Fat Man on a Diet

Hmm… I spent *yonks* trying to sort out why the WYSIWYG editor wasn’t working properly… well wasn’t working at all truth be told… and even went off to the WordPress Support site to seek help and was just about to post my complaint when I thought I should check one last time.

Why check? Well a few minutes ago I upgraded to the latest release and thought perhaps it might have ‘righted’ itself as these things do from time to time.

And did it work? Well yes it did!! So no longer any need for a support query after all. At last keyboard functions like “Ctrl-B” work again… boy I’ve missed them.

Good onya Wordpress… still number 1!

There was I a couple of weeks ago confident the weight would be falling off… but then forgot to come back and update the blog!

Well the weight *didn’t* ‘fall off’ quite as I’d hoped but *has* decreased a little which is still acceptable. We’re now down to 134.0 kilos and experiencing few problems out of the ordinary.

The pain in my back has diminished so that I can now ‘get on with things’. I’ve been gardening a lot and cleaning up the mess that’s plagued the house since I become to large and unfit (and depressed) to make any headway working on. The house is now starting to come back together. Good stuff.

I’ve not rejoined the gym yet – and might not. It’s expensive and we really can’t afford it, besides which I’m quite content right now to take things slowly.

Basically I’m still quite happy and ‘at ease’ with the operation. I get ‘pains’ if I try to overeat as you’d expect, but I don’t pick as much as I used to and so consume far less in total. Another ‘fill’ was inserted two days and it caused no problems whatever. I have one more to go then off I go sailing into the future with a big smile and good reason to think I might have finally overcome the weight gain and be on the path to a normal life again. Can’t wait!!

I think I can honestly say that I’m finally settling into the band properly. I saw the physiotherapist yesterday and she told me pretty much that I should go back to walking gently… for 30 mins a day or so to begin… and then increase both the time I take *and* the pace, also gently! Additionally I was told it’s safe for me to organise time with a personal trainer who will help me regain some strength in my trunk to stabilise my back – but I have to be careful with ’stomach crunches’ for a while in case I damage the site where the fill tube is attached.

Since I can’t do *any* currently and my back problems make it unlikely I will for some considerable time I just smiled.

My weight hasn’t decreased dramatically as might have been expected… tho it’s fluctuated quite a lot through the week. My weight is still 135.5 kilos but again I’m not concerned.

Apart from the obious fact this is lower than my start weight… I can ’see the light’. I’m no longer grazing through the day and feel like moving around more so soon the weight *will* fall off. This time next week I’m confident I’ll be reporting a weight around the 130 kilo mark.

So, no time to sit and type… lots to do! There’s an entire house awaiting my gentle hands to tidy. clean, and redecorate… and of course the garden has also been neglected. Despite the ongoing pains in my lower back, it’s time to *move* myself I think?

As suggested by both the doctor and dietitian at my last visit, my weight has indeed increased over the past few weeks. In fact it rose from, 134.5 kilos to 137.5 kilos. Perhaps not as large an increase as they suggested, i.e. 4 kilos, but enough just the same.

Their rationale was that I was so badly dehydrated previously that my weight would increase because it was now going to be able to take in sufficient water to rehydrate. Having said that the wife is skeptical to say the least. She feels the weight should have returned to normal in the space of a few hours or days… and not taken 2 – 3 weeks to return to ‘normal. I’m not so sure and will ask when I go next… tomorrow in fact!

Having said that, it’s true I have been eating far more than I expected to be able to. When I drink soups, I’m supposed to sip them gently and allow my stomach to cope, yet with the band loosened to the extent it was, I’m able to drink almost as was normal pre-op which isn;t really a good thing.

Yes I still have problems with ’solid’ food, but as I’m not supposed to be eating that yet it isn’t surprising.

The past week or so on ‘puree’ have been interesting though again I’m not sure that the sort of meals I’ve been eating would fall under the class of ‘puree’ as explained. The maxmimum consistency is supposed to be in the range of tomato sauce… ketchup… and *smooth*. However my meals have rarely been as smooth as suggested, for example the other night I had a plate of chilli con carne and rice. Smaller than pre-op yes… but by no means could I claim to have eaten either the mince mixture or the rice ‘pureed’.

Again I’ll have to discuss this with the dietitian and it may be I’ll have to return to the *real* puree stage after the first band ‘fill’ which also happens this week.

