there is a very simple explanation why nurses in our unit, even if they want to, will never ever think of having gastric bypass.

our hospital doesn’t do gastric bypass but post bypass patients with problems beyond comfortable reasons always seem to end up in our unit.

we steadily have one or two patients who had gastric bypass either a few months ago, or a few years ago. for one reason or another, most of them are messed up. some physically, some psychologically, mostly, both.

i had one patient a couple of weeks ago who had it done about three years ago. she lost over 250 pounds, and at approximately 100 pounds, with a height of 5 feet 4 inches, she was seriously messed up. she was admitted because she was severely dehydrated and said she has hasn’t gone to the bathroom for number 2 for almost a month. i guess one doesn’t have to be that smart to figure out why. even she knew why, but she said she just can’t make herself eat. she hasn’t eaten anything reasonable for days or even weeks. she told me she just didn’t have the appetite. no nausea or anything, just no appetite.

when i weighed her and she found out that she gained almost three pounds in the two weeks that she was in our unit, she was so upset her blood pressure went up to the 170s.

we had patients who have fistula everywhere, nonhealing dehisced wounds, all sorts of surgery complications, all of them depressed. and they keep on coming. one lady, who was so sick a few months after the surgery cried out to me once: “why do i have to be so stupid and suffer?”

there is an endless list of stories about messed up post gastric bypass patients. they all break our heart. and also, what happened to them scare the guts out of anybody who ever even thought or thinks about it.

it is an unreasonable fear i guess, because we all know there are more people who had  successful, positive experiences after losing weight with gastric bypass. the thing is, we never get to see those happy, slim, smiling, patients whose surgeries and recoveries went so well, they all get to recommend gastric bypass with full confidence.

are there gastric bypass patients who end up happy and satisfied after their surgery? i bet you there are thousands of them out there. we sometimes see them on tv, in the magazines, or we hear about them. unfortunately, in our unit, we never get to see, touch, or feel them, like we do everytime we get to see the other side. we don’t get to hear their success stories that often, but what we always see are faces of pains, emotionally and physically scarred by the same surgery that lifted others up.

it is true that there is a risk with ANY kind of surgery. to be afraid to go under the knife is a normal reasonable response. to be terrified of it is a result of seeing all the risks happening like they are very common. nurses see all those things, and sometimes, it makes us irrationally scared. such close encounters with reality obviously leads to undeniable fear.

that’s why i don’t think those nurses in our unit who have been talking about having it done for years now, will never have it done. they will keep talking about it, yes. but they will never have the guts. scared, like little kids. terrified, that’s what they are. but that’s just my opinion.

it could also be the reason why i didn’t get the flu shot. but that’s another story. for another time.

now, on to a totally unrelated topic…i am reading the book “The United States of Walmart”. this was published in 2005. i am so behind. i know. that’s because i’m lazy and random, and i just pick any available book from the library. i pick anything with a title that can potentially keep me awake on a slow night at work, like last night.

i’ve only done a few chapters, and already, i cannot settle down.

i mean, what do you do with informations like that?

do you keep buying from walmart because you think it is stupid to buy the same stuff from another store for a higher price? who cares about a store’s story?

or do you stop buying from walmart because you believe there is something wrong with it all and you will make a difference by not patronizing it? why shouldn’t you care about a store’s story?

what do you do with informations like that? it rankles in your soul, but it doesn’t reason with your brain.