amystimetoshine
My Story :-)
Sep 20, 2010
Hi! My name is Amy. I am 41 yrs old. I am mom to 5 great kids and wife to my wonderful husband Kevin. I am currently waiting to be given my surgery date for a VSG. I have already gone through losing more than my 10%, I have past my psych eval, been cleared by my surgeon and gone to the required orientations and then the meeting with a dietician. I am waiting for the surgery coordinator to call me back with my date which I am hopng will be in October!I have been overweight pretty much all my life. I dont ever remember a time when I wasn't however I have seen some pictures that I look back on now and wonder what I was thinkin? Multiple times in my life I have lost a fairly substantial amount of wt (60+ lbs) but it has never stayed off. I am one of those rare M.O people who LOVE to exercise... particularly dance and wt training... my limitation is that with all the co-morbidities I have now... my joints/lungs/heels/back tend to not be able to tolerate the level of activity I want to have!
I have 3 little ones 4 and under, my older dtr is 18 and my step dtr is 21. I am also a part time RN. We have a very busy household :-) That is one of my main motivations for this surgery. I am only 41 and feeling so limited by my size. I have borderline DM, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, a mildly enlarged heart, umbilical hernia, severe abdominal separation, hypothyroidism, PCOS, achilles tendonitis & asthma. I am WAY too young for all this. I chose to have these 3 little kiddos a bit on the "later" side and they deserve to have a mom who can keep up with them, run around at a park and play with them, teach them about being active and eating well, and for that matter... BE HERE for them as they grow up.
I have spent this whole last year on WW (lower carb) and exercising my BUTT off. I have dropped 38 lbs and I am alot physically stronger which is great... but I still have over 125 lbs to go! I told myself if after a yr I was not in substantially better health I would look into WLS. This summer despite my wt loss and my regular exercise my BS started creeping up (my brother and uncle died from DM complications) -- I also had what should have been a simple outpatient infection put me into sepsis (really BAD infection) which landed me in ICU then the cardiac step down unit for almost 2 weeks. I was on pain medications and lying in a hospital unit. Because of the combo of my wt and narcotics I was on for pain I developed a hypoventilation issue which made me breathe too shallowly and my oxygen kept dropping way too low. I ended up on oxygen at home for almost a month and missed about 2 months of work.
I have to tell you that scared me STRAIGHT. I decided that surgery was scary but NO SURGERY was TERRIFYING!! My family deserves better and so do I!!! I have spent most of my life feeling bad about my body, constantly losing or else gaining and feeling like crap about it. I have had SOOO MUCH therapy on the subject of my relationship with food, with others, self image, body image.... etc I have been in 12 step programs, food treatment programs, 10 million or so "diets"... I feel like my head is screwed on ok about food now (NORMALLY LOL) but I really need a tool that will help with the wt loss and help give me the brakes that I need to manage my wt and health long term. Because of my need for nsaids, occasional steroids for asthma, and issues with some vit deficiencies -- not to mention scarring in pelvis/abdomen from multiple abdominal and pelvic surgeries I was never really feeling good about RNY. MY HMO will cover rny, vsg or LapBand. When I heard about VSG I knew that was the one for me.
Anyway, thanks for reading my novel!!!! :-) Amy
Fortunately, my "high wt" was documented by my doctor a yr ago and my surgeon goes by highest documented weight in past year so I am considered below goal wt for surgery now :-) YAY!!!!!
2 Comments
About Me
Pleasant Hill, CA
Location
28.1
BMI
Surgery
10/20/2010
Surgery Date
Aug 11, 2010
Member Since
