So I have a stricture. A stricture is basically a situation where the exit tube from my stomach pouch healed/scarred too small. Instead of having a diameter as big around as a dime, it may be more like a pencil eraser, if not much smaller. The obvious problem is that with such a small exit hole, a lot of food can’t drain out into the intestine. Strictures usually cause abdominal discomfort and vomiting. For me, there’s no discomfort that is separate from vomiting. I vomit without rhyme or reason. Some days I’ll manage to keep a few bites down, other days an entire meal, and still other days I throw up everything I put in my mouth, including some liquid protein shakes and even water.
I didn’t realize right away that I had a stricture. Back in December I was vomiting on occasion because of trapped air — air that was presumably trapped because my healing stomach was still swollen. But there was a gradual change, and by January I was throwing up, as I said, without rhyme or reason. I saw my surgeon for a post-op appointment on January 21st, and she immediately diagnosed the issue as being a stricture. Unfortunately, the soonest appointment to fix the problem is February 11th. Believe me, I’m counting down the days.
The fix is done via endoscopy. A tube is threaded down my throat and into my stomach pouch, and at the end of that tube is a balloon. It’s positioned inside the stricture and gradually expanded, so that the stricture is opened up. Depending on how tight the stricture is and how well it responds to the balloon, it could take 2-3 separate endoscopy procedures to fully open things back up.
In the meantime, I’m managing to keep down most of the water I drink, but only half of the protein shakes I drink. Food? It’s hit or miss. There are days where I’m so disgusted over vomiting so much and wasting food that I don’t even eat the next day. I’d say I’m getting 300 – 500 calories in on a good day. Most days it’s more like 300 or so. The poor nutrition and resulting protein deficiency is causing my hair to fall out. It’s everywhere, and my ponytail is noticeably thinner. Worse yet, because my body is literally starving (even though I never feel hunger), it’s holding onto every calorie I consume with a desperate grip. My weight loss keeps stalling, I currently can’t get under 240. I’m at 241.8 today.
I’m also tired all of the time. I could sleep and sleep and sleep, then wake up, do a few things, and go back to sleep. It really sucks. More than anything, I hate feeling so tired and lethargic all of the time. 
- Being able to eat just about anything! Hooray!
- Vomiting from eating too quickly or getting air trapped. I thought most vomiting issues were related to food tolerance problems.
- Dumping not being the horrible, please-let-me-die-a-quick-death experience I thought it would be. For me, dumping involves getting the shakes, feeling cold, weak, lightheaded and just overall “icky” and fatigued.
- Needing new jeans so quickly. As of today I’m in a size 24, but my waist and hips are more of a size 22. Damn thunder thighs!
- Weight stalls at 3 weeks, 5 weeks and 7 weeks post-op. I know weight stalls happen, but why so quickly?
- Feeling more obsessed with food than ever. Only now the obsession is about getting enough in.
- Having such a battle with consuming enough protein. I suck.
- Having random people, servers, etc., give me weird looks or ask questions outright about why I’m not eating or eating a certain way. Example: smearing a bagel with cream cheese, then taking tiny nibbles of the bagel (bread is sometimes iffy for me) while eating generous amounts of cream cheese. Or people just finding it strange that I eat teensy portions. I feel like they’re judging me as the fat girl who is so desperate to lose weight that she’ll starve herself (in public, at least).
- Feeling so fucking awesome after losing just 30 lbs.
You know how people say, “Oh, if I eat one more bite I’ll explode/get sick/throw up?” Well for me, and presumably other gastric bypass surgery patients, it’s TRUE. There have been many times where I literally had ONE bite too many, and had to throw up. There have been many other times when I’ve thought twice about a bite of food that was on my plate, on my fork or even in my mouth, and opted for throwing it out or spitting it out, rather than swallowing it and inevitably getting sick.
Ah, the quirks and such that go along with weight loss surgery…
But you know what? They are OH SO WORTH IT! I’m down 81 lbs. and couldn’t be happier. 
In less than twelve hours I will be officially seven weeks post-op. Holy crap does time ever fly. I vividly remember being 1-2 weeks out and thinking wistfully of how great it would be to be seven weeks out. And then I’d feel bummed, because seven weeks seemed like such a long time away! But here I am, seven weeks out and I am doing absolutely fantastic. I’m finally feeling back to my old self, which means no more slacking on writing projects about bridal shower games, writing assignments and general sponsored content and product reviews.
So, seven weeks… I can eat normally, even though the portions are teensy, I’m leery of most breads and I don’t even bother trying to eat most beef products, since beef tends to be rather fibrous and stringy. I’ve been keeping in touch with one of the women that was in my pre-op support group, and she’s doing great too. I have to admit, I’m slightly jealous — she’s four weeks old and has lost 30 lbs. I’m seven weeks old and am “only” down 34 lbs.! Pfft, what’s up with that?*
* I’m kidding. I know that everyone loses weight at their own rate!
I’m still having inadequate protein issues, but I hope to order some protein shots either this week or next week, so that should definitely solve that problem!
