Things seem much better these days. We have made huge changes this past year, but then I find that life is always changing and yet still so much of it remains the same. Yes, I still have pain, but it’s a little different than the pain I had over a year ago. I am not in such excuciating pain as I was back then. However, I must remember it’s summer time, and the warmer weather always is good for me.

I have some heart issues that we are dealing with. It’s been a long drawn out process to find out what is going on. Last September I started feeling very very weak and tired. I had an event where I felt like I was having an anxiety attack (which I don’t have often), and was so weak that I couldn’t walk and had extreme blurred vision. I went to the doctor, for fear I was having a heart attack or something like that. Bottom line is she thought maybe I had that teenage kissing disease…I forget the name of it, but it’s something that kids get a lot.

As time went on, I just kept getting weaker and weaker. I finally went to my pain doctor, and the nurse asked me if I always had a low heart rate. Well, I thought that was a good thing, and said yes. Bottom line is that for a person who doesn’t exercise, any heart rate below 60 isn’t a good thing…it’s called Bradycardia. So, I found out that I had Bradycardia after seeing my internist, and she sent me to see a Cardiologist. The Cardiologist that I saw wasn’t all that helpful, because basically he said that I wasn’t in order for a pacemaker unless I was passing out.

However, I was finding that my fatique was getting worse, not better. For my birthday, my son-in-law and daughter gave me the money to get a Polar Heart Monitor. It was very helpful in monitoring my pulse rate during the daytime. It’s a cool one too, because I can upload the information each day and see how my progress is as the months go by. Anyway, I then went in to see my Gastro-by-pass doc, who also has me in some research labs, and he wanted me to see the cardiologist at OHSU. I gladly went to get a second opinion from him. The first thing they did was an EKG which turned up abnormal…and showed something that looked like an atrial enlargement. I was a little concerned, but then I didn’t have an appointment with the Cardiologist for another week.

When I went back up to OHSU to see the Cardiologist, he didn’t seem too concerned at first, but then looked at some past tests and decided that a Nuclear Stress Test would be helpful. So, a week later I was back up at OHSU going through that process and the results came back showing low QRTs and abnormal st’s as well as tachycardia and somthing to do with the ventrical and atrial enlargements.

Bottom line is that all of this has brought on a lot of anxiety for me, and the past few months I have gotten virtually NO exercise because the doctors have said “no exertion”. So, here I am, setting around waiting for answers….which I don’t do very well.

I’m learning a lot about patience. Not a virtue I was born with. More to come.

So you’d think that if you were lucky enough to survive bariatric weight loss surgery and lose about 130-140 lbs that you wouldn’t have anything to complain about, right? So I try not to complain, but I’m frustrated. Apparently, over this past year, I’ve developed something called Bradycardia - which is a slow heart beat. Frankly, I am just mad that I have it. I mean really, isn’t pain enough to have in ones life, without having to deal with something that slows you down even more than I am? I don’t want to be unhealthy. I figured that I would be out playing tennis, taking long walks and hiking up and down hills seeing natures beauty. Nope, I am pretty much spending a lot of my time laying around.

Okay, now with that said - I am doing some things about this whole fatiqued feeling. First of all, I was offered a pacemaker by the cardiologist, but instead I requested a bit more of a history of what is causing the fatique. Why? Well, I wanted to make sure that the fatiqued feeling wasn’t enhanced by the fibromyalgia. I also wanted to make sure that my heart isn’t just weakened, and needs to be exercised. I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t missing minerals or vitamins.

So, after checking in with the cardiologist, taking two Holter Monitor tests, on treadmill test and writing a long letter to the cardiologist to make sure that he understood why I wasn’t just jumping at the opportunity to get a pacemaker put in, he was able to tell me that I actually didn’t need a pacemaker, and that my reporting was inconsistant. So I returned to my physical therapist and to my internist only to find out that they still really feel I need the pacemaker. To make a long story short, I am fatiqued and feel tired and exhausted the majority of the time. However, with exercise, my heart rate will go up, but at a rest or set, my heart remains somewhere between 45-55. I never feel like I am going to pass out, but sometimes I feel so weak that I can hardly stand or continue walking. I just have to set down for a while.

