well I am on here at 12:30 am cuz I can't sleep. I have not slept well in over a year. This past year has sucked...no wait let me tack on 20 years...no it hasn't been all bad, I have 2 beautiful kids and a second husband who is great 90% of the time so I am very greatful for those gifts. I am also very excited to have this surgery. I am trying not to get too excited though so I am only in the beginning stages... I have filled out the paperwork, found out that my insurance co. does approve the surgery when all the criteria are met, have gotten the ok from my oncologist and am scheduled to attend a work shop in 2 weeks.

Yes I did say oncologist, I had breast ca in 2001 when I was 37, did chemo and radiation and got it back in my lung last year, had the small middle lobe of my right lung removed last Feb 28th and did chemo again til July. whats really scarry is that just before each of these cancers were found I was at this same stage of looking into bariatric surgery. I am hoping that the reason was that I needed to wait for this lap band procedure to become more prevalent because I was going to opt for the roux en y on the other occasions! I am glad I didn't!

I am about 135 pounds over my ideal bw...a whole woman! I don't know how I got this way...no seriously...I am a dietician by education and I have done everything under the sun and still here I am. I was not always fat, although I always thought I was. Now I know my body image has been messed up all of my life. I thought I was a blimp when I was 19 and 5'7" at 130 pounds! Now I am over 2x that and I actually don't realize I am as fat as I am until I see myself in a picture or a home video or naked in a mirror, then it's like wham ohh my god is that you in there??

I knew I was somewhat obsessed with losing weight all of my adult life but the flares really went up the first time I was diagnosed with Cancer at 37. My first thought was God please let me live to see my babies grow up and get on their way. The very next thought was well at least I will loose some weight finally. Well guess what...I gained weight with chemo...the drugs I took for nausea blew me up and then, I would try to find any kind of food I could keep down and I would eat so my stomach would stay full and my tastebuds would stay occupied with a thought of anything but the disgusting taste that was always in my mouth during chemo.

I put 20 more pounds on my 220 pound body! I gained another 15 more over the next 3 years and then lost about 10 at the gym over the next year. Then I was diagnosed again last Feb 21st, one month to the day of my fathers death from lung cancer, (he hadn't smoked in 20 years and died Jan 21st at 66 after only 5 months from diagnosis. He was the greatest man I'll ever know)

Prior to this I had just taken a new position with the giant conglomerate of a corporation that I had worked for since graduating college in 89 and had moved up through the ranks to be offered this "fabulous" opportunity about 500 miles from my home and the rest of my family. My husband and I decided it was a great offer and he quit his job, I sold my home that I loved, we took my 13 year old son and we moved in July of 2004 My dad was diagnosed in August. The company wrote a bad contract and lost the account in December, I quit smoking on Jan 2nd, 2005 (I never quit before except during chemo because I took my surgeons words "this cancer has nothing to do with ciggarette smoking" as a lifeline to smoke on and on and on, but as I watched my healthy handsome father die a rotten death that WAS definately due to smoking I could no longer justify it to myself). and dad died a few weeks later, then I was diagnosed four weeks after that, did my chemo and got a great job offer back in my hometown! Thats my story in a large nutshell!

Anyway, gettin back to the surgery, my sister gets upset because I make jokes about how I am afraid that the insurance company will find some reason to decline me because I am a bad long term return risk....If ya don't believe they would do such a thing....WAKE UP! Then there will be a war cuz I have made up my mind that even if I live for a year or 40 years after the weight is off it's better than dieing fat like I am now.

I think of all the grief and humiliation and disrespect and physical pain that being fat has caused me and I think NO MORE!!!! No more being wedged into an airplane or theatre or opera house seat, no more not riding roller coasters because I am too afraid to even go up to the car for fear of the intense humiliation that would ensue if I was told that I was too fat for the bar to lock down, No more knee, back and hip pain, no more lights out for sex, no more worrying that it will take twenty pallbearers to carry my coffin in my funeral...YES I DO THINK OF THAT! I just refuse to bear that final humiliation!

I am so ready to live life to it's fullest and feel good about myself for the first time in 20 years...Life is way too short to live it this way.

love,

me:kiss2: