allientx25
My very long story...
I have been overweight/obese overweight throughout my life. In elementary school I started out as a stick, but my mom spoiled me rotten and brought me fast food everyday for lunch. I gradually started gaining weight eventhough I played every sport you could think of. By the end of the 5th grade, I was overweight. She stopped doing that in middle school, and I started taking my own lunches. I began playing school volleyball in the 7th grade and got in great shape. I continued to play volleyball through my freshman year in high school. I also played softball. During those years I was a very fit 130 pounds. After quitting volleyball and softball, I put on a little bit of weight but not too much.
After high school I actually lost weight by going out to clubs and dancing for hours on end. That was such a great workout for me and something I really enjoyed. When I was 19 I moved to Dallas. At that time I was around 140-145 pounds. I moved back to my hometown of Amarillo in the summer of 2003 at the age of 20. After that, my health went downhill. From the summer of '03 to the summer of '04 I had unexplainably gained 75 pounds. I hadn't changed my eating habits or activities, so I couldn't figure out what was going on. I finally got insurance in 2005 and went to an endocrinologist about my weight gain and the fatigue I was experiencing. The very first test she ran was my thyroid. Sure enough I was hypothyroid. I have been on thyroid replacement for 4 years now, but I continued to gain weight. I do have other medical problems, but I'm not sure if they contributed to my weight gain. I have seen a number of doctors, but none of them had an explanation of why I gained so much weight so fast. I can't tell you how much blood I had drawn and how many tests were run.
During 2008 I started thinking about gastric bypass. I had tried to lose weight on my own, but I never was able to. Finally in May or June of that year I looked in the phone book for bariatric surgeons. I found that the doctors here in Amarillo didn't accept my insurance. I am on disabilty for depression and migraines, so I have Medicaid and Medicare. One of the ladies at a doctor's office I called told me that I had to go to a "Center of Excellence." I did some research on the internet and found that there were only 2 in the state of Texas. As big as Texas is, I was shocked that there were ONLY TWO in the whole state. One of the doctors was Dr. Warnock in Wichita Falls, which is about 3 1/2 hours away from me. I can't remember where the other one was located, but I do remember he was much further away. I got on Dr. Warnock's website and saw that he is in the top 5% of bariatric surgeons in the U.S., so I decided to call for a consultation. To my disbelief, I couldn't get in until NOVEMBER 28th! The positive side of waiting was that it gave me time to really think if I wanted to do something so drastic. Around the end of October I got a phone call from his office saying that he was going to be out of town that week, so they needed to reschedule me. They said they had an opening the very next day, and if I didn't take that appointment, I would have to wait until APRIL. It was obviously a no brainer! My mom and I went down to meet Dr. Warnock the next day.
I walked in and felt very comfortable instantly because everyone there was there for the same reason I was. The staff was very friendly. I did have to wait a while because the waiting room was completely full, but I enjoyed talking to the other patients who had just had the surgery or had it a while back. I also liked looking at all the books with the pictures of before and afters. When I was called back, I became very nervous. I've been to so many doctors, so being nervous was strange for me. When they weighed me, I weighed in at a little over 264 pounds. As soon as Dr. Warnock walked in, I was instantly calm because I could tell he was a very nice, caring man. I initially went in wanting to do the lap band, but he went into great detail about both gastric bypass and the lap band. He looked at my stomach, which did make me a little uncomfortable because I was so ashamed of it, but then I remembered that he deals with people like me everyday. I asked him if he thought I would have extra skin and he replied with a yes. I thought that my age might work to my advantage, but I had so much fat on my tummy, that even being only 25 years old wasn't going to help me. After checking out my belly, we sat down to discuss what surgery I wanted to have. I asked him what he personally thought was best for me, and he said that the gastric bypass would probably be best because I had a little over 100 pounds to lose. He then proceeded to tell me that I needed to quit smoking (I needed to quit anyways) because he WILL NOT operate on a smoker. Then he told me that he wanted me to lose 40 pounds! I was in shock. He told me that I needed to go on his 2 protein shakes and a small salad diet for the next 3 months. I thought he was insane! Haha. But I agreed to it.
After my visit with him, he took me to the woman, Debbie, who handles all of the insurance claims and scheduling. She explained that because of my insurance, I would have to do a 3 month supervised diet and attend a nutrition class every month there in Wichita Falls. I was a little upset because I was so excited and wanted to have the surgery as soon as possible, but the 3 months went by SOOOO fast! I actually enjoyed the nutrition classes because I learned a lot and liked talking to other patients. I had to go see Dr. Warnock after my first two classes to check up with him. I wasn't losing a lot of weight because honestly I wasn't doing his diet. I ate normally for a long time, but then in December I started my own little diet of chicken and beef jerky. I know that sounds very boring, but for me it was much better than the shakes and salads. At my 2nd check up with him I had lost somewhere around 10 pounds. He was happy with that because "I was showing that I was really trying", so he said we could schedule my surgery! He told me that he wanted me to lose 14 more pounds. I knew I could do it. I was so motivated because I knew my surgery was just around the corner. Debbie scheduled my surgery for Friday, January 23rd. She explained to me that I would have to go on the protein shake and salad diet 12 days prior to my surgery, and then cut out the salads 2 days before the surgery and just have the shakes. I did pretty good during those 12 days. I did cheat a couple of times, but I always got right back to it.
