Three Years in Three posts

I thought to see how far I had come I would look at my op day, and each of the anniversaries since. All of this is captured on line (with the bits in between at  http://kenclare.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, September 04, 2002 The day I had my op.

Chits

It came too me in the night as a blinding flash, they are what we need in t=
he NHS, their reintroduction could solve 99% of ills.For those who dont kno=
w a chit is a piece of paper, signed by someone in authority, which has mag=
ical powers. When I trained as a nurse in the late seventies they were the =
lifeblood of the hospital. Produced from a simple numbered duplicate book =
with a piece of carbon paper they were the open sesame to a world. Armed wi=
th a chit you could queue in central stores for hours. Your chit would be c=
losely examined by an exmilitary man with a tash, a long brown coat and a =
pencil behind his ears, he would frown look you up and down and dissapear i=
nto the netherworld "round the back" He would emerge from round the back s=
ome time later with the goods, A chit could get you anything........woodbin=
es, patients for the use of, or guinness or even mackesons. A chit got me a=
three piece suit once, and 30 sausage rolls. The best chit of all was one =
requesting a blank book of chits, armed with this golden ticket you could g=
et a book for yourself and have hours of fun. I think they may have stopped=
them because they were open to abuse. I think they tried to replace em wit=
h the reqqy or even new fangled computer systems. Eric Chitty was for me th=
e chit-meister general, he loved them so much he changed his name to honour=
them. He found stardom in later life as the old bloke in please sir, A cla=
ssroom based 70's sitcom.
Chits, gawd bless 'em c'mon alan mliburn, we are all chitless here put it r=
ight, lets get central control back properly in this system. Can I be the c=
hit czar please?=20
If anybody is still reading this please let me know. =20

Disclaimer

anything written in the next 48 hours or so is completely deniable and will=
be attributed to lack of food, sleep excess drugs or post op psychosis - y=
ou have been warned. The computer I am using (known as jornada) had flat ba=
tteries this morning, i probably left it switched on but there is a nigglin=
g doubt that the night guards made merry on it all night. Any way i had a p=
oor nights sleep and had plenty of time to spout material for this blog and=
the first 7 volumes of my autobiography.I'll see if I can preserve some of=
the less bizarre stuff for posterity here.

looks like i'm not going to theattre till 4 or 5. anaesthetist says there i=
s a bed in ITU. and my new bigboy bed has arrived at the ward. jean has bee=
n in and gone off to see her mate in ot over in the main building. Mr kerri=
gan has been in and I told him I'd put together a website for the service f=
or him. He introduced me to Jeff a fine character who had the op last june =
and has gone from 32 to 14 stone. He was a great bloke and it was really go=
od to get the user perspective on it. I feel so much better after talking =
to him. He said the first few days are terrible but keep foccussed. He also=
summed the difficulties of being obese in 4 great sentences, and pointed o=
ut how they had changed now. He showed me his belly and told me he is off f=
or some cosmetic surgery later in the year.

Probably my last posting for a while - who knows how long, hopefully jean a=
nd ally will keep you informed. Visitors welcome after tomorrow. Jeff has j=
ust been in to see me and jean. It was great to be able to speak to someon=
e who knew exactly what i was going through. Catch you later. =20

5.30 and still on the ward. The laterit gets the less I feel like its going=
to happen. It cant be cancelled again can it?

Ally's news update live from the Clare household

21:18 in theatre now- wonder when he is going to get out

Thursday, September 05, 2002

:-) Dad out of theatre at 23:30 4/09/02 he is fine on a drip and oxygen for a bit he is groggy :-( and tired |-(zzzzzzzz so not the bst mood natch bye bye night night

