I started my weight loss journey on April 11, 2005 when I had Lap-band surgery. I lost eighty five pounds before the weight loss came to a screeching stop! I regained 20 pounds that my Doctor and I both blamed on the stress of dealing with an elderly parent who was ill and ultimately passed away.
This event caused me to lose focus for about 3 years. By the time it was over I was out of control, eating carbs that would easily pass through the band. ( I call these sliders)
In the summer of 2013 my daughter Jennifer, my co-author, decided to have the Gastric Sleeve surgery. When we were making the final plans before her surgery, I finally confessed to my Doctor the issues I had been having with regular vomiting and not being able to eat protein and how bad I had gotten out of sink. I will never forget when Dr. Frank Veninga’s nurse Barbara Moorehouse ask it I had considered the revision. Of course my answer was like a lot of patients, “ I don’t know if the insurance will pay, as I have already had one surgery.” Wise as she is she said again, what if we check? and within a week she called to let me know that they would indeed pay for the revision! You would think I would have been jumping up and down, Right! Well, I guess I was shocked, scared, and apprehensive about going through surgery again, so I told her I needed to talk to my husband. Standard answer when we are caught off guard.
After discussing the surgery with family and deciding that if I was ever going to get the rest of my weight off I would go through with the surgery.
On October 10. 2013 I had the surgery that would indeed change my thinking, my life and my outlook.
On October 13, 3 days after my surgery, my oldest grandson, Robert was hit by a truck and thrown off his bicycle landing 60 feet from the impact. He was in ICU for 7 days and had a steel plate put in his pelvis to stabilize the crushed bone. I waited 10 days after the surgery and with Dr. V’s blessing flew to Tampa, Florida to “sit” with Robert while his parents tried to get back to work and his sisters back in school. He came home from the hospital the day before I arrived and rode with is Dad to the airport to meet me. Being 13 he was much more resilient than me. Because their house is full of 4 kids, I stayed in a hotel for the 17 days that I stayed with Robert. I could only bring him his food and coach him through his exercise.
As traumatic and stressful as this emotional trip was, I managed to lose 17 lbs during that 17 days. I had to go to the hotel work out room to weigh and would walk back to my room excited that the sleeve was working and I was able to not eat bad choices. Remember the first two weeks are liquids, second two weeks are soft foods and then solids. I had stocked the hotel refrigerator with yogurt, peanut butter, tuna, and sugar free pudding. I searched out places to eat that I could get a child's portion of food and bring it back to the hotel for the next days lunch. Sometimes I was so hungry for solid food I could scream. But I knew I wanted results and I was so far from Texas I did not want to get sick.
When Robert was able to return to school in a wheelchair and had help arranged I was able to get back on a plane and come home to finally relax. I found that I was much stronger than I thought I was and had been able to control my eating during one of the most stressful times of my life. I was on the right track and my new tummy was going to work for me!
Food was not my priority and when I got home for the first time in several years fixing food for others diets was not going to happen. If I couldn't eat it no one in the family was going to eat it. Now, truthfully, I like everyone fall off the wagon...yep, I do occasionally eat something I shouldn't but the more I moved toward my goal the more I cut out the bad stuff! (ie...bad carbs)
Jennifer has been my redemption, she has helped me stay on track, and I hope I have helped her.
We attended a support group in Dallas, which was 80 miles from home. We could not go every week but for about 6 months we went every month. We started joining forums on facebook and found that those helped us tremendously. Then like a lightning bolt we both realized that there is not a cookbook that addresses our situations. There are bits and pieces, low carb, no carb, high protein etc cookbooks but no one has really addressed our eating needs.
No one has put together a comprehensive book on what we go through, we, being anyone who has had surgery on their stomachs, whether it is bypass surgeries, lap-band, sleeve, or repair on the esophagus. No one has put into writing the process of re-teaching our guts to work correctly after these surgeries. They “explain” it one on one, they give us “handouts” and if we are lucky they tell give us a few basic recipes on liquids, pureed and soft foods but it is sort of a “go sic um” attitude toward what we eat and how we can stay on track after the initial surgeries are healed and we are in the kitchen looking for something to snack on!
Dr. V had been exceptional in all his support on doing this project. I know he probably thought we were just talking and would never get it off the ground. I am so glad that I can now share what I have learned, I am not the only one who will be sharing. We are receiving ideas and recipes from other members of our community. By starting this blog and the YouTube show we are fulfilling the desire to reach out to our friends and neighbors who have had surgeries and don’t know what to do. We want to help them not fall back into the bad habits.
I do most of the experimentation with recipes and Jennifer is the exceptional writer and computer person in this partnership. Jennifer and her family are my guinea pigs as is my Cousin Debbie and her family. Thank goodness they are game to try just about anything. And I will cook anything at least once and living on a farm that does include some critters that most people think live in a zoo! That makes life fun and teaches the children where our food comes from. I hope you enjoy the recipes we share and open your minds to using products that you may have never heard of and tasted before. May you enjoy your new life as much as I am enjoying mine!
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