Caretaking
We single people have to help each other, especially when one of us is sick or has surgery. A friend of mine had a gastric bypass last week. That’s an elective surgery, but she felt it was necessary and I supported her. She has diabetes, high blood pressure and bad sleep apnea. She did a sleep study earlier this year and they stopped it because she stopped breathing fifty-six times in one hour! She’s claustrophobic and couldn’t get used to the mask of the breathing machine. I checked on her every morning from February until I moved up to Munds Park in May. We usually read the paper together and have tea and coffee. If she didn’t call me, I was worried she had expired from SADS (Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.) Many people she knew had gotten rid of all three conditions by having the bypass. So she did it for health, not her looks.
Her son, among others, couldn’t figure out why she was taking such drastic means. Why couldn’t she just lose weight on her own?
She’d tried: twenty years of seeing a fat doctor and getting weekly B12 shots, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc. You name it, she, tried it. The weight always came back. She calls her weight “super glue fat” because it refuses to let go.
The month leading up to her surgery she gained fourteen pounds by simply not monitoring what she ate. She had to go on a liquid diet the week before surgery and lost five pounds.
I took her to the hospital early and the surgery went well. All of this doctor’s patients go to ICU after recovery. I thought the care would be outstanding but I was wrong. I was the one who disconnected her many attachments and accompanied her on her mandatory hourly walks. I’m sure if you’ve had a loved one seriously ill in the hospital in the last ten years, you know that a friend or family member needs to be there to make sure care is delivered.
My friend looked healthy right after her surgery, but then she has rosacea. She’s an assertive person, but refused to make a fuss. She had major water retention but they sent her home at 8:30 pm on Sunday night, of which she was delighted. She had to have oxygen. It was quite challenging for me to set up the condenser and all the paraphernalia as I am mechanically deficient. I gave her pain med and she slept all night first time in years.
She was still on a liquid diet so I stayed on one too, in solidarity, although I do admit to eating ice cream bars when I went across the way to my house.
The next morning we looked for medication instructions. The hospital ha d insisted that the doctor had given them to her in an appointment the week before. When she called the surgeon’s office, the nurse said she would email the instructions but never did.
We took our dogs for a walk and she pointed out to me that her belly looked nine months pregnant. I suggested she weigh herself. We were both shocked that she’d gained twenty pounds! I’d never heard of anyone gaining weight after bypass surgery. I know she stayed on her liquid diet since there was nothing else in the house. How could this be?
As a former nurse, she explained to me fancy terms for water retention. She took a diuretic, but only lost five pounds. A friend, who had the surgery and lost and kept off two hundred pounds, came over. She was shocked at my friend’s water retention. We took pictures of her feet. Her poor little toes looked like sausages.
The good news is that she no longer has to take medications for high blood pressure or diabetes. As of this writing, a week after surgery, she still is seven pounds heavier than when she went in for the operation. It must be that superglue fat refusing to give up.
