Carol M.
I have always been tall. The tallest kid in class in school, taller than all of my friends. I was really active and played outside like everyone else growing up in our generation. When I was in junior high I spent one whole summer eating an entire box of Kraft Mac & Cheese with a glass of Pepsi for lunch every day, while sitting and watching soap operas. I would get out and ride my bike every day but I didn't know or realize that I was setting myself up for some seriously destructive eating habits. Pop was always a treat in our house so I would jump at the chance to have a bottle of it. I wasn't fat but I wasn't a bean pole either. By the time I was in high school, my thighs were much larger than anyone elses, but the rest of me looked normal. I didn't know then that I was a pear. Some folks are apples (my Mom for example), so I figured since I didn't have a belly, I wasn't getting fat.
With the arrival of high school came my multitude of part time jobs while in school. Being on the go and driving gave me the ability to stop at McDonalds on my way to work each day. I didn't realize either that my hamburger, fries and coke were hurting me. They tasted good and they weren't as bad as a Big Mac or Whopper, so I figured, I wasn't doing too bad.
By the time I got married, I was already at 185 lbs at 5'11". Not huge, but certainly, not a lightweight. I attributed it to less physical activity after school ended, and the constant eating out my now ex-husband and I did. Our relationship seemed to revolve around food. Ironically, I was the only one who got fatter. He stayed the same size. When I got pregnant with my daughter in 1993, I weighed 225 lbs. When I gave birth, I weighed 265lbs and I had chronic swelling in my feet and ankles. Fortunately, I did drop all that baby weight post partum thanks to breast feeding. However, the bad eating habits were still there and I slowly began packing the weight back on over the next 4 years. I did Jenny Craig during this time and the Cabbage soup diet with no lasting positive effects. The swelling in my feet and ankles never went away. I still have it to this day. When my daughter was 5, I divorced her father because of he refused to hold down a full time job and help support the family. So I moved up to Massachussets to get as far away from him as possible. With the stress of going thru the divorce and my major life upheaval, I did manage to loose 30 lbs thanks to Weight Watchers. I weighed around 230 when I met my current husband. Again, the relationship started to center around food, most of our dates involving eating out as our major activity. However, being a single parent at the time, I was more active and started to become aware of my eating habits. I found I was able to keep the weight down by not eating out very much, unless it was with him. This was due more in part to my lack of money than desire. It was tough being a single parent as many of you well know.
Getting married a second time wasn't really in my plans. Especially after we accidently got pregnant while we were engaged and he insisted on an abortion because he couldn't face his family with a child out of wedlock. I consented to the abortion because I didn't have the financial ability to raise the child on my own in addition to my daughter. The relationship was on very rocky ground at that time but we were stuck living together because we had rented an apartment jointly.
Then fate decided to throw me a curve ball. The month of February 2002 was rough. I had just had the abortion in January and had missed 2 days of work. My boss was a complete dick about any time taken off work. In February, I came down with a gastro-intestinal virus. I ended up in the ER all night for vomiting and out of work for 2 more days. By now, the boss was beyond pissed at my missed time from work. About a week later, I started noticing that it was uncomfortable to sit if I leaned back against the back of the chair. The discomfort was in my butt around the tail bone area. I didn't know what it was, but as time wore on the pain started increasing significantly. My drive to and from work was an hour each way. Driving to work became agonizing. Then sitting all day at work just aggravated it more. I started searching online for possible causes. My first indication that this was a pilonidal cyst was the way I started feeling like crap. Nauseated, fever, aches. I first thought the flu had come back. It all came to a head on February 27th. I dragged my fever ridden body into work and promptly passed out at my desk. My coworkers drove me and my car home. I was so sick I had to wait for my fiance to come home from work to take me to the emergency room. While I was waiting for him, I tried using a cool wet wash cloth to soothe my aching backside. The wiping action caused the cyst to rupture. The smell was horrible. I had no idea what was happening, just that nothing was alright and I needed to get to the hospital ASAP. He finally got home and took me in. I was so septic from the infection that the doctors told me if I had stayed home another day with it, I wouldn't have lived. I underwent emergency surgery to remove the infected tissue. Coincidentally, while I was having emergency surgery, my boss fired me. He sent the notice via overnight mail to my home while I was still in the ER, before Ihad even been admitted. Post op care for a pylonidal cyst involves daily dressing changes and wound packing, thus the need for daily visiting nurse visits. With the prospect of being unemployed, and conviently, the health insurance ended the day after my surgery, I was facing a huge dilema. Fred suggested we get married right away so that he could put me on his health insurance and get my post op care covered. I felt I didn't have much of a choice, so we got married 2 weeks after my surgery. At this time, I had ballooned up to 274 lbs. My wedding pictures are hideous. I look like a tub of lard in my wedding dress.
