Complications

If you are pre op and considering having weight loss surgery, I don't mean to scare you. This is the fact though that people need to deal with: more than likely every one at some time that has had a form of weight loss surgery is going to have complications down the road. This is reality and when you are reconfiguring your body and one of it's major processes, you need to realize that more than likely you are going to have issues down the road. If not now, probably later. It could be a year out, two years out, five years or more.

I really hate it when I see people online bragging about how they have had no complications because trust me, you pretty much have to expect it. Complications do not have to be a terrible, near death experience. A complication does not mean an issue that will be fatal - but rather you are going to have issues, deficiencies, problems that do crop up because you have permanently altered your digestive tract. I say this not to alarm anyone but rather to accept that fact, to be prepared for that fact and to be proactive.

If you feel exceptionally tired after surgery, get your bloodwork done. If you are dealing with constant nausea, call your surgeon. If anything at any point feels off or not right, call your surgeon. Expect bumps in the road. Be ready for them. Be positive.

I consider myself a pretty "lucky" case over all with my surgery and yet I've had complications too. While having surgery, I had an artery bleed that was repaired within a few minutes but made me lose more blood than an average person. Three months out, I became temporarily anemic. A year out, I developed osteopenia. Now I am pretty sure that I'm dealing with the latest in my complications as a post gastric wls.

It all began in February one night after dinner. For dinner, we'd had some cabbage rolls that we bought at the local church famous for the pierogies and cabbage roll dinners. The cabbage rolls were a let down mostly consisting of rice. About a half an hour later, I had some reisen's chocolate candies as a little dessert.

I was feeling funny the next hour. My eyes were bugging me so I took my contacts off and put my glasses on. After a while, I couldn't stand it and called hubby over and said that something was wrong. I was watching an episode of Friends and was getting really irritated because my eyes were playing tricks on me to the point that the people on the television had "no chins" (this has become a little laugh with my coworkers). I was very irritated and asked hubby if he could get his diabetes tester and test me because maybe I was having "dumping syndrome" or something.

When he took my reading, he was shocked. Rather than being high, I was crashing at 1.8 or something like that. He called his mother immediately (she deals with bloodsugar issues all the time) and she told him to give me some juice). Within a half an hour my bloodsugar was up to a normal reading of 8 or so.

I seem to be dealing with reactive hypoglycemia these days. My body is overproducing insulin when I eat sugary things and so it makes so much insulin that it brings my bloodsugars down but it brings them down TOO low. A few weeks ago, it got as low as 1.1. (Let's just say that I could have been having seizures or gone unconscious with that number).

I approached my doctor who made me go for testing. A test where you have to drink dextrose and then sit around for 2 hours. After about 15 minutes of drinking the stuff I started to faint in the waiting room....they had to put ice packs on me! I managed to sit for the two hours though after hubby came to monitor me after that incident. I'm waiting for the results back when I see my doctor on Tuesday ...but I pretty much feel that I know what I am dealing with after reading oodles about it.

So at 2 1/2 years out, yet another issue...but you know what. I can deal with it. I can deal with anything. I have always expected these things to crop up now and again so it's nothing that can devastate me. Still worth it a hundred times over.

Dawn