Reality check: Melting Mama

Thanks for sharing Karen... ever so often, I read something that reminds me that this is a life long process.   It came at a very opportune time.

 
Intriguing post. I respect and like the fact that she poured it all out, a retrospect of failures and issues over the past 7 years.

But I can't help but notice that her life is strung-along with poor choices. We make our own lives, and we have to deal with the consequences, whether they're good or bad. Or good, but can cause bad situations.  Did they really need to have 4 kids on a single fast food job income? Did she need to drink Starbucks post-op when they had 4 kids and a single income? Does she have to eat expensive brownies post-op? Must she avoid fruits and vegetables?   Why doesn't she exercise, knowing that doing so may reduce seizures and/or help maintain a lower weight?

We're all a result of our decisions, when you get down to it, brought on by our pasts or whatever's going on in our head. It sounds like she's not happy with the results of the surgery, when many of the things that occurred were due to her choice.  It's easy for me to judge when she lays out the timeline though, and I'm sure people could similarly poke plenty of holes through my choices. Just that I know what/who's to blame for my weight and the issues that I deal with : me.  It also sort of rubbed me the wrong way that she blamed her kids for her extra weight. They didn't exactly ask to be born. I realize this is a common "joke" amongst moms.. but really, they're not to blame.


One of my family members who has had WLS also had seizures after post-op childbirth. It sounds like there should be more research into that.

True, we do make our own lives.  We also make mistakes along the way.  I can't judge - I've made more than plenty of my own. ;)

Interesting about your family member - I know that Beth is gathering stories and stats on that.  I believe she has over 160 people on a database who have suffered seizures post-op.

Hi Jonathin

Great points you made there. You are absolutely right

 " Did they really need to have 4 kids on a single fast food job income? Did she need to drink Starbucks post-op when they had 4 kids and a single income? Does she have to eat expensive brownies post-op? Must she avoid fruits and vegetables?   Why doesn't she exercise, knowing that doing so may reduce seizures and/or help maintain a lower weight?"

Are you serious?

My oldest child is pushing 14 years old.   My husband worked at McDonald's briefly as a Store Manager when we moved out on our own when I was a teenager.  

He is now a Branch Bank Manager II/ Vice President, and has been in this position going on ten years.

We have his income, plus any income I can bring in from home. 

Re: Starbucks?  I don't drive.  Where are you getting this from?  I live ten minutes from the closest Starbucks, and I leave my house once a week.  I may get a Starbucks drink $2.50, thank you.

Re:  Brownies?  I don't make them.  Where are you getting this from?  I said I WILL INDULGE.  

Re:  Fruits and veggies?  I avoid fruit because it triggers my reactive hypoglycemia.  I like some, but not enough.   Veggies - I love.  Fibrious ones can bother my system, and I avoid.

Re:  Exercise?  I just had surgery.  

BTW - What is WRONG with my weight - and why the **** are you judging me so harshly?


-Beth

She's a great writer - very fececious but that's bringing humour to some very real issues. I find it funny and informative. Two thumbs up

Having only read this one post and nothing else she has written a couple of things strike me but I may be off base...it sounds to me like she just as soon as never had the surgery to begin with and her motivation to have the surgery was in part to support her husband. She did not say and maybe this is in her other blog entries but it sounds like she went straight from eating crap to surgery with nothing in between like any other attempts to try and change her eating or exercising etc. My feeling was not so much that 'reality' was setting in but that she is blaming WLS for the seizures though that no one would be able to prove or disprove that. I do know another woman that had a stroke giving birth and she didn't have WLS. I don't know, I'm basing this perception on one post but the way I read it is that deep down she is wishing she hadn't had the WLS. Perhaps over the past 7 years she's realized that losing weight and being at a 'normal'ish weight does not immediately mean that life is fine and rosy. It makes me wonder if she had ever hit rock bottom.

 I've been writing since 2003.

I suppose you could read a few more entries - I changed EVERYTHING about my life.

I blame no one.

That was a great post by MM...... 

I think some things she needs to come to terms with though - is that (1)  she doesn't know if WLS is the cause of her issues, (2)  If it is - she rolled the dice - and did something radical to loose weight.  I think we all know that long-term this could be the biggest mistake of our lives - we are altering and weakening one of the most significant set of organs in our body..... who knows what that means long-term......  and (3)  if her list of people with issues is only 160 long - that really is just a drop in the bucket when you compair it to MO people who are dying everyday (horrible deaths in some cases) from diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, cancer and other obesity related diseases. 

I rolled the dice - even though I knew it might mean losing my life, shortening it, significantly damaging my quality of life etc......  for the opportunity to actually "live" my life for awhile - as I really wasn't doing that anymore when I was 328 lbs.  I know what it's like to experience illness caused by being MO (stroke & cancer) and when I compaired the possibility of being ill again due to my MO - tto taking the chance and having RNY - here was no real decision to make.....  I rolled the dice without hesitation. 

LOVED this post Donna.  Couldn't have said it better myself.  I agree;  we all rolled the dice in hopes of a better life.  Most of us will find just that, a better life, some of us will have complications, and a few of us will have horrible, life altering complications.

For me personally this was worth the risk, at least so far.  Hopefully I don't have to live with complications down the road, but for right now I'm living without diabetes and over 125 pounds less fat on my body and a good chance of living a longer, healthier life. Perhaps there is some sort of "let down" feeling much further out, but can it possibly be as bad as the years of living with morbid obesity?  Christ, I hope not!


Cheryl