Well, I had my surgery and it nearly killed me.  I got the MRSA virus and had to have emergency surgery on January 9th.  The surgeon told us that if Eddie had not got me to the hospital when he did, one more day and I would have died.  He told me that the only reason I was still alive was because I was young and healthy.  Wow, talk about a life-changing event!  I have still not wrapped my mind around that I nearly died.  I spent a week in ICU and a month in the hospital in Memphis.  Eddie missed an entire month of work and we have over a million in medical bills but I don't care because I am happy to be alive!  Many horrible things happened in the hospital that I will write about later, maybe...maybe I will just let them go.  I had a third surgery a little before I was released.  I was supposed to get to go home a week earlier than I did but they discovered I had broken ribs after I kept complaining of constant side pain.  I was injured during surgery when they flipped me because I had lost so much weight, I had no protection.  From the time of the first surgery to the time I was entered back on Jan. 9, I had lost thirty pounds.  
Now, I weigh 122 and that is with 8 pounds of steel in my back.  I gained nearly three inches in height so I am slightly underweight but I know it will come back...I don't want to gain a lot back but five pounds would be good.  I like wearing 4's but 6's were just as fun!  LOL!!!
Anyway, I get very tired very easily now and am struggling...they let me come back to school even though I had missed a whole months so I will still graduate this summer....woooohooooo!!!!
I will post more later...let me catch my breath!

NOTE:  For those of you who don't know my back issues, let me briefly explain that I have kyphosis, otherwise called humpback.  No matter how hard I stand straight, my back will not cooperate.  It caused extreme pain pretty much 24/7 and compromises my lung function.  Okay, on with the update.

I'm baaaaacccckkkk....lol, got back in late this evening with lots to report.  The doctor I met with is amazing.  He did his entire fellowship in kyphosis surgery and he is one of the best in the country.  He actually asked me not to advertise because he has so many surgeries he can't keep up.!! Talk about a definite vote of confidence.  He measured my curvature and it is...are you ready...90 DEGREES!!!!  Yep, I have a turn not a curve!  He showed me my xrays and said that, as my other docs have said, my "Plumb line", ie posture, is PERFECT!!!!  Yep, he said I had absolute perfect posture and that everything was lined up the way it was supposed to be but the curvature in my back was just not letting me be straight.  He said it was definitely the reason I hurt 24/7 as my muscles are straining to hold me upright.  He said my lower back was wonderful, perfect, NO lordosis, which is a huge relief since I really thought I had lower lordosis as well.  He said I have absolutely no osteoporosis...wonderful!  Best of all...he said he can give me a wonderful correction!  He showed me before and after xrays for a guy my height, weight (he was a little heavier but close) and degree of curvature and the difference was unbelievable.  Lynn started crying she got so excited!  He also told me that this was a genetic issue that nothing could have helped...bracing would NOT have stopped this and he said it was NOT cosmetic but necessary as the curvature is to the point that one more degree and my lungs will start to be compressed and my breathing compromised.  He will only have to do one cut, posteriorly, NO bone harvesting, and he uses steel rods so the screws don't come out like they can with titanium.