After 5 mos of recovery, I was able to go back to work. It took that long to be able to sit up in a chair or ride in a car. This prolonged period of laying around did nothing to help the weight situation. Getting moving again did, and I was able to drop 20 lbs with excercize and Slim Fast. Still, I was not able to get below 250 lbs. My weight leveled out between 250-255 lbs over the next 5 1/2 years. If I exercized, I put weight on but lost a size of clothing, but never more than 1 size. The swelling had become pitting edema in both feet and my lower legs. I hated wearing the TED hose but I didn't have much choice if I wanted to be able to put shoes on. You can forget wearing dress shoes either. Unless it has elastic over the instep, or it's a sneaker, I can't get them on my feet. I was finally referred to a vascular surgeon who did a lower extremity ultrasound and determined that tjhe valves in my Saphenous veins had collapsed. This causes the fluid to pool in the legs. Last year, the vein in my left leg popped to the surface of the skin. It looks like a long rolly piece of rope just under the surface of the skin from mid thigh down to mid calf. It is completely disgusting, as are all the vericose veins from my long term excessive weight.
Then to compound this already horrendous situation, this past winter we had an emergency project at work that required me to work 20 hours a day in the office for 2 months. I ended up moving into a hotel 3/4 mile from the office so I wouldn't have to drive in the snow, being absolutely exhausted. The company catered food in every day. There was no opportunity to excercise. I began existing on Full Throttle Energy drinks, diet cokes and junk food. I packed on 20 lbs in those two months. While in the midst of this project, my husband and daughter were fighting like cats and dogs and I wasn't able to be there and intervene. The husband has a bad temper and is like a wild dog when he gets wound up about something as trivial as not putting laundry away or putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher. It all came to a head with them when he threatened to kill her because he was mad at something she did wrong. She is only 14 but he expects her to operate like a robot. It's not his biological daughter, so while me says he loves her, his actions do not speak that way. His threat was in the heat of the moment, but it was enough to absolutely terrify her. I couldn't have her at risk with me not being able to be there for her, so I flew her down to Florida to live with my parents. When the project was over, and I started taking an accounting of my recent life, I realized that I was spiralling down hill fast. I needed to do something or else.
I decided at that time that I needed counseling. Once in counselling I starting to realize that the stress I have been under has been contributing to my destructive eating. The real shocker in all this is that I realized I didn't want to end up going down the same road as my mom. She started becoming severely overweight when she was in her 50's. I am in my 30's and I am at the same weight as her. I have a 20 year head start on her. She suffers from diabetes, COPD and CHF. I knew that was the road I was facing if I didn't make some major changes in my life. I have also shrunk 3 inches in height. I attribute it to degeneration of my disk space from all the excess weight.
Past experience told me diet programs, excercise and counseling were not enough. I needed something more. Something that would give me a leg up where the other parts start failing. That's when I looked into WLS. When I found out my BMI was 41, I checked with my insurance and started the ball rolling. I went to my first patient information seminar in June and realized that this was the tool I needed. I lucked out and got on the cancellation list for my initial consult and only had to wait 3 wks for the appointment. I had no issues with getting my surgery approved. Now I am poised for my re-birthday on September 16, 2008.
