Kerry A.
First of, I am so excited about my new life! I am a single 26 year old living in Wisconsin. I have a degree and am a Human Resources Manager. Thank you to all of my wonderful family and friends who are supporting me through all of this.
Weight has been a struggle for me my entire life. I grew up in Overland Park, Kansas. Growing up with kids who know how to be cruel was hard. I most vivid memory I have of being in grade school was the song the 6th grade boys had about be being obese. They would call me carebear the sea cow. Oh, the had verses! Who knew they liked me so much to think about it that long!!! It was hurtfull and I was damaged for it. I was grateful thought to have a few friends who always liked me for me. My sister Kathy and I, she was 2 years older, didn't always have the best relationship either. She had a lot of friends and the boys were always after her. When I got to highschool I was very jealous of her. But, I can say our relationship did get closer. Her friends were always nice to me, unless it was time to be cool infront of someone else. I can say most of the people did mature when we made it to highschool. I met my frist true love when I was a sophomore in highschool, but it wasn't at school it was through family. I will always hold a special place in my heart for him for seeing me as the person I was inside even though his friends gave him a hard time about dating a "fat girl". We actually were together for 9 months, and have always remained in touch until recently, and I really miss that.
After highschool I decided to move from Kansas to Wisconsin to go to school. I needed a new start. I attended the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh where I graduated with a degree in Business with an emphasis in Human Resources. I have met some great people since I moved here. I tried several different weight loss techniques, special diets, exercise, eating healthy, and even a personal trainer for almost 2 years. I would always get to a certain point and then plateau. I would lose about 20 pounds and not feel that much better about myself.
About 6 months ago my "sister" told about about a surgery she had about a year and a half ago. She went through with RNY in July of 2006 and lost about 130 lbs. She looks fantastic and says she feels great. I had been thinking about this surgery for a couple of years but always thought it was too risky. Knowing someone who went through it though really helped me with my decision to start thinking more seriously about it!!
In October of 2007 I went to the informational session with the support of my Mom. When I took my mom home, my dad wanted to hear all about it and that meant a lot to me. We talked very openly about what I wanted out of it and how they felt about this type of surgery. They were both leaning towards the band bc of the risk factors, but I knew I wanted to have RNY.
I went through my sleep study, found out I have sleep apnea, and did my psych exam and thank goodness my 2 years with ther personal trainer counted as my 6 months of supervised diet and exercise- my trainer was awesome and wrote up all my sheet for me- she was very supportive and still is!!!!
I got all of my paperwork to the doctors about mid December and they submitted everything to my insurance on Friday, January 4th. With luck and some great people at my insurance company I was approved on Monday the 7th of January!!!! I don't know how it happened that fast, but it was great!!!!! By the next week the doctor's office received all of the paperwork needed to schedule appointments from my insurance company and we scheduled away!!!
My final appointment was my surgery, scheduled for Tuesday, February 12th.