Clearly removing the initial fill was essential simply because it was killing me. However the swelling etc has resolved itself and now I need the fill reintroduced in order for the reduced stomach size to become effective once more else there will be no point in my having had it done.

More on this later in the week as I write up the short report on the next appointments.

I was considering setting up a forum for those of us ‘horizontally challenged’ individuals to be able to discuss our experiences. I figured on actually *calling* it ‘gastricbandits.com’ – whaddya think??

Without putting too fine a point to it, I am simply not eating ‘real food’. Not only am I not eating ‘real food’ but what food I *am* taking in is almost totally devoid of fibre! The results are quite obvious… or not in this case. What’s worse is that the slow dehydration caused by not being able to drink sufficient quantities of water is exacerbating the problems!!

I’ve started adding a tablespoon on ‘Benefibre’ to the milk drinks to at least give me some sort of ‘bulk’ internally but this hasn’t yet had the desired effect so after a week all I seem to produce is copious volumes of gas which apart from being uncomfortable also contribute to the spasms in my stomach… and therefore to the pains in my neck!

Again I’m going to just have to live with this for a couple of weeks and see what the dietitian suggests. Maybe by the things will have settled down… but on current form I doubt it.

Ok this hurts… there simply isn’t getting away from the that fact that Gastric Banding is a major operation and some pain is inevitable. However it was the ‘after pain’ that took me by surprise and is still causing me some problems.

One ongoing issue is that my stomach seems to ’spasm’ which sends an intense pain shooting up my *neck* of all places! This is now hurting like heck and it feels as if the spasm has resulted in a pulled muscle… the pain of which is exacerbated each time it happens! I still get ‘pain’ in my stomach area but I’m not clear if this is directly linked to the operation site… or due to reflux and/or hunger, which I seem to recall producing similar feelings in the past.

A day or two after the op, the wife actually took me back to the clinic where I was able to have a few minutes with the surgeon to clarify exactly what I was supposed to take for what… and when!

One area of confusion related to what exactly was ’strong’ pain and what was ‘ordinary’ pain? I’d assumed the Panadol etc was there to control the usual sort of pain and the Oxycodone was there to cover something that would otherwise have had me screaming on the floor writhing in agony.

Seems I wasn’t entirely correct. I explained I’d actually taken one Oxycodone after getting home which had helped… but didn’t want to take more if they weren’t essential. I also explained I’d taken it whole after his instruction the morning I was discharged.

It turned out the sort of pain I was describing as ‘normal’ was exactly what the Oxycodone had been prescribed for… and I was supposed to crush it and drink it with water. Hmmm… !!!

He also said the pain radiating up my neck was possibly (quite likely in fact) being caused by drinking too much too quickly. I responded by pointing out I was following his instructions exactly as they were written. I was to ‘eat’ three Optifast meals a day, and take in a minimum of 2.5 litres of water/fluid per day. Simple maths would tell you that over a ten hour period this requires me to drink 250 mls an hour minimum… as was written in the instruction booklet.

His response to this was that I should drink *less*… i.e. water down the Optifast even further (a ratio of 3:1) and drink no more than 110 mls per hour.

To be fair this *has* had a positive effect on reducing the pain, though I do still get the spasms periodically, and usually after drinking my ‘ration’. So am I *still* drinking ‘too fast’ or is there something one of us is missing in all this?? I should also point out that I only took the Oxycodone for three days and used liquid Nurofen for a few days. This morning (around 10:00 a.m.) I took two soluble Panadol and have had no problems for the past 5 hours.

So other than those relatively minor things all is well. I was told I could remove the surgical tape after 7 days (though strangely given no other instruction re ‘wound care’) and this is what I did an hour or two ago. Having somewhat more than a clue about wound care already, I followed what seemed to me to be a reasonable and safe procedure.

After a shower in which is used some Microshield Wash over the area I dried off, and then peeled away the surgical tape. I then wiped around the area with TCP (an antiseptic ubiquitous for health care in the UK), and covered the cuts with some ‘Smith & Nehew OpSite’ wound dressings I had handy. Just for info, I can report that my stomach *has* healed up at least as well as I’d have expected though I think they’ll be all the better for having added protection for a few days more.

The summary is that the pain was a little more intense to begin with than I’d anticipated but is well under control and tolerable. Nothing I’ve experienced so far has been traumatic enough suggest I’d made a mistake in having the surgery. I’m good.

