ObesityHelp

I am a widowed mother of 3 children. I own my home - and have a great career that I truly love.  I am a critical care respiratory specialist - which means I take care of patients on life support system.  I specialise in Infants and Children.  This job requires me to be on call 24hrs a day 7 days a week - adds to the stress load for sure.

As far as weight gain - I was a average size teenager - with a mother who was worried about my weight - as I had a grandmother who was "as round as she was tall".   My intake was watched daily to keep me at that size.  When I married and left home - I was able to "do as I pleased" and gained about 20 lbs.  Stayed that size until my first pregnancy.  I gained alot of weight during the pregancy - but only had a 5 lb baby - so the rest was extra Karen.  I over the next year I lost weight but never regained a normal size.  This happened 2 more times with 2 more babies.  After my 3rd child I joined weight watchers and lost all my excess weight - 100lbs.  But gradually over about 4 years I gained it all back + some of course.  In 1999 I lost my home and all my belongings in a tornado.  The stress of that caused me to eat more -and possibly my metabolism to decrease - anyway - I gained more weight.  In 2001 my son received a head and spinal injury that resulted in months of rehabilitation, home bound schooling and physician visits and not knowing if he would ever walk again - let alone be normal. What happened?  More weight.  In 2003 my husband of 22 years died of a heart attack on Super Bowl Sunday while we were awaiting friends for a super bowl party.  He was a slim 190 lb 6'1" man who exercised.  I as devestated to say the least... and again more weight.  So from the pattern I am sure by now you can guess - I am a stress eater.  I can manage to maintain my weight..until something stressful happens in my life.    I had one physicain tell me I had stress induced hypothyroidism - don't know if that is real or not.  But am hopeful this is chaper 1 in a story that progesses to a happy ending - not necessarily skinny - but healthy and able to do more.  I have a home on 5 acres and the summer lawn work really is tough with the extra weight.   I am looking forward to life after the surgery - scared to death of the actual surgery.  So there you have it - my life...as of 4-25-07