*This is a continuation of Part One of Rebecca’s weight loss journey through gastric bypass.
Part Two
The first time I met with Rebecca we met at Zocalo Coffee Shop a few exits from where I live. I love meeting friends and collaborators there because the place just oozes art and creativity, and as an added bonus, my kids can tag along. A side effect of being an attachment parent is that my children are quite attached to me, and Celaya especially is relentless about coming along whenever possible. I don’t mind so much because there’s a nice little play area that keeps both Celaya and Matilda entertained while I talk shop or visit.
The second time I visited Rebecca at her house, so my kids stayed home. I certainly did not expect a woman who had recently undergone surgery and had been in and out of the hospital ever since to hop on down to the local cafe and catch me up on her status while my children tugged on my skirt.
In reality, I likely could have asked Rebecca to meet me. The woman is a nonstop energy machine. She had the surgery August 22, 2017, and since that time barely two months ago she has been packing up the house she lives in, which is in her mother’s estate and now being sold. She’s packed moving boxes, gone camping!, and made it out to her teenage son’s baseball games on weekends.
Leave it to a woman, a mother especially, to not know how to just sit the hell down and recuperate.
Rebecca’s House
I had been to Rebecca’s house years before, and it was exactly as I remembered it, tucked away in the hills, with winding concrete steps surrounded by wild plants. I hope she is able to find another place that suits her so well once this house sells. Rebecca told me once that she had dabbled a bit in Wicca before she became a buddhist, and when you walk up those steps, you do indeed expect to see herb pots with eye of newt and tongue of dog.
Okay, maybe not tongue of dog. Rebecca and her family are big dog lovers. And I don’t just mean they love dogs in a big way; I mean they love big dogs in a big way.
I rang the doorbell, and Rebecca made her way to the door from the other side. We hugged, and as soon as I walked in I was greeted by four (FOUR!) gigantic wolves. She says they’re two Husky Wolves, one Husky Malamute, and one Siberian Husky. But they looked like gigantic wolves to me.
They were all adorable, soft and furry, incredibly friendly, and, like every other thigh high dog, deeply interested in crotches.
After they settled down, Rebecca and I did too. I met her husband, Floyd, for the second time, and I met her youngest son, Ben, for the first time. She and I sat on opposite sides of her couch, surrounded by packing boxes (and dogs), and caught up.
“So, tell me. I’ve been seeing you in and out of the hospital all over Facebook. What’s going on?” I ask.
“I’m just trying to adjust to this new way of life. I haven’t learned yet how to keep myself hydrated.” She says.
Post Op
After the surgery, Rebecca remained in the hospital for about 48 hours, a day longer than most people, because her system wasn’t adjusting well.
After that initial stay, she checked out, headed home, and got started on her new life.
She has to eat small (very small) meals throughout the day, one cup of soup, for example. She also has to drink lots of water, but in super small amounts. She needs to be drinking small sips intermittently all day and night long. Her stomach is tiny now; she also just had surgery, so she has to keep herself fueled and hydrated to recover well, but she can only take in so much at a time.
48 hours after she got home from the hospital, she started vomiting non stop, like when you have the flu. Then the diarrhea started. She waited about 14 hours before heading into the hospital.
“14 hours Rebecca!?” I couldn’t believe it. Here this woman had just had surgery that cut her stomach more than in half and she doesn’t want to me a big wimp and go to the hospital to complain.
“No. I thought I could ride it out.” She says casually.
She finally broke down and went in when the vomiting simply would not stop; she knew there was no way she could keep the fluids in her body she needed to stay hydrated.
The hospital pumped her full of fluids, kept her for 3 more days, and sent her on her merry way, admonishing her to stay hydrated.
She Tried
But a couple of days later she was back in the hospital after a repeat experience. This time her stay was shorter.
A few days after coming home from the hospital the second time, she and her family and friends packed up and went camping. Rebecca is the type of woman who is not going to let a little thing like major stomach surgery and a complete overhaul in her lifestyle stop her from living her life.
