stephgerlette
1/7/05 - Well I've been approved for my surgery!! I'm so excited I can hardly wait. My surgery date is scheduled for 1/31/05. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the drive...it's not to bad (an hour and a half) but when you're still in pain I can't imagine having to be in the car for that long. Right now I'm so excited!! This is going to be the year for me to turn my life around. I'm going to be thinner and healthier and I'll be getting a divorce. Time to start all over!
1/19/05 - I had my pre-op appointment today. The surgeon found a heart murmur and sent me for an EKG. Waiting to hear back on that but the tech made it seem like everything is ok. I got weighed today and I weigh less than I thought! Woo Hoo!!! Last time I was at my doctor I was at 350# today I weighed 330#. It's all starting to be very real now...I'm still very excited but also very nervous...I HATE HOSPITALS!
1/29/05 - The doctor told me I had to go back to the hospital and get and ECG done. That kinda freaked me out. Luckily everything turned out ok with that but they pushed my surgery back one day. So now I'm starting my new life on February 1st.
2/5/05 - I'm so excited! My surgery is over, I'm at home, and feeling pretty good so far. Things are looking good so far. I have an appointment with the surgeon on Wednesday the 9th to get my drain removed! I can't wait to see if I've made any progress yet. I haven't been hungry yet which is the strangest feeling for me. Not having any problems with the liquid diet so that's a good thing. My only complaint so far is that I didn't see the surgeon one time while I was in the hospital. Not even right before the surgery. That is crazy!! I guess that's his way. The house doctor at the hospital was a really great guy and the nurses were great. They took good care of me. One more good bit of news...my hubby and I are trying to work on our marriage instead of going the divorce route. Woo hoo!!
3/2/05 - I'm 4 weeks post op and feeling terrific. I've been doing my workout video every morning and I'm down 28 pounds! I'm so excited!! I saw some people I hadn't seen since before my surgery and they told me they could really tell I had lost weight. I have an appointment with the surgeon on the 9th for a follow up. Hopefully I'll get the ok to do a little swimming and lifting weights.
4/10/05 - I'm 9 weeks post op and down 53 pounds! I feel great and very motivated. I must admit I was getting a little discouraged for awhile because my weight seemed to be stalled, but all of a sudden it picked back up again! I've been doing my walk away the pounds videos(3 miles a day) and about 45 minutes a day of weight training also. I FEEL GREAT!!
4/24/05 - Tomorrow is my 32nd birthday! I'm so happy I finally am getting a chance to live a great life. I'm down 63 pounds plus the 20 I lost before surgery. It's amazing. I've had a few wow moments...1. my husband can wrap his arms around me. 2. I fit into booths no problem! 3. I have had to punch holes in my NEW belt because it's already too big!!
5/13/05 - I'm down almost 100 pounds total now! 77 since surgery and 20 before! I'm so excited. I got new shorts for my birthday a few weeks ago and they're already getting too big. I went shopping yesterday for a smaller size. This is totally incredible. I went for my 3 month follow up on the 11th and the surgeon told me I was doing so well with the weight loss and walking 4 miles a day plus lifting weights. I was so happy! My husband told me I was skinny. Now, believe me I'm still far from skinny but that made me feel so good to hear that!
5/27/05 - I've lost a little bit more weight now I'm down 82 pounds since surgery (+ the 20 lost before). My husband and I added a new member to our family. His name is Jack and he's a little miniature pincher. he's so adorable, a little tiny thing (3 pounds) and already spoiled rotton! he's only been with us for 6 days and he's already got my heart. he's the sweetest. Everything has been going great around here. I've added another mile to my walking so I'm up to 5 miles a day. I highly recomend the Leslie Sansone walking videos. They are excellent! I can really feel them working, my leg muscles are coming along quite nicely. THAT makes me happy...i've always had nice legs for my size but over the last year they started looking like a fat chics legs! Yuck!!!!!
