I woke up in the Intense Care with tubes and a long scar, who started between the breasts lower part and all the way down under the navel. They hadn't cut in the same scar as I had three scars on top of each other, on the right side. Now, my stomach was really good looking! How many stapels who kept the scar together, I don't remember but it was many...
I was still breast feeding my son, so the first thing I had to do was to pump out milk wich was thrown away, full of anesthetics and painkillers.
The kids and my ex came to visit me but I slept most of the time and they didn't stay long.
The day after I was moved to a regular medicine ward and it was time to start moving and also try to eat. It went fine, both getting out of bed ( I was a proe to get out beds, newly undergone surgery, even if I was much heavier than the times before). My ex and the kids came to visit every day. I thougt it was important for my kids to see me every day, especially Oliver who was just 1,5 years old. When the friday came I asked if it was possible to sleep at home over the night because of my small son and that was no problem. My ex came in the evening to get me and he had Oliver with him. I was stuffed with painkillers and still pretty affected of the surgery. Neither my body or my brain was really on top. When we were on our way to the eleveater, I see that Oliver drops his pacifier and I am to slow to stop him from put the pacifier back in his mouth. I really didn't want him to get all those bacterias in him, from the the dirty hospital floor. I started to shout several times to my ex that he shoudl take Oliver, wich ended with him getting angry at me and walked with rapid steps out to the elevater. I grabbed Oliver and when I came to the elevator, he wheezed to me "give a damn to shout" and went in the elevator and left!
There I was with my small son in my hand and about a 40 centimeter long surgery scar on my belly, in the hospital, a friday evening..and my ex also had my car!
I went back to the ward, crying and told wat happend but no one could "do" anything to help me...I couldn't have my son at the hospital! ?
I started to call some of my friends where I lived (neighbours), one came to pick me and my son and the other helped me with Oliver. I couldn't pick hom up, for example. I new that I wasn't supposed to breastfeed him but I did that anyway, so he could feel seccure and mum being there again.
In the morning next day my neighbour came and helped me again and I took the tram back to the hospital. I stayed over the day and went back hom in the evening and my neighbour helpt me again. At the monday she picked him up and left him at the daycare and I got discharged from the hospital.
In the evning, the same day, I started to throw up and couldn't keep anything in my stomach at all. I was "used to it" so I didn't panic. As long as I could take care of my kids, it didn't matter..but I got dehydrated very quickly. I arranged so I got home service through the Social services, who helped me with the kids, buying food and cleaning but after a couple of days I was so dehydrated that cried when I saw people drink things at the TV. I dreamt about watermelons and big glasses of cold drinks. I called the Social Services and they arranged for my kids to come to a foster family, so I could go back to the hospital.
I took a taxi and a vommit-bag in my hands. I couldn't keep anything and I recognized this symptoms very well.
In the hospital I got IV with fluids and slowly I got my fluid balance back and stopped throwing up on the sunday. I got something to eat and drink for the first time in a week and I didn't throw it up.
I got discharged from the hospital again and my daughter called and said that the family she and my son was staying wasn't nice to her, so I took the tram right away and got my kids back home.
No one should treat my children bad - NO ONE! Samantha told me after that the family just took care of Oliver and didn't care about her. I was happy they didn't had to stay there so many days!
The reason why I started to throw up was because of the stress and the wonds inside of me started to swell..when I got the IV the swelling went down so I could start to eat again.
Well, eat, yes!
I fed Oliver with babyfood and I ate up the left overs that he didn't eat and also powder soups - 2 deciliters at the time (almost).
I lost my weight very rapidly and already in May I had lost 30 kilos. The life came slowly back to me and I could start to move more normally. Some time in the summer I could run and catch Oliver when he ran in the wrong direction. Before it was Samantha or my neighbours who had to catch him. I was fast as a lizzard!
My ex had returned and got Oliver every each friday or saturday and one night in the middle of the week.
I started to go out and have fun!
I love to dance and especially to Reggae, Ska and Dancehall. I had heard about an african club wich became my favorite place - I didn't drink, just danced and danced. I rejected all insistent invites from the african men in the clug. I was still in love with my ex and didn't want to have any new relationship. The men liked my body shape and I got pretty good in saying now to them...until one nighht in August...
One man succeded to charm me with his calm way and soft appearance. We talked all night, dances and exchanged phonenumbers. He called the next day and came to visit and kind of moved in from that day. He was very kind to my kids and helpfull in all sorts of ways - the opposite of Olivers dad. I fell in love and lost my feelings to Olivers dad - now it was definitly the end of our relationship.
That caused a lot of conflicts, jellaousy and problems, I wont tell about in this story...
During that year, I continued to go and and dance, meet new people and loose more weight.
In the fall my weight loss started to slow
down and stopped at 199 kilos. I lost my long, nice, thick hair and had to cut if off. I went to a check up, one year after the surgery and I remember the doctor asked me if I need a new recepie of B12...
- What?
- B12-vitamines
- What is that?
- Haven't you got any information about this? You have to eat B12 for the rest of your life because your
body can't get it from the food after a Gastric Bypass-opereration.
- No, nobody told me that...
He gave me my first recepie of B12 and from that day I have to eat it daily.
I didn't experienced any big problems with my GBP-surgery the first years more than if I ate to fast or to much I got a terrible pain and almost every time it ended up with me throwing up all the food. It is not "fun" to throw up unmelted food without any fluids in it. You can't drink and eat at the same time. You have to drink before or a very long period of time afterwards. I got use to drink at nights and eat at the days. Every time I threw up, the small blood vessels I have around my eyes and in my eyes bursted. I looked like I have been in a fight...
