My Body, My Right

The more appointments I go to the more I feel like I am having my right to choose taken away. Last week I had pre-op group, a one-on-one session with the fatty therapist, medical clearance, an Esophogram and an appointment with the Bariatric clinic to assess some pelvic/hip pain I have been experiencing. Here is a quick run down:

Group/Psych: I am still not cleared by psych. Perhaps it is because the doctors keep giving everyone different information from the nutritionist causing me to appear as if I do not have the mental capacity to follow the rules of this surgery. Both nutritionists on separate occasions have said that we (the fatty patients) can have milk, juice, rice and walking is exercise. The catch is the milk has to be skim, almond or soy, etc., the juice has to be no sugar, diet juice or watered down and the rice has to be brown rice. Everything is okay as long as it is portion controlled. Some of the liquids such as Carnation Instant Breakfast that is recommended for the two week pre-op liquid diet is required to be mixed with milk. The nutritionists also suggest that the plain whey or rice protein be mixed with milk and a small piece of fruit. However, everything the doctors say is the exact opposite. I have dubbed one doctor specifically the Food Nazi, this bitch has never been fat in her entire life, you can tell that fat people disgust her and that she is here for the money. She is nasty to patients and has a holier than thou attitude. The Food Nazi and the other bariatric doctors have said no juice, milk or rice at all.  The Food Nazi specifically has said there is no such thing as diet juice, juice is as bad as soda and is just empty calories. She also said never drink milk or have rice both are bad for you and that walking is not considered exercise ever.

So while I have been good and cutting back on things, the therapist feels like I am not following the program at all. I was not given a six-week weight loss program I was just told to start making changes, cut back on things and make substitutions. When I proudly ran down what I have been eating; yogurt for breakfast, mostly Mexican for lunch and tuna for dinner her head almost popped off her shoulders. All things the nutritionist told me were okay. She then informed she is not granting me psych clearance yet.

Yesterday as the nutritionist was listing off these things as foods we can have, I called him out on it and told him that we are being fed conflicting information. He stated that some of the doctors in the program (i.e. Food Nazi) are being extremely strict and want us to lose as much weight as possible before the surgery however if we followed those guidelines we would never have anything to eat and not get the proper nutrition we need. Too bad none of the doctors were around to hear that but I will bring it up to the therapist on Friday.

Medical Clearance: Except for my chronic pain and my fat I am totally healthy. So healthy that the doctor who cleared me told me I should go to a popular pancake place near my house to celebrate. These doctors are here to make you insane.

Esophogram: Less than a half hour. You have to lay on your stomach with your head turned to the side drinking Barium which has the consistency of Kaopectate and the same taste but without the mint flavor.

Bariatric Clinic: This is where I feel my right to choose what I do with my body has been stripped from me. I all ready have an enormous issue with the inability to get the proper health care I need because doctors cannot see through the fat but when I feel like I am being blackmailed into getting a surgery so they can agree to find out what is causing my agonizing pain, then it is time to rage. After months of telling doctors I need a CT Scan or and MRI of my hip area and being bounced around doctors telling me to lose weight and my pain will go away the Bariatric clinic agreed to see me. The three doctors in the room kept insisting I have the surgery first then they will deal with the issue which translates as, we will do the surgery and then hold up your life some more with this medical problem. Then the male surgeon said if they do the surgery they will laparascopically look in the area to see the problem and that is the best way to find what is causing the bulging. So basically he is saying do the surgery or we do nothing. By the end of the appointment they finally agreed to a CT Scan however they all believe since my X Ray and Ultrasound came back clear this will show nothing and I need to move on with the surgery. In this one appointment my right to choose what I do with my body was stripped away. I was blackmailed, either stay fat and live in agonizing pain or have the surgery, be skinny and if it still hurts we will look into it. Either way I do not see a resolution where I can have my life back before the age of 30. Hospitals are always holding me back from like. After three months of job hunting I was finally offered a job and once they found out I had all these appointments they turned me down and that has been the problem for the last three years. It took doctors a year to diagnose my lower back pain because they were all too focused on my fat and that held me back and the longer they make you wait for an appointment to get an appointment for a test or a referral the longer your life is held back. I just want to live my life without being blackmailed and held back by medical morons.

That is all for this week perhaps next week I will regain the right to make decisions about my body from these insurance milking assholes.

Pre-Op Bariatric Cult

My first pre-op fatty therapy group was not what I expected. What I expected was a bunch of fatties being forced to share their feelings about their fat and the surgery; instead it was an informative session about the surgery. One thing I do not understand is why they don’t tell people everything upfront, no matter how many questions you ask you will get a different answer or the generic “Well it is different for everyone.” bullshit. Are they just that desperate for people to get this surgery?

