The Eagle Has Landed

Just a quick note to let you know I am now home and doing well.  I will update a bit more in the next day or two.

Thanks so much for all your support and healing wishes and prayers, they certainly helped me through a speedy transition to no pain (or very little) and being able to tolerate my nourishing fluids.

Thanks for popping by xxx

Houston, we are at 48 hours and counting

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That's right by this time in 48 hours, I will have had my surgery, well hopefully I will have!!

The Dr dropped this beauty on Monday, maybe I won't have surgery, it could get cancelled and I wont know until I get to the hospital on Friday morning!!

So ramp up my anxiety levels, just a little higher, why not I ask??

Apparently because of my co-morbidity factors, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, I need to go to ICU after recovery, for a minimum of 12 hours.  So, it seems that even though there is a bed in ICU booked for me, if someone else has some sort of emergency post op, or heart attack or the like, they can take my bed (and rightfully so but I will still be pissed off).

If this happens, well apparently I get fitted in some time later, who knows when ... a week, 2 weeks, a month???

So, I have been trying to put that aside and just focus on the fact that surgery will happen some time Friday afternoon.  I have to be in at the hospital at 10, I can have breakfast in the morning and not eat or drink after 8 am, so I imagine I'm later in the afternoon rather than straight after lunch.  Or maybe a protein bar and a cup of tea doesn't take that long to digest.

The Dr is pleased as I have lost 6 kgs now (and according to my scales this morning maybe 7kg) on the VLCD.

I am almost off my insulin, only need to take it about once a week and at minimum dose.  I have dropped 1 Diamicron and 1 Metformin tablet a day and seem to be having almost 'normal' levels when I do the fasting test in the morning and the pre-bed test at night.

Which raises the question, why the hell is that happening.  It is not the 6kg weight loss, it actually started the day I started the VLCD, in fact I had a mega hypo that afternoon as I took 2 diamicron that morning and the normal dose of insulin the night before.  In fact, I lost 12 kgs last year and I am only back to that level now and I certainly didn't have any reduction in BG with that weight loss.

It leaves me asking the question, does Diabetes Australian really know what they are talking about with regard to Type 2 Diabetes.  There mantra is not much protein, lots of green vegetables and a small but consistent amount of carbs (Low GI ones).  This diet is high protein, lots of green vegetables (no starchy ones) and NO carbs.  That's right NONE.  Which should be rights give me high BG levels.

Does this mean I really am a square peg in a round hole??  In fact, the Dr was blown away when I told him, made him go from we can get you off insulin post surgery but not into remission, to saying, well maybe remission is a possibility for me.  Not hanging onto that, but wouldn't that be fantastic if that was the case.  I had set my goal as off insulin and done to just Metformin, and I will still be happy with that, but this raises the question, can I do it, and if I can, how long will it last before/if my BG levels start to go up.  I would love it if the answer was they stay down forever, but I am just not sure that if you have got to insulin dependence once, that you don't gradually work your way back there again because you have intrinsically broken something.

So if you pray, I would appreciate your prayers, and if you don't - you healing thoughts and wishes would also be lovely ... I am going to imagine myself wrapped in healing light and love, to give me the courage to take this step ... one huge step, for me, for weight loss and for the future.  I was going to do the whole Neil Armstrong quote, but thought that might be a tad tacky - lol.

Thanks for popping by xxx

2013 The Way Forward

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December of 2012 has bought me to a decision point, I can continue struggling with my weight, with my diabetes and with my pain or take some drastic action.

I know I ranted against my Diabetes specialist when he dared to suggest I consider lap banding or a gastric sleeve to help me lose weight.  I still believe he saw the disease and not the person, but he did me a favour.  He made me stop and think, to go and find out more.

So on the 18th January 2013 I will be having gastric sleeve surgery.  It has not been an easy decision, but after I meet with the surgeon and his team of support staff (dietitians, exercise phsyiologists and baritiac assessors) and I heard what they had to say.  After I watched a DVD of past recipients of the surgery, after I heard them acknowledge that they are sure I am eating the right food most of the time, but I am eating too much for me, for my metabolism - I stopped and though hard.  I am morbidly obese, 41 on the scale, given my height and age.

I am currently nearly 2 weeks into a VLCD to try and shed some fat out of my liver, which I now know is enlarged.  I need to lose 5kgs to start that happening, I am now down about 4kg with 2-3 weeks still left.

I chose to have the gastric sleeve rather than the lap band, partly on the advice of the surgeon, but mostly because I know of 3 people who have had lap bands who constantly struggle with regurgitating food back.  I don't vomit, and on the couple of times I have, my body goes into shock.  So regurgitation is not something I am putting my hand up for.  Apart from that, each and every one of them struggles to eat meat and bread.  Each of them has stopped going back to have the fill ups that are needed to keep the band tight, each of them has put back on some of the weight they originally lost.

Gastric sleeve surgery eliminates the need to fluid top ups, it enables you to eat a varied diet, your stomach works in the normal way, there is just a lot less stomach and so you eat 3 very small meals a day.