So, I got a Polar Heart Monitor Watch. These are incredible! They are like a little mini computer that keeps track of your heart rate while you are moving about, and then I can upload the information to my personal journal at Polars Website:

This, I think, is a time to celebrate. I’ve broken past the 100 pounds lost marker! That is over half of the weight that I had hoped to lose! I’ve tried to think what 100 lbs looks like. 100 1 lb packages of butter? I feel much much better - healthier and happier. I still struggle with looking in the mirror and recognizing that person looking back at me; however, I am starting to accept my new face as time passes.

So, I am going through a phase which isn’t very pleasant. It’s that phase that nobody really admits to - or at least talks about. It’s depressing. It’s that phase where you look in the mirror and you have no idea who you are. You don’t recognize that wrinkled woman who is losing her hair and looks tired and worn out. Is there a way to avoid this after weight loss surgery? No. Do you read about this on Obesityhelp.com or other websites or weight loss books? No. I guess it is presumed that is the reason for cosmetic surgery.

I don’t like how I look today. I’ve felt this way for the past several weeks, but today it is a reality that this is how I am going to start looking. I look haggard and worn out. I am losing my hair and it’s really ugly. I guess I will probably just go get most of it cut off. My clothing doesn’t fit me. The pair of pants that I bought on October 11th doesn’t fit me at all today. I have one pair of pants to my name, and they are blue velveteen sweat pants. I have a fear of going to buy new ones, because it seems a waste of money (shows you how tight I am with money I guess). I just can’t seem to justify spending money on clothes when they aren’t going to fit in a few months. The good news is that my support group has a clothing exchange, so I can probably go find something in the clothes box.

As far as the sagging loose skin - well, I am going to have to come to terms with that. It’s going to have to take some thought. My mom would probably say, “your getting older and it’s just part of aging.” She may be right, if she would say that to me. UGH - aging. Something I don’t like doing, but don’t have a choice about, right? I guess if I would have known that I didn’t want to get older, I wouldn’t have tried to rush it so quickly when I was 12! I remember that there was everything in the world about getting older that I wanted. Now - well, I’m not so sure. Peter Pan might have had it right - go to never-neverland.

Does it sound like I am whining? Well, I guess I am. I’ve got a lot of things I need to do today, and I don’t have time to do anymore whining, so off I go to clean the house - which is one thing I am glad I can do…I wasn’t able to clean the house when I was so heavy, because I didn’t have the energy, desire or ability to move so freely!

I broke down and bought a new pair of pants this week. Yep, and dispite the fact that I think my legs look the same size as they always have, I am down from a size 32 pant to a size 24 pant. I know, still a big size, but they are smaller than I wore 4 months ago. To date, I have lost a total of 80 lbs. I have a long ways to go, but I’m not complaining at all! I am feeling much better in general. My legs still hurt and I still have trouble getting one leg around the fat on the other…but as I lose weight, the ability to walk is only going to get better! I’m doing a lot of updating on the forum page in the Bariatric and lipedema sections if you want to read further!

Seriously, this is just perfect!

Today, as I was getting dressed, I caught a glimpse of myself in the full length mirror in our bathroom. Wow, I thought, I am finally seeing some weight loss when I look in the mirror. At least on the upper half of my body. My legs just seem to look the same ugly way they have always looked. However, I reminded myself, my pants are baggy, and so some of that fat must be melting off my legs. The other thing that I noticed was that the skin on my legs seems to have become saggy, so that must mean that some of the fat is going away. It’s a slower process, I guess, because of the lipedema fat. The other thing that I am starting to notice is that there aren’t so many “lumps” of fat, and some of those lumps aren’t as “tender” as they used to be. I can’t be for sure. I’ve only lost 74 lbs, and I have another 75-80 lbs to go before I am going to be able to tell what my body shape really looks like. It all takes time.