Surgery Update--Bye, Alfred!

Today, March 31, 2016 I had my gastric neurostimulator removed. I affectionate a named him Alfred after the butler in Batman figuring he would be my right hand man. Instead, Alfred didn't really help me at all. 

Alfred was placed August 2014 in the hopes of blocking the signal of nausea to my brain which, in turn, would cause less vomiting, which in turn would help me eat more. It didn't. I went into surgery weight around 177lbs. By the time I was entering my most recent crisis on March 1, 2016 I had dropped to 165lbs. Today before surgery began to removed Alfred, I had dropped to 155lbs. Clearly my right hand man had fallen asleep on the job. 

It's always a difficult discion to have a device implanted in you--it's a foreign object, hello!--but it's just as difficult to decide to remove it, even when it hasn't helped you in well over a year. The reason for this is that you feel like a failure. 

You've failed Reglan

You've failed Domperidone. 

Linzess isn't exactly working right either. 

And now you've failed the gastric neurostimulator. 

Internally you know you have ZERO control over it, but it's a blow to the ego, the psyche, your morale. You just want your life back, to work, to have a hamburger...but now you just don't know what to do. 

I know that I just need to keep pressing on. Trusting the process and doing my part by consuming what nutrition I can handle at this point to keep my body running. It's not easy...! But I know that's what I have to do. 

Boost is disgusting and the Boost Breezes are SOOO sickeningly sweet they're hard to drink. Ensure Clear are good, so I try and drink those. But Instant Breakfast in the bottle have a higher vitamin and protein count than Boost or Ensure, so I've been drinking that more. I recommend Ensure Clear and Instant Breatast in the bottle, they taste good. 

I hope that NOBODY has to go through this kind of nonsense. It's not easy and it's not fun. But for those that do, I'm here for you and we all have each other.