23 Weeks Post-op | 75 Pounds Off

It's been a while, but I've been doing great! This Friday will put me at 23 weeks post-op. This morning I was pleased to see that I am 75.6 pounds lighter than I was on the morning of my gastric sleeve surgery. A lot has happened since I last wrote. 

I changed jobs, back to that commuting job I really loved (and which paid better than the local job) but now I only have to commute 2 days out of the month. The rest of the month I can work from home! This is exactly what our family has been needing: me physically close and able to be involved with my family, but fulfilled in my work with a paycheck that someone with my skills and qualifications deserves. 

Working from home has allowed me to prioritize my health, which is especially important right now with the pandemic situation. In the shape I was in before surgery, I would likely have been one of the casualties of COVID-19. Now, my body would stand a much better chance of surviving should I contract the illness. We're still being as safe as we're able to be... staying home, not dining out (although we do get take out occasionally,) wearing  masks and sanitizing a lot when we do have to run errands. Our daughter is in school, a private school which has been running very well on their "Plan B" criteria... masks all day, desks 6 feet apart, temperature checks upon arrival to school, signed attestations of health presented at the door each morning... separate entrances for different grade cohorts. There has been only one case of COVID in the school and it thankfully did not spread. 

We sense that cases in the general community are on the rise, however. More and more, my husband and I are hearing about people in our circles who have contracted it; it is near, but not with us yet. I am more concerned about him working at the community college. Just the last two weeks he has had to cover for other instructors who are out from being exposed and waiting on test results... covering their classes puts him interacting with pools of students he doesn't usually interact with and that worries me. But as for me, I am fortunate to go in to a physical office only 2 days out of the month, and when I'm there it's virtually a ghost town. 

On days I work from home, I make my daughter's lunch and help get them out the door for school on time. Then I start working at 7:30. Breakfast is usually a 4 oz. individual container of Breakstone's 2% cottage cheese. After 30 minutes have passed, I start working on my first bottle of water. When my work scheduled was 8:30-5:30, I would walk before work and that was a great way to wake up my brain and get myself ready for the day. I don't have time for that clocking in a 7:30, but it does mean I get to leave work earlier in the day, only an hour after my husband and child are home from school. I try to walk 1 mile at lunch and another 1 mile after I'm off of work. I'm also working on going to bed earlier. One thing working in that favor is the fact our girl is afraid to sleep in her room right now, so she and I got to bed in my bedroom at the same time. We're working towards getting her comfortable in her own room again. It has been easier getting her to bed at a reasonable time; she recently started 1 mg of Intuniv extended release for her ADHD. The doctor didn't want to prescribe anything, but we know she needed it and a non-stimulant was his compromise. It has shown some mild improvement in her ability to focus, so we're hopeful. It also helps her feel tired instead of wired at bedtime. 

My husband has also started different treatment for his OCD. Miraculously, we have finally found something that is working. He is much less anxious and much more able to help our household function. It feels like I'm getting my husband back and it's wonderful! 

I bought some clothes at the beginning of August when I knew I would be changing jobs and would need to report in person every day the first week. Those were size 2x and 24, down from my previously tight 26/28 and 3x clothes which had become incredibly baggy. By the time I paid off the credit card at the end of September, they, too, had become baggy. I ordered a couple more outfits but didn't invest as much this time. I also erred on the smaller size when ordering the clothes, knowing how quickly I am losing weight. So, these clothes are a tad snug, but wearable and will soon feel comfortable. In the past I have never been able to confidently predict how clothes will fit. I have never been able to say, it's tight now but will fit later. Now I am wearing 1x shirts and snug 18w pants. I also had to finally buy some new bras. My current size is 42D. It's incredible that I've lost 8 inches off my bra band size! 

Everything isn't rosy, though. I am losing a significant amount of hair. I don't blame it on the bariatric surgery; I had been losing a lot of hair prior to surgery... but the rate does seem to have increased. I brought it up when I saw my OBGYN doctor last week as he has been treating me for my PCOS. He ordered labs for testosterone and thyroid levels but they returned normal, so he recommended I see either a dermatologist or endocrinologist. I probably need the endocrinologist, but opeted for the dermatologist because I can see one locally and not spend a lot of time driving to another city. I will probably still want to see an endocrinologist eventually, but I'm starting local mostly due to not having tons of time to take off of work. The back of my head is becoming pretty bare and my ponytail is much thinner than it once was. I had a haircut to help add body and I think it actually had the opposite effect; but at least the dead hairs will now be easier to comb out. There's a ton of hair lost when I shower and brush my hair. A ridiculous amount. I'm hoping they can do something to help me. I'll probably end up needing spironolactone, as many PCOSers do. I still hadn't written off the idea of having another child, although as each year passes I question more and more whether I should have another this late in the game. By the time my surgery post-op period ends and I'm cleared for pregnancy I'll be darn near 40. The prospect of having to take spironolactone, a drug that causes birth defects, seems to also be steering me away from another child. 

We adopted a kitten at the end of September. Our daughter is lonely. She has been wanting a sibling or pet for a long time. We tried getting a puppy and right around that same time I got unexpectedly pregnant and then lost the pregnancy to miscarriage. It was a confluence of events that were just not good together. But our kitten is welcome, we don't have to clean puddles of pee every 15 minutes, and she is adorable. We got her from some people who had taken in the pregnant mother stray cat who they think was impregnated by their gray tabby. She was pitiful with feas, worms, and conjunctivitis. We scheduled her first vet appointment for the same week we got her; he told us that while she's underage for the flea medication, he thought it appropriate to administer it "off label" because she had so many fleas he was concerned about her becoming anemic. I'm glad we were able to adopt her. I know she and her brothers would have been turned over to the pound and probably euthanized if they weren't adopted. She's a real sweetheart. Having her helps a little bit with my need to nurture and cuddle something small. My daughter isn't as much into cuddling now that she's older, but we do still snuggle and watch TV sometimes. 

I feel that I'm getting a bit off topic; I came to celebrate my success and got myself down thinking about babies and pregnancy again. Let's switch gears again. 

I have lost 75 pounds. My surgical team will consider the surgery a success if I lose about 100 pounds. That will put me around the 200 mark. I definitely want to be less than 200 pounds. I think the highest weight I could be satisfied with would be 180 pounds. I looked reasonable at that size, it's about what I weight when I got married. I'd prefer to be 160. I felt like I finally looked good there. But my recent success has me feeling like I can dream a bigger dream... that 150 might actually be possible! I had hedged so much before from feeling like it just wasn't possible for me to be successful. But I'm still losing weight every day and I'm trying to maximize what I'm able to lose in this first year. Some people continue to lose weight 18 months or even 2 years out, but as of yet I don't know which camp I will fall into. I think I am doing well because I'm following the doctor's plan, trying to walk every day, and because my diabetes has retreated. The last two months it also feels that my weight loss rate has increased slightly. Whereas I was losing around half a pound a day most days, now it's more like 0.7 a pound most days. I still have times where I stall out or get constipated, but overall my rate of loss seems to have gone from around 11-12 pounds per month to closer to 13.