fallingpersephone
I am 27 years old and I cannot remember a time when I was not made fun of for being "the fat girl". I see pictures from when I was 4 or 5 and I don't look fat...but I don't remember it.
It's amazing how ignorant complete strangers can be to you just because of your weight. I was standing outside of a mall with my boyfriend at the time and a car drove by. Some kid leaned out the window and yelled "Mix in a salad!" My boyfriend was 6'1" and all of 150 lbs so I doubt it was directed towards him.
I struggled with yo-yo dieting thru high school and the better part of college. I lived off cabbage soup for 3 months at one point. I say all of this to give an idea of the mental and emotional beating I had been putting up with. I listened to it for a long time. I believed people when they said I would have a hard time living out my dreams because of my weight. I let others dictate how I lived my life and how I felt about myself for too long.
At about 23, something snapped. Maybe I had just heard "You have such a pretty face" one too many times. I started learning how to love myself because I was a good person- not constantly judge myself because I didn't fit into some messed up society's idea of what looked perfect. I started living for myself instead of other people's idea of me. I finally became my own person.
When I was 26, I changed jobs and just happened to have the opportunity for WLS come to me. It turned out that the insurance my work offered completely covered the procedure. Well of course I jumped on the chance. But what really got me through everything is that I did it for me. I didn't do it for a significant other, I didn't do it for a family member, I didn't do it because of all the people in the past. I did it so I could live a healthier, more productive life.
I worked with my doctor, dietician and psychiatrist to get my surgery scheduled. Unfortunately there were a few setbacks. My first surgery date was November 14, 2006. That was canceled because my surgeon was concerned about my BMI and wanted me to drop another 10 lbs. In January 2007 I went to his office 22 lbs. lighter and he rescheduled for February 27th. The day before he called me at home and said he needed to reschedule AGAIN because he had broken his ankle and wasn't completely healed. Of course this took a huge emotional toll on me. A few days later I got another call to reschedule for March 14th. Finally this date panned out! I was in pre-op for a few hours with my family. I wasn't nervous at all...probably because there had been so much anticipation before. And everything went perfectly. When they finally took me back to the OR, they put me on the table and I remember hearing the anesthesiologist say "I'm going to give you something to rel...." and that was it. I woke up a few hours later in post-op with my mom there talking to me. The only weird thing was I couldn't open my eyes. I could hear everything and talk....just couldn't open my eyes. I was in the hospital for about 3 1/2 days and the staff was excellent. I sent them a giant 'thank you' cookie later.
At my post op appointment the first thing out of my surgeon's mouth was "You look like someone who did NOT just have major surgery!" I had lost another 23 lbs. He took my staples out, we talked, and since I was healing so well he let me go back to work. So 10 days after open gastric bypass, I was back at work. Now, 2 weeks later, aside from having a hard time getting enough nutrients in (imagine that!) I'm doing amazing! And part of that, again, is knowing this was the biggest and maybe most important thing that I could ever do...and I did it for me.