Now for the bad news, when we got there we found out that they are out of network for my insurance.  They said I had to had $350 today and the out of pocket would be a total of $7200, UPFRONT.  I lost it, started crying and said I knew it was too good to be true.  Lynn paid fifty down on today, we called the referring office and they were so sorry.  They had been misinformed.  I talked to the referring doctor and he said, after apologizing, that there WAS another doctor in Nashville that can do the surgery and is good, but he said if it was his mother, sister, or daughter, he wouldn't dream of sending me anywhere but Memphis to this doctor.  That carries a lot of weight.  Lynn and I felt that I needed to be there withthat doctor so I just leveled with him and said, hey I'm broke, what do I do.  He said, for what this is worth and what it means, that I needed to do what I could and we would not let money keep me from having this surgery.  So I came home with this in mind...I am going to start selling everything I can...furniture, my Ford Taurus, my blue van, as much of my clothing that I can, huge yard sale, my parents are donating stuff, Lynn is donating stuff...every spare penny will go to the "straighten Kym's back fund"...my Dad even suggested starting an online donation site where my family, if any would do this, could go and donate online.  We are all putting our head together so if any of you have any ideas, please let me know.  Of course, I am going to ask my church for help and I am going to ask the charity I volunteer for if they can help any.  I am hoping that there is some kind of hospitality house my family can stay in while I am in the hospital in Memphis.  I will be at Baptist Women's Hospital in Memphis and we are looking at December after my school semester is over.  I will be in the hospital about five days, in a brace for 8 weeks.  I won't have to do physical therapy.  I can have a baby in one year if we choose.  No roller coasters or theme rides for five years so I have to figure out what to do about getting my 8 year old to DisneyWorld before she is too old...we promised her this year but you guys know how finances have been.  We bought the tickets with income taxes and we have a place to stay but we would have to get the gas money and food money.  I know it sounds nuts to worry about this when I have to come up with surgery money but my daughter has been promised this for years and I just can't see her waiting five more years.  Even if she has to go without me...I don't know...I'll pray on this of course.
Well, I know this is a very long post but I wanted to update all you guys and share the mixed news.  If anyone has any ideas on more ways to raise some money, please send them my way.  I ask all of you to please pray for this to happen in my life.  The constant pain is getting so hard to bear and the doctor said that while he cannot end all the back pain, he can relieve about 80% of it and that is HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        Just last week, a friend of mine who I had not seen for a few weeks picked me up for a quick ride to a neighboring town.  When I opened her car door to get in I was immediately greeted with an amazed, "Oh my God, you look so good!"  I just laugh and ask her if it had really been that long since she'd seen me.   
       Today, I am shopping with my 8 year old daughter for some desperately needed shorts for her and a good quality pore minimizer for me.  I present my debit card to the cashier.  It's the kind with my picture on it...one taken in 2001...when it's renewed, they just send out a new card with the same picture on it.  The cashier looks at the card, looks at me, and says, "Well, you sure look different."  And there it is, my first opportunity to present the picture I have been carrying around in my purse for months to a total stranger.  My "before" picture of me at a miserable 316 pounds.  After many more, "you look greats", she actually comes around the counter and hugs me.  We have never met before yet she wants to hug me.  
      This is becoming a regular occurrence for me, the shocked looks, and the amazed guffaws.  I am grateful, don't get me wrong, but at the same time I find myself unable to really take in the applause. I have been robbing myself of this joy with my own self-depreciation.
      Five months ago, on December 11, 2006, I took a radical step toward good health for the first time in my life.  I had open gastric bypass surgery.  It was not, contrary to much popular opinion, the easy way out of a life of obesity.  It was in fact, and remains so, the hardest thing I have even done.  This journey makes childbirth seem like a summer picnic.  The pain was horrendous and I spent the first month crying and wishing I could take it all back and reverse the surgery.  The next two months were spent battling constant nausea and learning how to eat in a completely new way.  The very notion that this was the easy way out is an affront to my psyche. 
       I did not enter into the decision to rearrange my insides lightly.  I was originally one of the naysayers that looked at it as the easy way out...the quitter's choice.  I used to tape a show on the Discovery Channel every morning titled, "I Lost It" but I would always delete the ones with surgery patients.  I wanted to see the ones who did it the "right" way...the way I just knew I could do it if I only tried hard enough.  I did all the standards, all the gurus plans, bought thousands of dollars worth of books, workout tapes, makeover plans, diet pills, you name it, I bought it...and I followed them, religiously.  I would lose a few pounds, feel hopeful, and then nothing more would happen other than gaining it all back plus more.  But this is not about the same old tired story we have all heard, this is about an awakening and realization of self that comes after the fact.
