Yesterday marked my 6 month surgiversary and post-op appointment. I'm happy to report I passed with flying colors!
The scale at bariatric center always weigh me about 2.5# heavier than my Wii (80# since surgery and 105# since January). I attribute that to the clothes...vs. lack there of. ;-) Regardless, they were all very pleased with the weight loss so far. MD even said, "Your weight loss is robust." LoL. Robust? Okaaaaay. Since surgery, I have lost 2" from my neck, 12" from my waist and 13" from my hips. That's a whole lotta inches! RN joked that my BP was "up" a little at 104/70.
On a positive note, all my lab work came back perfect. Vitamin levels were exactly where they need to be. All was "exactly as it's suppose to be." Sooo, that led to the discussion of lightheadedness and sleepiness. MD believes they both could be tied to the low blood pressure. He told me to "top off my tanks" (with fluids). Meaning get in closer the 80 oz of fluids a day! Are you serious? 80 ounces??? UGH! Ok. I will! Then he told me to add a little salt to my diet to help retain the fluids. I looked at him and literally laughed out loud. I think my exact response was, "Do you realize how that contradicts EVERY thing that I've taught myself in the past?" He grinned and said, "A lot of what you've already done has been a contradiction to what you've taught yourself in past." Good point.
About the sleepiness. We went over every lab result and there is nothing on paper to indicate why I'd be so sleepy. I'm not anemic. My iron level is good and my Vit D is smack dab in the middle of normal. So, I guess it was a combination of the stress levels at work and being gone until after 9pm every night prior to leaving for the weekend trip... I told him what I'd been eating and that I didn't feel it was anything like hypoglycemia (gotta love self-diagnosis, huh?). He agreed though. He told me to just keep track of it and see if it gets worse. On paper, there's nothing that's causing it. -shrug- Maybe life just caught up with me???
As he was leaving the office he said, "Now, don't lose TOO much weight." I gave him a puzzled look and said, "And just how would I control that? And what do you define as too much since you've not given me a "goal" weight?" (Love that I made him stop and sit back down!) His reply was something to the fact that I'm still doing really well, and that if I lost 10 more pounds, he'd consider me a success. Ten pounds? Really? I'm thinking 30. -shrug- But then he went on to say pretty much what I've been thinking. My body will eventually figure out what's "normal" for me. If during one of my visits he feels I'm getting too low, then they'll give me information on increasing calories. To be honest I can't even wrap my brain around that, so I'm not going to worry about it unless it becomes a problem. I go back in three months and we'll see how things are at that time.
Had a quick chat with RD. I've been cleared to add raw vegetables to my diet. My volume should be about a total of 4 ounces per meal. I'm still choosing to avoid "fillers" like pasta and rice, though they're technically allowed. Over the next 3 months, I should gradually be able to increase my volume to 5-6 ounces...and by a year out, I should be able to eat about 1 cup of food.
My time with LCSW was good too. We discussed "the good, the bad and the ugly" of the last 6 months. LOTS of goods, a couple of bads and the ugly was really just one event - the horror story from C and how I let Satan use that to make me doubt a lot! I told her that all in all my experience has been overwhelmingly positive and that I truly believe its because the purpose of my whole journey is to bring glory to God - His transforming power to take someone like me and mold me, physically and spiritually, into the person He created me to be. I do believe that 100%! He continues to work IN me so that I can become who He designed. Anyway...at the end of our time, LCSW asked if I'd be interested in possibly writing an article for the Spring newsletter - about "New Life" (or something Spring-ish related) or if I'd consider speaking at informational meetings, etc. I told her I'd be "open" to the idea, but that I'd need to think about it and get back with her. She was perfectly fine with that - even told me to pray about it. :) So that's what I'm going to do. Pray about it, decide how my story could be sent out as an encouragement to others while at the same time bringing glory to God. Aftera all, He is THE One who deserves all the praise!
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"I praise you [God] because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." ~Psalm 139:14
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