fabulousfelicia
So where do you start telling telling your journey to wls? I guess I could start way back to when I was a kid, I mean the plain and simple thing is i was an average little kid until my grandmother died when I was eight. From that point one I wouldnt let anyone near me and two I started to gain weight. Let me preface the rest of this story by saying I went to private school all my life until I went off to college and while kids are cruel rich private school kids are ten times as bad. I was one of the three "big girls" in my class, we did everything together there was an instant connection. Perhaps it was we all were ridculed by the other kids for not quite fitting in. Somehow skinny or not I doubt I would have fit in anyway. I was into theatre and fine arts and choir even as a little kid and let's just say to the rest of your class spending the summer building sets and learning music was not something they would think was fun. Anyway I made it through middle schhol, jounior high with pretty much the same people, and got you to the torment and the gossip and what not. Enter in High school, my eighth grade year of school right before summer hit I decided that I would tryout for the high school drill team and to my suprise I made it. Now let me just say that even being a little heaver then most of the other girls on the squad I still could keep up with them. I had been a dancer for seven years taking ballet and tap so even with a bit of weight on me I could still dance circles around most of the other girls. I was excited I thought this would definatly be a way for me to lose weight, and make mew friends. Well the new firends did come. I managed to make a really great group of friends who were on the drill team and introduced me to pther friends who weren't and for once I wasnt a part of the big three I was just a normal high school girl with friends of all shapes. Don't get me worng there were still people who would make fun of me because of my weight and I was ALWAYS uncomfortable in the pep-rally uniforms and dress uniforms we had to wear but I was doing something I loved and looking back now at the viedos my parents took I wasnt as huge as i had imagined compared to the other girls on the team I also got to do ao many things I was on the NCA drill team all four years, I got to preform at the Peach Bowl I got to do a whole lot of things i would have never done had I just decided to sit on the sidelines. However while participating in the drill team I still never lost any weight. No matter how many hours I worked out i still would maintain the same weight or maybe lose 10 to 15 pounds just to gain it back. I guess the good thing was I didnt gain any weight i just never lost any. So fast forward thorough high school and on to college. I went away to University of Texas at San Antonio to study opera. That first year was hard. I had never been away from home before, never had to fend for myself, and sadly I wasnt ready to do that. I didnt like the school or the music department, I did make great friends one of whome is still active in my life but I got into drinkin, cutting class, and eating all the time. I think I gained close to fifty pounds while away at school that year. So after my first year I decided to stay in my home town and go to communitty college there. I started getting back into theatre and met a great range of diffrent people who were into theatre just like me. they didnt care about my weight just that I added something to the department. I finally felt like I belonged however i still drank ALOT and we all of us ATE all the time, we went to resturants, we went to bars, we would drive to diffrent cities to get food so again I gained more weight. Fast forward to 2000 I decided that it was time for me to get my butt in gear and go to a four year college finish my degree and get on with life. So I got into Texas A&M Kingsville's theatre department and was slated to go that fall. That summer I decided I wanted to try something a little diffrent and applied to work at a summer camp in New York. Well i got the job and moved to New York all by myself for three months, I had a blast and suddenly I started losing weight. Perhaps it was the daily walking up hills to get to places or the balanced food or the having to be active. All I know is when I got home I had lost almost 100 pnds and I was looking and feeling good. My group of friends when I got home were not to happy about my weight loss and would make comments. I never really understood why until I started talking about wanting gastric bypass later that year. I had gone off to college and had gained a bit of my weight back but not to much and had started really investigating the surgery. For selfish reasons at the time. See I was tired of always being the sidekick and never the enginue, I would always get the character actress parts and never the lead girl not that I wasnt talented enough or could outsing most of the girls who got the leads itas just you cant be a lead girl and be well fat. NOt to mention the costumer would always bitch at me when I ganed weight because she had to redo my measurments. Anyway I started to research and happened to tell one of my friends who flipped out on me. She told me i didnt need the surgery that we would start working out and lose the weight together(she is a heavy girl too but not as big as me) so I put the thought on the back burner and well didnt think of it again until I was teaching in a hgh school. It had gotten to were I couldnt really stand up for to long to teach my classes so I would sit ALOT. Not so good for a twentysomething, I had also been diagnosed with hypothyroidism and was insilin resistant. Again I started researching wls. I even submitted to my insurance through work but was denied becasue they had it written as "Cosmetic Surgery"...REALLY...REALLY cosmetic surgery?? When I told my friend that I had applied to have it done and was bummed because I was denied she said too that she thought it was vain of me to want to have the surgery, that if I wanted to lose the weight i should go on a diet and then she proceeded to tell me these horror stories about a lady at work that had major complications cause she wasnt doing it right and she knew me i would be like that and never to it right. So again wls got but out of mind...Flash forward to now. I moved to Austin a year ago to start over. I left that friend and a group of friends there that were not supportive of me and I wanted to get back into theatre and Austin seemed to be a great place to do it and an excellent fit for me. I startedworking at a technology company and life was going great but somewhere i started noticing that i didnt go out I would come home from work eat dinner and go to bed. My days off were spent in my house away from people and that i wasnt doing what I had moved here to do. So I decided it was time for me to make a change. I called my Dr and asked her what it would take for me to have wls, she called my insurance, told me to contact Dr. Mcdaniels and within a month I was okayed to have surgery. My date is set for July 17th. I am excited. I also have a partner on this journey. My mother and I are both having wls she had hers on tuesday and is doing great I am so excited for her and for me...So I guess after all the rambling thsi is where I am at..on a liquid diet and anticipating surgery so I can have a better healthier life....Definatly will keep you posted cause my story is just beginning!
