Another year has gone by and since my "one year out" page is still on my site, I won't subject everyone to that again *G*. I'll just cover some of the stuff from then until now.
Where I was a year ago (from the one year out page)
Well, it's July 17, 2003 and I am one year out. I've got my life back. I have a much more active lifestyle - I walk and bike for exercise and I've joined the Y. I've got some shoulder problems that are preventing me from doing a bit right now, but I'm taking physical therapy for that. I walk through the store instead of waiting in the car...I enjoy walking through the stores and the mall (especially in the summertime).
My weight - although it's remained steady the past month - is much much better than it was a year ago. I was 427at the time of my surgery and am 247 a year later - a 180 pound loss. My leg has been well and I had enough health to get out of my old System Engineer position at Siemens to take a new position in the same company. I'm sure that the weight loss also gave me more confidence during the interview process as well.
Where do I go from here??? Well, I want to get down to 213 pounds (which will mean a total of 214 pounds lost). I had hoped to be there by my one-year anniversary, but that didn't happen. So, I'm shooting for Christmas as my new time limit to reach that goal. I've gone from wearing size 64/6X clothes to wearing 46-48's and XL-2X clothes. And while there is always the possibility of getting hit by a bus tomorrow, I'm not staring death or permanent disability in the face like I was a year ago.
From then until now...
Well, as I became more active, my journal on Obesityhelp.com got updated less and less often. This is not an uncommon occurrence *G*. I celebrated my 45th birthday (9/6/03) down at Harbor Place in Baltimore and went to the Orioles game compliments of a good friend that runs an Orioles fan website (Birds In the Belfry - look on my links page if you are interested).
I got down to 223 by December 2003 (ten pounds from goal!!!) and then spent the next three months fluctuating between 223 and 226 (ARRRRGGGGH!). I was seriously wondering if that was going to be it - I was around that magical 18 month period that is the end of the "window of opportunity". If it was going to be, it was going to be. I just resolved to work towards getting this plateau/lull broken.
Reaching goal!!!
I kept inching down, pound by pound, over the next couple of months and then I got weighed at Dr. Fox's (my oncologist) on 6/2/2004 and I weighed in at 213.4 pounds - which put me at GOAL!!!! This is my goal as Dr. Raper never set one for me - from the time of my surgery on, my long-term goal was to get to 213 1/2 pounds. This figure was 1/2 my original body weight as the time of surgery.
Now, I didn't express this goal to Dr. Sarwer (the psychologist who did my psych consult) at the time of my psych evaluation as he would have thought it unrealistic (as it was, the figure that I gave him he thought was a little high), but it was the number that I was shooting for all along. And now I have reached it...
Where do I go from here?
Now, where do you go from goal?? Below goal, of course *G*... I'm still losing weight - not in great leaps and bounds like the new posties, but in dribs and drabs...but I have lost 12 1/2 pounds since St. Valentine's Day (about 3 1/2 months ago). My BMI's 36.73 which would still qualify me for WLS with co-morbidities (of course, I had a BMI of 73.49 at the time of my surgery) so I am not "thin" by any stretch of the imagination *G*.
I've set the following three future "landmarks" (not goals - I do not want to reset my goal *G*):
a) getting to 207 pounds - that would be a 75% loss of my EBW (based on an "ideal" weight of 134 pounds...yeah, right *G*)
b) getting to 203 pounds - that would put me at a BMI of 35 (actually 34.94), which would mean that I was just obese and not severely obese and I would no longer qualify for WLS
c) getting to 199 pounds - I can't remember the last time my weight started with a "1"
Now, you notice that these numbers are not to distant from where I am now. That's because I am two years out. As I posted to a guy on Obesityhelp.com's message board (he was talking about being on a plateau at 2 years out)
"At two years, you have gotten all of the loss due to the surgery that you are going to get (I'm near that point myself at 22 1/2 months). The way that you are going to lose any more weight is the same way a normal people would - diet and exercise. If you eat about 500 calories a day less than what you need, then you will lose about a pound a week. If your intake and outgo are equal, then you will maintain your weight. If you take in more than you need, you'll put on weight. It's as simple as that."
But I am going to keep striving forward, trying to lose, rather than trying to maintain. As anyone who has seen recent pictures of Carnie Wilson (or one of her live appearances like on Good Morning America last Friday) can see, she has had some regain (she admits to fighting 10 pounds - it looks to be more like 20-30). I'm not ready for any regain yet (heck, I just got to goal *G*), so the best medicine I can see against regain at this point is to continue trying to lose.
