G. Carter
My name Georgeann and I am a 61 years old woman who knows all to well about the co-morbities and grave illness of super morbid obesity.
In the fall of 1999, I was gravely ill and hospitalized for 5 weeks. As a result of my ill health I had to stop working. After having worked all of my life and doing for me and my two children, after a bitter divorce. I began to stress over how we were going to make it. I was so stressed until I mentally shutdown and isolated myself from friends and family members. I would dwell on my problems and comforted myself with food. I ate whatever I wanted whenever I wanted with no regard to the nutritional value or the lack thereof. As time passed my poor eating habits worsened and so did my mental and physical health.
I had eaten my way to be super morbidly obese. My body functions and organs were shutting down, my body swollen from severe edema, blood clots in my legs, pneumonia, oxygen deprivation, sleep apnea, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes and vision loss, taking 15 different medicines a day. I became immobile and could no longer walk and was confined to my bed and used a manual wheelchair when it was necessary for me to go out. I depended on oxygen to help me breath when awake and a bipap with oxygen to breath for me when I slept … tubing hanging from my face 24/7. I could not do ANYTHING for myself and my teen children and home nursing services took care of me. This was me until 2004, when I weighed in at 600 pounds.
I lived like this for 5 long years. At this point in my life my doctor told me I had two decisions to make and they were to fight to live or choose to die, my estimated life expectancy was 6 months to one year if I didn’t lose the weight. I was 47 years old. Many people have asked me how I allowed myself to get to this point in my life, and, my response to them was depression.
I had lost all hope, my thoughts were “it’s to late … kill yourself, you’re going to die anyway.” I wanted to die but another voice in my thoughts would whisper threw the turmoil going on in my head, “you will live and not die.”
In July of 2004, I called those who I knew really loved me and apologized for shutting them out and told them I needed help and they came running to my rescue. My doctor suggested Weight Loss Surgery as an option for me to lose weight fast, because I was running out time. In January of 2004, I contacted OSU Hospital Bariatric Program and received a packet explaining their program for weight loss surgery. From January 2004 to March 2004, I held on to the packet and researched until I was no longer afraid of having WLS. It took me from March 2004 to January 2005, to complete the entire pre op process and on January 28, 2005, I had the Roux-yen Y Gastric Bypass Surgery. Due to my extreme size I knew the risk factors involved along with my recovery time being longer than normal. I did encounter post-op complications which kept me in the hospital and nursing home until April of 2005.
God has brought me from the hospitals and nursing homes. He has delivered me from the wheelchairs, walkers, canes, oxygen tanks and bipap machines. God healed me from severe edema, blood clots in my legs, chronic pneumonia, oxygen deprivation, sleep apnea, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, diabetes, ovarian cancer and restored my vision. I no longer take 15 different medications per day. I have been given another chance to live for and I am taking full advantage of this opportunity.
My current weight-loss to date is 290 pounds with another 110 plus pounds to go. I have been blessed to be able to do for myself again. I can tie my shoes, bathe myself, clean my own house, grocery shop, swim, fit in a normal size chair, I can drive again and I am truly grateful! To God be the Glory!
”For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after." Jeremiah 30:17
About Me
Before & After
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