What is to come?
Today is Thursday July 14, 2011 and exactly 28 days from my Verital Sleeve Gastrectomy. Well, like many of you, I came to the point where my confidence that I'd be able to one day slim down finally crashed and burned. I finally came to a point where I felt that even with all of my dtermination and hard work, I simply could not pull off what seemed to be a minor adjustment in diet and exercise. I've been on that diet roller coaster for too many years, I've been living with that perverbial monkey clawing at my back for way too long.
In September of 2009, I had a very casual phone call with my very best friend from childhood. She lived in Raleigh, NC and I lived in St. Louis at the time. We've shared many things with eachother including an uncanny resemblance to eachother which caused people to beloeve we were beyond the "blood sisters" that we ceremoniously donned eachother back in the 4th grade. We were both weighing well into our 200's.... me at a staggering 250 and her at 238. In that seemingly routine "catch up" conversation she dropped the bomb. "I"m going to have the Lap Band surgery." What in the world? Did she honestly think she was so obese that she had to have some kind of invasive surgery. Was this her only choice? I shared those concerns with her and in addition secretly chalked her decision up to the fact that she was just lazy and didn't want to exercise. Afterall, it's all about the math...less calories in and more calories out. I got the picture. I was so convinced that this was the only way that weight loss would be met and kept.
So, in the next coming months, I was as supportive as I could be when she called and told me aobut all the many Dr. appointments trying to "qualify" for the surgery through her insurance. Around January of 2010, she was hit with the bomb that her coverage would be denied because her BMI was not high enough for long enough. Her hopes went flailing down the toilet. And my secret objections to it all were satistified. In the meantime, I did get curious about it. I talked with my insurance carrier just to see if it would be covered and of course it wasn't. So, any flighting thoughts of me having this kind of surgery as well were quickly spat on. But behold! in February she told me of another plan she concocted to leave the U.S. and have surgery in Mexico! WTF?!?! NOW she really IS nuts! Then I decided to get serious with my diet and exercise to prove to her that invasive surgery wasn't needed. In June 2010 she got the Sleeve done and 6 months later I saw her for the first time when I went to visit for Christmas. Ironically, I posted the below exerpt from a blog that I had on Fatsecret.com
"While visiting a friend in NC over the holidays, I did a lot of thinking about why it's been so hard for me to lose weight and keep it off. My friend, is 6 months into recovering from a weight loss surgery called "the sleeve". It's a procedure where they take 80% of your stomach to keep you from eating a bunch of food at once. She described how she had to only eat liquids for a whole two months afterwards and now when she eats solids, it's only a miniscule amount...too much will cause her to throw it all up (which I also witnessed). I gotta say, she went from about 240 lbs (similar to my weight) and now she's a svelt 1401bs. In only 6 months. Her body type was such that she didn't look obese or overweight, her BMI wasn't even high enough for Doctors in the US to operate (she went to Mexico), yet she decided that having her stomach removed was the easiest route to weight loss. I brought this up to my significant other and since he's a great man who only wants to see me happy, he offered to send me to Mexico as well and have the surgery. So, now the very wish that I've had for years has been sat right down in front of me. In the past few days, I"ve thought long and hard about actually having this surgery and what it would imply about who I am as a person. Am I the type that takes the easy road? Am I the type that takes the hard road for no reason? Would I be giving up? Could I just work really hard to exercise and get better more healthy-looking results? I'm not sure exactly what to do here, but I know that psycologically and physically, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have this type of surgery. We can afford it, then I would drop more than enough pounds to fit into the wedding dress of my dreams...but I think i'm stronger than that. I think I can do this the natural way and feel much more accomplished once I hit my goal. And I WILL do it."
Looking back at that blog excerpt I still feel like I gave up. I feel like that all that hard work I put in to eat right and exercise was so useless that that reason I've opted for the Sleeve is because I'm a failure. Is it just me? Does anyone else feel the way I do? So, this past May of 2011, i convinced myself that going to Mexico and paying $5K would be the best thing for me to do. And I'm a big ball of emotions right now, I'm not really sure how to handle the feelilngs I have about feeling like a failure for doing this. I also find myself saying things like "oh when I get skinny, i'll be able to shop at ___ store..." Scary.
So on to the next level of my first blog: Going to Mexico. I used the same coordinator as my friend, Sandy at A Light Me. She set me up with a relatively newer surgeon by the name of Fernando Garcia Govea at a newer hospital. My insurance company doesn't want anything to do with weight loss. Seriously. I can't get anything covered concerning weight loss. But, I can however, get reimbursed through a flexible spending account for gym or nutritionist if my Dr. writes a note that says I need it because i'm obese. But what if I don't have a flexible spending account... Thank God I do, but really? Why can't something like this be covered by my carrier. They'd rather pay for me to be in the hospital for heart attack due to clogged arteries. So Mexico, here I come.
Over the next few weeks...months really, i'll be documenting my experience and ferociously lapping up all of the the other postings out there from people who are also going through this. To everyone out there in the blog-o-sphere, good luck! And I pray that everyone gains what they are searching for.
Current Weight: 270
BMI: 43.6
Height: 5'6"
Age: 31
Goal Weight: 170-180
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