melts
My name is Karen, I'm 46 years old, been happily married for 3 years to a great and supportive man. I have 2 great children, my daughter is 27 and my son is 30 (that's still hard to say)! I live in Pittsburgh, PA and work for an accounting firm as a system admin. I have had weight problems all my life but this is the biggest I've been.
*WLS Decision and 1st Attempt*
After much research I decided to have the bypass surgery. I'll skip all the problems that arose during the testing and approval part for now. On 6/20/06 we attempted my first surgery but when Dr Courcoulas went in she discovered my liver was very abnormal so she took a biopsy and stopped the surgery to avoid any possiblities of me having liver failure. It ends up I have liver disease called NASH stage 2 so she sent me to a specialist & he okayed me for surgery. Then after more test they discovered I'm diabetic now. So now my health problems are Fibromylgia, HBP, high chlorestral, some arthritis, sleep apnea, Diabetes II and NASH. My surgery for the bypass was approved again & it will be 9/12/06. Finally! It was horrible to wake up expecting it to be over and to find out it wasn't done, but I respect Dr Courcoulas so much, as does my family and its great to know I can truly trust her with my life! She also put me on the Optifast Liquid Diet (YUK!!!) for 6 weeks prior to my new surgery because she has found that it has helped people's livers like mine in preparation for surgery. It's been really hard and the first 3 weeks I stuck closely to it but the last 3 have been much harder. I stick as closely to it as possible but when I do cheat I try to stay away from fats and sugars.
*My Eating Problems*
Most people just don't understand how hard this is, I realize that food is like an addiction to me. I try to explain it's like telling an alcoholic he can only have a half a drink a day and expect him to stop there. There's no way that you can completely avoid food. One of the many reasons I chose this WLS is I feel I need something to happen as I'm eating to make me stop overeating. I need an immediate punishment to stop me and then I feel I will have more time to re-teach myself a healthy normal eating habit. I've been asked "Am I an emotional eater" yes I am, I eat when I'm happy, sad, upset, bored... I eat with every emotion! I've realized for a long time that I have my comfort foods and my 2 worse downfalls are bakery items (especially cake) and Reese cups. I also figured out why they are my comfort foods, they're all associated with my Grams. She was a great Grandmother and baked goods were her favorites and she always had candy for us every Sunday and she ALWAYS made sure there was Reese cups for me. It's something that seems so silly and I recognize it all but I still can't change it or let me rephrase that, I haven't yet found a way to change it but I WILL real soon!
*What I Want For Me*
There's so many things I want to change now. I want to of course change my eating habits and my daily exercise, I want to live a healthier life everyday. I want to change the way I look in the mirror, now when I look I'm able to do it in a way that I only see from my chin up. I try not to see the fat body or the double chin. Now I want to look at the entire and real me in the mirror and not be in tears or totally ashamed of myself. I don't want to look at a picture taken of me (especially sitting down) and be in total shock and disgust of what I look like. I want to sit in my rocking chair or any chair and not worry about breaking it or have my outer thighs hurt and be black and blue from the chair being to tight. Or have to stand in pain or bent over leaning on something because the only chairs available are those dam plastic chairs (I would like to start a crusade to banish all plastic chairs!!!). When getting on a bus or any public seating area I don't want to see people make faces because their afraid I'm going to sit beside them and crush them. I want to be able to go to the amusement park and fit on EVERY ride in the park! I want to leave a restaurant feeling full without having eaten a huge amount of food. I want to buy clothes that are not anywhere near being the highest size that they make, I want stylish clothes so I can really dress the way that I like that shows my personality. I want to do more activities with my husband and family. I want to be a good example to my family on how to take care of yourself and see what a huge difference it makes. I want to be able to walk like I used to and enjoy the outdoors. I want to wake with energy. I want to know that I did everything possible to live my life to it's richest and fullest!