I learned what I should avoid to eat: To "hard" food for example pasta, raw vegetables, big chunks of meat and rice, especially not together. Some types of food started a racingspeed in my stomach, like pancakes, vegetarian food made of lentils anc chickpeas and probably other types of food I didn't even think about. I ate "anything" and suffered sometimes but as long as I had a toilett near by, I could handle it. It was those times where I could get to a toilett fast, I suffered.
The size of the portions was ridiculously small and most common comment was:
- Are you not going to eat more than that?
- No, I can't eat more than this. I am Gastric Bypass-opererated.
- Oh, aha, what? You can't eat more because of the Gasric Bypass-surgery?
Some asked and some tried to ignore it. I never thougt of it that much or even talked about it. The closest of my family and friends knew about it and others did just see my big body and wondered why I was so big when I had done that surgery..maybe?
No, I couldn't eat more than that small baby-portion but it also felt good because I knew that I couln't overeat. If I did, I would throw up. I learned how to starve because than I could eat more next time. I almost could eat half of a Pizza if I hadn't eaten for at least ten hours (one year after sugery) ...so, yes, I could eat as before!
Food wasn't that important anymore because of the lack of hunger, I couldn't eat 4-10 sandwiches anymore and cookies and candy but sure I could eat candy, especially chocolate because it just melts away in the stomach and I could eat cookies, four at the time with one hour in between etc.. I didn't stop my addiction to food - I just had it in smaller amounts and choosed things who was easier to digest.
I didn't "miss" anything.
a stomach.
My husband came back to Sweden in January 1997 and we started our life as husband and wife. He wanted to have a baby directly and I wanted to wait to see if our marriage worked - we didn't really knew each other before we got married. In the summer I decided that it was okey to have a baby and we also needed a bigger apartment for our growing family.
It was not just the family who grew, I started to gain weight and my husband pointed out gently sometimes that maybe I should't eat that much cookies...but the I just got upset and he avoied the subject. He loved my big body but thought I whined a little to much about my weight at the same time as I was munching cookies...
We moved to a bigger apartment at the same time as I was pregnant in the sixth week.
Life was good; I had a job, was married, had a nice hom and my third child on it's way, wich was wanted by both me and the father. A situtation I never experienced before. Well, under the surface it was far from perfect. There was issues, who was more difficult to deal with than the big fights I had with my ex, but ouf regards for my children I can not tell anything about it.
 |
| One week before delivery |
Well, it works..you puke air in the morning instead of stomach fluids, because there is no fluid in that small part wich is left of the stomach. In the end of the pregnancy I started go get stomach pains and threw up so much I had to go to the hospital. That connective tissues around my intestines was putting a stop and it even was planned for me to do surgery in my eight months of pregancy! Luckily I didn't do it - the contrast fluid for being x-rayed made the stop go away. I had to go to the hospital a cople of times because of pains and threwing up in the end. I was on a sick leave for the last weeks and the 28th of june 1998 I gave birth to a big son at 4,7 kilos wich got the name Adam. He looked like a small, brown Buddha!
Six months later I got divorced. It was impossible to ignore the issues who was there under the surface and there I was again, single mum but now with three children.
I went in to a fase of increadable anger, dissapointment and depression wich lasted for three years. During this period I gained almost all of the weight I lost after the surgery. I weighed around 145 kilos - with + - 5/10 kilos. I didn't care, the dream of a family was ruined.
Who would want me know?
A single mum with three kids in three different colours, living in the suburbs, with lots of debts because I supported my family all alone for all those years.
It was chaos inside of me.
It was chaos around me...
My focus was to keep me and my children above the surface and handle every crisis we went through. There was no easy, romantic childhood my children experienced and just that part of our life could be a "book" too, but out of regards for my children and other people involved I keep it to my self.
I was really a single mum: The fathers was barley ever there more than on their own terms, and beside that Olivers dad moved to Norway and Oliver had his own personal crisis as a sex year old.
I didn't get any support. I was very, very alone. Without some of my friends and my own daughter, I wouldn't had done it - you know who you are.
It went so far that when Adam was three years old I had a break down. I couldn't even speak that first week! To go and buy food was a challenge with the panic attacks under my skin. I did what I had to do and the hours in the middle of the day I was alone helped me. I came back to my work six months later.
I didn't care about my self or my weight, it was there, the surgery was more or less waisted but I can not say for sure that I had lived if I hadn't done it at all. The dissapointment to never experience getting to normal weight was there as a sharp knife in my whole existence, even when everything else took my attention. If I didn't remind my self of my apperance, there was always someone else who did.
I realized that IF I really wanted to loose weight, I just had to start dieting again!
I was supposed to start every monday...every summer, every new years eve, every holiday etc...
I tried Wieghtwatchers-food, ligthproducts, full grains, just eating nudlees and popcorn, walk long walks, swim three times a week, fasting on Dietpowders and it just ended with low blood sugar levels, bad mood, constipation, gastric catarrh and depressions and particularly and increadable hunger and cravings, and some kilos down and some kilos up...
It was yet easier to not eat at all then something and you have to eat or else you will die and I didn't want to die. I had three kids to take care of. It was them who made me get up every day even those days I just wanted to stay under the cover and not get up at all.
Next part will be about the years around 2005 and Doctor Atkins Diet and the life where the backsides of being GBP-operated really showed.
Wow, what a story. I hope you have found your way through by now, I know how it feels when nothing seems to work and you feel like a failure.
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