I am a pink zebra

Answers are sometimes difficult things to find

In February 2012, I had a endoscope. I'm anemic and they're looking for a cause. They've been looking for a cause for many years... Apparently, they don't buy my explanation that it's genetic. So I submit to all the tests my haematologist wants to do, which this time, involved my gastroenterologist and an endoscope down my throat.  

I had an endoscope about a year ago, and she found a few small polyps. She biopsied them, sent them off to the pathologist and the results were negative...they were just polyps.

This year, however, the biopsy of my polyps was not negative. It was positive. I had gastric carcinoids. Fortunately for me, right down the street from my gastroenterologist's office is the South Shore Dana Farber Center, and in it, (on Wednesdays only), is my gastroenterological surgeon.

When I met with him the week after the biopsy results came back, he told me I needed surgery. I had anticipated this, expecting him to tell me it would be a nice little laproscopic event, and then I'd get to lay around on the couch for a few days. I was wrong. I needed major stomach surgery. He was going to remove part of my stomach, and along with it, the cause of the carcinoids, so they would be unlikely to return in the future.

Uh.         Ok.

So, a month later, I had surgery at Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston. Surgery was four and a half hours long (so I'm told). I was in the hospital for 6 days. They wouldn't let me leave hospital until I ate a pudding. A tiny, chocolate pudding. It took me two hours to eat that tiny thing. 

When I got home, I sat on my couch and recovered for almost 3 months. It took me two weeks to be able to walk to my mailbox at the end of the driveway. Next, I could walk to the end of my street in 20 minutes (3 houses away). Finally, I was able to make it around the block. Now, four months later, I walk daily, for about an hour. It's the one thing that kept the fatigue at bay.

Eating was fun. My stomach (which was smaller than expected because more was removed than originally planned), could only hold a few tablespoons of food at a time. I have to eat more often. Sometimes it felt like all I did was eat and walk. Actually, that is mostly what I did. Eat, read, walk, sit. Eat, read, walk, sit. Repeat. Going out to eat is still sad. I order what I want and then, a few bites in, I'm full. Forget about dessert. I can't even get through an appetizer. It is getting better though. I can eat a heck of a lot more now, four months post surgery, but it's still not a whole lot of food. And I love food and going out to eat. I also gave up ordering drinks while I am in a restaurant. Fills up my stomach too fast...

((Personal rant: I will never, to my dying day, understand why anyone would willingly sign up for gastric bypass surgery to lose weight. Willingly undergoing this type of surgery is, in my mind, insanity multiplied. I understand, if you're obese, you need something drastic. But this is far too drastic. Plus, if you're obese, chances are, you're not used to exercising, eating right and doing what is necessary to recover from surgery anyway. Hence the failure of many gastric bypass surgeries - so many people regain all the weight they lost after surgery))