MY weight loss surgery.

My stomach is not made of felt.
|It is now, though, the size of a banana

So I'm 12 days post surgery and much to my annoyance, I'm not yet a size six... this is, quite frankly, a DISGRACE.

But seriously, I am 12 days post surgery and I'm still trying to get my head around the significant change that I chose to make to my life (with assistance from our ever brilliant NHS). I had a sleeve gastrectomy on 16 July. First time having anaesthetic and surgery, and first prolonged stay in hospital since I had meningitis in 1982. I was pretty freaked out by the whole idea of the hospital stay, probably more than the surgery.

I've touched on having weight loss surgery briefly in my blog before. It's something I really hadn't considered before. With my obesity and fertility issues, I was offered the surgery to help with weight loss and then the possible knock on effect from that would be qualifying for IVF.  So I went with it.

It's not as simple as people seem to think, I had to have psychological input before I was approved for the surgery.  And I have a lot of changes to make to my lifestyle.  So I thought I'd write a blog to try to explain a bit about 'my journey' (trust me, I hate that phrase as much as you do, but it's the best way to define it).

This is MY journey, no-one else's.  So to be quite blunt, my opinions are the only ones that matter so therefore:

1. Please don't ask me if I'm hungry, it doesn't help.  I am not a side show circus freak. FYI: ghrelin (the hunger hormone) is produced in the part of the stomach that was removed.

2. In the same way, please don't ask me what I'm eating or if I'm eating.  Quite frankly, that is only the business of me and my dietitian.

3. Keep your expectations of MY weight loss to yourself. I don't want you to tell me that you thought I'd have lost more weight than I have done.  I already have low self esteem so your comments will more than likely hinder my recovery.  

4. Along with physical recovery, I need time for mental recovery too. I have to relearn how to eat (effectively, I'll be relearning how to eat as my friends' baby is learning how to eat, so we can be chow pals).

5. Encouragement is GOOD. If you can encourage me in any way, that would be delightful. If you don't think you can, that's also cool, but I'd ask that you keep your negative comments to yourself please. This can hinder my recovery. 

6. It really isn't 'the easy way out'. As I say, I didn't ask for the surgery, it was offered to me. And I thought long and hard about whether to have it at all. So if you think it's the easy way out, keep that to yourself. Don't tell me eating less and moving more will help me out, I have two underlying health conditions that affect my weight as well as being on antidepressants. So if that's what you want to add to my 'journey', I'd rather you didn't, thanks. I'm well aware people think it's a cheat (including some consultants).  

I am already worrying myself that I haven't lost enough weight in the 12 days since surgery and have already begun branding myself a failure. This is incredibly unhealthy (I am well aware of this) and this way eating disorders lie.  I shall be letting my dietitian and bariatric nurse know how I'm feeling, and they will get me an appointment with the psychologist.   

I have a great support network around me including David, my family and assorted friends and work colleagues.  

So anyway, this blog might be a bit snarky, a bit unfriendly, but I needed to write this because at the moment, I need to concentrate on me and my recovery. If you feel like you need to ask me any of the above, it's probably not going to help me.

Fluffy and over emotional posts will resume soon. 

Long blog post is long and possibly ultimately pointless

As of late I have not been taking my medication, what with one thing and another – mainly though, I’ve run out and hadn’t been to get any more.  Seems I really do still need it.  I’m lacking in motivation for anything, I’ve become incredibly resentful of everything and everyone, I feel like I’m going to cry at the drop of a hat (although to be honest, that could be more to do with my hormones than anything).

My lack of medication is totally my fault, the only time I can get to the GP to request it is before work and lack of motivation and sheer idleness prevents me from doing so.  I’m usually late for work as it is so taking a few more minutes to go and request my medicine is a BIG DEAL at the moment.  Well it is for me, anyway. 

