Senji
Hello Everyone,
My name is Tonya. I'm 41 years old. I'll be 42 on July 20th. I have my surgery date for my RNY procedure, July 15th. How about that two b-day's in one month!! I am looking forward to the surgery, but I'm also scared to death. I've done all the research and have talked to as many people as I could about it. Everyone that I talked to that had it said they would do it again in a heartbeat, and all said they felt the same way I do now, back then. So I guess this is all normal.
Lately, I've been thinking about how I got here. How did I get to the point that I feel the need to have WLS? Don't get me wrong, I've never been a "skinny" girl. As a matter of fact since childhood I've always been the largest kid in the group. Of course by today's standards, I would be normal. Everyone else was stick thin. I had curves. As a matter of fact I developed quite quickly. While everyone else looked like pre-pubesant boys I looked like a woman. I remember being 12 years old and attracting grown men. They would stop their cars in the street to yell out obscenities to me or try to pick me up. I would quickly tell them I'm 12 years old and my dad is a cop!! That would stop them in a hurry. I don't think that works now and days though. (so sad) While all the other girls were starting to wear training bra's I was in a B cup. I remember this really scaring my mom. I went from being totally flat chested to developing a large lump on my right side. It actually happened overnight. My mother paniced and took me to the Doctor that day. He told her, "oh that's nothing, she's just developing". My mom quickly retorted, "That big, that fast?" Well, I kept growing from there. I eventually outgrew my mom, pretty quickly. I always hated my breasts. It was a source of unwanted attention from boys and men. The worst part was that some of that attention came from some of my male cousins. I won't go into details here, but it was something I wish I could forget about. It was right about that time I discovered my best friend...food. I'm sure you are all familiar with that. All I tried to do was eat the pain away. I figured if I could make myself unattractive I wouldn't get all that attention. It didn't work.
I tried to be as normal as I possibly could. I played all the sports. I was a cheerleader (hated it, mom wanted me to do it), basketball, softball, vollyball, tennis, track & field. I did it all. And was actually quite good. In high school I concentrated mostly on track. I ran 100m hurdles and did all the field events. The downside....all the guys standing at the gate watching me run the hurdles and mimicing my breasts bouncing up and down hitting me in the eyes and giving me black eyes. That was freakin' fantastic coming from your own teammates! Four years of hell!!! Needless to say, I didn't have any boyfriends back then. Not only was my parents super strict, but the boys would much rather be with the "stick" thin girls than anyone with curves. High school was a lonely place.
After high school though, I found a great love. It had always been there. I just didn't realize it, Martial Arts. My dad and I used to always sit together and watch Kung Fu theater on Saturday afternoons. It was our thing. I always wanted to be one of the warriors flying 100 ft in the air and fighting for 10 minutes before landing. That was the coolest thing!! I used to always ask my dad if I could take karate. But he always told me no. He didn't think I was disciplined enough for it. He said I wouldn't stick with it. My dad died a year after I graduated from high school. That was the worst period of my life. I was devistated. He died on duty. He was a hero. Again, food was there to ease the pain. I remember when we were going through my dad's things and packing stuff away me and my brother ran across a card in one of my dad's wallets. It was a black belt card. My dad was actually a black belt!! He never told any of us. Not even mom. I begged my mom to sign me up for karate. But she chose to put my brother in first. He needed to learn self defense. He was always being picked on. I never told her how much I was being picked on and hit on and had been molested. If anyone needed to learn how to defend themselves it was me! But I didn't argue. She put my brother in karate and about 6 months later she signed me up. My brother did teach me everything that he learned during that 6 month period so I had a leg up when I finally did go. Martial Arts and me was a perfect fit. I felt like I was home everytime I walked into the dojo. And I was good at it. Very good at it. I totally immersed myself in it. It became my life. I wanted to have my own school. This is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I advanced in the ranks pretty quickly. I was gifted. Within a year and a half, I knew everything I needed to learn for my black belt test. Not only that, I was teaching the lower belt classes and out performing the current black belts in kata's (forms) and fighting. At our tournaments the women from the other schools refused to fight me because they would always lose. Finally my instructor would just pair me up with the men. I would fight the men all the time. There were only 2 that I couldn't beat. (not trying to sound vain, but it's true) I learned so much from that challenge. I was building some much needed confidence until it was time for me to test for black belt and my instructor decided that I wasn't ready. I didn't understand why he felt that way. Until I overheard him in the office talking to his brother about the candidates for black belt testing. His brother wanted me to test. He didn't because he had it set in his mind that you had to be in the school for 4 years before you could test. He actually came out and said it was purely financial. Imagine being held back because of another year of tuition. I didn't go back to that school after that. Me and another financial outcast ended up going to another school in Philadelphia. That became home for me for awhile. I did get my black belt there it was in Kenpo. My original art was Tang Soo Do. I eventually got my black belt in that from another instructor. I also got my black belt in Tae Kwon Do and participated and won in the local trials for the Olympic Tae Kwon Do team. Quite a feat for such a big girl!! I even had the pleasure of teaching police officers self-defense and working with some of the Marines at the Naval Base in Philadelphia (before it closed down). I helped to run a couple of martial arts studios and was offered two schools of my own. One in Florida the other in California. I couldn't take either offer because that was the time my mom got sick, colon cancer. My brother was in Okinawa (Marine Corps) I was the only one here for her. Food was there to help me through.
