lolo100
what a year it's been
Oct 10, 2010
This has been a tough year. I have had more personal struggles and health problems than I would have thought I could handle, But I have and I am still OK. My Mom and Dad both died this year, 2 months apart. That has been really tough. I miss them everyday. Especially my Mom. She was so full of life and although she was very ill she wanted to LIVE. She is really an inspiration. Dad quite literally died from a broken heart after she passed. He had no desire to live without her. After a short, but painful ordeal, he joined her.
I started out this year resolved to get my declining health in order. I had my treadmill repaired and started a slow but steady routine. I also resolved to move ahead with WLS which I had researched for a few years. I contacted Paclap in S.F. and began that process. I had my nutritional evaluation & psych eval. At that point I had a tentative approval from ins. However, they came back and said that even though I had been on every diet plan, some supervised some not, i needed to complete 6 mo of a medically supervised program prior to surgery. I signed up for one & spent a small fortune and began in Jan.
In the middle of all this I was t-boned in a car accident & hurt my back. I fell on ice and hurt my knee. I had constant upper abdominal pain. I became anemic, liver panel out of whack, and pre-diabetic. I had high blood pressure and elevated triglycerides already. In February I had a gall stone. Mom was too sick then for me to think about surgery. She became progressively worse. I continued with supervised weight loss program for about 8 weeks. Then in March my Mom was finally diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. When I told my Dad, he had a heart attack. That was horrible. I had to leave my Mom alone after she just got the most devastating news in order to go with my Dad to the ER. I had two parents to care for. Mom had a colostomy on March 28th. She suffered a stroke that night and died on April 1st. I actually went back to my weight loss program a couple weeks after she died and attended 2 meetings. My Dad's health continued to decline and he ended up in the hospital. He died of multiple organ failure on June 2nd.
By July my abdominal problems were getting almost unbearable. I finally spent the time needed to get to the bottom of it and was diagnosed with chronic gall bladder disease and fatty liver. I had my gall bladder out in August. I still have occasional cramp like symptoms which may be from my liver. The constant gnawing pain and bloat are gone with the gallbladder, thankfully.
With my own illness and the time spent with my parents, I have missed a lot of work. I have worked for the same company for 21 years so thankfully they worked with me since in no time in my employment history have I missed any significant amount of time. However, asking for more time off this year to have a elective surgery is out of the question.
So now I am trying to get my head clear again. I feel like my health is at a crucial point and that I must do something to prevent some permanent damage from happening. I would like to pursue having surgery again with a goal of getting that done in 6 to 8 months. That will put me back at work steadily for 9 months consecutively and a year after my first absence with my mom's death. This also gives me time to start up another medically supervised weight loss program. I plan to write my ins co to find out if i can have any "credit" from my other attempt, or if I must start from scratch.
I will once again be reading the forums out there for inspiration, information, and courage. Looking forward to a new year and saying good bye to this one.
