Lynda D.
A little back story...ok, A LOT of backstory
Feb 13, 2011
When I was a child, I was what my mom referred to as "chubby." I had an appetite and I loved sweets (Still do). I experienced the social stigmas that came with being overweight: None of the boys I liked liked me back (I had a few cases of puppy love in elementary school); I was never picked to be on anyone's team when playing sports, I was rarely noticed, and if I was noticed, the attention was negative and was focused on my size. I endured teasing all through elementary school and into junior high. The worst teasing came from my brothers (of all people), who called me "Blipta." Ouch.I belonged to a large family; I was the fifth of six kids – three boys, then three girls. Just like the Brady Bunch, we used to joke. *Sigh* I was Jan, stuck in the middle and mediocre, with the beautiful and talented older sister, and the cute and adorable little sister. Yeah, I can really relate to Jan Brady. There are a lot of years that separate me from my other siblings. My younger sister, the baby of the family, is seven years younger than me, and my older sister, the fourth child, is seven years older than me. I always felt a little bit of isolation because all my siblings were so much older. My two oldest brothers were married and out of the house before I was even eight years old. I love them and they love me, but I'm not very close to them.
I had a great dad. Warm, loving, supportive and understanding, the kind of dad every girl should have. That's not to say he was perfect, of course, he let me down and failed me on many occasions, but he was truly a wonderful father to me. Sadly, he died just three day after Christmas in 1989 from Multiple Myeloma (a type of cancer). I will miss him always.
I didn't have the greatest relationship with my mother. I know now that she loves me, but didn't believe it while growing up. She had a problem with my weight...well, actually, she had a problem with me. She was never satisfied with me. I never felt like I could do anything right. To this day, I struggle with my self worth and I'm sensitive to criticism because of my harsh upbringing. My mom had more of a problem with my weight, I think, than I did. I didn't like being "chubby" of course, was envious of the thin girls in school, but I think I was more accepting of myself than my mom was. When I was about 14, almost 15, years old, my mom put me on Dexatrim. Looking back, I think it was a highly irresponsible thing for a parent to do to a child and it's something I would never do to my children.
Dexatrim was/is basically caffeine and I found myself bouncing off the walls and never hungry. Within a month or two I had lost around fifty pounds.
Suddenly, I was getting noticed—in a good way. Suddenly, I was getting compliments. Suddenly, the boys I liked, liked me back. They would come to my house to see me, and we'd talk and joke around while sitting on my front porch. I loved that. It was flattering and it was fun. I got no more insults and teasing.
I craved more of this good stuff so I went nuts with dieting. I went days without eating, exercised like crazy, constantly obsessed over how much I weighed. I'm 5' 3" and at one point, when I was fifteen, I weighed just a little over one hundred pounds. I was bony and I felt like crap much of the time. I remember every time I used the bathroom, I would turn sideways and look in the mirror to see if my stomach was flat. If it wasn't, I would panic and quite eating for awhile. Dexatrim was my source of food.
Gradually though, I mellowed out on the crazy dieting and I gained weight until I was up to around 125 lbs at the age of seventeen. I really feel that was when I looked and felt my best. It was still a ton of work to maintain that weight. I exercised obsessively and really watched what I ate. I was hungry a lot but I ignored it. I dropped the Dexatrim habit as well, good thing. But I had such a tendency to gain, it was frustrating and I had to work and work.
Once I got married my weight creeped up. My husband loves good food and so do I. When I was single it was easier to control what I ate and what food was allowed in my house. Once I was married, however, that changed. I still continued to exercise. I took long walks, I worked out on my stair climber, I recorded exercise shows off of ESPN and worked out with them. I tried to control my weight. I joined Weight Watchers and gained eight pounds! Are you kidding me?? I decided I could gain weight on my own, thank you very much, and for free, so I quit Weight Watchers. I looked into other programs like Jenny Craig, but I just couldn't afford it. They were all so stinkin' expensive and we were in school and broke.
