re-post from old blog December 8, 2022
Current Weight: 358.6 lbs
When I had originally began a blog I had intended it to be about my weight loss struggles and the many twists and turns along that path. It is evolving into something else, when I created “Life By Valerie” it’s purpose was to be about my life, my struggles, my pain, and even my triumphs along the way. We all have a story and this is my story. Sometimes being transparent is really difficult for us to do. Especially when you are trying to keep things neatly tucked away in a box. When your afraid of what people will think or say if you open yourself up to fully disclose what’s really going on. But I promised myself if I needed to be raw and open on this blog I would. Instead of painting the pretty pictures people like to read, but to be open about what I struggle with and what I overcome as well as the joys.
At the same time an undisclosed number of people are fighting the same battles you are, sometimes you just don’t know who or where they are in the world. So for this particular problem I will start at the beginning of it for me. In January 2020 I started feeling sick and I kept going to the doctor to be told over and over what I said was happening “was not happening” I saw a gynecologist who flatly told me that she had seen this type thing before and thought I may have cancer. I was tested and my symptoms persisted which as this point was massive amounts of vaginal discharge. Eventually I was referred to a General Surgeon and when asked who I wanted to be referred to I told they nurse refer me to someone you would go to.
That next week I had an appointment with the General Surgeon and within that conversation she told me in 10 minutes what was wrong with me and apologized for how many times I had been to the doctor for help and nobody listened. Three days later I would have surgery and I was absolutely terrified, while I was laying in the bed hooked up to everything after they finished all the prep for me before being wheeled to the OR I just cried, massive amounts of hot tears streamed down my face, wishing I had my mom who had died barely 6 months ago. I felt like I had no one, no one knew what this felt like for me. I had a #rectovaginal fistula repair and a diversion colostomy.
They determined my problems with diverticulitis had an abscess and created a channel opening between the colon and vagina. The next 6 months I would learn to live with having a colostomy. The home health nurses visited me at home for 5 months to monitor my colostomy health and teach me how to take care of it myself. The first couple weeks they did everything and after that I did everything from then on out. During those 6 months I had considered not having the colostomy reversal, I had gotten used to the way things were for me now and honestly I really didn’t want another surgery to recover from so soon. After talking to the surgeon I changed my mind and did have the take down of my colostomy and what followed I was not prepared for it’s a conversation that never happened about what to expect afterwards.
I spent a week in the hospital hooked to a portable wound vac and if you have never been hooked to one specifically for the colostomy take down it’s painful. You have this 5-6 inch hole in your stomach and it’s around almost as deep as wide with a piece of foam stuck in there with constant pressure from the wound vac pulling on it. THE only time you have any relief and is when the pressure is deflated before they are changing the foam out. The protocol in my state is you are released from the hospital with ZERO pain management which was the same as my first two surgeries but I feel I need to mention this here because. I cannot constructively put into words how painful and how much I suffered walking the floors, crying ect to be told all I needed was OTC tylenol. Even my home health nurses tried to get pain medications for me with no success. For this recovery I would have home health nurses around 4 months coming weekly to change my wound vac dressings. Until the day came that my wound had closed and I no longer needed the wound vac machine. I think I was angry at this point, angry that none of my doctors felt the need to inform me what to expect afterwards, angry that my most painful surgery I would have no pain relief at all and be dismissed that I wasn’t in pain when I was.
In the past I had prior surgeries done the old fashioned way before less invasive options were available. My past surgeries hurt less. But I am not trying to completely focus on the pain here because I know this is the standard protocol they practice now. It has become the standard practice of healthcare for surgical patients to be in pain. I struggled, but I survived.
The downside is during that year I gained everything back that I had lost and then some. When you have a colostomy there are so many foods you CANNOT eat because of the potential risk of causing a blockage to your stoma. So your options of easily digesting foods are most typically high carb options. I accepted that 2020 was a time in my life of healing and recovery for myself and taking away from that despite the painful process I was thankful for my life. But I still felt overwhelming shame that I had failed again in my struggles to lose weight.
2021 I was not motivated, I was sad and depressed and just trying to survive. But I did get the covid vaccine and boosters.I cannot recall anything in my life making me feel the way those did. I am from the generation that I do not recall anyone asking us how we felt about getting vaccines, literally the school sent instructions home of what we needed and we were carted off to the health department or the Dr office and we were given vaccines. I could not shake the awful feeling of being unwell and started having chronic dizziness, something I had never experienced before. Within a few months of having the vaccines I would be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. My A1C 3 months prior was 5.2 and I went from 5.2 to 6.6 in 3 months with no diet changes. I never had high blood pressure in my life either. I could just not wrap my head around to accept this. I did the whole bargaining with myself and thought they were just wrong.
First they put me on Metformin 500 mg and Hydrochlorothiazide 25 mg I could not function with the debilitating dizziness and I would reject taking both of these. I felt like shit all the time and I started feeling very fearful that I literally might die. My next A1C would be 5.7 I worked hard on my diet to drop to that number. I then got complacent my A1C the next time would rise to 7.3. In July 2022 I went on Keto/low carb I stayed on that for 2 months and I had no energy and was tired all the time to the point it scared me. I talked to the doctor about it and she told me I needed to stop limiting fruits and vegetables for energy. I then decided to do moderate carb but eventually I would stop counting carbs altogether. I do try to be mindful of how many carbs are in certain foods/meals. But honestly I didn’t lose much weight on keto/low/moderate carb eating.