I went down to Wichita Falls on the 21st of January because I had a lot of stuff to do the day before surgery. I had planned on my fiance and mom coming with me, but I broke off my engagement on December 29th, so he didn't go with us. We stayed at the Rathgeber (sp) House, which is guesthouse for patients and their families. On the 22nd, I went to the hospital at 8:45 in the morning to do all of my pre-admitting stuff and talk to anesthesiology. I then went to Dr. Warnock's at 11:00 for my pre-op class. The woman who taught the class, Karen, had bypass a few years ago and was just wonderful. Although she had a lot to teach us, she was very fun and sweet. After I was done with the class I saw Dr. Warnock to go over exactly what would happen the next day. I was ready to go! By the way, I weighed in at 249 pounds that day.
The morning of the surgery I wasn't afraid at all. I had had 4 previous surgeries as an adult, so I wasn't worried about anything until they took me back to holding! I was very happy that they let my mom come back to holding with me. Otherwise I think I would have been a nervous wreck, but she was actually more nervous and scared than I was. I was his 2nd patient out of 4 that morning. My surgery was only 45 minutes. I had it done open instead of laparoscopically because it's safer. I woke up in my room in a daze. I don't remember a lot about that first day. About 4:00 in the morning the next day they had me get up to walk. Man... it really, really hurt to get out of bed. The pain was almost unbearable, but I knew that walking was very important, especially because I already have blood clots in my left leg and both lungs. After walking they had me take a shower and clean my incision. Once I saw the incisions, I was in awe. I didn't think it would be that big. I measured it after getting home, and it measured 8 inches long. My 2nd day went pretty well. I was extremely happy to be able to get to drink water since I hadn't been able to since midnight the night before my surgery. They were giving me some kind of pain medication I had never heard of, but later on that night, the nurse came in and told me she was going to "change my world." I thought, "Lady, there is nothing you can do to make my pain go away and make me feel better.", but she did make things a thousand times better. She started my shower, put a Fentanyl (sp) pain patch on me and then gave me liquid Lortab. That Lortab made a drastic difference for me! I felt soooo much better afterwards. I took my shower and even walked a couple times voluntarily. The Lortab was tons better than whatever they were giving me before. I asked her why I wasn't given that to begin with, and I believe she told me it was because my new stomach wouldn't have been able to hangle it right after surgery.
I was released on Sunday, the 25th. Before being released, the nurse removed my I.V., drain, and every other staple and replaced them with steri-strips. She told me that the remainder of the staples would be removed by Dr. Warnock on Tuesday. Dr. Warnock wanted me to stay at the guesthouse for a few days so he could check on me. I was actually doing pretty good right after I was released. The only problem I had was sleeping on a bed. I had a recliner in my room, but I was unable to lay in it because I wasn't strong enough to push the foot part down since my stomach muscles had been cut. So my only issue was sleeping on a flat bed. He gave me a prescrition for liquid Lortab to take after being released from the hospital. When I went to see Dr. Warnock on Tuesday, the 27th, he noticed that I was swollen and hadn't lost any weight. He told me that I was retaining water, so he prescribed me a diuretic and potassium. Then he told me I was free to go home. My mom drove home, while I laid my seat back, put a pillow over my tummy, and then put the seat belt on to keep the pillow in place. I slept all the way home and wasn't uncomfortable at all. I was scared about the drive home, but it was a piece of cake since I had the pain medication!
Shortly after getting home, I noticed that the part of my incision at the very bottom where the drain was looked infected and was opening up. I called Dr. Warnock and told him about it, so he called me in an antibiotic. I gave the antibiotic several days to work, but the incision appeared to be opening more. I was also experiencing severe depression, which I have had before in the past although I hadn't been depressed in a couple of years before the surgery. Dr. Warnock wanted me to call in to check with him every week, so on my next call to him, I told him about the incision and my depression. He wanted me to come down to see him. This was on a Friday. I was expecting him to tell me to come down Monday, but unexpectedly he said, "Well can you come down tomorrow? I can meet you at my office." I told him that Saturday wouldn't be good for me. He responded by saying, "Well I can meet you Sunday when I get out of church." I thought, "What an amazing man and doctor!" I declined his very gracious offers and told him I would be down on Monday. It turned out that my incision wasn't infected, it was just opening up and draining some. He said that it does happen sometimes and that it was nothing to be worried about, just to keep it covered at all times until it heals. As far as the depression, he asked if my current antidepressant was working, and I told him that it was not. He offered to prescribe me one that would work for me, but I explained to him that I had been on every antidepressant and none of them had ever worked. Honestly I don't even know why I was on one. In November of 2006 I had a surgery for my depression. I had a Vagus Nerve Stimulator put in. It had been used on epileptic patients for 10 years, and during those 10 years they realized that it pretty much cured depression. It worked so wonderfully for me that I had it turned off in April of last year. We talked about having it turned back on, but I decided against it. I just wanted to tough it out. I was having a hard time dealing with not being able to eat the food I was used to eating and seeing everyone else eat the things that I wanted but couldn't have. If you read up on it, depression is very common after WLS, but it usually does go away after a few months. During your pre-op class, Karen should talk about this with you if you haven't already had the surgery.
My depression is much better now, as well as my incision, which is just about completely healed. I have lost a total of 42 pounds since my first visit with Dr. Warnock and 27 pounds since my surgery. I lost 20 pounds two weeks post-op! The weight has been coming off much slower now because I think I am retaining water again, and also I am not getting all the protein that is required of WLS patients, although I am doing my best right now to start getting it all. For those of you who can't stand the taste of protein shakes, Nectar makes an unflavored powder that you can put in anything and not taste. I just bought some the other day to help me get all the protein my body needs. It's definitely helping me. I put it in almost everything I eat.
I wish everyone who is going to have the surgery and everyone who has already had the surgery all the best! Feel free to email me anytime about anything. I am an open book =)
