newstacy
I often have said that I come from a long line of sturdy Scot-Irish farmers who are genetically afraid the potato famine will strike again any minute! In my family, we have the fat people, who all live to be at least 80 years old, often more, and the skinny people, who all smoked and died without exception before 60. So, always figured I was doomed to be overweight, and certainly no diet plan ever helped. In high school, I was super-active, and so, although not slim, I was certainly not grossly overweight. However, in college, I became much more sedentary and the weight just crept on... and on.... and on. I never considered it to be too much of an issue though, because I had an active social life, I married a great guy, and although I struggled with infertility likely due to PCOD, I never had any of the health problems that can occur when one is so severely overweight.
Then, the back trouble started. In 1999, I had to have back surgery for 2 ruptured discs that had already caused irreparable damage to my sciatic nerve. In the course of that event, found out that the bones in my spine don't hook together the way they should, and could just kind of move around, allowing those discs to slam together. Although stabilizing rods would be the normal course of action for this type of problem, the parts of my bones that don't hook together properly are also not big enough to hold the screws that hold the rods. I promptly reduced as many possible back-injury-inflicting activities from my life and prayed it wouldn't happen again.
Last summer, 2007, following a D&C for a never ending period, I had another episode with my back, and it got me to thinking - longevity certainly runs in my family - I could easily live another 40-50-60 years with my back killing me every single day. The only option left was to lose a lot of weight, preferably as soon as possible, and that might possibly help my back. About the same time, my dad attended a weight-loss surgery seminar for a program at Riverside, considered to be the best hospital here in Columbus, OH. He very graciously offered to pay any out-of-pocket expenses for my sister and me if we wanted to do this surgery. We both jumped at the opportunity (although my sister is still appealing her insurance company's initial denial of coverage).
It was a relatively easy process, although I'm not a good scheduler, so my mandatory meetings with the dietician were not very fun! They were nice, and only trying to help, I know, but I have a hard time with dieticians who have obviously never had a weight problem in their entire lives! My neighbor is a dietician who lost 40 lbs 15 years ago, and has kept it off, so she definitely has more influence with her advice! As of this writing, my surgery was 5 days ago, and I'm feeling pretty good, although I'm anxious to get back to my regular life.
I'm not looking for this surgery to "change my life" since I'm pretty happy with my life in general - I want to improve the quality of the life I have! Looking great for my 25th high school reunion in 2011 would be awesome too 
