27.12.10

It has been a few days since my last blog but that is mainly due to the fact that I have been really poorly with a heavy cold and have been sleeping a lot and mostly at the wrong time of the day. I missed half of Christmas day and all of Boxing Day as I felt so rough, but I believe half of the British Isles are also suffering with the “lurgy” too!

Some of you may have noticed that I have re edited a page that I posted on the 16.12.10. The whole idea of my blog was to document my journey, the good, the bad and the ugly from before and after my gastric bypass operation. Unfortunately, by doing this I have hurt and fatally damaged a relationship with a long time girlfriend which I bitterly regret, and at the time of writing did not think of anything other than detailing the facts of my day. Although I never lied about any of the content of that day or any other, it did cause upset and hurt which was never my intention and I should have thought of that at the time of writing but I was detailing facts and not thinking about the wider implications. There is no point apologising as the former friend is not interested but I have never intended to hurt anyone ever when writing my blog. So to not to cause further hurt or upset to her, I have removed the paragraph concerned.

Well they say feed a cold and starve a fever, and as per normal with me, nothing puts me off my food. I managed to eat a pan au chocolat and half a croissant for breakfast on Christmas morning, which Oliver had cooked in the hopes I would come downstairs and allow the present opening to begin. Paul had already been telling them they had to wait for me and as long as the coffee is made, I’ll surface. Still feeling rough, I drop back to sleep in the recliner chair as soon as the tree has been emptied of all presents. Oliver is working at the pub again today and Paul gets ready to take him to work and then goes to meet his mates in the pub for an hour. As we are due to go to Mum’s for Christmas dinner I dually, if somewhat slowly get my act together and dress as smartly as I can but wrap up warm as I can too. I am pleased to say the new red top and cardigan I bought before Christmas to slim into, fitted lovely and I was quite surprised.

For Christmas dinner we bought a 3 bird roast from Sainsbury’s. Think it was Guinea fowl, Duck and Turkey. I am nervous about eating the turkey as I had chicken earlier in the week and it still makes me sick. Luckily Mum has also cooked a leg of Lamb nice and pink at my request and I have a small amount of Lamb and Duck, but as I can’t eat it all, Callum helps me out. It does make me sad as I have always been a big meat eater, and now I am finding a lot of my meals are bordering on vegetarian. I have always been a fan of good tasting gravy and as I had Lamb, I had the mint sauce that had run into the gravy making it so delicious. I think I could drink that endlessly. Yum!

I haven’t really consumed much in the way of alcohol this Christmas unless it was Whiskey in my hot toddies, which was purely for medicinal reasons. I wasn’t even interested in the Merlot or Shiraz that was on offer on Christmas day to go with our meal. Not that you can eat and drink together anymore. I only had a sip and decided it wasn’t what I wanted. The same thing happened when we had a schooner of Sloe Gin. I am not a huge drinker of alcoholic beverages but now and again I enjoy a glass but I am just as happy without it. What I object to is being charged 3 times more for a non alcoholic drink in a pub that an alcoholic one. Just like paying 3 times more for bread that hasn’t been stripped of all its nutrients and the awful white plastic bread is pennies but has had to endure far more processing to get to that stage. Is it me?

I also ate a couple of Mum’s homemade sausage rolls but I am not a lover of pastry so Mum’s dog Max decides he is now my best friend and he helps me out with them. Scared of having the dumping syndrome again, I am careful that anything sweet I have is no more than a taster. I think it was a good thing now that I had made myself so sick, as at least I will not go there again.

I find I am ok with dark chocolate, but that still contains sugar, so I limit myself with that, and spread the sugary foods over a period of time. I am still amazed at myself for not being interested in the large tub of Quality Street Mum was offering to us all.

Paul surprised us all and purchased a whole side of smoked Salmon for a family Christmas present from the internet, so Boxing Day we all enjoyed that meal, it definitely melted in your mouth. I think I would have cried buckets, had I not been able to eat smoked Salmon any more.

I have found today I have wanted to pick and nibble at foods, but I know it is not necessarily about being hungry and I will at times ignore the noises in my stomach that could be equally be about drink and not about food, but I want it to be for food, and that’s what I give my body. Deep down, I know it is not really food my body needs, but my head needs the food, and I want to satisfy it.

