelvis and I knew I was missing the lower third of my left lung but my spleen and liver were found to be attached to each other and attached to my stomach which meant my operation took a couple of hours longer than it should have done!


I have lost 52lbs (3 stone 10lbs or 23.5kg) in 6 weeks which is a phenomenal amount, I still can't see it when I look in the mirror but I've dropped two and a half dress sizes and can certainly feel it in my clothes and in the increased energy!


Will hopefully post again in a few more weeks with news of more weight loss and a less gloomy outlook! Kx