kc4desert
I am a widowed mother of 3 children. I own my home - and have a great career that I truly love. I am a critical care respiratory specialist - which means I take care of patients on life support system. I specialise in Infants and Children. This job requires me to be on call 24hrs a day 7 days a week - adds to the stress load for sure.
As far as weight gain - I was a average size teenager - with a mother who was worried about my weight - as I had a grandmother who was "as round as she was tall". My intake was watched daily to keep me at that size. When I married and left home - I was able to "do as I pleased" and gained about 20 lbs. Stayed that size until my first pregnancy. I gained alot of weight during the pregancy - but only had a 5 lb baby - so the rest was extra Karen. I over the next year I lost weight but never regained a normal size. This happened 2 more times with 2 more babies. After my 3rd child I joined weight watchers and lost all my excess weight - 100lbs. But gradually over about 4 years I gained it all back + some of course. In 1999 I lost my home and all my belongings in a tornado. The stress of that caused me to eat more -and possibly my metabolism to decrease - anyway - I gained more weight. In 2001 my son received a head and spinal injury that resulted in months of rehabilitation, home bound schooling and physician visits and not knowing if he would ever walk again - let alone be normal. What happened? More weight. In 2003 my husband of 22 years died of a heart attack on Super Bowl Sunday while we were awaiting friends for a super bowl party. He was a slim 190 lb 6'1" man who exercised. I as devestated to say the least... and again more weight. So from the pattern I am sure by now you can guess - I am a stress eater. I can manage to maintain my weight..until something stressful happens in my life. I had one physicain tell me I had stress induced hypothyroidism - don't know if that is real or not. But am hopeful this is chaper 1 in a story that progesses to a happy ending - not necessarily skinny - but healthy and able to do more. I have a home on 5 acres and the summer lawn work really is tough with the extra weight. I am looking forward to life after the surgery - scared to death of the actual surgery. So there you have it - my life...as of 4-25-07