ebony_teaches
I am a true "Southern Girl"! I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I've always grown up around good food, family and lots of fun (sometimes too much fun!).
I have been overweight/obese all of my life. I can remember the day I hit 100lbs and my mother cried uncontrollably. She didn't understand what was happening to her baby. Afterall, I was only in elementary school when this happened. I don't recall the grade but obviously I was too young to be so big.
Throughout the course of my adolescent and young adult years I experienced the teasing, the name calling, the low self-esteem, and the settling just to say that somebody had taken interest in me. I finally had my first major weight loss ever in my life right before I went to high school. I lost about 90lbs the summer before I started high school. This was done through dieting and lots and lots of exercise. My weightloss at this time became an obsession for me and quickly lead to bulimia. You don't hear of too many African American females telling their tales of being a bulimic, but it's apart of my struggle and my journey to healing. This weightloss gave me a "fresh start" if you will for what turned out to be four great years of my high school life, unlike the three years of hell I experienced in middle school. It's something about adolescents during the middle school years that is down right frightening. This age group can be extremely cruel. Anyway, high school was a blast. I did gain some of the weight back but not all. It wasn't until after I was a freshman in college and in an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship that I gained all of the weight back and then some.
I finally met a man who loved me for me and we married, I at the tender age of 20 and he at 23. We moved away from my hometown. My life had taken on a different meaning, new responsibilities and an unfamiliar environment. It was at this time that I found myself for the first time in my life over 300lbs. I reached my highest weight of 330lbs. Life was a hot mess. I wasn't happy, so things had to change. Through the course of moving back to my hometown and other personal experiences, I was able to lose 30lbs but soon found myself pregnant. Which was quite ironic because I have PCOS and infertility is likely with this nasty little hormonal imbalance. I gained the 30lbs back during pregnancy. My pregnancy went smoothly until the end when I was placed on bed rest. My son was born a tiny yet healthy baby. It was soon after his birth that I learned that I wasn't so healthy. My pregnancy caused post partum cardiomyopathy. I had a weakened heart from pregnancy. I was under the strict care of a cardiologist, who immediately put me on a strict diet. I say diet, he said permanent way of eating. I was able to lose 120lbs because I could eat absolutely nothing but cardboard boxes as I would candidly tell people when they'd inquire about my weight loss.
Through the healing powers of God, my heart was and is healed. But here comes this thing called life. My marraige was failing and headed down divorce lane. Once my ex-husband remarried and my life was clearly spiraling out of control. I decided to run away from it all. I moved to a new city and got a new job. I had no family there, a toddler struggling with his new environment, and worst of all rapid weight gain. This brought me to December 22, 2005 where I found myself almost back at my highest weight. I had gained more that half of the weight I lost back. My body and more importantly my heart felt the weight gain but not to fear my tool called the lap-band was here. Getting the lapband was my 3rd attempt to journey down weight loss lane. I just knew that this weight loss with the lap band would be successfull and more importantly permanent. I officially became a bandster December 28, 2005, with a weight of 292lbs the day of surgery. The lap band was the start of a new chapter in my life. I felt as if I was going to make it and to simply live, be healthy and be here to raise my son and enjoy the life that the Lord has so graciously blessed me with. I was so determined to make the lap band work, yet I had know idea what lay ahead for me. For the next five months I went for adjustments with my band and only managed to lose 20lbs in Houston. I could never seem to get to my sweet spot. After many attempts and on one occasion of being too tight and on the vurge of dehydration, I lay my tool aside and moved back home to Louisiana weighing 272lbs.
I went six months without any fills,until my sister's surgical group agreed to see me and start my adjustments. Oh quick side note: my sister was banded 3 months after me and has done marvelous with her lap band. Getting adjustments without insurance is very expensive and that was something that I did not prepare myself for long term with the lapband. After four months of getting adjusted I FINALLY started to lose weight with my lapband and was down to 232lbs, but my victories came to a screaching hault on May 3, 2007 when I woke up feeling faint and did just that. I passed out after getting up. Not once but twice. I managed to get to the phone and call my mother home from work. She immediately brought me to the doctor's office, where I'd been getting my adjustments. The NP quickly removed all of the saline in my band and demanded that I drink water immediately. She sent me over to the hospital for an upper-GI as routine. As I sat in wait for my procedure a pain from HELL hit me in my chest. It was so horrific that it made me faint again. I was wheeled back to have the procedure done and I was in unbareable pain. Once the films where complete, my mother was told to rush me straight to the surgeon's office, which was about an hour away from where I lived. My lovely little lap band had slipped. I had been too tight, for too long, and too much throwing up caused it to slip. I was hospitalized and started on iv do to severe dehydration. The nurses stuck me about 10 times do to my veins being too flat from lack of bodily fluids. On the second day of my stay, I had my band repositioned and a hiatal hernia repaired. This event was like starting all over again with the band. I had to go back to day one after a year and a half of fighting to finally get good restriction. This major event sent me into a deep depression and the 30lbs I lost before the slip I quickly gained back. I began getting adjustments again 6weeks post op and have failed to get good restriction again. The adjustments were either not enough or simply too tight.
I saw my sister's surgeon and we had a nice heart to heart conversation. He said that some people just do not do well with the band and obviously I was one of those unfortunate numbers. He said that I would have been a better gastric bypass patient and I agreed with him 100% My surgeon in Houston insisted that I have the lap band and felt that I was a good candidate for it, so I listened to him for after all he was the doctor. My sister's surgeon suggested that we appeal to my insurance company to get approval for gastric bypass. Now this is the same insurance company that denied me years ago for this same procedure. The paperwork was prepared by the patient advocate and I was approved in, get this, 2 DAYS!!
This brings me to today, right now, this very moment that I'm typing this. I will do a conversion from lap band to gastric bypass on December 17th 2007!!! I'm so excited, once again, and I have hope again that my weight loss journey will be victorious. For those of you who are like me, seem to always be fighting with your weight, don't ever give up! It's not an easy journey but with God ALL things are possible, if YOU believe that they are!
