Hey there,
I am writing this diary to address to people who cannot be content with themselves and turn their own life into an endless torture because of their physical features. This diary is dedicated to show people how gastric sleeve surgery has changed my life and set me free of my braces, and inspire people who are in the same situation as me. While I tell you my long story in form of shorter fragments, I wish you will see fragments from yourself in the diary.
First of all, I want to tell you a bit about the process of gastric sleeve surgery. Before deciding to undergo gastric sleeve surgery, I had done a lot of research. Just like everyone else, I had many questions in my mind, some of which are:
• What if a leakage in my stomach happens after gastric sleeve surgery?
• What if I regain weight and all my efforts are gone in vain?
• If I cannot control myself and overeat, what will happen to my lifestyle?
• Will people see me differently due to the fact that I have undergone gastric sleeve surgery?
• What kind of long-term results should be expected
And so on.
I searched for the answers of these questions. Of course I looked for the answer of the question “is it possible to lose weight without surgery?” many times. I started doing sports but for a person weighing 150 kg, doing workouts means significantly limiting your life. From the nutrition point of view, my stomach was enlarged enough by the time I reached 150 kg, due to the unbalanced nutrition. The calories I was intaking were never enough. If you think once again that every fat cell in our body has its own need for calories, the more I tried to curb the calorie intake, the hungrier and weaker I became. On top of that, my workouts were taking away the rest of my energy. I was only left with plenty of aggression and incompleted tasks. I am sure that you also get tired when you tidy up your house. When I reached my pre-surgery weight, I could not even do that. If I cleaned the kitchen, I had rest for the next 1 hour. Instead of that, ordering 1 large and 1 medium pizza and watching TV series was more alluring. In the later stages, I was even short of breath. I could not do the simplest of my tasks, such as wearing socks and shoes. To kneel down and then rise up appeared to me as the most difficult task in the world. Apart from all of these, I wanted to do everything a 26 years-old young individual normally does: doing shopping freely and wearing what I want, make clothing combinations according to my taste. For this purpose, I wanted to go through many different clothes but while wearing XXXL clothes and 45 size shoes this was not an easy thing to do. There are many more situations like this, about which I will talk a lot in the future.
I made the decision of undergoing gastric sleeve surgery when I reached 145 kg. Once when I was preparing to go out, I noticed that I could not breathe while attempting to wear my socks and could succeed only after three attempts, and I decided to see a doctor immediately. I was feeling so upset during that day, that I would do anything the doctor would say. If it was required, I would terminate all my social life and career, dedicate myself to sports and get rid of my current situation. During the doctor examination, the doctor listened to my patient record and demanded a number of medical examinations. As a result of these tests, I faced the result I was afraid of, and the decision that would be the turning point of my life. Gastric sleeve surgery was the quickest way of solution for me and I was meeting all of the requirements for this surgery. By the way, the reason of my overall weakness was high level of blood sugar. It was naturally followed by hypertension and fat buildup in some of my organs. As a result, the treatment for me was defined, and the procedure following it was the procedure of preparation.
My family was strictly against this situation. According to them, gastric sleeve surgery would be my end. One of my organs would be cut in a surgery and this would leave me in difficult situation. This was their assumption. I tried hard for some time to persuade them however, I quickly discovered that it was impossible, at least it was something I could not do. So I first invited one of my friends who had previously undergone gastric sleeve surgery. Then I involved my family in discussions with doctors as well. When my family noticed my willingness, they accepted it, although a bit reluctantly, and helped me with choosing my doctor. As a result, my surgery date was booked. I had some psychological preparations till the date of surgery. I researched about eating habits for post-surgery period and tried to adapt myself to this new situation. This preparation period helped me a lot for the upcoming procedures. Undergoing gastric sleeve surgery with an awareness makes the recovery process fast and easy.
Finally, the day of surgery came. I was taken to the hospital and began to wait with great excitement. On the day of operation, operation room doctor came, I was given the operational clothing and taken to the operation room on a wheeled bed. Before going into a slumber, I remember my surgeon saying “Everything is going to be alright. Don’t worry”… Then, I was taken back to my hospital room after undergoing the operation I had been preparing myself for many months. I was not feeling pain but there was an unbelievable feeling of emptiness in my abdomen. It was forbidden to move, turn left or right on the first day. Then I slept, woke up and it turns out that I have been trying to turn with face down the whole night, being under the influence of anesthesia. I remember my mother repeating, “No! No turning! Sleep straight!” many times throughout the night. On the second day, they tried to get me up on my feet. I accepted it. With the help of supports, I carefully sat on my bed at first. I felt as if my internal organs were rearranging themselves freely in the opened vacancy inside my abdomen. It was a weird feeling. I slowly stood up on my feet and took my first steps. These were my first steps towards the new “me” whom I love very much. This was followed by a normal procedure. For 2 days I did not have any solid or liquid food. I was fed only with IV serums and given my medicine. Then a leakage test was performed, and no problems were found, so I shifted to drinking water or grainless liquid food. I stayed at the hospital for 5 days. I regularly walked in this time period. At first times I wandered in the hospital. On the 4th day I went out, walked around, did some shopping. It was not like I was imagining in my head prior to surgery. I did not feel any pain. Maybe it was something related to my pain tolerance level but I had a very comfortable hospitalization period. What about now? Before writing this diary, I stood up on the scale. I am a person who wears S and M-sized clothes and 42 size shoes at 72 kg, says “You are awesome” when looking in the mirror, has so many clothes and shoes that I can spend hours combining them. I am a man who can walk for hours, whose self-esteem has significantly increased in social life, and who tirelessly works in his new career to touch and improve the lives of people. By the way, I can wear socks and go upstairs very easily (my personal record is 14 stairs).
I will continue to write about how my post-surgery procedure went, what difficulties I faced, what kind of funny or sad stories I had. You may contact me and ask your questions whenever you want. I will be glad to guide you on this path as a person who has experienced the same feelings as you.
Thanks for reading.
