"After" Photos -- Nine Months

We have passed the nine-month mark since the bariatric surgeries (which happened back on March 23). It has been an amazing and wild ride to this point, and I don't think we really ever quite had a picture of where we would be at this point.

One of the things that has characterized our passage through this transition has been the sheer size of the physical change. Both Master and T have gone through many, many, many wardrobe changes as the pounds have fallen away. We've hauled bags and bags and bags and bags of discarded, too big clothing to our local Goodwill. Too, we've bought our share of "replacement" items from Goodwill. Master has laughingly remarked that He mostly just rents clothes from Goodwill -- keeping them for a few weeks and then returning them to rent others. Whatever we call it, that process has kept them both looking pretty decent, and has saved us a small fortune.

One bit of foresight on my part was that, as He began to shrink, I put away a pair of the largest size pants so that "someday" we could take one of those amazing "after" pictures that you sometimes see -- the skinny new body in the former fat pants. We also managed to hold onto the shirt jacket that He wore home from the hospital right after the surgery -- mostly because He just liked it so well that He was never quite willing to turn it loose. T manged to hang onto a couple of great big shirts (one of which was too small for her when she had her surgery), to help remind her of the size that was.

Today, we pulled out the camera and took some of those "after" photos. Perhaps as clearly as any other images, these photos give a clear impression of the radical change that has happened in our lives in 2009.

Here is Master --

And Here is T --

GOAL ATTAINED !! THE HARD WAY

The last 4 days, as I've been home from the hospital, I've lost weight steadily. I suspect this is my body's reflecting the weight loss I experienced during the six days I was NPO during my post surgical hospitalization. When I came home I was still swollen and had a good bit of edemous tissue. As those fluids have mobilized and been eliminated, my weight is dropping steadily. Ironically, these last few days at home, I am eating greater quantities of food with greater comfort than I have at any time since my gastric bypass last March. I am trying to be less restrictive in that my weight is down further.

At any rate, the weight of 165 pounds...the weight that sounded so ridiculously unattainable when my bariatric surgeon established it as my goal weight last spring....materialized when I stepped on my scale this morning. I would certainly not suggest the process I have undergone in losing this last six pounds or so for anyone, and certainly not for myself, but reality is that as of this morning my weight is 165 pounds. My next challenge I think is to work at stemming any further weight loss. You would never have convinced me a year ago that those words would ever describe a weight control objective for me.

So I am celebrating, somewhat with awe and somewhat with concern, having reached my original weight goal of 165 pounds.

I feel better and stronger each day as I rebound from my surgery. My pain is less and my strength and stamina are steadily increasing as I progress. I hope I will soon be back to feeling really healthy in time to enjoy the December holidays.

Thank you again to all of you who have traveled this journey with us and provided us such wonderful support and caring. You have made this outcome so much more attainable because of the gifts you shared with us here.

All the best,

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined

Frankenstein?

This was our first day at home. Our alarm clock went off first thing this morning, at 5:45, just as it does every single school day. That was an opportunity to "sleep in" actually since my usual get-up time while we were staying in the hospital was 4:30 AM.

Generally, here at home, I pile out of bed first and head off to shower and get dressed. Then I scramble out to the kitchen to make breakfast, lunch, and get us both ready to go. Of course, today and for the next bit of time, He doesn't need His lunch packed, and He isn't getting ready to "go" anywhere. So, this morning, as I was in the bathroom getting ready to go, He came in to pee and weigh and survey the damage. There were no full length mirrors in the hospital room -- just the one small mirror over the sink.

He is a "sight." He has a fairly long mid-line incision and 10 trocar incisions that were made to allow attachment of the mesh for the hernia repair. There are also two punctures where the surgical drains were installed in His abdomen. He has a pretty impressive hematoma on His belly, and enormous and ugly bruising on His hips that is the result of the heparin injections that they gave in the belly every day as a preventative for blood clotting. Standing there in the bathroom, checking it out, He said, "we ought to take some pictures of this."

So, bleary-eyed and sleepy-headed, I wandered off to find the camera and snap a few shots of the damage. They are not terrific -- I wasn't entirely awake yet, but perhaps they will give you some idea of what it is He's been through this last 8 days.

swan