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2013 was a wild year for me. I had a form of weight loss surgery in late April called duodenal switch, and the results have been phenomenal. Not just for the weight loss, which is a blessing in itself, but there’s so much more going on. There’s a synergy happening in me now that I find astonishing.

(Photo Credit)

• I’ve regained mobility I’ve not experienced in 20 years, in no small part due to twice weekly physical therapy that both exhausts and exhilerates me. I’ve never exercised like this in my life, ever.

• A year ago, I functioned (barely) only because of daily prescription pain meds, muscle relaxers, and handfuls of Ibuprofen. Today I seldom take any of these.

• A year ago, I only left the house for doctor appointments, and even taking Vicodin, would nearly pass out from the pain going up my front eight steps. Today it is but a twinge, without pain meds. In addition to all my PT sessions, my hubby and I also went leaf-peeping in the New England autumn six weekends in a row, plus enjoyed several car trips at Christmas just to look at all the lights. We’re planning a vacation.

• I feel good, and I feel healthier than I’ve ever felt in my life. And it’s only getting better every single day. To say I’m grateful seems so … small.

2013 was the year of finally doing what needed to be done to set me free physically. 2014 will be about setting me free mentally and emotionally. It’s hard to write productively when you’re in chronic pain, and it seems endless. It’s hard to be creative when confined to those constraints.

It’s still hard to write, but I can’t blame it on the 2013 things any more! And I feel I’ve wasted far too much time the last 10 years, when just living was a terrible struggle.

I have ambitious plans for 2014, and they all hinge on writing:

• Format Becoming One for ebook distribution

• Finalize and publish the followup book, Becoming One Every Day

• Finish the first draft of a psychological novel with which I’m more than mildly obsessed. My first foray into fiction since college — and it’s time.

I have a few other projects percolating as well. I’m starting a new blog series about self-care for trauma survivors. I’ve always paid lip service to self-care. I know in my heart it’s the right thing to do, but it wasn’t till 2013 that I actually began doing it. Much of that was done purely on faith that it would have any impact at all — but not doing it would have been a huge missed opportunity. Again, saying I’m grateful seems so inadequate, so I intend to pay it forward here on my blog. Look for the first in the series soon!

My word for 2014 is: write.
 
 

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I must apologize for the delay in continuing this story. I wrote my last post the night before I was to undergo the most complex form of bariatric surgery (on April 30th), known as the duodenal switch (“DS”). I vastly underestimated how much this event was going to put me out of commission, both in terms of the surgery itself, and the impact of all the changes involved.

I fought for this surgery for five years because it offers benefits that the much more well known gastric bypass cannot meet. Such as:

• My stomach is made much smaller (about 4oz) but it is a fully functioning stomach retaining the pyloric valve, which allows me to take NSAIDS such as Ibuprofen safely. NSAIDS are banned for life with the gastric bypass.
• The intestines are reconfigured differently than the gastric bypass, resulting in far more malabsorption (and requires much more diligence with supplements). This is what helps DS patients maintain the weight loss down the road.
• The DS has a documented cure rate of 98% of Type 2 diabetes. I’ve had diabetes for more than 20 years, which lowers the odds of me being in the 98%, but I’m watching my blood sugars settle lower the last few weeks. This, only on a small dose of insulin, where before I took insulin and two oral meds. I am hopeful.
• With the DS, 80% of any kind of fat eaten is malabsorbed. I will never again eat “low fat” anything. In fact, I need to eat more fat to come up with what the minimum RDA for good health requires. After a lifetime of conditioning, this one is hard to get my mind around, but I like it.

In a state like Massachusetts, which is a hotbed for medical research and innovation, there is not a single surgeon who does the duodenal switch. This, despite the fact that Blue Cross of Massachusetts covers it. Go figure.

The closest verified DS surgeons are in New York City. After being pretty much housebound with a bone-on-bone knee and severe back spasms for five years, it took pure force of will — and a combination of muscle relaxers and pain meds — for me to get to New York. My husband Dan made it all possible. He took time off from work for numerous test appointments the year before surgery; he drove us to and from New York; and was with me every step of the way, both in the hospital, and at the hotel afterwards. We were in New York for 10 days.

Then the overwhelm truly ensued. It’s vital to drink enough water, which is a minimum of 64oz a day. Do the math! I have a 4oz stomach! I am fortunate in that I was able to drink water easily, which many people cannot, and wind up in the ER getting IV fluids a couple weeks out from surgery. Plus I have to eat frequent, very small meals. Like one scrambled egg. Or 3oz of pureed soup.

As I add new foods, the focus is always protein. The goal is 30 grams of protein a day by the 30th day (60 by the 60th, 90 by the 90th). The stomach is swollen and not fully healed for a month. It’s hard for me now to imagine eating 90 grams ever, but it will happen.

Plus, I must begin a schedule for adding large quantities of Vitamin D, Calcium, Iron, and other trace minerals that are now not absorbed well. The consequences of not doing so are very serious: osteoporosis, iron deficiency anemia, neurological problems. I’m not going there.

All of this is a huge undertaking, and requires a pretty sharp mind at a time when I’m told the anesthesia is still messing with it. So the days went by without any word from me, and I’m sorry it’s been so long.