At some points I feel like I’m living in a bubble and just observing all that goes on around me, including my own life… it’s like I’m watching from outside myself; watching myself weigh in at Slimming World, watching myself out at the pub with friends… I’m going back to feeling like I’m existing and not living and this is not healthy.  But it isn’t happening all the time, just occasionally, and I am aware of it as I know what signs to look for and THANKFULLY, I haven’t been suicidal.

Over the past few months, there have been a few quite significant events that have happened within my family and social life and I’m not coping at all well with them.  I’ve pushed them all to the back of my mind, tried to hide them; but they keep coming back with a hammer blow to the face and a cheerily fiendish ‘HIYA!’  There are some things I tried to confront but found far too difficult; so I’ve withdrawn.  It’s not an ideal thing to do really but I have to do it; I have to put myself first and not be placed into situations where I am going to feel uncomfortable, hurt or upset.  But there again, when I have tried facing up to these things and confronted the issues, I just get shouted down or ignored anyway, so the side of me that accepts I can’t make a difference, that just takes it makes herself known and I just take these things head on.  Why argue back?  It’ll always be a case of who can shout loudest and to be perfectly honest, I’m tired.  I’m too jaded to try and fight for myself, to try to get my point across.  I’m losing my fire and my fight.
 

I’m aware this is a rambling shambolic mess of a blog post, and I’m not quite sure what point I wanted to make.  But does there ever have to be a point of a blog post?  Maybe the point of this post is to say ‘Hi, I’m Tara and I still suffer from depression’; or maybe it’s to say ‘Hi, I’m Tara and I lack the motivation to do anything worthwhile’; it could be ‘Hi, I’m Tara and it’s my fucking own stupid fault that my depression is kicking me around’, but I think it’s more likely ‘Hi, I’m Tara.  I’m still here, my depression has shown itself again and I’m trying to control it, but please remember, I’m still here, I still have feelings; some of your actions and words can be hurtful. Please don’t dismiss me.  I’m still here.’

Remember me? I'm the one who had your baby's eyes.

Blimey.  It’s a while.  Tara’s blog of despair and anxiety.  Here’s more rambling on anyway…

So, as some of you know (mainly folk I have on Facebook) 2014 has not yet turned out to be The International Year of Tara Court as I predicted in my final blog post of 2013.  In fact, the first three weeks saw me plunged into more work based drama and despair.  The Union got involved and all kinds.  And I’m still not really free of it as there’s one issue that’s still rumbling on.  But do you know what I learned?  I learned not to care.  I learned to not give one single flying fuck about it all because, quite simply put, there’s more to life.  

Yeah I had meetings where I had been in floods of tears and had had to ask them to leave the room instead of just sitting and watch me break down. 

I’ve also had meetings where I’ve been berated for the most insignificant thing that if I told you, you’d go ‘What the fuck? Are you kidding?’ (to which I’d go ‘I know right.  Fucking STUPID’).  And all through it, my resolve was getting stronger and stronger until I’ve now got to the point where nothing really matters where this is concerned anymore.  If only I’d felt this way back at the start of my depressive episode in February of last year…to be able to laugh at the ridiculousness of some situations, but then I guess everything we go through in life we learn from.

I learned from that last depressive episode that I absolutely do deserve my place on this earth.  Yeah, I might still have self esteem issues and be hung up about how I look and my weight etc, but that’s what the human race do.  We’re never happy with how we are and are always seeking to look and change ourselves in some small way (dyeing our hair) or some big way (changing jobs, retraining, getting surgery because you’ve never liked your nose).  Sure, I’m not necessarily comfortable in my own skin, but I’m coming to terms with being comfortable with who I am.  And how I am.  And my funny ways that wind up the people I love.

It was said to me last week by someone that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to claw your way back up, and in some respects this is quite true, although given that this was one ofthem who gave me a hard time over the past six months (the one who decided I didn’t need my psychology sessions anymore), I declined take it the way that this person had intended it.  But in my anxiety and despair, my suicidal feelings, the whole blackness of my condition, I’m hoping I’m clawing my way back up, cos I’m sure I hit rock bottom… I had to have…there can’t be anything more.