mallettesl
My story is so much like the next person when it comes to the battle of weight. I have always been heavy. I can never remember a moment in my life when I was thin. What makes that so odd is that neither my parents or my two brothers have any kind of weight issue.
My mom is very healthy and I can remember as a child her always giving us healthy food. But as I look back over my life I have figured out what happened. I have always hated to exercise. I mean really hated it and ladies Im sure you can relate. When you are top heavy who wants to be running and jumping up and down that hurts.
But I digress, how did I get here to the land of WLS.....Let me begin with it all started with the downsizing of my job in June of 2004. It went elsewhere for cheaper labor (ooh I could say some mean stuff). My nerves were so bad that I started having really bad stomach aches and the worst heart burn, then I started getting laryngitis. I didn't have insurance at the time so I just took my over the counter drugs and waited until my insurance kicked in at my new job. (I was on a mission..... I lost my job in June and started my new one in August) Then (I swear I remember this like it was yesterday) I was standing in my kitchen looking out the window and eating Doritos I swear to God I felt like I was having a heart attack. I went straight to the ER. When I got there, had an EKG and that came back fine. I told the doctor about what has happening and how I felt horribly. He gave me something to drink and I let out the loudest belch in the world after that felt fine, went home and two days later I was back to the same thing heartburn.
I was at the point that I could barely lay down at night. So I went to see my PCP. His feelings were that it was acid reflux and prescibed Nexium for repair and Prevacid for prevention. It did not work at all. Then he prescribed Protonix (these pills are serious...lots of do's and don'ts). Nothing worked. Then came all the tests and I mean all the test.s I felt like they had no clue what was wrong with me. Then my PCP got worried...acid reflux like mine can lead to a condition called Barrett's Esophagus. This is no joke it can be a pre-cursor to esophageal cancer. (So please if you have heart burn, and other problems with it... get it checked) So then he decided I needed lose some weight fast. Enter LAP RNY. I was like WTF....I did not want it. I had only heard negative things about it. I started having the tests for my gastric bypass in April of 2005. Did them back to back to get on my surgeons schedule. I swear there were some days I had to two or more appointments in one day. My doctors were serious, I could either have the surgery or risk getting cancer. My surgery date was June 14, 2005, I weighed close to 300 pounds.