6/25/05 - I'm not quite five months out and I have one more pound to go before I can get into the century club! I can't believe this!! So I'm at a total loss of 119 pounds (20 before surgery). I'm down from a tight 30/32 to a 18/20 top and 22 bottom. The only thing I hate is I'M LOSING MY BOOBS! I've become very attatched to the girls over the years. I've gone from a 50DDD to a 44DD. That's a major difference in my eyes. I guess I'll just have to get over it...the small price to pay for better health and better self esteem. Oh yeah, I almost forgot...no more diabetes meds for me! That's the best I could have ever hoped for! I was on about 10 pills a day before surgery then after surgery down to 2 pills a day..now 0! Woo Hoo!!
7/6/05 - I finally did it! I made it to the century club! I'm sooooo excited! I guess I need to get some updated pictures of myself on here too. I can't believe the difference in such a short amount of time.
7/27/05 - Things are going so great here. Hubby and I are moving on August 6th to a better and bigger place. I'm almost at my next goal, which is to weigh less than my sister for once in my life. I have 3 pounds to go. Then on to my next goal of being under 200 pounds for the first time in I don't know how long. I've lost 118 pounds since surgery and 138 pounds total since starting on my weight loss journey. I'm so happy and proud of myself. I feel so good...all my friends and family make me feel so good about my self and tell me how skinny I'm looking now. I can't believe this is really happening to me...I've been fat and unhealthy for so long I can't believe I've lost so much weight and my health has improved so much. It's terrific!!
8/24/05 - I finally did it...I made it to ONEderland!! I've been sitting right at 200-201 for almost a week now and this morning the scale finally moved!! I can't remember the last time I was in the 100's. Life is good!!
I bought my first pair of jeans since my surgery. I can't believe I fit into a size 16! The beginning of the year I was wearing size 32...this is just crazy!! In a good way of course!
9/19/05 - I'm moving right along again. I have 21 pounds to reach my goal. I really want to lose more than that, but I'm being realistic in setting my goals. I'm 5'8" tall and currently weigh 186 pounds. I'm trying to get to 165 pounds or less by Thanksgiving. That'll be the first time my extended family will have seen me since Christmas when I weighed 350 pounds. It's exciting...I can't wait!!
9/28/05 - Well as of today I'm down to 180 pounds (which is a total loss of 170 pounds) and that means I only have 5 pounds to reach my original goal but only 15 pounds to reach my new goal weight. I'm so excited...I didn't think I'd ever get here. I've switched up my exercise routine now to try and get my body moving. I'm doing 3 different walking videos now and they range from 2-3 miles. I enjoy doing those more than walking outside just because it seems like I can really feel it more and you do a lot of arm work with the videos too and that adds intensity. I set a date of 11/15/05 to reach my goal weight so that I can be at my goal by Thanksgiving since I'll be seeing my extended family then and I haven't seen them since I had the surgery. Won't they be shocked!!
10/30/05 - I had to go to the orthopaedic surgeon the other day for the numbness I'm having in my legs and feet....of course he said surgery right off the bat. I'm thinking about it, I'm definitely not going to jump into anything yet. I have an appointment with my primary on November 9th so I'll make my decision after that.
12/07/05 - Gosh I just realized it's been awhile since I updated my profile. Life has been crazy around here. And the crazy stuff isn't even my own problems. I'm going nuts trying to help my friends that are going through very trying times right now. I did however have surgery on my left leg on November 30th. I'm so happy it was a breeze. I had a peroneal nerve release done and I haven't had any pain from the surgery and I get the stitches out tomorrow! I am planning to have the other leg done in January. I needed them both done, but only one can be done at a time and I wanted to see how bad it was before I made a decision about the other leg.
I just recently got off a bit of a weight loss stall. FINALLY! I've lost 10 pounds in the past month and 5 of those pounds were just this week! It's crazy how this works sometimes. Well everything else is going quite well. Looking forward to spending time with family soon for the holidays. Next Wednesday is our annual cookie day...my sister and I bake christmas cookies ALL day. It's fun eventhough I can't/won't eat any of them. Happy Holidays!!
