Describe your behavioral and emotional battle with weight control before learning about bariatric surgery.

I was always heavy, my mom would always say "you have such a pretty face", well when no boy wants to go out with you because you are heavy it doesn't matter how pretty your face is. When I had the gastric by-pass 13 years ago, people were still not sure about it. I just had my second daughter and my mother was dying of cancer. I knew this was something I wanted to have done so I scheduled my surgery for Dec 4 and I explained to my doctor that it all depended on when my mom was going to leave us. My mom passed away November 24 and I had my surgery on the scheduled day. Dr Holup is a very spiritual man and I told him that my mom wouldn't let anything happen to me while he was doing my surgery. My surgery went great and I lost 125 pounds, I left great, just didn't like all the flabby skin that was there. I called the burn hospital by me to see if I can donate the skin but the said they were full. Since my surgery I have gained back 70 pounds and have been thinking about have reconstructive surgery done, but my current insurance company won't cover it.

What was (is) the worst thing about being overweight?

I was always out of breath, and i couldn't keep up with my daughter. I felt uncomfortable in my own skin.

If you have had weight loss surgery already, what things do you most enjoy doing now that you weren't able to do before?

The one thing that I enjoyed was being about to go clothes shopping in a normal store and not in the plus section. I can do more activities outside with my children, then I could before without getting tired.