JesusLovinGal
I cut and pasted this from the board until I have time to sit down and edit like I want. I know there are things I want to add.
I am a stay at home mom to Annalise (3) and Isaac (1) and almost a 10yr wls (rny) veteren. (Wow, has it been that long???) At 20 years old I found myself 403lbs and asking my pcp about diet pills. He ignored my question and sent me to a seminar for the rny. 3 months later I was on the table. Looking back, I know I was too young and not committed enough. I thought I would eventually be able to eat whatever I wanted in smaller amounts (and sadly I headed straight in that direction.) In 2 years I lost 190lbs to 211 (which I saw for about a week, and eventually settled at 225 for a year or so). I was in college at the time and living on fast food, junk food, and diet soda. Over the past 7 years I have let a humiliating 95lbs creep back on. I was convinced I had broken my tool as the my surgeon's nurse had told me once "Oh, its pretty much impossible to gain wt!" Ummm, ok, so guess I proved that one wrong! I felt alone in my failure.
Oh yeah, 5 months after WLS I was put in the hospital and diagnosed with cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure. The first thing that tipped me off that something wasn't right was I completely stopped losing weight. When they put me on diuretics I lost 50lbs in 2 weeks....I'd been losing weight, but gaining fluid all along. Its almost like wls took the back burner in my life as I focused on my heart problem. I had to withdraw from college and wasn't allowed to work as I spent a year at home recovering. (Now my heart is almost at normal function and I am no longer in chf...praise the Lord!)
Somewhere along the road, my old demons began to resurface and I once again soothed my soul with food, except with my drastically reduced capacity, I found it all to easy to purge. So now I find myself trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of binging and purging. I don't know that I would be labeled and all out bulimic b/c I don't purge out of a fear of gaining weight, but because I have A. eaten too much, B. not chewed well enough, or most commonly, C. BOTH. All too often I throw-up "good food" and turn to those pouch-easy sliders of simple carbs when I am hungry an hour later. When the kids are nuts in the grocery store, I reach for a candy bar in the check-out line. (The very same way I used to sneak candy bars and chips when my parents were fighting when i was a kid.) I rarely dump...it takes like regular ice cream to make me dump. :( I never should have tested it.
