Well, I had my every-four-month appointment with my endocrinologist this morning. He's the one who watches my diabetes and my cholesterol, triglyceride, and enzyme levels. He is also the doctor who recommended I have my gastric bypass and suggested my surgical team. Since my last visit with him was only about six weeks after my surgery, today's results (from the labwork he ordered last week) were the first to really reflect what impact the surgery has had on my metabolism. Here's what has happened in the last four months:
He didn't order cholestoral/triglyceride testing this visit, so I have no reports there. In four months my weight has dropped 53 pounds. My blood pressure has dropped from 130/80 to 114/72. My A1c test - measuring average percentage of glucose in your blood stream over the previous 2-3 month period - dropped from 7.5 to 5.0 (readings for non-diabetics can range from 4.5 to 5.7). And here's the really amazing part - my liver enzymes are now only 10% of what they measured four months ago, and are well within normal levels!
Doctor was very well pleased, and I was ecstatic!
Monday, August 29, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Hair today, gone tomorrow....
Or should I say,"Hair yesterday, gone today"? One of the side effects of this surgery, is hair loss. The surgeons' guidebook/instruction manual says that a recovering patient will usually start losing hair at about three months after surgery. It states further that the hair loss should continue for a couple of months, with total hair loss reaching about one-third of the original hair volume. Regrowth would then begin at about the six-month post-surgery mark. I had read this and, intellectually, I knew that it would happen to me. But I've gotta' tell ya' that I wasn't prepared.
All my life, my hair has been very,very fine; but I have always had a lot of that very fine hair. I guess I was even a bit vain about my thick head of hair. Even when I started wearing it short all the time, and even when it went gray, I loved my hair. My gray hair was silvery white, and I loved it when so many people would tell me that I had beautiful platinum hair. It had thinned a bit with age, but there was still plenty of it. When I started losing hair by the handful about two-and-a-half months after surgery, I was a bit shocked. For almost three months my hair kept falling out. I would blow it dry after gently washing it, and a whole little cloud of silver would float down to the floor. At the end of every shower I would pull a wad of white hair from the drain grate. I was continually brushing hair from my clothes. I thought it would never stop falling out!
Finally, about two weeks ago, the hair loss began to slow down and I started losing less and less every day. I have been assessing the total damage. For one thing, instead of losing about one-third of my original hair volume, I have no more than about one-third of that beginning volume left on my head. For another thing, the hair that has fallen out has been my most beautiful platimum hair, and I am left with very fine and very thin medium blond hair shot through with darker gun-metal gray. My friend and hairdresser came up with a cut and style that will allow me to create a bit of fullness with little stress on my hair, and introduced me to hair products formulated to strengthen and help rebuild very thin hair.
In another twelve days I will reach my six-month mark, and I am waiting for the regrowth to begin. I guess I'll have to just wait and see what happens. I am hoping to have a full head of hair again by my one year "surgiversary" next March, and hoping against hope that what grows back will be that nice silvery white color that I have lost. I must admit, though, that even if my hair stays very thin and dark gray-blond, I am so happy with all the positive changes in my body that it will take a lot more than thin, non-platinum hair to get me down. It's a small price to pay for finding myself again.
All my life, my hair has been very,very fine; but I have always had a lot of that very fine hair. I guess I was even a bit vain about my thick head of hair. Even when I started wearing it short all the time, and even when it went gray, I loved my hair. My gray hair was silvery white, and I loved it when so many people would tell me that I had beautiful platinum hair. It had thinned a bit with age, but there was still plenty of it. When I started losing hair by the handful about two-and-a-half months after surgery, I was a bit shocked. For almost three months my hair kept falling out. I would blow it dry after gently washing it, and a whole little cloud of silver would float down to the floor. At the end of every shower I would pull a wad of white hair from the drain grate. I was continually brushing hair from my clothes. I thought it would never stop falling out!
Finally, about two weeks ago, the hair loss began to slow down and I started losing less and less every day. I have been assessing the total damage. For one thing, instead of losing about one-third of my original hair volume, I have no more than about one-third of that beginning volume left on my head. For another thing, the hair that has fallen out has been my most beautiful platimum hair, and I am left with very fine and very thin medium blond hair shot through with darker gun-metal gray. My friend and hairdresser came up with a cut and style that will allow me to create a bit of fullness with little stress on my hair, and introduced me to hair products formulated to strengthen and help rebuild very thin hair.
