rhondanewme
Finally! I firgured out how to get here to a BLOG! Only took me 11 days! Oh well, better late than never. I am 46, married, 2 kids-20 & 23. I have been overweight all my life and obese for most of it. I weighed 226 when I graduated High school. I went to the Diet Center and lost down to 160 on their very low cal, low fat, low carb. LOW FOOD diet. Stayed at 162 for about 5 minutes and then started to gain. I met my future husband when I was at about 175 (about a size 12) fell in love and got married 5 months later. My wedding dress had to be let out when I went for the final fitting and things only got worse from there.
The usual happened after that. Had kids, gained weight, dieted, lost weight, went off diet, regained weight plus more. You know the story! I have not been under 236 since having my son 23 years ago! I never thought that I would have WLS- it seemed so drastic and dangerous, & besides-I SHOULD BE STRONG ENOUGH AND HAVE ENOUGH SELF CONTROL TO LOSE ON MY OWN!!! But I have finally admitted to myself that after all these years, all these attempts, all my prayers, I CANNOT DO IT ON MY OWN!!! And it's not my fault, I have tried and tried. I truly believe there is something different in our brain and the way our bodies function. If they can ever figure that something out and how to correct it, it will be a true miracle. In the meantime, WLS is our miracle of the time we live in. I was researching WLS back in January but by husband asked me to please try one more diet. So I joined Weight Watchers (AGAIN) and went until this October. I started at my highest weight ever- 296.7!!!I lost a total of 29 lbs and could not go any further. The last few weeks I went up and down the same 3-4 lbs. My co-worker was going with me and had lost 15 lbs in that time. She had WLS 6 years ago but has re-gained about 1/4 of her weight because she doesn't follow lots of the rules and freely admits it. But she does diet a lot. Anyway, when she decided to stop going, I went on for a few more weeks and then quit. I called the Surgeons office to find out about their next seminar and discovered the last one offered for this year was coming up Oct. 24th. It seemded like fate! I researched like crazy during the wait time and had made up my mind for the RNY procedure by the time I went for the seminar. A few days later I got my packet in the mail and my appointments were scheduled for the next few weeks. Although I'd love to have the surgery in December and think it could be done by then, my work schedule will be much better if I wait til the first of February. So now I am continuing all my research, surfing aroung all the support sites and reading articles galore. I'm nervous, scared, excited, happy, hopeful, and did I say scared?!! I've never had surgery of any kind and my poor husband is terrified of losing me. I keep telling him that he's much more likely to lose me from complications of being overweight. My father died 2 years ago at the age of 62 from complications of severe diabetes. He had several heart attacks, quadruple bypass, lost a leg to amputation, lost most of his vision, had kidney trouble and severe arthritis that he couldn't take arthritis drugs for (because they damage compromised kidneys) and he had lost most of his independance, and the ability to do almost all of the things he loved. I am absolutely terified that I could end up the same way unless I take charge and do something NOW. But as strong as this terror is, I still have been unable to lose and keep weight off on my own. I used to be able to lose at least 40 lbs but I find now that I'm 46 my body has slowed WAY down. I guess I've screwed up my metabilism royally with so many different diets over the years, and Lord knows I've tried just about ALL of them.
So that fear is what finally made me turn to WLS. I have found out so much info that I didn't know before. I never realized what a complete lifetime committment it takes and how strong you still have to be after WLS. But having that tool makes all the difference in the world if you use it for all it's worth. I am prepared to do what I have to do to lose and keep off the weight and I know that I can do it with the help of this tool. So now it's just hurry up and weight and try not to drive myself nuts in the meantime. I'm not really worried about my insurance turning me down because I meet all their critereria and they are still very WLS friendly. I'm afraid if I waited and had this surgery later, that could change or I could have a different provider or even be out of this job because of the bad economy. So it's now or never. I'm excited about my new life to come!
