A Little Background

I have always been overweight. The reason behind it, I really don't know. Perhaps it was the foods I grew up eating, the lack of self esteem, or just putting myself last all these years. No matter the reason, I’ve struggled with weight my entire life.

The first time I realized I was "fat" was in 6th grade. I didn't understand why the gym teacher took my weight in her office alone rather than with the other kids. That year, I realized why. She didn't want me to feel embarrassed as the others weighed in at a normal range, and I weighed in at a whopping 206 pounds. That’s right...I was 206 pounds in 6th grade. I couldn't do a lot of the things the other kids did. Forget doing the mile run in gym class. I walked it and it took me forever. Forget getting picked to be on someone’s team. Who would want the fat kid? I tried to stay away from people as much as I could because I knew I wasn't liked. Of course there were other things going on in my life that didn't make it any easier. The easiest thing for me to do was make myself as unattractive as possible so I didn’t have to deal with it.

I tried to be active ate not eat a lot but that didn't do any good. The next time I remember getting weighed was in high school. 206 pounds had come and gone. I was now up to 265. Think about it. Could you imagine your 14 year old weighing 265 pounds? I was always dressed in sweat pants or anything baggy I could find. That surely didn’t help my appearance at all. But I didn't care.

When I moved to Maine, I decided it was time to make a change. I didn't know how to change my eating habits but it was definitely helpful to be with a family who didn't feed me cheeseburgers every night. I decided I wasn't going to let other people have control over my life. I tried to put the past behind me and move on. I really made 180 degree turn. Surprisingly, I started to make friends. I can't say that I became the best of friends with any of them. I mean I didn't know how to really make friends. I just tried to be involved in as many activities as I could so I wasn’t alone. I definitely didn't lose any weight through high school. In fact, I know I still gained some but how much I don’t know. But at that point, I at least felt better about myself!

Now fast forward a few years. Sean and I started talking to each other when I was still living in NY. People who heard about him laughed at me. I had an "internet boyfriend". Yeah, that’s weird. Especially for someone like me. But things kept going well between us, we finally met face to face, dated, and my senior year of high school we were engaged. Yep, I was pretty young. I never in a thousand years thought that someone would actually like me for me and look beyond my fatness. I moved to Michigan to go to college so I could be closer to Sean. Freshman year of college was amazing and I made some wonderful friends who I will cherish forever. The summer after my freshman year of college Sean and I got married! Our wedding was nice, but not what I wanted. I felt pretty in my wedding dress but, I was fat! I didn’t get to pick from a ton of dresses because of my size. That really sucked. Because of that, I settled on everything about the wedding. I really wish I hadn’t though. But I didn’t know any better. About 6 months after getting married, we found out that we were expecting a baby! A complete surprise and blessing. When I went to my first OB appointment, I had to stand on the blasted scale. I hadn’t gotten on one in years. I knew I was fat why did I need to see a number? Well, I stepped on it and I weighed 315 pounds. Wow. I cried that day. The first time I really remember crying over my weight. What was happening to me? My dr told me not to worry too much about it and to be careful what I ate, but not to neglect myself. Luckily, I weighed 325 when I gave birth to Elias, who weighed 8pounds 2oz. So I didn’t gain that much. Of course, the intense morning sickness I’m sure helped keep my weight gain low.

I’m sure most mothers know that after having a baby, you have absolutely no time for yourself. Our eating habits were horrible. The next thing I knew, I weighed 345. Up up and up the scale kept going. Absolutely nothing I tried helped. About 2 years after Elias was born, Sean decided he was going to go into the Army. He needed to get back into shape and I tagged along when I could to get some exercise. I never did step back on a scale after seeing that 345 despite the increased exercise. I figured it wouldn’t work anyway. Sean enlisted the summer of 2006. It was obvious at that point I was well over 350 pounds. Up until now we didn’t have any medical insurance. Now however, we had insurance through the Army. I decided to look into weight loss surgery. The only thing that our insurance would cover at the time was gastric bypass. As much as I wanted to get this weight off, I couldn’t bring myself to the point of letting someone cut off part of my stomach. The risks were just too great for me. I looked up information about the lap-band and thought that it would be a wonderful thing for me. But again, insurance wouldn’t cover it and we didn’t have the thousands of dollars to pay for it.