But, the second day at the campsite, the symptoms knocked her down again. She headed in to the local hospital where they pumped her full of fluids once again. Did she head home that night?
Of course not!
She went back to the campsite, did the best she could to enjoy her evening, and headed home the next day, Sunday.
On Monday, she checked in with her doctor, who sent her right back to the hospital.
They ran tests, including a CT scan, to see what was dehydrating her so quickly and continuously.
Perfect Storm
It seems what is making it really difficult for Rebecca is a combination of the surgery and the diabetes she was already carrying around in her body beforehand. She gets dehydrated, her blood sugar shoots up, then she can’t get enough fluid in her body to rehydrate because the diabetes is contributing to the complications.
The good news is, by all accounts, her stitches look good, and despite all the vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, and high blood sugar, she is healing nicely. Talk about a survivor.
She has since been in the hospital another handful of times, once to get a scan of her upper gastrointestinal tract. At this point, it seems, she just has to keep trying new combinations of food, water, exercise, and rest. I think of all the elements involved, rest will be the one Rebecca struggles with most.
Life Changes
“So?” I ask, after she fills me in on all the gory details. “Aside from all the crazy hospital trips, how do you feel? What has changed? What is the same?”
She leans forward, looks me dead in the eye, and, shaking her head, says in a serious tone, “everything has changed. Nothing is the same.”
Rebecca definitely knew what she was getting into. She performed extensive research into gastric bypass surgery; she attended seminars. She knew what to expect. But I think it’s like having a child. You see it, you read about it, you might even babysit.
Nothing prepares you for the reality.
I asked her husband, who had been sitting at their front of the house office working on the computer while his wife and I chatted: “How about you, Floyd? How are you feeling though all this?”
A short, lean, compact man with dark brown skin, Floyd swivels around in his chair to face me and looks over his rimmed glasses: “Oh, our lives are completely upside down now. We’re relearning everything. I have to learn how to be a supportive husband, how to give her what she needs. I’ve failed. I know I’ve failed. I have no idea what I’m doing. But I’ll do better. I will. I’m learning. I want to help her, and that means changes for all of us, not just her. I can’t sit and eat a cheeseburger and fries while she has a cup of chicken broth with one carrot in it. I’m figuring it all out still. I’ll do better.”
Success
More than 20 years they’ve been together, three children, ups and down and ins and outs, and he’s in earnest. He wants her to succeed, and he acknowledges what a major role he has to play in that success.
Rebecca and Floyd go for nightly half mile walks on the hill where they live. Their diets have been overhauled, he trying to match her dietary restrictions with a few of his own. They are working toward changing their way of life, food, exercise, support (now he’s supporting her in ways in which she used to support him, like meal preparation and housecleaning).
Rebecca has already lost 43 pounds, and she doesn’t regret the surgery. Sure, sometimes she feels sick; often, when she eats, just one bite too much will push her food back up her throat: “you know, like how a baby spits up? It’s like that.” She shrugs, again, quite casually. No big deal.
Sometimes her body hurts all over. Her knee and ankle still bother her, of course. But it’s coming together. She figuring it all out. She will succeed. She will succeed because she wants to. She will go back to the hospital and adjust her diet; she will slap on her knee brace and march up the hill and back down; she will carry a water bottle around for small sips of water. And she will succeed.
Her family is behind her, her friends love and support her, and she’s got a will I recognize because I’ve seen it in every other strong woman I’ve ever met.
Rebecca will be the hero of her own story.
Post Script
*I will check in with Rebecca again after the holidays to see how she weathered them, and I will post part three here then. You can subscribe to the site to be sure you get regular updates when new stories go up.
**In the meantime, we will be posting mini updates on our Facebook group, femme unfiltered. If you are interested in following her story, or joining the growing group of women who inspire each other in our group, you can request to join, and I will happily add you to the tribe.