Deal with the Devil

As I sit here today it has been one of those mornings.  I have many days like this.  No rhyme or reason it is something I signed on for about 14 years ago.  I often say it was the day I signed my deal with the devil.  Of course not realizing what I was doing at the time, but as we often do we want out of a situation.  We don't think of what could be some of the side effects we just go with it.  Those who don't know me, well even those who do, might be confused at this point.  Wondering what the heck am I talking about.  What could I have done that would have caused me to talk like this.  What could have happened to me to change my life that I would talk about the devil.  Think of your own life and what makes you the most unhappy.  What would you do to change it.  Almost anything you could, right?  Well I was not happy with myself.  With the way I felt physically and emotionally fourteen years ago.  I had just had a baby.  I was extremely overweight, they called it obese.  I was in pain everyday with my back.  My knees would act up out of the blue.  With my back and joint problems and being obese I was given the option of weight loss surgery.  Wow a light bulb went off in my head.  A solution to my life long problem of swinging diets.  Weight loss and gain.  The thought of less weight on my back and knees, no pain.  It seemed like heaven.  Like a dream come true.  Where do I sign.  I was so excited.  So after my son who is now almost 15 years old I went under the knife for Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass Surgery.  I was the tenth or so person to have it done in Boston.  It had to be safe right.  It had to be OK I was having it done in Boston the best place to have things done.  WRONG!
For years I have wanted to tell my story but really until the last few years I have gone miss diagnosed.  Today I a finally getting the proper treatment for what went wrong all those years ago.  Even back to before the Gastric Bypass.  Don't get me wrong on many things I will say.  I love Doctors and have great respect for them but the medical field is the process of elimination.  Which leaves room for many mistakes and improper diagnosis.  It was not till I became a Paramedic myself years ago that I was able to begin helping myself and piecing things together.  I am not a doctor and I have not found all the answers for myself but because of my persistence I was able to get some answers.
For years before my gastric bypass I was in pain daily in my back and hips.  My knees would swell out of the blue.  I did not fall or injure them.   I would go to the doctors and or the emergency room and be told to stay off my feet and be given a muscle relaxer.  I took so much Ibuprofen I gave myself ulcers.  It was at the point I was unable to take ibuprofen because of the stomach issues.  I would go on for years with the same complaints and have multiple mri's and xrays.  But always dismissed as just weak bones and degenerative disc disease.  Of course the same time being told losing weight would help me also.
Then in Hollywood the stars were having this "Gastric Bypass" and with great result.  Of course you had to qualify.  Your BMI had to be at a certain percent.  I met that percent.  I just had a baby.  You have to have other qualifying illness.  I did, the disc disease.  So my doctor gave me the referral to Boston the best place to have it done.  The best part was they were starting to do a less invasive bypass.  The laparoscopic bypass only required six small port incisions to do the operation instead of the open big scare.  Easy.  A two day stay in the hospital.  Less than it was when you have a baby.  Wow I can do that.  I can have my stomach taken out and never be fat again.  Who wouldn't want that.
They don't make it that easy.  Don't get me wrong.  They make you go for many appointments first.  You have to go through a sociological exam.  They have to make sure you will not over eat after the procedure is done.  They make you understand this is a life long change you will never be able to eat a full meal again.  They tell you it is baby steps.  They really make sure your ready for a life change of loosing weight.  They let you know you may need extra vitamins.  They tell you to join a support group for gastric bypass patients. They don't tell you what I am going to tell you!
From day one I had complications.  I was sent home from the hospital sipping one once cups of liquid every few hours.  Every time I did it made me sick.  I was back in the hospital three days later with an infection in one of the port incisions.  They had to cut it open again and pack it with gauze.  I was sent home finally after a day or two.  A nurse had to come to my home two times a day to change the gauze.  That happened for about two months until it closed.  I still could not eat solids from day one.  Every time I tried I would get sick and vomit.  They brought me in and did a scope down my throat and tried to dilate the opening they made,  Nope didn't work.  I soon realized I was not able to digest any meat.  So I gave it up.  Till this day I have not eaten meat.  That was not the worst part.
It was about seven months after the bypass and I woke up one morning feeling nauseous.  I started vomiting and couldn't stop.  It went on for about 15 hours before I went to the ER.  They ran test and the next thing I know I was in for emergency surgery.  I had a small bowel obstruction.  They had to remove part of my intestine.  I was told by my surgeon that a staple was left behind on my gastric bypass and tissue had caused what they called banding and it wrapped around my intestine and it caused a blockage.  I was in the hospital that time for about three weeks.  I was pretty sick.  Not to mention I was down to 120 lbs at that point and I am 5' 10'' tall.  Not to good.  I was way to skinny but I couldn't eat.  I wanted to.  This was not what I signed up for.  I felt like I was dieing.  My hair was falling out.  They had to put in a drain in my old stomach.  The surgeon said if he didn't put one in when he opened me up it looked like it was going to explode.  They took out the drain about two months later.
