Introduction

May 23, 2011

I am not sure where to start.  I have always been overwieght, as long as I can remember.  However, I really started to gain weight after the birth of my daughter, who is now 16.  When I was about 28 I was diagnosed with diabetes.  I was shocked.  I honestly thought only old people got type 2 diabetes.  I worked really hard to get it under control.  Switched to diet pop, stopped buying junk food, made healthier food choices, took Metformin, started walking (very painful...I was about 330 at the time).  In about two years I had lost about 30 pounds and had the diabetes completely under control.  In fact, the doctor took me off meds and I was considered to be a diet and exercise controlled diabetic.

I continued on my journey but one major thing had yet to happen.  I hadn't acknowledged how I got to be overwieght in the first place (besides overeating...).  I continued to do well on the health front, but I started to put some of the weight back on.  I really had no idea that even when you are eating healthy foods you can still eat too much of it.  I continued to monitor my sugars and they were fine, but the weight kept piling on.

Then in 2006 two major things happened.  By this time I was at my heaviest weight, 360.  I bought a house that fall.  I noticed immediately that all the things I was forced to do in a house (as opposed to the apartment I had lived in for 10 years) were helping me lose a little weight.  I painted much of the interior before I moved in, I scrubbed every room floor to ceiling, I was doing gardening, raking, shovelling and other various phyical activities I had not done in many years.  In the month after moving in I lost about 20 pounds.  That was a huge motivation for me and I spent as much time on my feet working around the house as my body would allow (again, very painful to do many things at that weight). 

Then shortly after I moved in I had a HUGE emotional breakthrough.  I won't go into details here, but I was finally forced to confront something from my past that had had a huge part in my allowing myself to gain all that weight.  I was a wreck for a while, but I had a lot of support so I started to heal wounds I had forgotten were there to begin with. 

Then the weight slowly started to melt off.  I went to my family doctor who recommended I start a food journal.  I wrote down every piece of food I put into my mouth.  I was shocked at how much food I was comsuming.  Way too much, even though my choices were much healthier than they had been in the past.  Over the next four years I slowly lost almost 100 pounds.

Last year I really started to struggle.  I hit a plateau that I just couldn't break through.  I joined a gym and went faithfully every other day for five months and didn't lose a single pound (an inch or two here and there, but no weight).  I was very frustrated.  Then in the fall I started to have problems with my left eye.  I went to an eye doctor who referred me to a specialist.  In January 2011 I went to the eye specialist who said there was bleeding in my left eye, probably caused by high blood sugar or high blood pressure.  I went back to my family doctor who confirmed that my blood sugar was out of control again and my blood pressure was at the high end of normal (still a high risk for a diabetic...even though technically still in the normal range). 

At first I was devasted.  I had worked so hard all those years ago to get the diabetes under control and then I had lost so much weight in the past few years.  I didn't see how this was possible.  The doctor explained that age can be a factor (my 40s are looming on the horizon) and that the one thing they know for sure about obesity is that they really don't understand it all that well.  He said that for some reason, the bodies of obese people (particularily women) don't act the same way as the bodies of healthy weight people.  He explained a lot more, but that was the general message. 

Then he suggested that I consider WLS.  He told me about the Ontario Bariatric Registry.  At first I said no.  I hadn't ever considered the surgery as an option and frankly had heard some real horror stories.  He told me to take some time and research it and think about it and talk to my family and then decided from there.   I am the first patient he has ever referred to the OBR.  He had one patient self pay for the surgery about 5 years ago and he says it was a tremendous success.

I went home and spent literally the next five days glued to my computer and reading everything I could about the surgery.  I talked to all of my close friends and family and was shocked at ho supportive they were about the whole idea. 

I have to say that I went from skeptical to terrified to accepting over the next month. 

My referral was sent in on April 29, 2011.  I am still quite scared about having the surgery.  This site has helped to answer many of my questions.  I haven't quite got to the point of excitement that I see some members have...I am sure that will come.  I am not one to make any decision lightly and I will continue to research and network and attempt to lose weight on my own.

I look forward to getting to know everyone and sharing this journey.  I am right at the beginning and have a long way to go, but I am on_my_way2011!!!

Tracy
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About Me
ON
Location
28.5
BMI
RNY
Surgery
09/27/2011
Surgery Date
May 20, 2011
Member Since

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