Picking it up now, I am glad I journaled those words. I'm glad moreso that I took the photos that reveal the mass attached to my body.

I'm coming up on two years now. My anniversary and birthday is April 17th. It feels more like a birth.

The unexpected hit me hard and I wasn't prepared. Foremost I had to speak the truth, what my real weight was, the peak weight. It was documented when I went to the hospital so I know just how big I got but fearing I would be turned away, jeered, and yelled at, like the local doctor who refused to consider me as a patient and told me if I didn't lose weight

..I wouldn't fit on his surgical table..

It's amazing how much abuse you are willing to take when you are so desperate.

It was 392.8 I can say it now, I was close to four hundred pounds.

I'm not there anymore. Motivated by the rejection and spurred on by the hope of getting a band, I began slowly losing a pound at a time by mostly starving myself.

I wanted it so bad.

Looking back I think I was at around 370 when I first spoke to Dr. Kirshenbaum's office.

The day before banding I was 352.

I kept going...still going...with more walls going up than I could imagine.