CHVLADY
I am 44 years old, very happily married and the mother of two. I am 5' 7.75"
I have struggled with my weight most of my life. I remember thinking I was fat in Junior High School when I weighed 130 pounds. At some time during my teen years I was having a sports physical and the Dr. told me that my blood pressure was high and that I was overweight. I don't know how much I weighed but I do know that I felt hopeless, and I was ashamed to put on my swim suit and practice with my team. I hated the locker room because I was sure everyone was looking at how fat I was. I had always been bigger than my friends and the Doctor validated my fear that it was not just a bone structure thing, but that I was FAT. My mother was an awesome cook with sauces and sweets every night. I was 200#'s at high school graduation. I lost some, I gained some, I started a new job where I was walking a lot and I lost again. Most of my 20's were between 175 and 190. I started weight watchers and was having a wonderful time being single and my weight was between 150 and 165, but I saw myself as heavy the entire time. I married the love of my life and got pregnant...my weight went to 220. I went on a protein sparing fast and went down to 147. That lasted for about three months before my weight crept back up to 170 when I discovered I was pregnant with my second child. I weighed 225 after the birth and until I stopped nursing. My weight went down to 170 and then up to 190. I broke my ankle and stopped playing tennis and being active. In fact, I slept a lot and had very little energy. I was on crutches for 16 weeks and had surgery to repair the torn ligaments in my ankle. Once that was better, I began to have heavy bleeding with every period and my periods would last for as many as ten days. I started taking the pill and my weight went up to 213. I was miserable and started sleeping even more. My weight eventually went up to 252 pounds even as I tried to do anything to get it down. I went each week to a nutritionist for help and I would lose a little and then gain all of it and more back. I had an irregular heartbeat, I was anxious all the time, I had a foggy memory and I was so tired it was hard to function without 14-15 hours of sleep. I kept thinking it was the diet so I tried the protein fast, I tried the modified and advanced fasts, I tried the exchange programs...still I never gave up on my dream to be thin...even though I am still not sure I know what thin means to me-is it a number on the scale or a size in jeans or a comfort level or...
In 2008 I discovered that I had a parathyroid adenoma. After months of trying to get the doctors in my hometown to diagnose me, I found a doctor in Tampa Florida who specializes in parathyroid disease. Four months later I flew to Tampa and had a fourteen minute operation to remove a huge hormone spewing tumor. I immediately felt better and thought for sure the weight would come off after I recovered. Fortunately, many of the ugly symptoms I had were gone immediately after the tumor was removed but my weight has remained. Because I have gotten so heavy I have numerous issues with my feet and ankles so exercise is painful and therefore hard to commit to on any long term basis.
My whole family is overweight (actually probably obese) and it is frightening to watch them as they each have their health deteriorate because of their weight. Heart disease, cancer, borderline diabetes, hernias, joint diseases, etc...Even at my heaviest, I am the thinnest one in my immediate family. My grandmothers were both overweight and suffered health related problems including diabetes and heart disease. All of my aunts and uncles are overweight and many of them have also suffered health issues as a result.
I do not have high blood pressure, or out of the normal blood lipids, I don't have sleep apnea, I don't have diabetes...I am basically healthy except that walking to the bathroom in the night is very painful because my feet and ankles hurt so bad. Sometimes the bottoms of my feet go numb and they burn when I walk on them. I have had both feet injected more times than I can count to try to get a handle on plantar fasciitis. My knee started hurting earlier this year and sometimes it wakes me up at night. My uterus and bladder are prolapsed so I have stress incontinence. I get horrible headaches. My back hurts. I have hemorrhoids...very painful! I also have GERD and esophagitis. While not life threatening, they are the beginnings of what I can see will be a lifetime of health problems if I don't get a handle on this now.
Because my health issues are not yet life threatening it has been hard for me to make the commitment to WLS, but there is another component that affects me in a much bigger way than my health issues. I am the only fat mom at school and I don't want to humiliate my kids so I try to stay away as much as possible-they want me there though. It's not fair to them for me to have to hide because I am fat. I am confident in business but I think I would be so much more respected if I was thin.
My weight loss surgery journey began four years ago when I scheduled surgery for a lapband. When I arrived at the surgery center my temperature was 102 and I had a urinary tract infection (the only one I have ever had in my adult life) so they sent me home to get well. I decided that the universe was sending me a message and I cancelled surgery completely. Of course, my attempts to lose the weight have failed and I am back to the place where I have acknowledged that I need intervention. I can not do this alone and I want so badly to be thin.
I have labored over this decision for a long time now and it is less than 72 hours away and I am still scared witless about it, but I have done my due diligence and I am going into this with my eyes wide open. Right now, I just want to be on the other side of the surgery and on my way to a whole new body and way of life. I can't wait to buy some of those tiny little tennis skirts and get back on the court with the other moms! I can't wait to have the energy to be competitive and to have the stamina to win! I can not wait to be able to volunteer at school without worrying about how I will dress to cover my chub. I can't wait to be the skinny bi*ch at work instead of the fat one. I can't wait for my husband to be proud to take me around his friends and their skinny fit wives. I can not wait to feel like I am normal!
In talking with my surgeon about all of this the other day he asked me to think about how much space I will have in my head when I don't have to think about my weight-when I don't have to think about my clothes or who I am going to be with or whether they will reject my friendship because I am fat...I can not wait to have space in my head for other stuff!
