Well I am a little over 2 years out now and loving the new me. I have dropped down from a size 28 to a size 6/8 depending on what I wear. GOtta love it ! If you are even considering having surgery..... GO FOR IT. Your life cannot get any worse right? Why not take the chance to have a new life... a new you. So much changes when you have surgery.

2003~~~~~~~~
Well I guess I should tell you all a little something about myself. I am 29 years old. I am about 5 ft 10inches tall. I thought I was taller but I guess stress shrinks a body ! lol. I am a single parent of a 8 year old child. She lives with ADHD yet is the best thing that ever happened to me. I married early at the age of 19 to my high school sweet heart. I had my daughter at the age of 21 and was left alone with her by the age of 23. My husband just walked out of our lives one day, never turning back. It took me four years to get a divorce and any kind of child support. After him I did the whole clubbing/one night stand thing. Tried dating and meeting people online. Yet here I am alone still. So I started to slowly rebuild my life a few years ago. Baby steps really. I had to take care of my daughter alone and get her diagnoised and treated and on the right path for her as well. Along the way I went to college to become a Medical Assistant, yet found that I made more money running the office for my parent's construction corporation than I could in what I went to school for. And of course that is important when the only income for your family is you. So for the last year I have worked my way up the ladder within the family business. Starting off at $8.00/hr just helping out..to entirely running the entire office and making $15.00/hr. I have my own car which is great. My ex took my old car so I had to get that all over again as well. I moved out of a ghetto apartment over to the best area in Merced (so I think ;) ) , in a GREAT apartment. I have slowly replaced all of my old material things as well. This year I got a big enough tax return from working all last year to buy a new living room sofa and a BIG SCREEN TV! I was so happy. So now I have recovered everything in my life material wise, job wise and emotionally as well. I feel that going through the dark times and overcomming my demons has made me such a strong person inside. I never really truely knew myself until now. And I think I am a better person because of it. But , there was always one thing left to do to complete the package. My weight. It has always been an issue for me. I struggled with weight most all of my life. In 7-8th grade I remember being the fat kid , the un-popular one among all the cool teeny-bopper girls spraying hairspray and applying lipstick ,wearing their cute little guess jeans to school. I felt like a frog. So when high school hit, I stopped eating for a while and walked all summer and was WAY too skinny. I was always poked at from my family about my weight. When I was chunky I was called things like "fat-ass"..or told I need to "work out". So when I finally lost that weight, I looked for that acceptance from my family , only to be taunted and teased the other direction " you look like skeletor"..things that hurt when you are young. After getting married and moving away from home, the pounds started comming back on. Slowly at first. Before I had my daughter in 1997, I was already at a size 14. After having her ... I shot up to 240 lbs. Giving birth I had only lost a whole ten lbs. And 6lbs something of it was her! I had tried diet pills before in the past, perscription and non , so after having my daughter I went back to that route again. I tried and tried and nothing substantial ever came out of it. Ten or Twenty lbs is nothing when you have tons to lose! I bought myself a treadmill and even tried that. I've tried pool xcersizes in my parent's pool. And my diet was never really that bad seeing as how I have been a vegetarian since I was 11 years old. I probably have every size on the rack hanging in my closet lol. I weigh alot more than 240 at this point but I still feel insecure about posting my wieght. So I will tell you that my BMI is at 44.6. I went to my primary doctor , Gladys Cooksey, who is the most wonderful doc I have ever had in my life ! , and I tried to get back on the diet pills in the year 2001. She then talked to me and told me that it won't work. She said Debra you have tried your whole life to lose and when you do, you gain it back and then some. She explained that this would continue to be the story of my life unless I wanted to take a step to change it. She then explained the WLS to me and told me that she had a few patients of hers go through it already. She told me about how one woman would always walk into her clinic with her head down looking at the ground, never making eye contact and that when she lost so much weight she was sparkling with such happiness and so friendly to everyone that she did not even recognize her. This really inspired me because I too have a hard time even looking at people in society. I don't want to see them point and laugh and taunt and whisper. So what I don't know won't hurt me. Well I tried the diet pills one more time with her and of course failed. So I told her I would think about the WLS and come back. I needed to really wrap my brain around it all. Well by the time I felt like it was the right decesion, I came back to her in early 2002 and was informed that the place she was sending patients to, did not take my insurance any longer. So I felt I hit yet another brick wall. I let it go until recently. I came back to her again and told her of my plans and told her I was going to find a way to get the wls one way or another even if I had to go far to get it. It was time I changed my life ! And there is no better time like the present. To my astonishment she informed me that she had been sending patients to Dr. Coates in Modesto, CA and they have had GREAT results. So I told her go ahead and get me started, she called and got me scheduled for the April 6th seminar , and here I am. Awaiting my journey. I have it on the brain all the time now lol. Even practice chewing 30 times when I eat, lol might as well prepare. When I talk to people , I can't help but to bring up wls and my plans for a new life. I get so excited about what the future holds and how I will be able to start a brand new life. I am very anxious at this point and just can't wait for the day I hold the letter of approval in my hands. I will probably cry that day! lol happy tears of course. Because to me , It is like being handed a second chance ticket. After going through the bad you truely do get to the good in life. And I would do it all again to get this chance . Well that is my story. This is me. I hope you enjoyed it :) Please feel free to sign my guestbook and leave any comments. Would be great to hear from others! Thank you ~ Debra