This evening I had some Ham and I knew I was eating it too fast but I was in my old stuffing mode and kept trying to pull back the reins but I was over eager to consume those morsels and by the time I have finished the Ham, I am feeling sick. It was a Ham that I had cooked myself, and after the kids had had some for tea there was a smallish chunk sitting lonely in the corner of the dish, so naturally for me, I gave it a home, if somewhat temporary. As you have probably guessed the Ham had no intentions of staying put and decided to make reappearance pretty quickly! My own fault entirely, but I knew this would happen but it was too late to re chew it. I don’t behalf like this with Bacon, or Duck or Lamb, but Ham, Beef and Poultry seem to bring out the gluttony in me and I eat it too fast and I do endeavour to chew slowly with them but it must be old habits, and I am ill whenever I eat them.

Tinned Tuna is another funny one, depends on the make but the chunks are fine if not too strong or “fishy” but Paul picked up the tuna flakes from Tesco’s and they definitely don’t agree with me and after one or two bits I was feeling very unwell.

I have found another strange one is Grapes; I can eat a small amount of dried fruit in sliced fruit bread but cannot eat grapes as they really upset my stomach just like the stewed apple did, and I can’t eat cake with dried fruit in, especially mince pies. In fact the only fruit I can eat successfully is a Banana. I don’t seem to have any problems with vegetables, and it’s too bloody cold to look at a salad, and I am in no particular hurry to find out if that is ok in my stomach for the time being. I am fine with spicy foods but I have to limit baked beans and other type’s legumes as they don’t upset my stomach but give me painful trapped wind. I have found that by either drinking peppermint cordial (from an off licence) with boiling water is brilliant at getting rid of that or polo’s work eventually after having 3-4 of them. Trapped wind is no joke, so I am mindful to avoid it as best I can.

I think Christmas time can be a good testing time as to what your body can tolerate. I have recently discovered I am fine with cheese and onion crisps, chilli peanuts and dry roasted nuts. As these are not every day foods it is nice to know that you can have the odd treat now and again.

16.12.10

Was fine when I woke up yesterday until I took my tablets and then I started to feel sick and the feeling stayed with me for most part of the day. Late afternoon, I decided to have a pot of low fat custard as I know I am fairly safe with that. For dinner I had boiled spaghetti, homemade tomato sauce and homemade meatballs with low fat cheese. It seems to go down well which is good as I no longer feel sick. Oliver decides to make an apple crumble with no added sugar to the stewed apple and only a small amount to the crumble topping. I have that as a separate meal with low fat custard but once again, serve far too much and have to leave some. I finally go to bed around 3.30am but had fallen asleep in the recliner as I had felt washed out all day. Don’t think it is anything other than an off day but I am glad when I hit the sack.

Today I was woken by a phone call from my brother, so I battled with the cpap machine and mask to be able to speak to him. Finally had the house to ourselves today, so Paul and I made the most of it and each other, much to the dog’s dismay, as he lay outside the door howling and barking. Maybe he thought we were fighting and hurting each other or maybe he was jealous but it was funny.

Luckily the tablets didn’t upset me today and this afternoon I had another small portion of apple crumble but today it upsets my stomach and I have severe diahorrea. Strange how no two days are the same with food. I ate after Paul and I went to bed so I know it wasn’t the exercise making it have that reaction. For dinner I had mash, spaghetti hoops and the inside of a Pukka pie, which was lovely. It snowed this afternoon and this evening but luckily hasn’t really settled yet.

I have realised that when I was dieting all the adverts were about food, and I hardly notice them now, but nearly every programme someone is shagging someone else and this does not help my transfer addiction one little bit. I know my friends is a breast man and he makes it clear he likes mine but to my knowledge I have never encouraged him but he is sweet and I will think no more of it. A couple of Paul’s friend’s are also breast men and are always hugging me around my chest area, a good excuse for them to have a look I suppose, but what the heck. I am not much different when I see a good looking chap and think of how nice it would be to cuddle up to them for a quick feel, of their chest or back I hasten to add. I’m not that brazen in public, at least not yet anyway!

