I’ve been overweight for as long as I can remember.  As a child, I can remember wearing “husky” size pants.  I was nearly always the heaviest in my classes, which often led to rude remarks from others which hurt my self-esteem.  I can’t imagine how many hundreds pounds I’ve lost and regained over the years with the up and down dieting that never seems to end.  I often did well dieting for a few weeks - or perhaps a month or two.  Then, I either became discourage for lack of further weight loss, or stressed due to work/family events, which led to trying to find comfort and energy in food and ultimately weight regain.

For the past several months, I’ve experienced a lot of fatigue and felt sleep deprived.  Other health concern which included hypertension, high cholesterol, headaches, circulation problems in my legs, and other family health histories caused me to seriously consider my weight again.  I am now near my peak weight and again discouraged about my inability to control my weight.

Typically one who ignores television commercials (especially for all the diet fads), one mentioning the Spectrum health centers in Grand Rapids caught my attention as it mentioned that they were a leading center for bariatric surgery in West Michigan.  Although I had previously dismissed the procedures because of “horror” stories I had heard, I was intrigued by the lap-band procedure upon hearing it was 100 percent reversible.  I began reading more about the procedure on the internet and scheduled myself to attend an orientation with one of practices which performs the procedures at Spectrum.  After going to the orientation, doing more research and attending one of Obesity Help's regional events, I learned that the RNY procedure would address my goals and long-term concerns better than the lap band.  With that knowledge, I began working with MMPC to obtain the RNY procedure.