My Gastric Sleeve

Medication Side Effects and Weight Loss Surgery

 
"These will make you drowsy," the pharmacy tech warned me as she handed me my new prescription.

"Thanks," I said half-heartedly, tucking the amber-colored bottle of green pills into my purse. I knew the pills wouldn't make me drowsy. For one thing, I was in the middle of a massive manic episode. For another, I knew from past experience that I could take medications in doses large enough to anesthetize a pony and remain wide awake.

I got home, turned on my computer for a writing session, and casually took a couple of the green pills, per doctor's orders. Then I started working on an article about teenagers and self-esteem. About half an hour later, I realized I was having trouble getting my fingers to strike the right keys. In fact, I was producing gibberish.

My eyelids were getting heavy, too, and when I stood up and took a few steps, I stumbled over my own feet and almost fell. Somehow, I staggered to my bedroom where I flopped across the bed like a fainting heroine in a Victorian melodrama. I slept for five hours. Drowsy, indeed!

When I awoke, still a little groggy, I put together what had happened. My body mass has decreased by more than 50 pounds. It was only logical that medications would affect me more now that they did when I weighed over 300 pounds.

Thank goodness I hadn't taken the first dose of the medication while I was driving!

Next time I see my doctor, I plan to review my medications with her to make sure the dosages I'm taking are still appropriate for my new, slimmer body. In the meantime, I am definitely treating those green pills with a lot more respect.

Have you noticed a difference in the way your body responds to medication?

Current Writing Projects

My new book Hospice Tails: The Animal Companions Who Journey with Hospice Patients and Their Families was released in June, 2011. It's a collection of stories about hospice patients and their pets, based on my years as a hospice social worker. So far, the book has garnered great reviews. My favorite came from a friend who told me, "I laughed just as hard as I cried."   

Learning to Eat Slowly

 
For most of my adult life, I've been a "gulper." That means that if you put food in front of me, I'll consume it in approximately 2.6 seconds and look around for more.

In all honesty, I blame part of that tendency on my job. Social work can be a pretty crisis-driven field. If it's near lunchtime, and you find yourself with three spare minutes to eat, you thank whatever deity you happen to believe in, if any, wash down whatever food is available with a Diet Coke, and rush back into the fray.

But my job is only part of the problem. The other part is all me. I really enjoy food, and if something tastes good to me, my instinct is to eat it fast and rush back for seconds, or thirds, or fourths...

Exercise? Not Me!

Back when I had my weight loss surgery, there was no question of me exercising. It was all I could do to drag my 300+ pound frame out of bed every day and force it through the activities basic to sustaining life.

Almost six months out from the surgery, that has all changed. I'm still nowhere near what people would call svelte, but I can move without the incapacitating pain and shortness of breath that once plagued me.

Furthermore, my doctors and friends have been encouraging me to exercise. There's just one little problem--I hate exercise! I can't hear the word without thinking of super-toned size-two teenagers in spandex racing along on their little elliptical machines or pretzeling themselves into a million different yoga positions.

Ick. That is so completely not me. So, I've given up on the idea of club memberships and treadmills. What I focus on now is moving my body, both for pleasure and for secondary gain.

So far, I've found at least five pleasant ways to move my body without the horrible connotation of exercise.