the ugly side of WLS

A friend of mine from work had gastric bypass surgery several years ago.  She lost over 200 pounds and has kept it off.  She had problems with her kidneys and had the surgery because she knew she would not qualify for a kidney transplant as obese as she was.  Unfortunately she has suffered severe side effects from the surgery.  She is severely anemic and has to have some heavy duty shots once a month that has to be given at hospital, btw the shots cost upward of $1,000.  Of course her kidneys only got worse and with all the problems she had after the bypass she still doesn't qualify for a transplant.  Two weeks ago she went in to have a simple hernia surgery, of course with her health problems she had to do it inpatient.  I was told that she came back to work last week while I was gone and had gained over 20 pounds in fluids.  We found out Monday that she is back in the hospital in renal failure.  The funny thing about this, she is one of my biggest supporters when it comes to WLS.  She told me if she had it to do all over again she wouldn't have done it but she supports anyone who feels that need to take that step to be healthy.  I really need to go by and see her this weekend.  She is an amazing person and I really hope she is able to come back to work healthy.

Today has been a hard day for me.  I found out earlier today that my friend Kim's dog ran away last weekend, got the gate open somehow.  She wasn't going to tell me but someone asked her about it while she was at my desk.  I understand that not everyone treats their dogs like I do but I kind of felt sorry for the dog.  They left her outside all of time, she was never allowed in the house.  This is the friend that has a 2 year old so I am sure the dog didn't get the attention she deserved and as a border collie/aussie mix, she needed to be challenged and/or entertained or she would get into trouble.  I asked her if she looked on craigslist or facebook and she said that she hadn't.  I told her that I would post something on the Tulsa lost and found if she would send me a picture.  Of course she doesn't have a picture of her (I can't fathom that) and the poor girl didn't have any tags.  In the meantime she looked up the local shelter and found a picture of her on the website.  She had called the shelter everyday for 4 days and they said they didn't have her.  It also said on the site that she had been adopted out.  So Kim called the shelter pissed and starts crying over the phone, the lady at the shelter said just about everything I was thinking.  Of course that makes me cry and pisses me off because she has no idea what it is like to really lose a dog that you love, one that slept with you every night with its head on your shoulder.  Turns out that the people that found her had shaved her hair so the dog she was describing over the phone didn't match the description of the dog they had.  She didn't go to the shelter to look for her either.  I didn't go off on her, just kept the internal dialog to myself.  I know she feels like an idiot in hind site and the lady at the shelter really let her have it. 

Sorry for the rant.

On a positive note my weight is on the way down and I am starting to feel a little more in control of that aspect of my life.  When I weighed at the doctor I was up to 128.8, but that was an afternoon appointment.  This morning I am down to 122.  My first goal was 123, later changed to 112.  I will just be happy when I can wear my rings again. 

Next week, exercise....one step at a time.