Steve's Journey

 

Hi. To follow is a frank and honest account of my Fobi Pouch Surgery, it is called the journey due to the long path that lead firstly to the decision to have the surgery, and the rather long path travelled since.

Let me start with stating that I am not particularly proud to have had this surgery. As with many people I feel it is a bit of a cop out, not taking responsibility for one's actions, taking the easy way out, no intestinal fortitude and not being strong or worthy human being. Oh my god that guy cannot  control his own appetite! Instead he has to have surgery to do the work for him, how pathetic can't he just cut back a bit for goodness sake? What about the people I know? What will their reactions be? Both workmates and friends won't be able to help but notice the weight loss and it is only natural to ask how, and put quite simply: I won't lie about it.

As you can imagine with all these negative thoughts running around inside my head you can understand the gulf that had to be bridged before I would even start to consider this surgery let alone learning what it involves and what to expect.

Enter a large bridge stage right.

Ryan was born on the 21st of April 2004 I barely made it through the birth standing for that period of time killed my knee, feet, ankles and back. I was supposed to be there supporting my wife giving birth to our first child and I kept thinking I wish I had a seat to sit on. For me having a child made me re-evaluate things an awful lot, I always assumed I would be around for a good time not a long time how could I not? I was grossly over weight and had been since childhood, I smoked and drank like a fish and I am a male approaching middle age how many more risk factors do you want? Now suddenly it was no-longer all about me. As far as I am concerned bringing a perfect, wonderful wee being into the world is a great responsibility not just for now but for the long term and the only chance I had for being around in the future was to finally win the constant war against weight. After all what sort of life would my boy have if I shuffled on at 45 when he is 10?

For those who are interested here is a little brief about my life long battle with my waist line: I think I would have been considered overweight from age 5 if not earlier, I was obese by 9-10 and I was morbidly obese by 12. I remember my mum first trying the weight watcher approach with me when I was as young as 8 I formally went to weight watchers when I was 10 and the various diets started thick and fast after that. Some of the more memorable would be the 'eat fat grow slim' (an Atkins type diet but without the veggies) 'day on day off diet ' and the very popular (at the time) total image. These diets as with all I enjoyed various degrees of early success that rapidly waned until you gave up at which time the weight came back with a vengeance.  During my mid teens I enjoyed some success with good eating but mostly by working long hours on my parents lifestyle block and doing a large amount of exercise. However then I started Tertiary education and it was game on! In my last year of study I found a new wonder diet which I enjoyed great success with.... Not eating. Combine that with a couple of hours of waking every day and you have a formula that is not only very good for the budget but also a very effective form of dieting! During that time I started at around 150kg and got down to 83kg in just over a year. My metabolism was so screwed up it took over 6 years to get it back to some form of normality, initially it got so bad that my weight was spiralling out of control on one meal a day.

Fast forward another 8 years and my son was born, I was about 140kg and gaining a couple of kg's a week. I had recently been enjoying some success with the Atkins diet but now even that was failing I could hold my weight whilst on the diet but not loose any, and lets face it Atkins is not a long term diet. My wife had mentioned about weight loss surgery (WLS) about 14 months previously and had mentioned it every few months since  to which I dismissed categorically, how ever I had been thinking about it with increasing frequency. Finally I was sitting sweating at my work desk after a gruelling 15 minute walk (or is that slow waddle) at lunch time hardly able to breath because my pants and shirt were so tight. These would be my new pants bought only 3 months prior due to my previous pants getting so tight they started splitting all the time. I had recently seen the surgeon about my left knee who advised essentially that the knee was worn to the extent it was the knee of a 70 year old and that there were little surgical options to improve it. I was now permanently on strong anti inflammatory medication and in constant crippling pain. I was so tired due to my developing sleep apnoea and I was having problems with reflux (and aspirating it) when I was sleeping. I was not coping, I was so tired despite sleeping 10 hours a night, I was in constant pain and was mentally defeated.

Bridge constructed and ready for use Sir!

 I finally admitted to myself that I would never fix this by myself.....  I needed help

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