Day 25 - Where Funnel Cakes Go to Die

When I first considered Bariatric surgery, I really had no idea what I was getting into. I Googled…a lot. I found that I could divide the pool of information I found into three groups: Clinical information about the various procedures, post-bariatric surgery stories and finally, lists of the scary things that supposedly no-one tells you about surgery. And this is where I stumbled upon a story about Al Roker who underwent Bariatric surgery in the early 2000’s and then sub-sequentially pooped himself while on assignment at the White House.  Apparently, he ate something that didn’t agree with him and he suffered the consequences. While this story made me chuckle (probably too much), it also served to instill a level of fear that hadn’t previously existed.

See, I love funnel cakes, but I only eat one per year when I visit the Christmas celebration at a local amusement park. Al Roker’s cautionary tale served as writing on the wall that there would be no fried powder-sugary heaven for me next Christmas, and it made me ask the question “was this worth it?”

I realized that bariatric surgery, while a powerful tool, wasn’t a magic bullet. After surgery, my hunger would be under control, but I still had a tremendous responsibility to make good choices in my diet.

Before I did my research, I thought that I could just eat less of what I currently enjoyed in my diet. But taking that path would be a huge disservice to my health, as my body would need to be more efficient than ever and each calorie would need to be a “good” calorie. And most importantly, having a digestive disaster at the local amusement park isn’t how I wanted to make memories.