Friday

Wale up in the Leofric strange gaff. Only two coffee sachets, they soon go. off for breakfast coffee machine is broke so its jugs. Smoked haddock so the lady feels bound to tell me of her time as a fish gutter. No need honest. Leave the hotel engage the ring road again. not pleasant but find the Conference venue. get there in the end quite pleasnt. Sign in delegate pack and off to the liason desk to find a gaff for presentation writing purposes. Find same and set up base camp. Goes well, finds lady who is faint who first aid staff bring in here. Turns out it is the green room type space. Meet a couple of speakers. Finish presentation eventually. Give it to Brenda the manager. HAve a look at the conference exhibition a place I dont enjoy. Go to lunch have salmon, and pasta and a bit of chicken. Meet three docs ok in parts I guess. They notice I am a speaker hear what I am talking about then dont come. Lunch lays heavy - nerves? Then over to the arts centre for the gig. The first speaker doesnt turn up so it all gets a bit fraught. Goes well though my obesity ad goes on a bit I enjoyed it thought lights and radio mikes aint for me. Leave coventry at 3 arrive Hilton park 5.30 due to queues and a grass fire. Chicken soup and a pancake in Little Chef. Drive home phone calls and a load of yes on the way. Top stuff straight to Beas then home good to be back.

Sunday

Up early and off to buy hoover bags decide the old model is pooped and get a new one from tesco old swan. 35 notes. Good move. Back home and a few things sorted. Family arrive lunch a little late but goes down well indoor barbeque. Me ana Ally trot off to Tesco express for fishy treats. Back home and eat em.
Did a couple of posts on wlsinfo - I thought I would share em here
Well two years crept up on me - two years ago at this very hour I was in a theatre having an open Roux-en-Y. I was 34 stone not expecting to either a) wake up, and in the unlikely event that I would b) Lose any weight. I had a turbulent immediate post op period, people have had far worse than me since but at the time it was poop. To be told at 29 stone that you were experiencing hallucinations due to starvation was weird. The site essentially arose as a diversion from vomitting. I had a gastroscopy in Jan 2003 and things went great from there on in. Weight loss wise and health wise I went great. In May that year I went high, quite literally followed by a depressive episode in the December confirmed my diagnosis of Bi-polar affective disorder.
In between all that the site won an award at the NOF and I was nominated for and won the RCN gastro nurse of the year. Weight loss continued in that first year until about 13months. Then stopped dead. I had sort of followed Janes protein thoughts. Ended up eating this high protein low carb low fat diet. I had become a gym monster and was chuffed when me, Jean, my surgeon and my trainer ran together in the 5k corporate cup in Liverpool. All good habits and I was doing well. Looking back at the time of the annual meet I was depressed but to meet again with old friends was great. So I started 2004 on mood stabilisers and was chugging along at work fine till the peritonitis struck in may. Adhesions due to my appendicectomy 20years ago led to an obstruction which near finished me off. Thats all sorted now, peritonitis and pneumonia knocked it out of me but the good physical shape I was in helped.
So here I am back to the gym this week looking back at 2 years in which I have lost loads, gained more, and shared with some of the best most sincere people that I have met.
3 years ago I was referred by the obesity clinic for cognitive behavioural therapy. At that time despite my confident middle manager jolly fat man appearance, I was instead feeling worthless, I believed I was a FLUB (fat lazy useless b******) It didn't help with my eating but made me convinced that positive action was the way. So I went looking for surgery, and found it.
A meeting with Hil(phantomlodge) led to me thinking setting this site up was a way forward.
The rest is well documented elsewhere on here.
So what have I lost
About 18 stone (dont know and dont care).
22 inches off my waist.
DLA
Blue badge
Ability to drink with meals
The real taste I had for fine malt whiskey.