About 2 years later, I had a medical issue that needed to be taken care of. I went to the dr and of course, they made me step on the scale. I was up to 365. The dr of course said that I needed to lose weight. I started thinking about the lap-band again. I then found out that our insurance started covering the procedure. It became a reality that I could actually do that. The only problem, I wasn’t ready to give up food and my way of thinking about it. Fast forward to about a year ago. I decided I was sick and tired of being fat. I was still unsure about giving up the way I eat and things like that. My doctor really encouraged me to at least attend a seminar about the lap-band to get more information. I agreed. At first I was all ready to jump in and do it. Then, the more I thought about it I realized I wasn’t ready. What would be the deciding factor to make me get ready?
Well, that came in October. I had been going through fertility treatments for a good year. We finally got pregnant! Unfortunately, we lost the baby at 6 ½ weeks. Being overweight doesn’t cause a person to miscarry but of course, extra weight doesn’t help the issue at all. I decided enough was enough. I’ve had it with this weight. I was ready to commit. If getting this weight off would help us get pregnant, or open more possibilities in our fertility treatment, I am ready to do it. After leaving the fertility clinic, I went straight over to the weight loss clinic. I told them I was ready and got all the information needed for testing, psych evaluations, and the whole nine yards.

On March 8th I had a meeting with my surgeon. I weighed in at my heaviest 377 pounds. After examining me, he felt that I was a great candidate for the surgery. I was tall which is helpful, had a good amount of muscle, and was motivated to do this. I submitted my testing and other information required by insurance just before Easter. On April 20th I found out that my insurance had approved me for the surgery! I was so excited, scared, anxious, you name it! I figured it would be probably at least a month until surgery. Boy was I wrong. I got a call from my surgeons office that day. They had someone cancel their surgery scheduled on April 29th and wondered if I would like their spot. Oh my goodness… 9 days until surgery. I said yes and immediately started a pre-op diet. Many people have very strict pre-op diets however my surgeon wasn’t that way. He just asked that you switch to high protein and low carbs to try and prepare yourself for what is to come. I did the best I could and it definitely paid off. On April 26th I went to see the surgeon to sign my surgery papers. Of course, another weigh in. This time, I couldn’t believe it. The scale said 366. I said to the nurse omg I lost weight! She looked it up and sure enough, I was down 11 pounds. I had never in my entire life seen the scale go down. Talk about awesome motivation for the surgery.

So, finally April 29th came. I had so many different emotions running through my head. I could have very easily not gone to the hospital that day. But, I knew I had to. It was time for me to change. I couldn’t go on this way anymore. The nurse I had while I was in prep was great. So were the rest of the nurses during my entire stay at the hospital. My surgeon came in to see me and said, are you ready? I said yep! I went down to the operating room. I remember going from the bed I was in onto the operating table. I believe they then put a mask on me and I was out. Next thing I knew, I woke up in the recovery room. The nurse there was amazing. I kept saying it hurt and she pushed more pain meds into my IV. I know I was in recovery for a good amount of time but it felt like I was asking for pain meds every 5 minutes LOL. I remember saying to her that I was sorry I kept asking for meds. She told me not to worry about it and it was important for me to continue asking until I was comfortable. I dozed in and out for awhile while I waited to be transferred to my room. I remember asking if the surgery went ok and she said yes, and that the surgeon also repaired a hernia. A hernia? I didn’t even really know what that was or that I had one. But I was glad that it was fixed while he was in there. So for the next 24 hours I was in the hospital. The pain sucked. I tried to get up and walk around as much as possible. Before I knew it though, it was time to go home.

When I got home I was curious if I had lost any weight just in the 24 hours since surgery. I stepped up on the scale and was at 370. WTF? Then I remembered I had been pumped full of IV fluids, was bloated, had a lot of gas, and was swollen. So I didn’t worry about that number. I’ve weighed myself practically every day. Okay, more than once a day. But, the numbers are going down. I am so excited to say that this morning I weighed 357! That means including my pre-op diet up until now, I’ve lost a whopping 20 pounds. Of course I’m losing weight faster being on a liquid diet. My biggest fear is getting enough protein in my body. Protein shakes are not the best. On top of that, it is supposed to take me 15 minutes to drink 1oz of liquid. If you don’t know how much that is, go look for one of those medicine cups that come with liquid medication. That’s 1oz. If I could just gulp it down that would be easy. But, I can’t. So I’m learning how to sip slowly, and constantly. Its work that’s for sure.

Well, now you are caught up to where I am. I didn’t tell many people about my surgery because I didn’t want negative comments. Please don’t think that if I didn’t tell you it was because I thought you would be negative. I just didn’t tell many. And to be quite honest, being this big is embarrassing. I bet some of you couldn’t believe how much I weigh. Thankfully I hide a lot of it well. Anyway, please continue to follow my updates as I go through this journey. I love you all!