After the birth of my son, I gained more weight and it wouldn't come off (Surprise, surprise). I joined a gym and during my lunch break (I was in college), I used to go and workout. I loved weight lifting. I loved the way I felt afterwards—tired, but a good kind of tired. I loved the toning and definition it gave to my muscles. I was heavier than was good for me, but I was toned and I still looked good. I worked hard to keep my weight down. I usually ate just one meal a day, with maybe a salad for lunch once in a while. I got hooked on Diet Coke. What is it with me and caffeine?!!
I got pregnant with my daughter and actually lost some weight. Then after she was born my appetite went nuts! I was hungry all the time and couldn't stop eating. I ended up gaining back what I'd lost during my pregnancy, and then some. I wonder if my insulin was doing weird things after pregnancy. Dr. Atkins mentions something about this in his book, that insulin levels can spike after a pregnancy. I don't exactly remember what the book says, however, it's been too many years.
This pregnancy pattern continued with the birth of each of my children. I'd get pregnant, lose weight, have my baby, my appetite would hit the roof, I'd gain all the weight back plus more, and so on. And the extra weight would not come off! By the time my youngest was born I weighed 250 pounds. It was getting harder and harder to control my weight. At one point I did Atkins for six months and lost 45 pounds. I gained it all back of course. Later, I tried Atkins again and nothing happened!!! Even on induction!!! I decided then that this was it for me, there was nothing I could do and I would just have to make the best of it.
And then I began to hear about the RNY gastric bypass surgery.
There was a lot of hoopla about it at the time. Carny Wilson had written her two books, Al Roker had gastric bypass. It seemed promising. I began to look into it.
Now when I say "look into it," I mean I looked into it. I looked into it for two years before actually having the surgery. I didn't just jump into it. I spent hours here on OH, asking questions, reading people's posts and profiles. I read the studies, I talked to people in real life who'd had the surgery. I prayed about it. I prayed a lot about it. I thought and thought and thought about it constantly. It looked so promising. There was a typical weight gain at about two years out, I'd read, but it was just 20% or so. That added up to about 20 pounds. I could live with that, no problem. Sounds great. There was dumping when you ate sugar and that made people not want to eat sugar. I have a real problem with sugar. I'd love it if something made me give it up. Sounds great. You lose the weight so fast. It just melts off. And it's easy to lose any regain. No more stubborn pounds not coming off. Sounds great. It all just sounded so great.
I'd heard of the DS, of course, but what I heard wasn't good. Admittedly, I never really looked that hard into it. My insurance didn't cover it and I'm not wealthy. Self-pay was out of my reach (still is). My insurance said the DS was experimental. That scared me and made me think it was a deadly surgery. I didn't want something unproven. I do remember a silly, gushing post that I read here on OH. Some silly-headed girl wrote something like, "OMG, you should get the Duodenal Switch like I am! You can eat anything you want and still lose weight!!!" Eat anything you want and still lose weight? No way. Sounds too good to be true. If life has taught me one thing, it's that there is no such thing as a free ride. There had to be a catch. The catch? Uncontrolled bowels. Bad gas. Horrible nutritional deficiencies. That was what I'd heard about the DS and there was no friggin' way I would consider anything that dangerous. Besides, my insurance wouldn't pay for it, and like I said earlier, I just didn't have the money to self-pay. I put the whole idea out of my head and pursued the RNY with a vengeance.
It took me two years to get approval for my RNY. I did everything my insurance required and then some. I waited and I worked. And worked and worked. I lived and breathed the RNY and getting insurance approval. Finally, I got approved for surgery for the day of November 5th, 2005. I chose Dr. Legrand Belnap because he is such a skilled surgeon. He does organ transplants and is accustomed to working with very ill patients. I was pretty healthy then, aside from my obesity. I didn't have any co-morbidities other than fierce migraines and problems with sciatica. I knew I was in good hands.
But Dr. Belnap didn't have any aftercare to speak of. He gave me guidelines to follow, but nothing else. The doctors over at Rocky Mountain Associated Physicians have a much better aftercare program, but they wanted two hundred dollars out of pocket. Remember what I said about never having enough money? Yeah, that little fact got in the way again.
The almighty dollar rules my world.
I used OH as my support system instead. I had problems with my health from the get-go. But I will detail that another day, it's late and I'm tired. Stay tuned...