When I entered to room the other pre-op fatties were all happy to be there and excited to learn. It was like a classroom full of young hopefuls and me. I did not want to engage with anyone, share about anything let alone listen to nonsense. I was lucky; it was an informative session on the same stuff they have been telling us our whole lives: no soda, no rice, no sweets, eat low fat, portion control. Can you feel the massive eye roll? The only important thing I did learn is when they remove the piece of your stomach and stitch up the new smaller section, the stitches do not dissolve, they are permanent. The sutures will be holding your stomach together for the rest of your life, nothing like getting your head cracked open and having stitches bond the hole then dissolve. At my next appointment I will inquire if that means you are at risk of a leak or bursting your stitches for the rest of your life. With certain discomfort I am going to assume the answer is yes. Just another scary bit of information they lacked to mention.

The bariatric clinical team reminds me of a book I once read called Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. Without giving too much away (because everyone should really read this book) it is the story of a family of freaks who run a traveling sideshow circus. Eventually one of the children, Arturo –who has stumps that look like fins where his arms and legs should be—develops a cult leader mentality. Arturo’s followers believe they can find happiness and inner peace by being like him. The Arturans have body parts amputated until they are nothing but a stump and through that they find Peace, Isolation and Purity (PIP) the mantra of Arturism. Every time I am at Bellevue and I see a post op patient talking about how great their life is now and how truly miserable they were before, I feel like I am getting sucked into a Kool-Aid warp. Especially now that I am in the introductory portion of bariatric cult member status, they are slowly revealing things that would have initially made me say no to this surgery but now they have me on this Kool-Aid fence where fat equals misery and death and weight loss equals a bright shiny new start.  I am being brainwashed. My stomach won’t listen but my head will. Only one can win.

One of the larger influences on getting this surgery and the struggle between my brain and my stomach are doctors, not because what they say is positive, informative or even encouraging but because the majority of them cannot see past the fat. If I go in for an annual Pap Smear they want to discuss my weight and not my vagina. Every time I go to the doctor for a sinus infection they want to tell me how concerned they are about my weight, do they care that I am oozing mucus and there is booger crust forming around my eyes because it cannot escape my nose? NO. Because I am fat I cannot get the real medical attention I need. If I have pink eye, the flu, a yeast infection, seasonal allergies, had a house fall on me the response from a doctor is usually, “Can we talk about your weight?” If there is any truth in there being no such thing as a healthy over weight person, it is because they cannot get the medical attention they deserve.

The more I talk about this the angrier I get so I am going to wrap up. I will be back next week after my pre-op support group and personal pre-op therapy appointment. The fatty therapist suggested my partner come to these two appointments with me so he can also learn more about the “changes” I will be going through. Another massive eye roll.

Intro

After way too much thinking and a lot of shameful feelings, I am going to be having bariatric surgery. Despite there being no real shame in the surgery, I feel the stigma deep within me and it makes me feel like a failure. I am sure this belief makes a lot of people avoid having fatty surgery. Fat shaming is a huge problem and more often people who would benefit from surgery or even a trip to the gym are hiding out in their home and in their own skin. I am not encouraging anyone to get out there and show your rolls because I don’t want to see them— I don’t want to see my own—but we need to break free of the guilt to be able to build a healthier self.

I am writing this blog to help someone else out there who is like me and wants to know more about the bariatric journey. I have begun my appointments to ensure I am healthy enough to put my body through this life changing surgery. The decision did not come easy and I am still unsure about going through with this. There is not enough information available on what happens before you get the surgery and all the weird things that happen during and after recovery. I kept hearing about something called the “foamies”  and read so many different descriptions of what it is that I still picture a rabid fatty in my head. After asking several doctors who said they had no idea what the “foamies” are I found one who finally told me the truth. When you get the gastric sleeve or bypass, sometimes during the early stages you may get severe acid reflux and since it has no where to go, it comes up and looks like foam. This should be public knowledge, the more you know the easier it should be for a person to make an educated decision on what to do with his or her own body.

There are three surgeries, the Lapband, the Vertical Sleeve Gastronomy and the Gastric Bypass… since I like having a stomach and not a tube connected from my mouth to my ass (please don’t take me literally on that… but close enough) I chose the gastric sleeve which leaves me with a portion of my stomach and I don’t have to come in once a month to have a needle stabbed into a plastic apparatus under my skin to tighten a band around my stomach. My first few appointments were a Deep Vein Thrombosis Ultrasound which is pretty standard, a bariatric Psychologist, the nutrionist, a chest x ray and an EKG. It sounds like a lot, however if you go to Bellevue Center for Obesity & Weight Management as Bariatric Surgery Centers of Excellence *snicker* they will make multiple appointments for you in one day, however be prepared to miss a lot of work, school or whatever it is you do during the day. As my journey continues I will go further in depth into what some of the appointments consist of, my concerns, the decision making process and if there are any joyous moments I may discuss those too.

A little more about me and what to expect from this blog: I am offensive but in a honest way. If you do not like the term fatty, then maybe this isn’t the blog for you. I will use other terms that might upset people but we (both you the reader/commenter and I the author) cannot and will not please everyone. However, I will have no problem deleting a comment if it is highly offensive or upsetting someone else. Feel free to ask me questions about the visits or the surgery, just remember all I can offer in an answer is my own experience.