siobhana
Christmas 2007 should have been a happy time for me. My husband had just returned from a 15 month deployment to Iraq and Christmas eve we found out the Army was moving us back to NY to live an hour from my family. After 13 years of traveling around the world, I would be home with my family and my husband ( the two together are very rare). And yet I was going into a deep depression. I knew it had to do with my weight. In 2002 I had gotten down to 160 lbs and was wearing a size 10/12. I swore I would never let myself go again. But 2 deployments later and lots and lots of German food and wine ( I lived in Germany for 8 years) I had ballooned to my all time high of 256 lbs. I had seen several military doctors in Germany requesting help. I had one doc tell me that I had hand to mouth disease. If I stopped putting everything that was in my hand into my mouth, I wouldn't have the problem I had. Needless to say I requested a new doctor. I then got a doctor who tried to help by prescribing me Xenical. At first it worked, but after the fear of crapping my pants wore off I realized how to get around not eating. More times then not when I knew we were going out, I just didn't take the pills. Kinda counter productive, but easy to cheat. We moved to NY in February and my husband found an article stating the military was now doing gastric bypass for family members down in West Point with referrals from the family care doctors. I immediately made an appt. Only to find out the plan had fallen threw. No doctor in this area was willing to do follow up care ( we are 6 hours from West Point). My doc didn't give up though, he put in a referral to my insurance to be seen by a bariatric doc at Syracuse University hospital. Within a month my referral was approved and I went to my orientation. Filled out a bunch of papers and in June was given an appt with Dr. Howard Simon. What an awesome guy! He never once made me feel inadaquate or undeserving. He made me feel like there was help and he was going to give it to me. I went on a diet from June until October and lost 17 lbs so he went ahead and requested approval to the insurance to do surgery. Approval came back and I was scheduled for 20 Nov. By time I had the surgery I was down to 239 lbs, but wanted it to be so much less. I have an 11 year old son that I want to be involved with and not just watch as his life passed by. I knew I had to go threw with the surgery even if I was scared to death. It has been 3.5 weeks now. I had my 3 week check up last Thursday and was upset because I hadn't lost anything in over a week. I was stuck at a -17 loss. But something happened over the weekend and my weight loss kicked back in and I have lost another 5 lbs. I am down to 217 now. Funny how that 17 keeps popping up, lost 17 pre op, lost 17 3 weeks post op and now down to 217. Maybe this is my new lucky number. My goal is to lose 99 lbs all together, but with my lucky 17 maybe I should be shooting for 117 loss!
I would be happy with that!
