Lori O.
I have been been somewhat overweight all my life. 6th grade-125lbs 9th grade-145 lbs 12th grade-170 lbs 21 years old- 190 The biggest weight gain was in between the birth of my 3 girls. I gained 30 pounds between each pregancy! My daughters are now all in college and are all beauty -queen-beautiful. (They have their dad's skinny gene!) But I'm now my heaviest 313 lbs. I've always been told that I "carry my weight" well and that I'm pretty, right in the face! I'm very active in my community & my church. I'm a teacher, by professions, but also love to sing, so I stand in front of people all the time. I'm also the music director at my church, so 200+ people have to look at my backside as I direct the choir every Sunday. I'd love to be smaller as I stand in front of people. I've been pondering WLS now for about 3 years, after seeing the success of one of my friends. I went to see Dr. Syn (super surgeon) in Lubbock, TX to have gastric bypass, but my insurance company (BC/BS) turned me down because I have no co-morbidities. So I put WLS on the back-burner for a while. (Plus, I promised a dear friend of mine that I wouldn't have gastric bypass, and she has since died of cancer, so I felt I needed to honor her request. In addition, my husband, of 23 years loves me the way I am & says that he'd rather me be overweight than to have hanging skin.) But I found out a few months ago that I'm going to be a grandma. And I want to be able to get on the floor with my grandbaby. With 3 girls in college, I have no extra money , but we took out a second mortgage to make improvements on our home, & I'm going to use part of that to have surgery. So I looked into lapband but live too far from fill clinics & plus fills do not fit into my busy schedule. So then I decided on mini-gastric bypass, but didn't have $17,000. So I did a web search & found Dr. Alvarez . After reading all his reviews, it was a no-brainer! After talking to Susan, I decided on the sleeve, rather than MGB. My date for surgery is Jan 31 '08. I'm very excited about it. I still dread the hanging skin that I know is inevitable, but look forward to be able to stand in front of the church or on a stage & know that I look good! I know God loves me the way I am, but I also want to be able to live for many years to come!
