For Lilka

[Guest guest]

Hi Lilka,

Sorry it has taken me so long to answer you, my complications were

rare but it does happen, so not to scare I'll start off my saying I

am happily maintaining a 170 weight lost for almost three years now,

and would do it all over again, it's the best thing I could of ever

done formyself. With that said….

As you know from 's letter my 2 hour surgery turned into 6

hours, I was in the hospital 4 or 5 days I cant remember. DR.

Umbach did ¾ lap then have to switch to open, when he did that he

had to spread apart my ribs and open me up petty wide. In turn that

caused me more pain then they most. I could not sleep in my own

bend for 14 days; I had to sleep in a lazy boy recliner.

I was nauseated every time I ate; I could not drink any protein

drinks at all, just the smell made me sick. I found the only thing

I could eat was pasta, strange as that's one of the " you're never

going to eat that again foods " Since I could only eat like 3- 4

bites it really did not matter what I was eating as long as it did

not make me sick.

Drinking water was also bad, I remember thinking I would never be

able to drink water again. If you search back my old posts from

after 1/16/03 you can read all my whining and boy I did a lot of

it. This all went on for 4 weeks, looking back I think 4 weeks was

nothing, but believe me it seemed like forever, I was in consent

pain, the kind that no matter what you do it won't go away.

After 4 weeks it got better fast. I started feeling much better

and all the pain was going away. Now I do need to mention that I

have been in AA for 13 years (10 at the time of surgery) so taking

the liquid vicadin was really hard, being an alcoholic and drug

addict I was afraid to take to much and after three days I tossed

it out, so a lot of my pain could have been help by medication which

I choosed to not take ( stupid me) About 3 months after my surgery

I was rushed to the hospital three times with overwhelming pain in

my tummy, the second time they took me from Santa Cruz to south sf

to see Dr. Umbach , I had a hernia ,but they did not want to do

anything about as I was still healing from y first surgery, The next

5 months I felt sick every time I ate, this went on for awhile , I

would dump almost at every meal, and I was not even eating anything

bad,,, and when I did eat it was a very small about.

Anyway in September I was once again rushed to the hospital and met

a wonderful Dr, his name was Dr Waddle lol I loved him! He was 39 so

cute and new all about gastric-by pass surgery. He new I needed

surgery right away but I had an infection and my body and they

wanted to fill me with antibiotics foe three day before they did

surgery.

Once he did the surgery I was fine, He did tell me when he went in

the hernia turned into a incaserated hernia, which to this day im

not sure what that is, he told me when he opened me up he thought I

had cancer, it looked so bad, I had bowl in my intestines and a lot

of other unmentionables. I know this all sound really bad but you

asked for it so here it is. Remember my case was not the norm.

Good luck!!

Shell