I once again have an upset tummy and have to get to the loo sharpish. I don’t feel ill in anyway but it is maybe still something in my gut that is making this happen. I have certainly had the mash, inside of a pie before and I don’t think the few spaghetti hoops I had will make much of a difference. I feel ravenous about 11.30pm and Callum makes me low fat cheese on toast with a bit of frankfurter for tea. It’s nearly 3am now, and no ill effects so at last I have some food that is staying in my tummy. I am permanently cold of late, even when the heating is on, but I guess that is down to the volume of calories I am consuming at the moment. I still feel I am not doing as well as I should compared to others and I still cannot bring myself to getting on the scales in case I am severely disappointed. It’s as much pressure on me now as it was pre op to lose the weight. I am constantly telling myself that it’s not a big deal and that I decided long ago that I would not be a slave to the scales but I want to know I am losing weight but not that I am failing, or should I say confirm my fears and read the scales to show I have not lost anymore weight. I was wearing rose tinted glasses the day I thought I would be no longer be worried about food and how much I weighed. WLS has the same Rosie image that marriage, pregnancy and breastfeeding has. You never find out the whole truth until you experience it for yourself. I do not regret doing the WLS and nor do I regret doing any of the marriage, pregnancy and breastfeeding but I guess we allow ourselves to believe in the fairytale so we protect ourselves from the sometimes harsh reality of life. I spent two years fighting to have the WLS, with numerous rejections and battles to get it, and I didn’t really spend any time thinking of the lack of medical support post op. I had CBT & Hypnotherapy to help me make sure I was doing the right thing for me but in all honestly, I think CBT would have been better post op or at least some kind of counselling because there is such a long time between appointments and although there are good forums and a chat site on face book, sometimes you just need a one to one or a support group locally to yourself. I am thinking that maybe in the new year I will try and get myself to Kings Lynn to a BOSPA meeting or two. If that seems to be the right thing then I will look into maybe getting training to start up a BOSPA group in my area. I am sure I am not alone when it comes to feeling there is no support on the NHS post op, and it is a major thing to go through and at some point we all need support from others in a similar situation. Family and friends have been supportive, but equally they get sick to death talking about it or hearing about it. Most part they are willing to listen to our joys and woes but sometimes WLS takes over our lives and it is not far for our loved ones to have to hear it 24/7, so this is why I have written this blog. It helps me to deal with the all the ups and downs of my recuperation time and maybe it is an insight to others reading it who have also taken the same path as myself, but more importantly for those who don’t have to take such a drastic step like myself, to understand this has never and will never be an easy option for me or anyone else to take. It was the last chance I had available to save my life and hopefully see my children grow up. Before my operation I was very much disabled and physically couldn’t walk very far or very fast. I even had to purchase a disabled walker to help me walk any distance. It wasn’t because I was out of breath but because of the Osteoarthritis in my knees and hips, all because of my addiction to food. Now I have lost weight and the pressure on my joints it so much better. I was told that my hospital had had four fatalities since offering WLS, and I like many before me had to bear this in mind, and why I completely fell apart 3 weeks before the surgery. Luckily I was told I was the quickest and easiest to operate on the day, although prior to surgery I was the one that they had most concerns about operating on. So glad they told me this the day after surgery.

20.12.10

Oh dear, my throat is so sore, not sure if it is because I have been snoring my head off for hours and the lack of my cpap machine or whether it is because I have now caught Oliver’s germs, eeerrrr!!!!!! Paul comes into the hallway and says he has overslept because no else had to get up work school or work. Poor darling, the day has started and none of us are quite ready to embrace it yet.

Oli surfaces next and comes in for grunt, typical language of all teenagers. He’s showered and Paul convinces him he needs to walk the dog before taxi mum takes him to work. I, being the wonderful caring mother that I am, lmao, dutifully cook him and Pauly bacon sandwich and myself bacon and egg. I managed to eat the bacon and half an egg, and once again have to annoyingly wait 30mins for the best mug of black coffee of the day.

I am finding the old bowel movements a bit hit and miss, not in the bathroom of course but whether or not I can actually manage to go more than spitting a marble as it were! Wind on the other hand does seem to roam freely of an evening but luckily not on a daily basis. I have discovered curry is the best way of going without the aid of senna, as I really don’t want to live on laxatives and if I eat fruit I get the reverse reaction. I could no more hold that in that hold water in my hand without it escaping. Oh the joys of WLS and bowels!

Well after being in and out most of the day I come home to find Paul & Callum have baked another fresh loaf, but this time with a twist. I am really hunger as it is now late afternoon. Thought you were not supposed to get hungry, but I do. The loaf they have made is full of different nuts. I of course think nothing of cutting myself a slice doorstep style, (I can’t cut bread thin to save my life) and I apply a bit of butter. I manage half a slice before becoming in pain as the soon as I feel the pain, I know once again I have to greet the porcelain with my usual stance and greeting. I deserved that didn’t I? How stupid was I to believe that would agree with me but hunger and logical never did make friends in my head!

For dinner tonight I decided I can’t be asked to make anything and haven’t a clue what I fancy. I rummage in the fridge and discover someone has left some leftover mash in a saucepan, probably Niamh if it was her dishwasher day. I continue to rummage, mmm....... there is some left over curry and there is some cheese to make the mash a little more exciting. I know it is disgusting to some but I have a penchant for cold curry, especially cold curry on hot toast. Alas, my episode with the porcelain earlier makes me decide maybe not toast today and I heat up the mash with some cheese and put it in a bowl besides my cold curry. I am overwhelmingly disappointed with the reheated mash and hardly touch that and to add insult to injury I think Paul or one of the kids picked up the mild cheese instead of the extra mature cheese and it is totally bland, yuk! The curry on the other hand is fan dabby dozzy.