Sure there are some big draw backs, I can only drink very small amounts of fluid before I fill up and it comes back up - yuck.  I need to sip water often as I can't easily rehydrate if I haven't kept my fluid levels up.

There are bigger surgical risks too, they basically cut away 2/3 of your stomach using staples and a cutting thingy (like my technical terms?) and you can leak stomach fluid and become seriously ill and end up in intensive care, or you can suffer a major bleed and have to go back into surgery.  Lap banding has very minor risks.

The reality though, is I could be dead in 5 years of heart attach or stroke, I have a 50/50 chance of that happening, I have a 1/2000 chance of surgery complications.   That is not to mention all the complications like gangrene and going blind that uncontrolled diabetes bring to the game.  That is not to mention the fact that no doctor will replace my knee while I weigh this much.

So 2013 is The Way Forward year, the year I take back control, the year I lose up to 80% of my excess weight - that's like 40kgs people, even saying that out loud is scary.

One bonus of being on the VLCD is that I already have had to cut down my diabetes meds, my BG readings are so good that I just can't believe it.  Did I tell you that I might end up on just 1 tablet, or even if the Universe is smiling - no medication for my diabetes.  Not to mention dropping my blood pressure tablets, my pain meds, and all sort of other benefits.

So 2013 is my oyster and I am making sure that I end up with a PEARL.  Thanks to my hubby and all my family and work colleagues who have already been so supportive, who have not judged me or seen this as the easy way out, but have been there cheering me on.

Happy New Year to all who drop by here to read and comment, I hope 2013 is the best for you too, I have so much appreciated your friendships, your comments and reading your blogs through 2012.

Oh and Beth - your turn, go!!

Leaving On A Jet Plane

I walked into the spare bedroom this morning and all that was left was an unmade bed, a clear floor space where once there were suitcases she was living out of while staying with us, and the scent of her perfume.

No long lanky daughter stretched out on the bed with her computer where she would lay or  sit and Skype for hours.  No Hi's from the other side of the world to me either.

Just silence and an empty space.

The goodbyes are over, the travel has started, the Perth to Melbourne leg is done and she is on the long journey now from Melbourne to LAX, then to Seattle before the jump to Sitka in Alaska.  She arrives on Thursday morning Perth time, she left here at 11.30pm last night.

Her impatience to get on the plane was palpable, as was her anxiety at leaving.

As a mother it is bittersweet to want nothing more than your children to be happy, but to know that to do this they have to leave you, and not just leave your home or the State in which your live but the country as well.

So my heart is breaking today, but I know it will mend when I see her smiling face at the end of her journey.

Now I really need to download Skype so that can happen.

Have a wonderful journey daughter of mine, may your heart be always filled with happiness and know that is always my wish for you, as it is for your sisters and brother.

A Goodbye cuddle on Sunday with her sisters and brother
(she's the one 2nd from the right or 3rd from the left if that is your preference)

No Phone, No Internet and Goodbyes and the State of Denial

We have had no phone since Sunday 11th, which means no Internet either.

Telstra said they would have it fixed by Weds 14th, then texted us that day to say another week.

The reason, they were too busy and understaffed.

What pissed me off more than anything was that they sent a text, as a valued (obviously not) and loyal customer for many many years, I think they could have at least phoned.

So when hubby phoned them back and complained they as least directed our home phone to my mobile, but he had to ask for them to do this.  They also agreed to up my data download on my iPhone so we could intermittently check emails and the like.

So I was pleased when we were phoned around lunch time today to say they were fixing the phone.  It seems to take all of about 3 minutes, a 8 day wait and 3 minutes work, seriously Telstra I am not happy Jan.

Because of this, I have been absent in the blogosphere for much of that time, I will endeavour to catch up with my reading, but I am sure I will have missed much that is happening out there.

In other news, my youngest daughter is about to head off to Alaska tomorrow, yep Alaska and not just for a holiday!!  She has a working Visa and has been given a fantastic opportunity to not only work over there, but to live with the love of her life.

Me, well I am in denial about the whole thing, can't say that I will be tomorrow night as we bid her farewell, but denial is a nice state of being sometimes.

Yesterday we had the family - all my children and their significant others, my 3 grand-daughters and my Mum and step father - over for a BBQ lunch. To say a few tears were shed at the end of the afternoon would be the truth, but none by me, because as you know, I am in that state (the denial one).  Tomorrow night, shares in Kleenex will go up, I can guarantee that, cause the dam will break because denial is such a temporary state, don't you hate that?

In other news, hubby and I celebrated our 35th Wedding Anniversary on the 12th, 35 years of love and happiness and hoping for many, many more.

Thanks for popping by xxx

Just had to share this photo of Great Grandma (also known as Mimsie) reading to her 2nd youngest great grandie xxx 

Of course there was the obligatory family photo, and yes it is hard to get all of use looking at the camera and smiling at once, although saying 'monkeys' seems to have helped with the smiling part - lol
Not sure why we are all squinting though - although it could have something to do with us watching a small red blinking light on the camera to make sure we all said monkeys at the same time.