Gastric Bypass Surgery Tomorrow

In just 24 hours a new chapter in my journey to health will begin. I have finally completed all the hoops I had to jump through for the past six months in preparation for gastric bypass surgery, which is scheduled to tomorrow. I will spend an overnight at the hospital and will be home by Friday afternoon.

These past two weeks have been difficult because the hunger has been extreme. The pre-op diet is ONLY liquid protein drinks and plain veggies. Today I am only allowed clear liquids - broth, sugar free jello, water, crystal light. But it is only one more day and I’m moving forward with a positive attitude and energized to begin the next chapter in my life to get healthy.

My last office weighin pre-op was this past Monday- weight: 253 lbs. A total off 55 lbs lost on the office scale over the last six months of preparation for gastric bypass surgery. The staff was very impressed and pleased with my progress. (My starting weight on the office scale was 308 lbs)

I plan on continuing to update over the next four weeks during recovery and beyond on my progress. I also plan to include more details and information on the whole process and preparation for the surgery, for those who are interested in finding out more about it. Also please feel free to ask questions if want to know more about gastric bypass surgery, I’ll do my best to answer them

I have researched gastric bypass surgery for years and the surgeon I am going to is the best. This decision was made after a lot of thought and soul searching and I know it is right for me. It is not a magic bullet or quick fix - all the work that goes into losing a lot of weight (over 150 lbs) still has to be done by me. Gastric bypass surgery is a tool that can help, but only if I put in the work required.

My reason for deciding to have the surgery is to improve my heath. Due to my congestive heart failure and rhumatoid arthritis since the age of 2 which casues a great deal of joint pain I have never been able to do much physically, which means I gain weight extremely quickly if I eat much over 800 calories a day. Being morbidly obese and over 150 lbs overweight only makes these health conditions worse and can lead to even more health problems.

I know some folks won’t understand and some even feel it is the easy way out. All I can say to those people is they obviously do not have all the information about gastric bypass surgery, they don’t know me very well, and they are not in a position to make decisions for me or know my personal health issues and life experiences.

Most folks though have been very supportive and I truly appreciate their good throughts and positive energy. Of course, family and friends have the usual concerns about surgery. All surgery does have some risk, however, gastric bypass surgery is very safe. Also the professional staff and surgical team that I am going to are extremely qualified and have over five years of experience and an excellant record.

These past few months have been a whirlwind with all the preparations for surgery I had to do. Work has been absolutely overwhelmingly hectic because I have had to train someone to do my job while I’m on sick leave for a month recovering while at the same time get the huge workload of stuff done that crosses my desk. All this has totally consumed most of my mental and emotional energy, leaving little left over for other things and unfortunately that included blogging. However, my readers here mean a lot to me and thank you all for your continued support of my little blog. I truly hope I can get back to blogging more reqularly over the next few weeks once I recover a bit and hopefully life will be a bit calmer.