        Today, just over five months since surgery, I have lost a total of 122 pounds since my highest weight.   I still have 40 to lose to reach the goal weight set by my surgeon.  I have done fabulous.  I am far ahead of schedule and am already considered a success by my bariatric surgeon.  So why am I so hard on myself?  Why am I not happy? 
      I recently spent part of the day with my best friend.  I was complaining about the "pooch" in the middle of my belly.  My lower belly doesn't have it, just the upper belly and it drives me nuts.  It's perfectly normal and most women who have had children have at least a slight pooch, even the tiny women, but for some reason, I was looking at this anatomical oddity as a sign of failure.  My friend reminded me of a conversation we had last year..."Remember when you first started talking about surgery and what your goal size was..."  I had forgotten.  "16," she reminds me.  What????  That's the size I am currently in, and leaning quickly toward the 14's ...but I am not at my goal!!!  Her point of course was that I should already feel successful.  
     So, again, why am I so hard on myself?  I sit on my couch and feel guilty because I did not exercise but for a fifteen minute walk today.  I have a perfectly valid reason...Aunt Martha came to visit and brought particularly heavy luggage this month...but I can't see that as a reason.  I have been diligent with exercise lately, getting in at least five days a week, usually six or seven, but this missing one day is driving me crazy.  I have the expected excess skin beginning to sag on my upper thighs and my upper arms.  I have been toning and toning but nothing is going to help this skin.  Or so I think...keep in mind, I am only five months out.  I am sitting here, playing with the skin on my arms and thinking...what can I do...okay, I have to up the toning, make absolutely sure I ingest no carbs except for the tablespoon per meal of green beans I enjoy...I decide on only the leanest proteins.  All things for the most part I have done...I have done!!!!!!  In the back of my mind, I realize that this is ridiculous, that I should be proud that I am exercising regularly instead of beating myself up over one missed day.   But these self-destructive thoughts are having their way with me for the moment. 
      My daughter pads into the room, sleepy eyed, to tell me she is getting a glass of water.  On her way back to bed she mumbles, "Love you Mommy" before leaving.  It is a wondrous shock to my heart, a sudden epiphany-creating moment. 
      I AM DOING FINE!  I have some skin to deal with at just five months...so what.  I am doing fine.  I am not a size 6...so what.  I am doing fine.   I may end up with saggy thighs...so what.  I am doing fine!!!!!!  I have a husband who adores me and finds me sexy at any weight...who actually worries I'll lose too many of my curves.  I have an intelligent, loving, giving child who sees me as the center of her universe.  I am intelligent; I have a college degree and am not far from a Master's.  I have friends who love me and would walk through fire for me.  I have family who have supported me and shown me fierce love.  I have parents who make me proud to be their child.  
          I am doing not just fine, I am PHENOMENAL!!!!! 
          I realize that I am the same as nearly every other woman.  We never feel as if we are good enough...our arms are too jiggly, our thighs are too big, our stomachs are never flat enough.  I watch workout shows on television and think how nice it would be to be them...but I have no idea what they really think of themselves.  Now, I play back a recorded workout and notice that even the toned goddess leading the class has a little upper arm jiggle...my God, could this be, gasp, a normal part of being a female...???  I read an article on a very successful woman and experience a thrill of who knows what when she admits to hating her nose.  A thrill of perhaps happiness that I'm not in this boat alone.     
          So today, I make a choice.  I make the choice to love myself, "faults" and all.  But now, I'm not going to look at these issues as faults.  I'll probably never be my dream size and I'll deal with stretch marks my entire life, but now, I am choosing to let them be my badges of honor.  I got these marks, these pooches, these sagging areas, by living...by creating and bringing a life into this world...by being human. 
           I chose to take a step I had formerly seen as a sign of weakness...I made the decision to take charge of my health so this body, sags and all, will be around for years to come...to continue to nurture my loved ones...and to keep hearing words like, "Love you Mommy."  I can hear that I took the "easy way out" and just laugh, knowing the real truth. 
         Finally, I feel at peace with my decision.  
         Finally, I feel at peach with my body. 
         Finally, I feel proud of ME!