I GOT PNEUMONIA AFTER THE FLU. I AM WORRIED MY SURGEON WON'T SCHEDULE MY SURGERY APPT.  FOR EASTER VACATION.  HE ORDERED A LAST MINUTE ECHOCARDIOGRAM AND I NEEDTO DO A SUPPORT GROUP FOR CROWN BARIATRIC. MORE HOOPS.... TRYING TO STAY POSITIVE!

In 2001 I delivered my 3 rd child. He weighed 9pounds and14oz. He should have been an emergency cecarian...  just because of his15 inch head alone!
I had a baby GEORGE LOPEZ! Anyhow, I had 2 mos. bed rest before and after delivery. So, I weighed about 352 going in to the hospital and about 345 coming out. Then I lost down to 341 slowly, but stopped having periods. I had to take medroxyprogesterone to start a cycle. One time I bled for over a month. When I went into emercency because of the bleeding, they did bloodwork and found out I had an underactive thyroid. I thought, great... I will lose weight now with the med. for that.  NOPE!  My wight went up, up, up from there. Also my OBYGN had put me on wellbutrin which made me gain weight. He said it would stop my food cravings. I wasn't overeating, I was underactive.... and my body hurt to move because I had lost muscle. By 2004 I weighed around 365. I still had to take hormones to have a cycle, but my liver now showed signs of fatty liver disease. This was the year I lost my half brother at the too soon age of  53 to schlerosis of the liver from hepatitus due to a blood transfusion. He had been stabbed by a gang of men while they were attempting to rob him, but he was jogging his 5mile run without his wallet and was, if memory serves me correctly, a 6th degree black belt. His deffensive skills saved his life. He had over 30 stab and puncture wounds. So, liver disease literally scared me to death.Then anxiety from that and being in a loveless marriage set in. My Dr. put me on prosac which did nothing, because I wasn't depressed, I was just fat and miserable. After 5 weeks, he told me I could stop. I did. By then my blood work showed I was pre diabetic.He did nothing. By 2005 I had hypertension, high bloodpressure and extremefatty liver. HBP meds made me faint so they eventually gave me just 5 mg of lysinopril. In 2007 I was admitted to Kaiser Fontana and diagnosed with full onset of type 2 diabetes. Fow 2 years I had been a shell of the woman I once had been.I could barely get myself out of bed to get thekids to school. I had no energy for grocery shopping or cooking, let alone cleaning and child raising. I was dying. By the grace of God I had gotten myself a referral for GBS from my quack doctor before I had changed doctors. I was  in my GBS classes when diabetes hit me. It became urgent to lose weight and surgery was the answer for me. One condition, though... I had to lose 10% of my total body weight before surgery. I was 384 when my doctor saw me lastbeforemy GBS classes started. I was 381 on my first day of class. I lost about 5pounds a week untill I went into the hospital for diabetes.I gained 5pounds in3 daysandcouldn't lose weighton the diabetic diet. It was just too much food. My doctor told me to change the diet to suit me... and gave me an RX for  phentermine in a lowdose to help control hunger. I continued to lose about 5 pounds a week on a modified diabetic diet.  I have had about 3 months worth of phentermine to help with weight loss out of the whole 7 or 8 months of weight loss since my diabetes onset. I don't rely on the phentermine, but it is a tool to reach my goal. Others in my GBS class have had similar results with diet and exercise alone,  but most have only lost a few pounds, if any.  When my blood work was done to prepare for surgery, my fatty liver was remarkably better. On a graph, my  improvments are amazing. My knees and ankles feel much better,too. Right now I take metformin 1000mg 2xday, lysenopril 5mg, simvistatin 40mg, and levathroid 88mcg. I no longer take 25mg hydrochlorothiazide for water retention and swelling or medroxyprogesterone hormone RX to have a cycle. Since November 2007, my cycle comes on its' own! I never thought that would be good news, but it is.