Later tonight I am hungry again, maybe not hungry, but I feel I still need food and I once again rummage in the fridge and as it is almost bare I have to decide what I can possibly make. I made some low fat mayonnaise mixed with some curry paste to make a dip and have some melba toast and some low fat baby bels. Yep that hits the spot and I nicely satisfied. I am still unsure if I am over eating or eating the right amount. Guess I am not going to find out unless I can muster the courage to get on the scales, and that just aint happening this year unless I am drunk or forced to.

Ooh I almost forgot, Paul got me some Walkers Cheese and Onion crisps my absolute favourites and I ate them with no problems and they were heaven on my sore throat, as they were lovely and scratchy. He also bought me a packet of Quavers, both of which were at my request as I had been fancying them for days. They too were brilliant and now that desire has been satisfied. As for the other, no still no bloody luck, lol! Need to get rid of the teenagers and Paul alcohol collection first, and then I might get a look in.

I actually looked at a couple of adult chat sites but only got as far as the terms and conditions and chickened out. Wonder if I will get any toys for Christmas, lol.

19.12.10

The smell of breakfast cooking wakes me and the thought of a yummy breakfast is so lovely to wake up to. I manage to eat a sausage, piece of bacon, and half an egg, before I am beaten. Now normally it is followed swiftly by an lovely mug of black coffee, but not now, I have to wait 30mins before I can have a drink. The first cuppa after a cooked breakfast is always the best and it is not quite the same when you have to wait that long.

This afternoon Paul and I pop over the see a friend and deliver her new computer that Paul has bought on her behalf for a new working role. We succumb to a glass of wine and I am not sozzled, I am astounded and luckily it goes unnoticed. Paul on the other hand enjoys a couple of glasses before we head home.

For dinner we decide to have haggis with mash, suede and a few baked beans as I need something wet with the dinner. It is very filling and the dog knows he’s in for a treat if Callum doesn’t get there first! That is one of the things I find hardest is the waste and not being able to finish a meal. It’s good that I can’t but it is still upsetting too at the same time. It takes so long for my head to cope with it all, but I am sure I am not the first to have this and I know I won’t be the last.

Paul did give me a glass of wine, Jacobs Creek which is usually lovely, but I think my taste buds must be playing up after the wine at Jane’s, as I just don’t fancy it. I have been so cold every evening and once again I am huddled up in a blanket, and I drifted off to sleep in the recliner chair. I can remember waking up a few times, but not enough to get myself off the chair and get upstairs to bed, where Paul would have been like a Furness. Oh well, my loss.

18.12.10

Didn’t actually get to bed before 10am this morning, this must be a record of late for me! I made some more special Christmas cards during the night, one for Pauly and my mum, and added addresses and stamp’s to those that needed them. I also wrote yesterday’s blog in the wee small hours of the night, which seemed to pass so quickly one way or another.

Before going to bed I was feeling hungry so I had some ham but it got stuff again and I had to get rid of it again as it gets stuck and becomes painful to breathe. Not sure why I don’t seem to be able to tolerate many meats, I think I get too excited eating them and don’t chew long enough. I still feel greedy when it comes to meat. As I am still hungry I had a pot of low fat custard which I know is a safe food!

I didn’t really surface much before 5.45pm this evening, and I can hear Paul taking Callum to work. Luckily for me, Paul had been to the shops and got a few groceries and I fancy making Sausage casserole for dinner, as it is easy to digest and a good way of having lots of peppers, carrots, onions, mushrooms and potatoes in it. We tend to do it quite spicy with lots of Worcestershire sauce and coarse pepper corns. I like it also because it’s a one pot meal that is so filling! Only Niamh won’t eat it, not that she has ever tried it but I just pop her a jacket spud in the oven, tickety boo!

Tea was so yummy but I can’t eat that much of it, but find myself hungry later on and luckily there is some left for me to indulge in. I always buy high meat content sausages so it is a relatively low fat healthy meal.

I eventually go to bed around 7am and it is still so cold and dark inside and out. I wish my sleeping would improve, and have wondered about finding someone to teach me mediation, or something to switch my mind off at a sensible time. The constant worry of finding a new job and fitting in, and not being bullied again weighs heavy on my mind and although I need stimulation mentally with a job and we defiantly need the money, I am still so stressed about not being accepted again because of my weight. I still can’t bring myself to get on the scales in case it shows no change it weight loss.