I've always been a "big" girl.  It's just part of who I was -- I didnt find it to be a defining attribute, although my classmates did.  In 6th grade they lined us up in the hallway outside the gym -- boys on one side and girls on the other.  When it was your turn you stepped on the scale and the gym teacher announced your weight to the assistant so it could be logged in your "permanent record" and, oveheard by all.  I weighed in at 113lbs at 5'4" - by far the largest one in my class.  That was the day the "cool kids" dubbed me Orca.  How flipping original.

I fairly quickly wrapped my head around the fact that those cool kids were a bunch of losers and if they couldnt appreciate what a totally awesome person I was then the heck with them.  I found lots of people that didnt care about my size or my looks -- you know, those kids that hung out in the "smoking lounge" or the edge of the parking lot or where ever the Dungeons n' Dragons, Tolkien Apprciation Society, SCA and Deadheads hung out.  Yes - I felt the best solution for having inherited my father's physique was to indulge in substances that made you want to eat a bag of Doritos and wash that down with a lot of Cola.  Oddly enought I experienced my one year of "skinny" during that time when I packed myself into a pair of size 10 Jordach jeans.  I loved those jeans.  They went really well with my Members Only jacket and my purple fringe boots -- the 80's -- wow.

I graduated HS and realized I couldnt really work, go to college and remain baked all the time - so i gave up that stuff and moved on.  I countinue to hang out with the "weird kids", followed the Grateful Dead up and down the East Coast, got a series of jobs that became a career, married a hippie, bought a house and kept getting bigger.

I Richard Simmons, I Weight Watcher'd, I Jenny Craig'd, I joined numerous gym's.  You know the drill.  And I just kept getting bigger.  It was mostly subtle - one day something would fit, then it wouldnt anymore.  I finally got health insurance when through an inordinate amount of testing only to have the doctor tell me that "some people are fat  - you are just a fat person".  Great -- very helpful information.  It was during this time (the mid 90's) that I met a co-worker that had her stomach stapled.  Bizarre!  Thing is, she lived off of the foods I was taught by all my weight loss programs to be "bad" -- mashed potatos w/butter and sour cream, milk shakes, tons of cheese.  Well she had lost about 70lbs after her stapling but slowly gained them back due to her really poor diet choices - but she claimed they were the only things she could keep in her stapled stomach.  Thus I determined that bariatric surgery was akin to vodoo and should be avoided at all costs.

About this time I realized that the fun hippy boy I had married had no want or desire to really live in a house with bills, checking accounts, utilities, etc. and that I was doing all the work, making all the money and he was sitting around drinking and smoking all day.  End marriage.  Begin the self improvement.  Became a vegan, did Yoga, swam like a fish - dabbled in various Eastern religions.  That lasted about a year.  Gained weight.  Begin self improvement, part 2.  Atkins - jazzercise.  Lost 40 pounds in about 4 months -- kept it off for a while.

Met the love of my life.  He liked big girls, thought I was beautiful.  Was a widower with 2 kids (5 and 3) so I had a family and didnt even have to get pregnant!  Bonus.  We married in castle in Scotland and honeymooned in Iceland -- How cool are we???  My wedding dress was a size 12 -- ok - i weighed 308 and was wearing a 22/24 but, the briliiant seamstress' at the bridal store used the cathedral train to make the size 12 fit me.

I got offered my dream job and we moved from Florida to Maryland.  Everyone was just getting adjusted when, surprise!  I got pregnant!  People never realized I was pregnant though.  I really didnt gain much weight - 45 pounds -- not bad since I delivered a 10 pound boy with a head in the 98th percentile.  Since he had a giant head --  we ended up doing a C-section after pushing for about 10 hours and getting no where.  During the sugery the OB found some strange growths on my overy.  Later they determined they were pre-stage 1 ovarian cancer.  Two months later I had a full hysterectomy.  Over the next three years I gained about 100 pounds.  I stopped going to the mall because it was too hard to walk.  My bad knees got worse.  I was out of  breath walking up the stairs in my split foyer house.

I also developed sleep apnea -- but it took us about a year to figure that out.  In the meantime I joined Curves and did Atkins. I lost 50 pounds in four months and kept it off for about a year.  Then i just couldnt do another minute of Atkins and started falling behind at work so worked more and Curved less.  Developed a serious Starbuck's addiction because I was sleepy all the time.

Right around my 40th birthday we finally figured out it was sleep apnea -- got a bi-pap.  Didnt really help.  Wrecked my car 6 times in four months.  Constantly fell asleep at work, during romantic moments with my husband, watching tv, reading, always.  Begged my PCP for help - we found ProVigil on the Internet -- it helped, a little.  At least I was no longer a danger on the roads.  My blood pressure, which had always been normal, started creeping up.  I began to get serious pitting edema in my legs.  I had to sit to do anything.  I couldnt walk the 1500 feet from our vacation home to the beach, I need to get a ride.

I got a personal trainer, a nutrionist and a seious attitude about getting healthy.  I worked my butt off four days a week -- weighed, measured and counted everything I put in my mouth.  A year later and the blood pressure was better -- I could chest press 35lbs and lat pull 90lbs and still couldnt make it through the grocery store.  My PCP asked if I considered gastric bypass -- I told her that I would never do that.

I had to cut my work down to 3 days a week because I needed so much Pro Vigil to stay awake during the work day that I could not maintain that high of a dose five days a week.  The sleep specialist said that they only option I had was a trach - I could leave it plugged up during the day but could open it at night to "breathe" around my obstruction.

It was during my desperate late night research on tracheotomy's that I stumbled across an article about DS.  Which ultimatly lead me to OH and the vast wealth of information, inspirational stories and wonderful people I found there.  After months of reseach, lurking on forums and message boards I realize that things have changed and there is an answer.



About Me
Annapolis, MD
Location
28.3
BMI
VSG
Surgery
11/06/2008
Surgery Date
Jun 15, 2008
Member Since

Friends 41

Latest Blog 2
The Waiting (Weighting) is the Hardest Part

×