A Question I Am Going to Answer

Above is a picture of my stomach looks like now and I do not have a gallbladder. A friend of mine asked me the other day " Katie what does it feel like when you eat?"  I realized I think no one has ever asked me that and I have never been able to describe it. Well for times sake I sat down at home today and I figured it out with my breakfast, lunch and dinner? 

What did it used to feel when I ate?  An empty feeling I was never full and I kept on going until I got sick. 

What does it feel like now? Hmm.... liquids go down easy on most days but some days it hurts for them to get down and I do not want them. These are what I call my crystal light days where flavored water is all I can get down. 

When I eat it feeels interesting if it is a full liquid it goes down but when it gets to the bottom to my stomach it stops and I have to wait. 

It just is really a weird full feeling

Clothing Clothing Everywhere Not a Single Drop To Spare

Women and clothes ahh the oldest cliche in the book, we love to shop and spend money we do not have. Shows like Sex and the City, Confessions of a Shopaholic have really made the name game when it comes to women and their clothes. But when you are a WLS patient clothes take on a whole life of their own...

We might have started off with a substantial plus size wardrobe various sizes ranging from 20W and onward.. and then we make the decision to have surgery. Knowing these very clothes are going to be mere memories. But you still hold on to them for those first few weeks because you are swollen, your bloated, your still fat and you know they will fit. Then the first drop happens, this is what happened to me. I was walking somewhere and my leggings fell down and they were saggy in the ass. I knew I had made the next drop. So the first donation to Goodwill came around 6 weeks post op, at this point all my clothes were sagging and I was finding myself go to Walmart, Target and Kohls.

Now I am down almost 90lbs and hovering somewhere between a size 16, they are little tight but fit amazing. I have piles of clothes everywhere in my room I am not a messy person by nature but the sheer amount of clothing is insane. I realized that I need to get clothes for the Fall and Winter. So I went to Walmart yesterday and dropped around 150.00 on some shirts, pants and jackets.


Ugh.... clothes

My 600 Lb Life This Was The Path I Was On and We All Were On My Opinion

My 600LB life is a rather popular show shown on The Learning Channel here in the United States of America. The show follows a set of morbidly obese people severly morbidly obese people in their journey towards WLS. 

There is a lot of controversy about this show in the weight loss surgery community, some people feel they are lazy others see them as inspirational so on many of the boards that I am part of I do not discuss this show but since this is my personal blog I am going to discuss how I feel towards this show. 

This above is a poster from the show. I could not find anything without a picture. Before I entered this journey of becoming the new healthy me, I often thought this show exploited severely obese people and made a circus out of it. That was until my wake up call, I happened to come across an episode of this on netflix in March right around the time I decided to possibly consider medical intervention. I saw the episode and in that episode I SAW MYSELF. I saw the huffing and the puffing, the food addiction, the denial, the constant ups and downs. For some reason the show hit home for me that day. I understand why now I knew I needed to change my life because I was on the path of becoming a 600lb life person. At that moment I knew surgery was going to be the answer for me. 

I can still remember the moment when I decided to have surgery. I was with my Mom and my Grandma was recovering from a injury. We were visiting her and I said Mom I am having weight loss surgery and she said Katie you go for it. At that moment I started the process. 

As I look back on the moments all these months ago and my sagging jeans this surgery saved my life. 

The current episode I am watching of my 600lb life is Domonique. She is a lovely character who sitting right in her bed on her clear fluids I FEEL HER PAIN. I dont care what anyone says these people are us. They are all of us. 

The scene they are showing now she is complaining about her pain, I remember the pain post op and I was nearly a quarter size of her. I was only 300 when I started now I am 218 last I weighed. I weigh every two weeks. I have never been this small in my entire life. 

Another scene in this episode of the surgery they go in through the key hole and talk about the fat they found around her liver and organs, they found that same yellow fat in me. 

We are a community of people that are close whether we are 400, 300 or 500 lbs when we begin we all take that first step into a new journey. 

Remember the people on this show are our sisters and brothers, they are us. We are a community. 

Four Months To The Day

May 16, 2014 was the day it changed for me. I was staring down  rabbit hole and looking into my new life. Four months ago to the day I was sitting in the Operating Room Prep Area, with my Mom waiting for them to wheel me in. I was 293 lbs from a whopping 300lbs thank god my insurance did not require a lot of pre weight loss. I sat there on the gurney just waiting for them to bring me down. As all the doctors and nurses came in and prepped me, the IV lines were started everything was double checked and I continued to sign my life away for all the hospital paper work. All of a sudden it was time, as the versed was injected into my IV line I was okay and then all of a sudden I started to feel woozy. I remember kissing my Mom good bye and Dad and was wheeled off down the corridor, after that it where it gets blurry. I have a remember the sensation of be transferred to the operating table and vaguely saying hi to the nurses and doctors in the room. I then fell asleep but was in this state between awake and deep anesthetic sleep. I remember the lovely anesthesiologist going to me more propofol please. After, that the next thing I remember is Katie wake up wake up its over your surgery is over. In the haze of the drugs and coming back to life I was groggily I thought to myself did I have surgery?

As I started to breathe on my own I felt sore all I remember is feeling like someone had hit me on the stomach but I had my gallbladder out before that two years ago and I knew this feeling. After this I went to recovery and barely remeber much.

Fast Forward Four Months

I am now down 82 lbs to 218. I DO NOT REGRET A SINGLE DAY