This is when I fell in love. Literally. I met a wonderful guy at a martial arts tournament. He used to always stand by my ring and coach me from the sideline. I looked forward to seeing him there. He knew what he was doing. And if I followed his instruction, I would always win. I watched him fight and do kata's. He was amazing. I loved to watch him. He was much younger than me but I didn't care. I felt safe with him, and he had my best interest at heart. He introduced me to my second love...the Unity Community Center. This was his martial arts school. I was so amazed at the sheer level of talent in that school. And the whole time the school was basically in my backyard. I never knew it. I left my other school and started to study with my new family. I earned my black belt in Kyokushinkai there. The Unity Community Family welcomed me with open arms and I still belong to this day. My mom even formed a kinship wih the head instructor and founder Robert Dickerson. He promised her he would always look after and be there for me. And he has been. He's like a second dad to me. When my mom died, I didn't feel quite so all alone. Don't get me wrong, it hurt like hell. But I knew I had a family there that I could always count on.
I did get lost for a period of time after my mom died. Food again became my greatest friend. That's when I really started packing on the pounds. My eating got out of control. It was the sheer volume that was scary. I would hit all the fast food restaurants. McDonald's (Quarter pounder with cheese, large fries and an orange drink) then I would drive to KFC for a 4 piece dinner. Then Burger King for a whopper with cheese. I would eat all of this in one sitting. Usually in the car so no one could see what I was eating. I would just drive and eat. Whatever entered my mind to eat, I would get it. I would deliberately not pay a bill so I could have the extra money to eat at the fast food places. Food was the number one thought in my mind. I wasn't going to karate anymore, I was just eating. Because I was eating so much and not being active, my weight quickly increased. I looked in the mirror one day and didn't recognize myself. My health was in the toilet. I was just starting nursing school and found out that my blood pressure was through the roof. My instructors thought I would stroke out any minute and they forced me to see a doctor. That was my second med. My first happend when I was in my early twenties. Birth control. Not to keep me from getting pregnant, but to control my bleeding. They didn't know what to call my condition then, but they know now, PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome). My diabetes was diagnosed about 4 years ago. (non-insulin dependent). I was severely anemic but never realized it. Two years ago I almost died because of it. My hemoglobin was 6. I needed to be transfused. Then I went through a few months of IV iron to bring my levels back up. Can you say pin cushion?? The most devastating of all my problems is my current one, osteoarthritis. I have it in my left knee. (after trying to do a flying side kick over a fellow student and breaking a board I landed wrong. Surgery doesn't actually bring you back to 100%) And I also have it in my right hip. This is a more recent problem. There are days that I can't walk. According to my x-rays I have the hip of a 90 year old. My doctors are talking hip replacement. That's what happens when you are over 200 lbs and like too push your body to the limits. Let's say a cartwheel into a split during a fairly difficult martial arts kata. Let's not forget the jumping and flying kicks that the right leg is the sole source of support because you injured the left leg years ago. My right leg took alot of abuse at my weight. It is what it is.
Right now, I'm at my highest weight. (298lbs) I haven't practiced or taught karate in 5 years. I haven't performed with my african dance group in 5 years. Everything that made me happy is gone. And food has betrayed me. I need to get ME back. I need to reconnect with the happiness I once had. I've tried the dieting thing. And although I did have some success with a couple of methods, it was short lived. I need to take things a step further and make a total commitment. After my research, WLS seems to be the best bet for me. So here I am, less than a month away from my big day. Do I feel I am doing the right thing?? YES, I do. Am I scared? HELL YEAH I am! Will my life be perfect after I lose the weight? NO, it won't. I know there are many things I need to deal with in my head, thank GOD for my therapist! But I will say my life will be better. Will I miss who I am? YES, because who I am now is all I've ever known. I'm now stepping into the unknown and that is a scary place to be. My buffer will be gone. I will have to find a new way to cope. Am I looking forward to discovering a new me? YOU BET!!!