12/20/05 - Life has been pretty busy here. Getting ready for the holidays. I've been putting off picking out clothes for my christmas gifts from mom. I finally had to do it this past weekend, since this was the last weekend before christmas. Anyway, I got into a size 8 jeans and got some pajama pants in a small! I couldn't believe it!! I grabbed a large off the rack and tried them on, my friend just laughed at me in them. she brings back another pair and tells me to try them on...i do then she says "they're a small...i told you, you're smaller than you think you are." As of this morning I only have 1 more pound to go until my personal goal of 150. And that will bring me to a total weight loss of 200 pounds! Then it's on to the goal the nutritionist told me...143 pounds. I'm hoping to get there by my one year anniversary date...February 1, 2006. Everyone keeps telling me I'm going to wither away to nothing! Yeah right! I am excited though, my mother-in-law told me I've inspired her so much to lose weight. She's doing so great, she's lost I think close to 40 pounds on her own. We're wearing the same size clothes now AND I'm in the same size pants as my mom. That's like the strangest thing to me...that's so out of my ability to comprehend. When I look at her I see a small person, why can't I see that in myself?? I have issues!! Anyway Happy Holidays!!
2/10/06 - Well I had my one year check up with the surgeon yesterday. I'm below both my personal goal and the surgeon's goal. I'm very happy about that. I had very specific goals set up and I didn't think I'd make it in the time frame I set up for myself but I did it! Everything went ok...labs all looked ok except my liver enzymes were high again. Very high. I had an ultrasound done on my liver yesterday morning so I'm waiting to get the results of that test back so we can figure out where to go from here. The surgeon also gave me the ok to get pregnant now! Of course I'm going to wait until I find out the deal with the liver problem before I go ahead with the pregnancy part of my life. That's about all I have to update about. Wow! One year out and down 210 pounds. From 350lbs to 140lbs....what a great year it's been! I feel fantastic!!
5/25/06 - Well, it's been awhile since I've updated my profile. I guess because there's nothing really to report. I was in the hospital at the beginning of the month for a few days. I was out shopping with my mom one Saturday and started having horrible pains in my stomach and back. I thought it would go away but it never did. Finally after hours of pain I told my hubby to call an ambulance, it was that bad! I was in so much pain as soon as I got to the hospital I told them to hook me up with some pain meds. I NEVER do pain meds. Not even after any of my surgeries!! After 4 days in the hospital and several tests they just chalked the pain up to a bad intestinal virus/infection and sent me home with antibiotics and antifungal meds. It took a few days at home before I was feeling better but now I'm back to normal. I lost about 10 pounds being in the hospital and have only regained about 2 of it back. I wasn't looking to lose anymore weight but I guess since I'm still in the normal weight range I'll take it! Kevin and I are still trying to get pregnant but have not been successful. I seem to be having problems ovulating. My doctor has tried several things to help and nothing has worked thus far. She's now got me on the pill for a month to see if that works. Then she wants me to consider trying a fertility med called Clomid. I don't think I really want to go that route. I'll have to discuss it with hubby more I guess. He's the type that says "whatever you want". Well I want input from him! I just think that if I have to go through all this to have a child then it's not meant for me to be a mommy. Besides I have little Jack (dog) to be a mommy to, right? Until next time...
6/12/06 - Well not much is new around here! My husband finally found a job but it's making about half of what his last job paid. So we're pretty much financially strapped! Looks like we're going to have to file bankruptcy as we've called debt management programs and still don't make enough money to pay the bills off that way! Now we just have to figure out how to pay for the lawyer and filing fees!
I called my gyno and told her to keep me on the pill for awhile longer. I know there is never the perfect time to have a baby but now is REALLY the wrong time. We need to figure out how we're going to survive much less worry about taking care of a child right now too! Maybe it's just not meant for me to have a child. Seems like we've had a lot of trying times in our marriage. Thank goodness we've learned to stick together and work through things together instead of letting these things tear us apart. Well, until next time......
About Me
Before & After
rollover to see after photo