What have I gained well this maybe a big list. Health
Better life expectancy
Better quality
Increased mobility - from less than 100 yards to miles.
Increased self esteem - the feeling of confidence and pride.
A network of friends across countries. Some of these friends have worried me several times peoples lives seemed at risk.
Support and encouragement from people on a no strings attached business.
A sense of helping people that has far eclipsed anything I ever felt in clinical nursing or management.
I started a project and sustained it ( a biggie for me - ask Jean, clare towers is full of half finished schemes)
National recognition
A real sense of pride.
Laffs some nights I have laffed till I have ached, ( sorry about the beast stories).
A blog.
A lot of knowledge, though the more I learn about surgery and its consequences I realise a)how little I know and b) how different each individuals experience is.
And loads more
So when I look back and I realise what this family been thro in the last 2 years and what we got to look forward to I do it with a sense of achievement and pride. A bloomin nice feelin for sure.
So good luck to all the people who travel this road with me - whether you are way along the road or just thinking about putting your foot on the road. I hope this place helps make he journey easier - it certainly has for us.
and this called champagne moments
When we return from holiday we always get asked what was the champagne moment? The bit that you will always remember- well this journey has produced a few for me and I thought I would like to share them.
Getting referred to weight management clinic.
Meeting the doc there and knowing from his eyes he really wanted to help me.
The nurses scurrying round underneath me to measure me waist.
The big comfy chair.
Him listening not judging.
Going to see the dietitian Karen Slevin - her telling me to eat more. (breakfast)
Her convincing me I wasnt lazy and making me feel less worthless.
Being listened to when I argued against getting put on Orlistat.
Going for cognitive behavioural therapy (Kay McBean) which gave me some interesting insights to how I got to 34 stone. Also helped me to decide on grasping life rather than lying back to die slowly through obesity.
Beng gobsmacked when I went armed for a fight about getting an op and the doc said well ken think its the surgical route for you.
Meeting Mr K being presented with hard facts and advised on an op didnt remember thought it was a Ross on Wye rang Lorraine his secretary next day.
Telling me mam and her crying for joy.
Last suppers boy I ate
More last supppers after being cancelled
Meeting Jeff Leach a post opper the day of my op
Going home.
The Mickey taking district nurses
Learning to walk 1 door at a time very slowly
clips out
the first weigh in
wiping me bum with ease
dryin me feet
going back to the gym
setting up the site with the challenge of learnin new skills
getting a gastroscopy and being a new man
meeting my first vbger
ditto dser
ditto bandster
going on holiday in york and doing tourist things on foot.
feeling bones poking through
getting busier on the site
the gasps when I went back to work
100 members
the site was skint it owed us, we were skint I went to church and prayed and that night someone put a Cheque thro the door for a ton fifty
being in the local paper
setting up the nw support group
not forming a dam in the bath
standing up to pee in a pub
seeing me in a mirror and jumping with shock
getting a new smaller car
being interviewed on the wireless
throwing away my crutches
reducing anti inflammatorys/pain killers
snoring less
buying clothes in M&S
a shirt for a fiver in asda
saying no thanks in a restaurant
the mansfield meeting
Giving back DLA (even harder than getting it)
http://www.wlsinfo.org.uk/the_mansfield_seminar.htm

The dockers club http://www.wlsinfo.org.uk/rogues_gallery.htm

Fun running http://www.wlsinfo.org.uk/fun_runs.htm

National obesity forum being very proud http://www.wlsinfo.org.uk/nof.htm

Nurse of the year stuff http://www.wlsinfo.org.uk/nurse_2003_gig.htm

The chief medical officer of the UK askin me would I mind joining him for lunch
http://www.wlsinfo.org.uk/rcn_gastro_gig.htm

Dudley our first national meet  http://www.wlsinfo.org.uk/dudley.htm

going on a rollercoaster for the first time in me life http://www.wlsinfo.org.uk/images/btm1.jpg

Me and the sites birthday party in january http://www.wlsinfo.org.uk/birthday_2004.htm

seeing people shrinking before me eyes and looking healthier.
seeing people waiting ages on the NHS get done
people telling me I saved their life
someone giving me their last quid at NW support group and saying we needed it more than she.
Laffing at meself on the telly.
Seeing people who were on the last legs fit and well
seeing the miracle of people looking younger everytime you see them.
But most of all the friends old and new I have gained through this place
And the best thing is I have plenty more moments to come.
What are your moments from your journey.