Thoughts on telling people

 I think I could handle the negative comments.  In my opinion if they can't keep their mouth shut that is a problem with them, not me.  ;)

your body - your decision on who to tell / or not. 

 Everyone has to do what feels right to them and I personally tell anyone that mentions my weight loss. I am so very grateful that someone shared their story with me and gave me the knowlege that the sleeve is an option for permanent weight loss. I never considered surgery before because the only people I knew that had it had gastric bypass and I knew I didn't want that so when someone I knew started losing a lot of weight and then told me about her surgery I began looking into it. I am so pleased with my new life I can't imagine not telling everyone about it 

 Great point, if it goes well for me and I can help others I would want to be able to support them.  That would be tough though if I am not talking about it!

I have found that either way (telling or not) I've been interrogated, judged, and bothered about my weight.  If I don't tell then everyone starts gossiping and trying to figure out what is happening, and they start offering medical advice.  If I do tell everyone starts gossiping and start offering medical advice.  I only told my husband, my parents and my sister.  However, my husband told my mother-in-law and reassured me she wouldn't say anything to anyone.  Yeah right.  She called us on Thanksgiving and was like "We all missed you and everyone wants to know how you guys are doing.  Of course, they want to know everything.  I told them EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR SURGERY that I knew.  They're all interested in finding out more.  Blah Blah Blah".  I was enraged!  The fact that all of these judgmental people (that I don't particularly like) are sitting around at Thanksgiving talking about my weight makes me incredibly angry.  I'm not around them daily.  There was no need for all of them to know.  So...either way I can't win.  It's up to you who you tell.  I have a hard time accepting the fact that any time food is involved my surgery is brought up.  Irritates me.  

 I can see this exact scenario happening in my family.  The husband is going to struggle with not talking about it.  He would then just say that they "guessed" and it wasn't him.  I will have to stop writng this to go threaten him, lol!

Get on it girl!  I missed the threatening part and so I've now become gossip for his WHOLE family!!!  Sounds fun, right?  Not always.  So aggravating.  And now he wants to go home for Christmas and I'm not thrilled at that prospect.  Lol I just can't win.  So...my suggestion is you threaten his life.  Mine probably would've told anyways.  He doesn't do good when his mom starts pressuring him for information.  Damn men! 

 Are you sure we are not married to the same man?

One piece of advice on this topic - while I wholeheartedly agree that it our own personal right to decide who to tell and not to tell about our surgery, we also have to own the consequences of that decision.  I'm referring to very close friends and family here -- if you tell some and not others, feelings can be hurt and relationships damaged as a result.  They are as entitled to their feelings as we are to ours, so I just wanted to mention this aspect for you to keep in mind when making your decision about who you will and will not confide in. 

I am not keeping my WLS a secret, and I have had a very positive experience with that.  I didn't make any kind of announcement, but as the subject came up, I told my co-workers why I was taking time off.  Told my family that I see weekly.  After surgery, if it comes up, I tell people.  My line of thought, other than really not wanting to have to live with secrets, was that anyone who had negative crap to say probably already said negative crap about me being morbidly obese in the first place, and i don't have time to live my life worrying about those people.

Honestly, I have gotten nothing but supportive comments.  Also lots of questions about my food restrictions and how the surgery works, which is ok with me.  I'd much rather people just ask than talk about it behind my back or something.  I have found that overall though, this surgery occupies my thoughts much more than anyone else's, you know?  The great majority of days, no one brings it up to me at all.  Sometimes I notice people giving me an extra look, like they are wondering how much I've lost, but people don't usually ask.  I think that would happen whether they knew about my surgery or not.

The best part in being open about surgery is being able to get support where I need it.  For example, when my supervisor (I'm a hospital floor RN) asked how I was doing with everything, I told her it was hard to get my fluids in during a busy 12 hr shift.  She told me that if I ever felt I needed it to just to ask for a break to drink something, and she'd cover my patients.  Then she made a point to check in with me during my shift.  At Thanksgiving, no one offered me dessert or seconds (that would have been par for the course previously, my aunt even INSISTING that I take a dessert).

I have had two women tell me they are considering surgery for themselves, and I got the opportunity to be the first person to tell them about the VSG.  Also gave them this website.  Those conversations wouldn't have happened if I had kept it a secret, and that in itself makes it worthwhile to me.

That all said, if you have a crappy boss, and you think he'd give you a hard time, I don't think you have any obligation to tell him about it.