Off With the Old

Welcome to my blog:  Off With the Old! My Gastric Bypass and the Lessons I've Learned From the Process

I started this blog at the urging of some of the members of my team, at the Legacy Health Weight Management Institute in Portland, Oregon.  I am a patient at the Weight Management Institute (WMI) Since November 2009.  Since then I have been virtually surrounded by a team of professionals assisting me in planning for success in finally achieving my weight loss goals.  I want to say that my support team doesn't just include the Physical Therapist (PT), psychologist, nurse practitioner, registered dietitian (RD), and Surgeon (MD).  I also consider my family, my Primary Care provider (PCP),  and my personal psychologist to be just as important in my quest for lifelong weight loss. 

My Story

I have been overweight for as long as I can remember.  As a child, I was "the fat one" and I struggled despite my parents desperate and sometimes dysfunctional efforts to "make me thin".  I say this with love, because despite the worry my weight caused my family, with the comments, the bribery, the begging and pleading - I know that this was because they love me.  Nevertheless, it was difficult and often painful dealing with the pressures around my weight, whether it was a few pounds or many in question.

Last Fall I decided that enough was enough. It seemed then as if it happening all at once, but in retrospect it clearly happened over a matter of months to a couple of years. I was suffering from a multitude of medical problems that made work virtually impossible, and nearly all of my complications were related to my weight.  I was suffering from:

• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Chronic pain from osteoarthritis in my knees, ankles and low back  
• Non-insulin dependent diabetes
• Chronic heartburn from GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux disease)  
• Severe sleep apnea requiring that I use a machine called a C-PAP at night when I slept.  This requires getting used to a face mask of sorts hat blows air into your airway to keep it open while you sleep
• Impaired mobility -  I was having difficulty getting around, and now had to use a straight or single point cane.  

I agree that this is a lot of medical trouble, but that was not the worst of it.  I also suffered from:   

• Periodic venous stasis wounds on my legs from leaking veins that were causing a need for sometimes painful daily wound treatment and aggressive compression treatment ranging from the "oh so fashionable" compression hose to mechanical pumping using a lymphedema pump.  This pump machine is recommended for use for several hours a day to control lower extremity edema (swelling).  
• And the compression hose?  They are as uncomfortable as they are ugly.  

Suddenly it seemed that I was a mess and was heading toward disability very quickly.  And that's why when I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, on top of all of the rest of it I knew I didn't stand a chance.  Triggered by my many medical problems, my fibromyalgia flared out of control.  I was missing a third of my scheduled work time, and I was facing issues at work due to my absenteeism.  My job was on the line for the first time in my life.  I knew then that I needed to go out on a medical leave.  Fortunately, my PCP, Dr. D agreed.


More soon...