Kaye Bailey - Day 6: Beyond the 5 Day Pouch Test

First Edition Copyright 2009, 2012, 2015 by Kaye Bailey and LivingAfterWLS, LLC. All rightsreserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portionsthereof in any form whatsoever. For information, addressLivingAfterWLS, LLC, Post Office Box 311, Evanston, Wyoming82931.

The health content in Day 6:Beyond the 5 Day Pouch Test is intended to inform, not prescribe,and is not meant to be a substitute for the advice and care of aqualified health-care professional. The author and publisherdisclaim any liability arising directly or indirectly from the useof this book.

Nutritional Analysis: Every effort has beenmade to check the accuracy of the nutritional information thatappears with each recipe. However, because numerous variablesaccount for a wide range of values for certain foods, nutritiveanalyses in this book should be considered approximate. Differentresults may be obtained by using different nutrient databases anddifferent brand-name products.

This LivingAfterWLS, LLCelectronic publication September 2015.

COPYRIGHT 2015 ~ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published by

LivingAfterWLS, LLC

Post Office Box 311

Evanston, WY 82931

Bookstore@LivingAfterWLS.com

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About Kaye Bailey

I Arrived on September 13, 1999 in SanDiego California exactly one month to the day after Carnie Wilsonput weight loss surgery (WLS) on the map. It was at once one of themost exciting and frightening things I have ever done. Back in theday the Internet was just taking hold and my research was sketchyat best. I knew I wanted WLS because I grew up in a culture ofobesity and felt it was my only solution. As I learned aboutsurgery there was a procedure called laparoscopic gastric bypassthat was being done by very few surgeons, but with great success.The surgeon nearest me was 1,500 miles away in San Diego.

All of my pre-op consultation was done bytelephone, and would you believe, snail mail? Even the pre-oppsychiatric examine was pre-historic. I sat with a counselor at alocal do-it-yourself "mental health" office and he knew nothingabout weight management or bariatric counseling. However, he didconfirm that I did not have the tendency to maim small children andit was unlikely I would become an ax murderer. What a relief tolearn that. I was approved for surgery.

We went to San Diego and met the surgeon andstaff on Friday and I had surgery on Monday. I dont recall muchabout that day. I remember feeling embarrassed lying on thepreparation table, my enormous belly exposed for cleansing by astranger. I remember feeling frightened, but calm with a totalacceptance that gastric bypass surgery was the best decision forme. I remember the anesthesiologist, a beautiful woman, not veryold and not very big.

Then I went to sleep.

I woke up puking violently, an unpleasantreaction to anesthesia. I didnt have my glasses so things wereblurry, particularly the flowers from my husband. And I canremember a push-button device that helped me sleep. Later thatnight I realized I was not yet smaller. In fact my stomach wasbloated and sore. In my drug induced confusion I was convinced thesurgeon had mistakenly done the wrong operation because I wasgetting bigger, not smaller.

The day after surgery my surgeon visited me,taught me to drink tiny sips of water from a paper cup much like asacrament cup. He patted my hand and told me I was going to do justfine. I remember walking around the hospital hallway. I remember afemale nurse bathing me. I remember a very good-looking male nurse:he didnt bathe me. I remember drinking some nasty liquid chalk andgetting an X-ray to confirm my stomach had been whacked, stapledand bypassed. I remember the super-sized wheel chair and beingembarrassed that I fit in it snugly.

I remember being discharged from the hospitalto spend the next several days in a motel room because we hadtraveled a great distance for my last resort surgery. I watchedMame on TV several times. The sofa at the motor lodge wasscratchy. My husband and I went on outings each day, little drivesaround a strange town. He emptied my surgical drain for me. Ithought it was disgusting.

On Thursday of the second week Leslie, thedarling nurse and counselor, herself a WLS patient, removed mydrain. Finally, we could go home. She asked me the Four Rules and Irepeated them to her. She told me, Take advantage of this windowof opportunity. Learn everything you can. If you dont learn earlyto follow the rules and take care of yourself you can regain thisweight.

Starry eyed and hopeful we packed ourselvesin the car and headed for home. Almost 1,500 miles later we pulledinto the driveway of home sweet home. My fabulous husband said tome, Welcome to your new life You Have Arrived.

And I was all alone, 1,500 miles from help.All my consults were done by telephone so I had to find my own way.My information binder was a constant companion and I followed theFour Rules without waver. By late 2000 I was at my low weight andthrilled. I was also exhausted and slept nearly that whole summer.The trauma of surgery and massive weight loss had exhausted mysystem. My emotions were out of control too. Ive since learnedthat because estrogen is stored in fat cells that when fat is lostquickly estrogen levels become imbalanced. On my one-yearArrivalversary we returned to San Diego where my centerproclaimed me a success.

Year two was a whirl for me. No longer ableto binge on food I binged on clothes. Never having shopped at thelittle people stores I was drunk over shoes and skirts and slacksand handbags. I can recall crying: crying like a baby, when I couldtry things on and they fit and I looked good. I also rememberseeing my reflection and wondering, Who is that? It was also inthe second year that my husband took hundreds of pictures of me. Iwasnt afraid of the camera any longer.

With my confidence in place year threebrought a testing of the rules and I made love to my first sliderfood: graham crackers and coffee after work. Lots of grahamcrackers and coffee. As you can guess I gained some weight back, acouple of pounds at first. It was easy to ignore because this wasmy strongest year of physical fitness so I just figured it wasmuscle weight.

By year four I was sick of being all aboutweight loss surgery and just wanted to be normal again withoutworrying about every bite, every calorie and every protein gram. Istopped talking about weight loss surgery and left my online groupsso I could be normal. When year five arrived I was a normal 20pounds overweight and really disgusted with myself. Why did I gothrough weight loss surgery and cosmetic reconstruction just togain weight? It was also during this time LivingAfterWLS wasevolving first with a blog followed by a website and eventually TheNeighborhood.

I came to a calm realization in year six thatI will always have the disease of morbid obesity and it is myresponsibility to keep it in remission with diet, exercise andself-nurturing. I also learned that a back-to-basics approach wasneeded and began experimenting with what became the 5 Day PouchTest.

The publication of this book marks my 10-yearArrivalversary. Im fighting that wicked back-n-forth 20 poundsagain but I vow that no matter what the scale says, no matter whatsize my jeans are, I will every day Stop for a moment and lookwhere I am: I Have Arrived.

This book is a celebration of the past 10years and a collection of information that I have learned throughpersonal experience and learned from others. Six of the last tenyears I have been dedicated to working with my fellow surgicalweight loss patients. In a selfish way, I have learned more fromyou than you shall ever learn from me. There is a profoundcompassion amongst us. Sadly, obesity continues to be a disease ofshame subject to moral judgment. We did this to ourselves, right?Wrong. Eat less, move more. Ive heard that too many times tocount.