Hi! I'm Amanda. I'm 24 years old and have been happily married for 2 years in an Atlanta suburb. Until recently, I was a special education teacher... right now, I'm currently focusing on ME-- afterwards, I hope to become a childrens' librarian. I've struggled with my weight since I was 4 years old. I've been at least obese since my late teens, and hit morbid obesity around age 20. I've had several occurrences of losing 75-80 lbs... but as many of us know, it always came back... and generally brought company. I'm lucky in the fact that I wasn't ever teased or tormented during my childhood/teenage years. I never really made fun of my weight or put myself down in other ways to get attention, I just generally always had a lot of friends despite my shy personality. I know a lot of my weight issues have to be genetic. My Grandmother had 13 siblings.. all of whom weighed at least 300 lbs... and all of them passed from various causes that most likely dealt with their weight. Somehow, my Grandmother wasn't one of them. When she passed on my birthday this year, she weighed barely 100 lbs... granted, she was 95, but still, weight wasn't ever a problem for her. Seeing firsthand all the issues that weight can cause people as they get older, (and approaching developing some of those conditions myself), I decided about 2 years ago that I wanted to do something about it. I ended up putting that on hold because I wanted to be able to spend a lot of time with my Grandmother. She was like a second mother to me, and I'm so glad I was able to spend so much time with her. Plus, I had to finish my Bachelors' degree and was afraid of the possibility of complications preventing me. Now that my Grandmother is gone and I have my degree, there isn't anything stopping me from pursuing it. I've decided that I'd much rather try to pay for something that would save my life than leave my family to pay for my funeral. As it is now, my BMI is 44-46 depending on the day... I have acid reflux and fibromyalgia and constantly live in some kind of pain or nausea... I'm on the verge of becoming a diabetic... my blood pressure is approaching the borderline for high... and I know that this is what I definitely need to do for me! I was hesitant to tell more people than my husband, parents, brother, & in-laws. I didn't know how people would feel... and I didn't want to have them talk me out of it. Those that I told were ecstatic and proud. My Mom was so proud that she convinced me to let her tell my Aunt and my Grandfather... both of them were even more ecstatic and offered me money to help pay for it. My Grandfather had given me money for college in a fund since I was little (and w/ scholarships, I didn't use a penny!) so I already had that, but then he's basically paying off the rest of it. He says that it will mean tons for him to see me healthy. He always says that I'm just too good of a person to have to suffer like I do. He's 92... always bought a new car every year (until around 1996 or so)... he'd planned on getting another one this year, but instead, he's decided to keep his car and spend the money on something worthwhile (me)... he also thinks that this is what my beloved Grandmother would want as well. Talk about tears! I think I'll always get emotional thinking about how he helped to save my life. My other uncle & his family (cousins, second cousins, etc.) have also been extremely supportive. They even want to throw a "pre-op" celebration party in my honor so they can show their support. I don't know how I feel about that exactly, but nevertheless, I'm happy they care. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Progress: - initial meeting w/ Dr. Hart [DONE!] - pre-op testing [DONE!] - meeting w/ Melissa (Nutritionist) [DONE!] - letter from PCP [DONE!] - psychological eval. [DONE!] Just waiting for them to give me a date now... I'll have the letter from my PCP in my possession tomorrow... (I don't trust my PCP's office staff to fax anything)... so I'll have to call Dr. Hart's office to see what they want me to do. I'm hoping that I can just bring it to the next appointment w/ Dr. Hart... if not, I'll take myself to Kinko's and happily fax it over. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*