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.