But you know what my overriding feelings are about all of this now that it’s done? I feel hopeful for the first time in eight years. Hopeful that I will no longer be imprisoned by my body, and that I will be able to leave my house for things that are purely fun. Hopeful that I am on my way to good health, including resolution of diabetes. Hopeful that my life is beginning again, right here, right now.

What seemed impossible and pointless to even fantasize about for eight years now seems very possible. I’m excited about my future! It’s precious, and I am nurturing it with all I’ve got.

Stay tuned!

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I avoid a lot of things in life, for reasons that are nearly all fear-based. I fear pain the most — physical and mental — and yet, I now live with it daily. How the heck did that happen?

I can trace problems with being overweight back to age 11, when puberty struck. I did not remember then that I’d been molested repeatedly by a “family friend” from age three to six. But somehow I knew that getting my period was a bad thing connected to “grandpas”. (Not my own, who both died before I was born.) No, I considered any older man a “grandpa” — and dangerous for reasons I could not articulate.

I began sneaking food anyway I could. I sure didn’t know why, but in retrospect, I believed that getting fat would make me “invisible” to grandpas. The bigger I got, the more invisible I’d be. Yes, that thinking makes no sense if you haven’t spent your entire life trying to hide. Some women gain weight without under-standing why they don’t want to be attractive to men. It’s a cocoon. I figured that out at 11.

I knew all my life that I had a couple of other people inside of me, and mostly thought everyone did. But I didn’t know until my late 30s that I had alters whose only purpose in life was to eat when I wasn’t co-conscious. I repeatedly went on extreme diets, feeling massively deprived and hungry, and would gain weight. Doctors routinely proclaimed that I was lying about my food intake. Just one of a long list of things that made me feel crazy.

Fast forward to 2008. I began taking my Type 2 diabetes seriously 10 years after diagnosis, meaning keeping track of my blood sugars, and changing my diet to lower carb (which got progressively much lower as I realized that carbs are not diabetic friendly). This was a radical shift for me, and I refused to call it a “diet”, because it would fail. I called it “lowering my blood sugar”.

I also had surgery for a meniscus tear in my right knee that year, leaving it in a “bone on bone” condition that made the pain much worse. My ortho doc said I couldn’t qualify for knee replacement until I both lost a lot of weight, and reached age 60. I was 53.

The last five years I struggled to find relief for my knee, which is constantly painful, but excruciating whenever I leave my house because there are eight steps up to get back inside. Because of those steps, I pretty much only leave my house for doctor appointments. On the bright side, I got my diabetes into excellent control, with my A1C test going down to 5.7, a non-diabetic number.

But I wasn’t losing any weight, which had to change if I were ever to have any hope of getting my knee fixed. Otherwise, I will spend the rest of my life housebound, which for a long while I accepted as just being my reality. And even though I really hate change, last year I began to change my reality.

[to be continued in Part 2)

Continue reading]]> Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that

Some of America’s biggest food companies say the U.S. could “virtually run out of sugar” if the Obama administration doesn’t ease import restrictions amid soaring prices for the key commodity.

In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack, the big brands — including Kraft Foods Inc., General Mills Inc., Hershey Co. and Mars Inc. — bluntly raised the prospect of a severe shortage of sugar used in chocolate bars, breakfast cereal, cookies, chewing gum and thousands of other products.

Vilsack’s not exaggerating about the “thousands of other products”. Read the nutrition labels on food, and you will find sugar is in just about everything, including stuff like bread, salad dressing, ketchup, peanut butter, and spaghetti sauce. Read the label on “low fat” anything, and odds are they make it taste better by adding sugar to it. Low fat yogurt and mayonnaise come to mind.

Having reluctantly given up 99% of my sugar consumption — and it used to be major — I did my part to save some for everyone else’s latte or iced tea. But if this shortage is real, you will do yourself a favor to start cutting back on your own timetable rather than one suddenly imposed by M&Ms’ prices tripling. Besides saving money, you can’t possibly harm your health by cutting back on sugar. (It’ll just feel like it is when you first forego it.)

I know it’s hard to break habits, particularly if they involve a form of addiction, or fill a specific need or void. Food — and especially, sugar — has long been my anti-anxiety drug of choice. Having external controls placed on it just ups the anxiety. I far prefer to control the time and place of the habit-breaking. It becomes my choice and my decision, and when I succeed there can be no doubt that it’s also my victory.

Continue reading]]> I never learned how to sleep well. When I was very young, I learned how to convincingly pretend I was asleep, which obviously means I couldn’t really be sleeping then, or much of anytime else. Sleeping, to me, was synonymous with not good surprises. Pretending to sleep either got me ignored or got me some early warning.

By now, I just expect the late nights, and dopey tired days. I figure if I’m awake, I must be getting sooo much more done. Well, sort of. The fatigue zone-out sets in, and I realize I’m spending a lot of time thinking about doing stuff instead of actually just doing it. I think about going to sleep quite awhile before it actually happens.

After nearly 15 years in this very safe house, in this very safe neighborhood, I still startle awake. I still sleep better — such as it is — with a little light on.

As with so many areas of my life, I’ve learned to adapt and to take advantage of the times when I actually have some good, restful sleep. Even so, my hubby can fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, literally. I envy him that.