I did heal from the surgery.  I was able to find ways to gain some weight back.  Still not eating meat but I was able to eat foods that would digest fast.  Soft foods.  But that caused another problem.  I know today what that was but for years I didn't.  I would eat then all of a sudden I would get weak, sweaty, tired and an increased hunger.  So I would eat again.  Sometimes I would feel like I wanted to pass out.  Even confused.  This went on for years.  I would tell my doctors.  They ran test.  Checked my diabetes levels.  They would tell me everything was fine.  This went on for years.  Up and down.  Finally when I became a paramedic I put two and two together and started checking my sugar when it was happening.  Well go figure I was hypoglycemic.  My sugar was as low as 29 sometimes.  I was able to walk and talk at that range.  So I would report it to my doctor.  Well they did more A1C test. That came out fine.  Well of course it would.  That test an average.  What was going on with me is far from average.  So for years the frustration went on.  Finally I was able to get one of my doctors to call the Josilin Diabetic Clinic in Boston and OMG they have done all kinds of studies on people that have had gastric bypass and there is a condition (side effect) or complication from the bypass that causes Hypoglycemia.  By golly.  I am not crazy.  What is happening is when I eat and the food leaves (digest) I get an insulin rush.  My body produces to much insulin and causes me to become hypoglycemic.  Food and alcohol triggers it.  It can be deadly.  It can cause car accidents.  My blood sugar can drop many times in one day.  Often it gets dangerously low before I even know it.  Then it takes me a while to recover.  I live an up and down everyday.  Food is the devil to me.  If I don't eat it wont drop.  Go figure.  Its not what we are taught in medic school.  We should because there are gastric bypass's done everyday.  People are dying because of hypoglycemia.  It might because their blood sugar drooped and they were driving and they caused and accident and killed themselves or others or they went to sleep and they had low blood sugar and have been undiagnosed.  Post Gastric Bypass Hypoglycemia needs to be taught or explained to all medical providers.
I know the medical field still are not informed of this condition because I recently moved to Maine and tried to establish myself with a new doctor and was trying to explain this condition to him and he told me he never heard of such a condition.  That I might have to go back to Boston because he didn't think a endocrinologist around here would know what I was talking about.  Are you kidding me.  He is no longer my doctor.  You would think this would be enough for me to be done ranting but nope.
I could write a book on this and maybe someday I will.  I am not sure if I could ever answer the question if I could go back in time and change things would I.  I have gone through so much.  Good and Bad.  I am a true believer that everything happens for a reason but boy I really think my reason might be to inform that person that might be on the edge of getting a gastric bypass.  I want people to make informed decisions in life.  Really know what you are getting into.  Maybe if I new what my real diagnosis was with my bones and joints I would have gotten some help with that first instead of blaming my weight.  Maybe that is where I should have started in this whole blog.  A few years ago I was given what I believe to be my finally proper diagnosis of Ankylosing Spondylitis.  Up until this point I suffered years of joint pain and swelling that went unexplained.  If I was given this diagnosis in my twenties and started treatment then I would be in better shape than I am now.  But it is not to late for me.  I have a great Rheumatologist, started treatment and it has helped.  My swelling has gone down.  I take injections every other week and it seems to be controlling the disease to a point from the ankylosing part (means vertebrae can fuse together).  For those who don't know what Ankylosing Spondylitis is, an inflammatory disease that can cause some of the vertebrae in your spine to fuse together.  The disease can affect your hips, knees and other joints similar to rheumatoid arthritis.  It can run in families.  My brother has been diagnosed with the disease also.  He was diagnosed years before me and I never mentioned it to my doctors because I always thought it was just something men had.  The fact is it is more common in men but women can have it to.  When I stated family history to one of my doctors it put up a red flag and that was the first time I went to see a Rheumatologist and it changed my life.  So please try to always give a good family history it may save you years of trouble.  I have been lucky and the medicine that I take is prolonging the ankylosing process.  I still live everyday with pain.  Some days seems unbearable but I have developed a high threshold for pain over the years.  Pain management is still a work in progress.  Living in cold, wet climate does not help.
Seems like I might be pretty broken up for my age.  Funny part is I try to hide it most of the time.  Most of the time I am so tired it is hard to function.  What makes me so tired?  Maybe the pain, or the hypoglycemia but most likely it is the iron deficiency I suffer.  Yes another side effect/complication or drastic change in your life you will deal with after a gastric bypass is the inability for your body to absorb nutrition from what you do eat.  OK I will admit my diet lacks what is needed and I still to this day have days when my stomach will reject food.  So malnutrition has a lot to do with it but it is not just me.  I have read stories of others that are severely anemic also.  It is not as simple as to take an iron supplement.  My body does not keep it.  The only way for me to maintain a supply of iron is for me to get regular iron infusions.  Along with chronic fatigue a big side effect from being anemic is the urge to chew ice.  It is not just an urge with me it is something beyond my control.  I know for a fact it has everything to do with the iron deficiency.  After I get the iron infusions the urge goes away.  When I start to become deficient the urge comes back slowly at first.  Then the urge is so bad that I cant get enough ice.  I am freezing cold but I just have to have ice.  It is just crazy.  It has hurt my teeth so bad.  So if you are chewing ice or crave it bad see your doctor and have your iron checked.  I bet its low.
I could go on about how this operation has changed my life.  I like the weight that I am and some days I wish I had bigger boobs or had more muscle.  I live everyday with a constant struggle of my blood sugar, chronic fatigue and stomach and  pain issues.  Food has become my enemy.  When people look at me they say, I wish I was you, your so skinny.  No you don't.  Be happy with who you are and if your not find out the real reason why.  Don't try and opt out for some quick fix it might not turn out the way you plan.  A deal with the devil always has a price.