What am I up to these days?
Most people in the WLS community who know me know why I do what I do as far as providing support - living by the philosophy of Pay It Forward. Some of you may not know the extent of how much I do:
I belong to six WLS-related Yahoogroup lists and provide varying levels of support on each:
1) UPENN-WLS (where I usually spend the bulk of my support energy)
2) UPENN-WLS-Grad (owner - I established this board as an adjunct to HUP's graduate support group meetings)
3) PhillyTeamGatherings (moderator - more of a social list where we plan monthly outings)
4) UPenn-WLS_Unplugged (moderator - for off-topic stuff that we wanted to get off the main UPENN-WLS list)
5) Graduate-OSSG (mostly in lurk mode)
6) WLSphilfree (started by another former HUP patient)
In addition, I contribute a significant amount of support on Obesityhelp.com, including writing an article for their magazine which hopefully will be in the June issue. I am a regular contributor on two WLS-related Delphi Forums. Finally, I provide support on Spotlighthealth.com as well as a small WLS-related forum WLS & You run by a wonderful young woman by the name of Amy Williams. I walked in the initial Walk from Obesity last September, will do so this September and pledge to walk in them as long as they have them.
Oh, and I am part of the HUP Patient Support Network along with a few other post-ops. New patients are given a list of people and phone numbers of post-ops that they can call to have questions answered and to receive support, comfort and/or reassurance. I just spent an hour on the phone a week or so ago with one such pre-op.
The group that gives me the most satisfaction is the UPENN-WLS Yahoogroup list and the live support groups (regular and grad)... There are so many more people that I have been able to touch and to help through this list than I can through the live support group meetings - simply because of the time difference spent in the two groups. I've been able to meet people on this list and that makes it a bit more real than some of the national groups where the person is just typed words in an e-mail or a posting in a forum/message board. There are many people on the UPENN-WLS list who I am proud to call friends and some of them are very dear friends to me.
Due to some recent circumstances, I have decided to spend a bit more time with the other groups. I am concentrating on getting more people motivated to post in the Grad group - I had started that as an adjunct to the Grad meetings - because so many Grads didn't have the time or the energy to deal with the sheer volume of posts that are on the regular list. However, it really hasn't taken off the way that I had hoped and I am probably to blame for that because I've spent so much time and energy with the regular list. So maybe this break is good for me and good for the grads - because was some of you newbies will discover, there are a whole set of issues that arises the further out from surgery you go. Newbies - enjoy your honeymoon period while it lasts, but learn to "work the tool" during that period if you want to be a long-term success.
Addendum to the above paragraph: Mags and I spent a few minutes at the grad meeting on 7/6 publicizing the Grad Yahoogroup and we had 4 people sign up on Wednesday - yay!
Thanks to everyone who made this last year (and the one before) possible
First and foremost, thanks to my wife Geri and my kids David and Rebecca for being with me every step of the way. I love you all more than words can say. Thanks to all of the people on the various support forums that helped me and were there for me before my surgery or during these first two post-op years. If some of you are saying "well, I never helped JR - he was the one who was there for me"; well, being able to share my experiences and help you through your journeys has allowed me to "pay it forward".
And a big thank you to the medical professionals who helped along the way...to my primary doctor, Dr. Daniel Soffer...to my vascular surgeon, Dr. Robert DiGiovanni...to the staff at HUP...Susan, Katie, Rachel, Wanda, Dr. Sarwer...and finally and especially to the surgeon who saved my life - Dr. Steven Raper.
Some parting thoughts and wishes...
To those who are considering this surgery: Visit some of the above forums (if you haven't already). Talk to some of the post-ops and ask them questions. You'll find that 95% or more of post-ops are more than happy to help you out. Find a live support group in your area and make arrangements to attend their next meeting - it'll give you the chance to meet post-ops and pre-ops and, more importantly, find that you are *not* alone!
To those with surgeries coming up soon: I hope that you have a successful surgery and a quick and uneventful recovery.
To the healing newbies out there: Continue to get your fluids in (sip, sip, sip all day long *G*) and get what protein in you can (working towards getting to that 60g a day) and walk every day (more than the day before). You'll more than likely hit a point where you say "why in the hell did I have this surgery" - believe me, most if not all of us have been through that stage and survived and most of us now have no regrets about having had this life-altering surgery.
Hugs,
JR
open RNY 07/17/02, Dr. Raper
440/427/213/213 (AT GOAL!!!)
"Your past failures will always overtake you if you stop chasing after your future success!"