In another twelve days I will reach my six-month mark, and I am waiting for the regrowth to begin. I guess I'll have to just wait and see what happens. I am hoping to have a full head of hair again by my one year "surgiversary" next March, and hoping against hope that what grows back will be that nice silvery white color that I have lost. I must admit, though, that even if my hair stays very thin and dark gray-blond, I am so happy with all the positive changes in my body that it will take a lot more than thin, non-platinum hair to get me down. It's a small price to pay for finding myself again.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Wanna' See How Much I've Lost?
I just bought new dog food this morning, and realized that my weight loss is one pound more than the combined weight of three of those big bags we buy. Since they were on sale, I bought three and Jack took some pictures. So here I am with a few visual images of those pounds that I have shed:
My conquest
Sitting on the evidence
Happy lady
Just plain fun
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
The new "old" me
One hundred pounds! One hundred pounds have gone away. I can hardly fathom that amount of weight. Let's see, that is only five pounds less than three large bags of dog food. It is two-and-a-half bags of water softener salt pellets. It is four of my granddaughter Ellie. It is 10 10-pound bags of flour. It is a whole side of pork. Wherever did that fit on my 4'11" small-boned body?
Oh yeah, take a look at my "before surgery" photos. I guess that shows it. I don't even know that woman anymore. I never did know her, really. Every time I saw myself in the mirror or in a photo, it would take me a minute to recognize that it was me. In my own mind, I was still the tiny self who used to exist. In my mind, that tiny person was the "real" me. For the past month or two, I have been able to see that real me - at least someone very similar to her - looking back at me. I still have a bit more weight to lose before she will be here truly, but I'm now a hundred pounds closer than I was at the beginning of 2011. And that is a major big deal!!!
So good-bye to that 100 pounds. Never will I see you again!
Oh yeah, take a look at my "before surgery" photos. I guess that shows it. I don't even know that woman anymore. I never did know her, really. Every time I saw myself in the mirror or in a photo, it would take me a minute to recognize that it was me. In my own mind, I was still the tiny self who used to exist. In my mind, that tiny person was the "real" me. For the past month or two, I have been able to see that real me - at least someone very similar to her - looking back at me. I still have a bit more weight to lose before she will be here truly, but I'm now a hundred pounds closer than I was at the beginning of 2011. And that is a major big deal!!!
So good-bye to that 100 pounds. Never will I see you again!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Inchworm, inchworm....
Today is the fifth-month anniversary of my surgery, and I am rapidly approaching my 100-pounds-lost mark. However, the past couple of weeks have been a bit unusual for me. I have become accustomed to losing a half-pound or so every other day, and have looked forward to stepping on the scale every morning to see what's happening. The last two weeks, however, I found myself staying at the same weight (or even going up a half-pound) 4 or 5 days in a row, then dropping a whole pound a day the next two days. It's been very confusing! Over all, I have lost 2 pounds less this past month that I did for each of the previous 2 months. I knew the speed of the weight loss would be tapering off about now, but wasn't sure by how much.
I might have mentioned before that I have been taking measurements every four weeks (Jack calls that one of his favorite jobs ;) ), just to see what's happening. After the mini-plateaus and the slightly lower weight loss, I didn't know what to expect. So today was measuring day, and when all was said and done, I discovered that I have lost another 9-3/4 inches in the past four weeks - including 2-1/2 inches around my waist! I knew there was a reason my clothes were feeling better!!!
I might have mentioned before that I have been taking measurements every four weeks (Jack calls that one of his favorite jobs ;) ), just to see what's happening. After the mini-plateaus and the slightly lower weight loss, I didn't know what to expect. So today was measuring day, and when all was said and done, I discovered that I have lost another 9-3/4 inches in the past four weeks - including 2-1/2 inches around my waist! I knew there was a reason my clothes were feeling better!!!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
New clothes!
Last month my friend and neighbor and soon to be sister-in-law called and asked if I would be offended if she brought me some clothes that no longer fit her. Are you kidding me? The clothes I was wearing were looking pretty baggy and practically falling off my body - I was delighted to get more. So she brought over a couple of large bags full. A few days ago she brought me another full bag. Among the stuff that fit were several pairs of pants, a couple of dresses and quite a number of shirts. All were in the size 14-16 range, with nothing that was Plus size! What a great feeling it is to wear jeans that button and zip and have no elastic in the waist - not to mention shirts with spandex! They make me feel so good about the way I look. Now that I have lost 95 pounds, it's about time!
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