Honey, Who Shrunk The Honey?

One year ago today, my wife Eva underwent bariatric surgery.

What a year it has been.

The positives first. She's gone from being highly insulin dependant to control her diabetes to taking a pill to prevent it. That change, by the way, was essentially immediate.  It may not have lengthened her life, but it lengthened her healthy life considerably.

Her hormones have largely stabilized. This means, in turn, that

• she no longer suffers from hyperhydrosis (layman term: sweats like a pig for no discernible reason)
• related: her temperature control, for the time being, at least, is much closer to that of a normal human woman. In other words, she gets cold. For the first time in her adult life. Last week she actually apologized to me, saying "if what I'm feeling right now is anything like what I've been putting you through for the last fifteen winters, I am deeply, deeply sorry"
• She no longer suffers from PMS--which she did, even after a hysterectomy, because the P didn't stand for 'pre' or 'post' but 'permanent'
• I want to double down on that last one. Ken no longer needs to walk on eggshells
• Her sleep patterns are much better than they were
• She's happier

She has an absolute boatload more energy. Now, Eva at her fattest was the fittest fat person you'd never expect to meet: she could bench press me, for one thing. But her knees have been terrible for most of her life, thanks to an adolescent bout with Osgood-Schlatter disease (and she was one of the ten percent of people whose symptoms persisted despite surgical measures being taken). Her knees are still stiff on occasion but her mobility is greatly improved. 

A consequence of her surgery--well, something she had to complete well ahead of the surgery--was her finally quitting smoking, for good. (Smoking even one cigarette now would almost certainly cause unbearable pain and lead to death within hours, if not minutes).  Since cigarettes were her constant companions almost without interruption for twenty seven years, you have to count leaving them behind as a huge win.

Her portion size, of course, has radically decreased. After a year, it's maybe a couple of titches below what people are "supposed" to eat. That's better than I thought it might be...for some reason I figured she'd be stuck eating meals out of eye droppers for life. Okay. small exaggeration, but not really. 

She's also been incredibly lucky in what she's been able to eat.  We were told at the beginning of the long process that culminated in her surgery that caffeine, carbonated beverages, and alcohol were all definitely out, and a whole host of foods would likely cause problems, among them red meats, rice, starches and sweets. What we've found is that she can, with occasional, unpredictable exceptions, eat a tiny bit of almost anything--and furthermore that the caffeine prohibition doesn't seem to apply to her.

Her clothing styles have changed. Back when she was Eva-squared, there was exactly one store to shop at (Pennington's)...and most of what was in there was crap. As some of my readers are acutely aware, "fat" and "fashion" are, for some reason, antonyms. Most of the selection is either hideous floral prints your great-grandma would come back to life to take off...or it's made out of material guaranteed to overheat the wearer within minutes. Her clothing used to be almost entirely one solid colour, usually black, sometimes white or red, very rarely anything else. Patterns were anathema to her.

Big change.

Today, after two full wardrobe replacements, she can shop pretty much anywhere and buy pretty much anything. And she does. Her clothing has rainbowed and complexified in a way I'm not sure she ever imagined it would, and she looks fantastic.

I mean...doesn't she?

Before

After

It actually took her own mother a bit to recognize her. 

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It hasn't been all fun and games. Eva was one of seven percent of bariatric patients who came down with an ulcer, which actually has recurred. And to this day she's never sure what's going to cause her extreme discomfort, food-wise. Sometimes red meat is fine, sometimes it's not. Sometimes rice is an issue, sometimes not. Even cold water can hurt her, momentarily. And there are certain "no-go" foods we've discovered, among them some things that she used to love. Chocolate's a big one. So is grape juice. The intestinal lining around this particular dark cloud is that she knows almost instantly when she has eaten something wrong, and the pain lasts at most ten or fifteen minutes. 

As I mentioned on our cruise, Eva suffered from seasickness for the first time ever in her life or imagination. That's because her centre of gravity has markedly changed. Having lost nearly half of her body weight has absolutely buggered her sense of equilibrium. That should abate over time, but as it turns out, one year of a new way of moving can't completely eradicate most of a lifetime of moving the old way.

And there are still what I call psychological fat pockets. This, too, is to be expected: external weight can melt off, but it takes considerably longer for it to slough off internally. Eva will still, on occasion, select a pair of pants, say, that fits her just fine or might even be too big for her (she's still losing weight, albeit slowly) and look at me and say "I can't possibly fit into this." The first time she did this, I thought she might be joking, or even "humblebragging"...but she wasn't and isn't. On some level, at certain times, she's still convinced despite all appearances that she is Eva-squared.  Time will eliminate this, too, I'm sure.

This is a positive that I insist on viewing negatively: people treat her differently now. Not everyone, to be sure: friends and co-workers always loved her and still do. But strangers treat her better--which is great, of course--but, well, you know how I am. I don't understand why they didn't treat her as well before. Because Eva hasn't changed...she's only grown, even as she's shrunk. All the things that made her Eva are still there, she hasn't lost a single one of them. I'm forever being reminded that people's perceptions of the world are often far too shallow. 

Anyway.

Despite some drawbacks--both fewer and smaller than she was prepared to accept--Eva and I agree the overall result of this surgery has been overwhelmingly beneficial. I could not possibly be more proud of my wife. I was in awe of her before, I'm even more so now. 

I love you, love. Lots and lots and lots again.