PurplePresident
1/5/09
Today is my 20th wedding anniversary. My husband is in Michigan and I am in North Carolina! so sad! he was home over the weekend, for a few hours, and he gave me a dozen roses and the sweetest card! I can't wait to have this surgery so that I can become the wife he deserves.
1/2/2009
I re-started my diet today. I am down to 375, but I will loose another 25 pounds in the next 6 weeks. I need to have this surgery and putting it off over and over is not getting it done. Its kinda philosophical, really. None of us are promised tomorrow and those of us trying to get a WLS date set, feel the added pressure of a race to see who gets there first, me and my procedure or the grim reaper. I don't mean to sound like a drama queen, but those in this situation understand the hope and fear that generates the serious urge to get it done as quickly as possible!
12/27/2008
My story begins as an extremely fat child of no more than 6 or 8. My parents took me to a gastric surgeon when I was in Jr. High School. I turned downed the chance to have WLS saying that "if I am meant to lose weight I will lose it...I don't need some kind of midieval torture to force my weight loss". So, life continued and my self esteem dropped lower and lower. I met and married an alcoholic because I thought I could do no better. After about 6 years I got a divorce and began driving a truck for my living. That was a difficult way to live, but I began to learn how to depend on myself. Then I met and married a really nice guy, Tim, with whom I drove as a team for the next 12 years. One day I slipped and fell on some ice and was injured. It forced me to quit driving. While recovering from my back injury I developed a lung condition called Cor Pulmonalae and my doctors gave me about 5 years to live. I rode an electric scooter and carried oxygen where ever I went. That was in about 2002. God had mercy on me, I believe, by allowing me to turn my life around.
I decided to return to school at a local community college, my husband was not really supportive but didn't actively try to stop me. I earned my Associates degree with a 3.98 on a 4.0 scale and decided to continue on to a 4 year college and finish out a Bachelor's degree. Tim felt as though he was being "played". He was still driving an eighteen wheeler and the lonliness was closing in on him. He seemed to think that I was "out-there playing and having a blast" while he worked to pay my bills.
This couldn't be further from the truth. I love Tim and without him I would never have dared to attempt any degree. Although we have had our low times I think we both still love each other and want the best for each other. I began considering this surgery and asked him what he thought. We discussed how a lot of marriages break-up after one of the two people make a major life change. Here I was, getting an education, a new career and now possibly having a procedure that would enable me to loose 200 pounds. I would be attractive to other men for the first time in my life and almost every other social interaction would be changed. My precious, most wonderful, sweetheart told me that he would rather have me alive and healthy, even if it meant the end of our marriage, than protect himself by keeping me fat and have me die.
I began actively investigating this path of WLS in March of 2008. I had hoped to get my surgery during the summer and loose most of my weight before I graduated the next spring. Unfortunately, no one else's timeline matched mine. I could not even get into one of the pre-screening classes until the middle of the summer. I also found out that my insurance would not cover WLS and so I would have to rely on medicare. They required a 6 month supervised diet. I had hoped to schedule surgery immediately after the fall semester ended because I would have 6 weeks before the spring semester started. Ok fine, not perfect, but do-able. The diet was completed at the beginning of October. I waited a couple of weeks then called the Frye Regional Medical Center's Bariatric clinic to make sure they had received all the paperwork from everyone. They had not. I called the psychiatrist and my primary doctor's offices frequently over the next few weeks to get the paperwork faxed to the bariatric clinic. They finally got all the ppw in December and have scheduled my first appointment with the surgeon on December 31st.
Now I am between a rock and a hard place. Do I go for the surgery or finish my last 4 classes and earn my Bachelor's degree? I don't think my husband will stand for me to go another full year before I graduate ( Salem College is a small school and only offers the classes I need in the spring) and yet it seems really stupid to postpone my surgery until some future date that dosen't conflict with anything else! So, during the Christmas holidays Tim and I discussed the situation. He said that I should focus on my health first, then finish college even if I have to wait another year to graduate. After all, he said, what's the point of earning a degree then dying before I can get it framed. WOW, those words made me feel like I'd lost a thousand pounds from my shoulders!
I am afraid, what if I don't survive surgery...I know a woman who died! It is possible, this is a serious procedure. If all goes perfectly, everything in my life will change AND the coping mechanism that I have used all my life will be gone! OMG! I heard a doctor on TV say that super obese people have higher risk of death than people with cancer. If this was cancer you would not question whether to have surgery or not. So why question WLS to save your life. I know I am on borrowed time, my 5 years were up over a year ago. I have to come out of denial and realize that I have to take drastic steps now to save my life. It is not about "looking pretty" although that may be an added benefit, it is about living. Having my prospective employers hire me or at least consider me. I admit that when I look at some of the before pictures and consider if I would hire that person, even I say, "no way!" When I look at the after pictures I say "let me see their resume, are they qualified?" This is where I find myself tonight. It has been a long story, but I know that other people have pressures on them from many directions and my story may help someone else stay motivated.
