Hello Everyone,

Here is my story, I am sure as we read each other’s profiles we see ourselves in them all....

I see pictures of me at the age of 5 and I was skinny as a rail. Boy do I cherish those pictures, chuckle, chuckle... We lived in the hills of WVA and at the time there was no work. My parents left the only home I knew and we also left my Grandparents and Aunt to whom I spent more time with than my Mom and Dad.
We moved to Kalamazoo, MI where my Mom had family. All I remember is being tormented as a child. Was it the red hair, the freckles, my gap in my front teeth or the black rimmed glasses? No I bet it was the southern accent. Boy did they love to tease about that. Food became my friend.

All through school I was heavy and of course couldn't wait to get home and eat. The ride on the bus was so terrible. Kids making fun of you. We had a little corner store that my parents would ask me from time to time to go get some bread or pop. I dreaded those trips and my parents didn't understand. My reluctance was due to the name-calling I would suffer walking there and back not that I didn't want to do it for them.

There were a few times I lost weight, by starving myself mostly. But that didn't last, as we all know.

I moved away when I was 18 and did pretty well for myself and with my diet. Then I met my future husband to whom had battled weight all his life. This is both good and bad. Good because he understood what I was going through, bad because he loves to eat as much as I do. I ended up getting Mono 6 months before my wedding. While I was in bed for 6 months I put on so much weight, the day of my wedding I almost didn't fit into my wedding dress. What horror!

Married at 20, had my son at 21 and started on a road of never ending diets and failures. I am a STRESS eater, it's just my life has been filled with stress, from one crisis after the other. I am not complaining as life experience makes you who you are but, with my husband not being able to keep a job it was one move, change and loss after the other.

There was one time in my life that I had my eating and weight under control. I was looking pretty good ya know! I was on top of the world. Had a great job where I was traveling and then.... I found out my loved one was having an affair and that destroyed me. How can one to whom felt they were THE BEST they could be, ever recover from being made to feel you were not good enough? You don't!

For the rest of the time I have stayed around 220 to 250, huge for my 5'3 frame. But last year my blood sugar went out of control and this was the first time my health started to fail. Had to go on high blood pressure meds also. I told myself I could get this under control as my father died from complications from being a diabetic.

Well I did, I lost 60lbs and my sugar was back to normal. All was going great until I had another family crisis with my Aunt and Grandmother. We lost my Grandmother and my Aunt survived open-heart surgery, barely. Not only did I put the 60 Lbs back on but much more. I now weight more than I ever had.

I just couldn't get the weight to budge this time no matter what I tried.

Have you ever watched Oprah and her talking about light bulb moments? I had one when we went to Florida/Cruise.

I LOVE the water. We had not been down to Florida in over 8 years. In February we bit the bullet and went down for a couple of days to enjoy the gulf side of Florida and then catch a cruise out of Tampa. Sound nice? NOT!

It was a nightmare. It started with me having a panic attack at the airport concerned they were going to charge me for an extra seat. Then afraid I would need the extender seat belt. They didn't and I fit :-)

When we went down to the beach I couldn't walk far without being out of breath. Did I sit on the beach (I love the beach, I could sit there for hours)? Not on your life!!! I would never get back up, and I was feeling so bad already.

When we got on the ship it was just as bad. I couldn't walk very far it was hot all the time. The only excursion we took was a bus tour and then I had a hard time getting in and out of the seats. I was mortified beyond belief. I love doing stuff.

Coming home we didn't get home until 5 hours later than we had to, as I didn't want to fly stand by and end up in the middle seat.

Well that was that. I came home and made an appointment to start the process of researching and surfing the web using google.com and found the website here. This was March 26th of 2004.

I am going through Northwestern's Wellness Center (Chicago IL) for obesity and this program is great for getting you prepared for the surgery and life after. I saw the surgeon last week and now I am waiting for the insurance dance.

Will update as this progresses. Good Grief, I hope that wasn't a Kleenex moment :-)      

Thanks for listening!