As is usual with anything I undertake nothing works out exactly to plan. Strangely this was no exception.

Actually there were no major problems all the way through from visiting the doctor to leaving hospital though there were one or two small issues. For starters when I went to the pre-op meeting with the doctor I was supposed to take my barium swallow results so we could discuss them. Of course I forgot to collect them from the lab so didn’t have them.

He said it wasn’t that important as long as there were no major issues and I told him the technician let me know there was no obvious hiatus hernia damage and only slight reflux problems to deal with. I was instructed to make sure I brought them to the hospital when I was admitted because he needed them to help guide the procedure.

So of course there I was sitting in bed having been admitted… and realising I *still* hadn’t gone to collect them! The wife shot off to the lab and luckily was able to collect them and get back before I was wheeled off to meet my destiny.

That was one little issue.

The others were less serious, if a little more annoying. The Hills Private Hospital is a relatively old building and not really suitable for the level of technological advances that have been made in patient care or surgical techniques so a new one is being built ready to open early next year. However I was still in the old one. This led to me being wheeled down to a corridor outside the operating theatre where I was left for 30 mins or so because the previous patient needed more work than was expected. No problem really, but it also meant I came *out* of the theatre that much later, plus because they’d done a little additional work on me, I was kept in ‘Recovery’ for an hour or so longer than my wife was expecting and when she asked where I was… was told they didn’t know. Not very reassuring. What was worse was that once I woke up and realised I was later than expected, I was asking them to let her know I was ok and they simply ignored me!

Finally… because I have sleep apnoea I need to use CPAP equipment to breath when asleep and because I was to stay in hospital overnight had taken it with me to the hospital. It was on the end of the bed when I was wheeled down for the procedure. When I woke up I asked where it was… and nobody knew. The nurse rang the operating theatre… nope they didn’t have it. They searched and searched and eventually a nurse decided to physically go to the theatre… where of course it was found lying behind a door!

Nothing of major importance… but it all adds to the stress.

Like I’ve been saying, I’m in no rush to lose the weight any more. The turning point is the desire to change the lifestyle to suit the conditions… and right now that’s what I’ve done.

This morning I weighed in at 141.0 kilos which is still dreadul bearing in mind the 119.? I was before Xmas ‘07 but I’m happy enough because it’s also less than the 143.5 kilos I was on 2nd September… and a lot less than the 153.5 kilos I was when I last saw the specialist.

Is 2 kilos a lot? Not compared to the 15 kilos I lost the first couple of weeks of the competition last year… but a kilo lost is two kilos not gained I say. One kilo a week will suit me.

Ok it might well be this time next year before I’m down to an acceptable size, but at least it’s moving in the right direction so let’s not knock it too much!

Strangely enough I’m getting a lot of headaches since restarting the diet a few days ago. I’m putting it down to my body ‘cleansing’ itself… a detox of some sort.

I’ve cut the refined sugars and less refined carbs out of my diet already as far as possible by restarting the regime of two meal replacements and no a lot else!

What’s causing the headaches is probably the lack of caffeine. From drinking pints of full strength tea… I’m back to the liquorice tea I love! Actually I’ve been drinking it on and off for ages and not because I’m ‘dieting’ but because it’s really a very pleasant drink! My problem was that Woolworths, where I had been buying it, had taken it off their product list and I had to go wandering about until I found a new source (which I did today).

In the meantime I’ve been reducing the caffeine intake by swallowing buckets of de-caffeinated coffee, and/or tea which seems to have done wonders in washing out my insides if nothing else! To be honest I’ve been wondering if the buckets of coffee/tea (which I take with milk and sweeteners) were acting as a meal substitute and helping keep the stomach filled while the sugar was being leached from my system. If that *is* what they were doing then it worked pretty much.

The headaches are on a similar form to the hunger pangs and I can’t claim to be without hunger pangs either yet. However, from experience I expect that in a day or three as my body re-enters the ketosis phase both headaches *and* hunger pains will dissipate and I’ll be back to feeling good about the process.

From then on it should be plain sailing down the path. Naturally, if the ketosis *doesn’t* kick in then we’re in a different ball game… but that’s a bridge to cross when we have to. Right now I’m mixing metaphors with gay abandon and to compound it still further… I’m metaphorically walking alongside that bridge!!