The seed of bariatric surgery was kindly planted in my mind
A little bit of background
A quick background to bring you up to speed on how I found myself having the suggestion of speaking with a bariatric specialist made to me. My first blog post- welcome dear reader, my hope for this blog is to have this stuff out of my head and into print. My search for information online to help and assist with the decision I needed to make about going for bariatric surgery didn't find blogs to read. An abundance of videos on TikTok, a ton of groups of varying helpfulness (or not) on Facebook and lots of folk to follow on Instagram. What I wanted to do was read the account of others in my situation, or at least in similar situations, having to make this decision to change their life and what that is actually like - warts "n" all.
So here we are, I began documenting my journey immediately after that conversation with my incredibly lovely knee specialist on 27th June 2023 - it's September now and I'm less than 3 weeks away from surgery so there is a lot to catch up on!
My story began as a child, I had an issue with my left knee when I was a child and ever since. I've also been overweight to varying degrees since my teenage years. Not the best of combinations really, and I found myself at the beginning of 2022 needing physio on my right knee. It had taken the pressure for most of my life and was really fed up by this point and was causing an awful lot of pain. My physio is great and really helpful and together we have built the strength back up in that knee and done a lot of work in restoring the balance between left and right. Fast forward to November 11th and I got stuck in a ton of traffic on the M1 returning from the West Midlands, it was that stop-start traffic which meant a lot of time with my left foot on the clutch pedal. My left knee was so painful when I got home and that pain has never left. My physio thought I was having a meniscal flare up and it should resolve in a few weeks, but it never did. What I know now, is that flare up was probably the start of a meniscal tear caused by degenerative changes to my left knee through osteoarthritis. I completed jury service in January 2023 and was in so much pain I cried with it every day. I banged my knee one day on my car, x-rays showed no damage and I was left to it. It wasn't a good time, jury service involves so much walking (who knew!) and I was in so much pain. I had a cortisone injection in May which did help a little with the swelling, but that was it. My gp sent me for an ultrasound too, it showed nothing at all wrong so I eventually ended up with the knee specialists who ordered an MRI to see just what was going on. My specialist is lovely and did not reference the weight my poor knee was having to carry once. I did, and he politely suggested that losing weight would definitely be of benefit, but lets find out exactly what's going on...
27th June - MRI results day
I was really quite excited to get my results, odd I know but I was keen for answers to understand what this pain was and how I could set about fixing it. Between the MRI and results day, I'd been in Ireland when I'd experienced the most bizarre snapping sensation in the side of my knee while putting on a pair of leggings! It felt like something had really gone, I was in another country on my own and it scared me to death! I'd had 2 more episodes like this, but slightly less dramatic afterwards too. I was expecting the doc would tell me I had a meniscal tear, and probably the snapping sensation was more of that too.
Indeed I had a tear and from my description of the snapping, doc thought it had probably all now torn. At least there would be no more of those snapping incidents! From the MRI before this, it was apparent that the damage would not be able to be fixed surgically. Add into that moderate arthritis to my inner knee, significant arthritis under my kneecap and at the very least, my pain and inflammation had a reason that I could understand. My only option was a knee replacement. Which also wasn't an option as, according to the lovely knee specialist, I was too young. I was seriously expecting too fat, but bless him, he told me I was too young and why that would be. It made sense completely and I bought the reason 100%. Since that point I've discovered I'm not too young but I thank him each day for his kindness.
He did suggest that a chat with a bariatric specialist might be useful, and he would write to my gp asking for a referral. At that moment the suggestion waved over me but didn't sink in. Until I got back to my car in the hospital car park where I sat a full 45 minutes howling into my phone camera about how I had completely failed myself. I videoed this, one day I may be in a good enough place to publish it, but it's a deeply personal rant at myself for being such a failure. There was NO WAY I was having bariatric surgery, I could do this myself, what was wrong with me... I needed this knee to last me at least another 9 years and I'd got to this point in under 9 months. I was kidding myself that being this size was ok, despite my regular swimming and lots of walking before the pain began. In reality I hadn't swam since December and I could barely walk without crutches, I couldn't stand for any length of time and had to face the fact that I was disabled. I'd also had a random collapse of my knee at the beginning of March and managed to fracture a rib with my own elbow! It was time to get real.
I was offered a PRP injection which I had pretty quickly, it's helping with inflammation but the pain.... yep, it's real and I had to do something very different this time, or face the reality of needing to pack up my home and move somewhere else. Or actually the reality of that is much worse - watch someone else pack up my home cause I can't do it. I live in a 2nd floor apartment without lifts, so need to use the stairs to get up and down. The thought of not being able to do that was enough to get me thinking... and researching... and making some huge life decisions.
June 27th 2023 - the day my life changed through the medium of snotty tears and giving myself the biggest rollocking ever.