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I'll skip the "How I Got Here" business for now. If you are interested, you can mosey on over to the "My Story" section of my profile to check it out. . . And I promise you, its a doozey. But today I'm needing to remind myself of "WHY I'm Here." In this case, "Here" being less than 48 hours away from dun dun dun. . . elective surgery. Oh, the horror! (Trust me, if you had my medical anxiety you'd understand. Every time someone compares their surgical countdown to waiting for Christmas, every fiber in my being revolts.) (1) T-Shirts. I love T-Shirts. Nice soft, baggy T-Shirts. At my size, however, there is no guarantee that you can find such a T-Shirt, and if you can, its not likely to be flattering. This is particularly problematic when a T-Shirt is required - say to lead a group of kids at a school function. I really just want to be able to sign up to volunteer without worrying whether they will offer a 2X and, if so, whether it will be a generous 2X or not. (2) Energy. My people are notoriously low energy going back generations on my mom's side. I have several female cousins, and most of us suffer from it in one way or another. Unfortunately, someone forgot to relay this fact to my kids. They are just not the quiet, bookworm types that I was growing up. I've had my thyroid tested (normal), done a sleep study (no apnea) and taken up exercise. And yet, I still seem to be the only person I know who can pass out cold on the couch after 45 minutes of dance fitness. I am hopeful that losing the weight will help me perk up a little and give me the stamina I need to keep up with the many demands on my life. (3) Speaking of Exercise. One of my closest friends has recently made a mid-life career change from Childrens' Minister to Dance Fitness Instructor. So I go along for the ride. As exercise goes, its fun. But is it too terrible to say that I would rather not be the biggest girl in the room? I don't need to be the smallest, mind you. Just not the biggest. (4) Photographs. I'm a photographer. Few things make me happier than capturing a beautiful smile, a sparkle in my subjects' eyes. More often than not, of course, those subjects are my kids. I realized recently that I have never sat for a portrait with either of my two youngest kids, and a stranger flipping through the family snapshots might just think that my husband is a single dad. Somewhere about five years ago, I just stopped being in pictures and that's not fair to my kids. It really bothers my oldest boy. Maybe we will all be in the family Christmas picture this year. (5) Air Travel. I used to be a gung ho traveller. Domestic. International. I could be ready to go in a moment's notice. But after my kids were born, there just didn't seem to be the time or money. I recently took a trip to a photography workshop, and is it just me, or have plane seats gotten smaller. Wait. I think it is just me. Its stressful enough in the post 9/11 world to get on a plan in the first place without having to worry about how big the two people sitting on either side of you are and whether you will survive the cramped posture that you all will be forced into. And don't even get me started on the seat belts. I didn't have to ask for an extender, but I know that I have to do something to keep that humiliation out of my future. (6) Disney World. I LOVE Disney World. Yes, I know it is ridiculously expensive and crowded. But for me, the magic over comes the madness, and it really is the happiest place on earth. At least until I start to stare down those older rides and wonder whether or not I am going to be too big for the seats. I look forward to the day when I can look at my kids and say "Yes, of course I will ride that with you," without a moments hesitation. (7) Pain. Over the past couple of years, I have started to experience random aches and pains, particularly in my back, but occasionally in my knees and hips too. I've got to believe that hauling around less weight, thereby relieving the stress on my body, will help with some of that. I'm not even 40, after all. (8) The Gap. I used to love to shop there. Anne Taylor too. Why are big girl clothes so expensive? (9) Social Anxiety. My husband has to wine and dine for work. I used to, if not LOVE going along, be able to tolerate it. Now I rarely go. Nothing to wear. Too uncomfortable about how i look to try to meet and impress new people. The same is true of joining Moms groups and seeing my old college friends. Don't get me wrong, I have a core group of people that I hang with, but I used to be much more outgoing and fun loving before I became so self conscious about my appearance. (10) My Kids. I love them more than life itself and want to do everything that I can to be a fun and active mom for them throughout their childhoods. This list isn't exhaustive, but its a good start, and hopefully will serve as a good reminder when, over the next 48 hours, that little bit of panic creeps in and I start to rethink my decision.

Hi, I'm Jenn I figured I'd start a blog to document my journey - the good, the great, the not-so-great, and the downright ugly side of things without an ounce of sugar coating. Background: I'm 27, from Long Island, NY, and a Social Work graduate student going to school in the city. I'm set to graduate in May of 2013. I work primarily with clients struggling with substance abuse disorders and mental illness. This is an incredibly exciting time in my life. I've worked so hard to get to where I am, mentally, yet physically...well, I've kind of disregarded that area of my life for awhile now. I've been through some very difficult times growing up, and have put my body through some damage. After all the work I've spent on recovering mentally from all that's happened, I completely neglected to take care of myself physically. This has become a problem now, because although I'm finally happy with where my life is heading, I feel like I'm carrying a huge weight on my shoulders at all. I guess I kind of am! My BMI is 46. I struggle on a daily basis with 0 energy and horrible leg/knee pains. I have sleep apnea. I can't walk up a flight of stairs without breathing heavily. I hate being seen in public because of my weight. I'm 27, and I'm killing myself with food. I'm not going to wait around for it to destroy me. I'm ready to fight back. I am in the process of doing the (horrible) extensive pre-op testing. I am also doing 6 months of a supervised weigh-in/diet with my PCP. When completed, I will be set to have surgery in December. I am ready to feel 27. I'm ready to BE 27. And I won't take a "no" from anyone, nor will I tolerate any negative comments from people, I'm doing this for me

I am in divorce proceedings with the Lapband. As a matter of fact, the same day the divorce becomes final, I will marry The Sleeve. The Lapband didn't hold up to its promises, often time having me dehydrated, slimming, or plain vomiting. As committed as I was to it, it wasn't commited to me. Eventually it couldn't even hold its own..................got a leak. When I went to the dr. for counseling, he told me he could repair our relationship or I could go in another direction. I told the doctor, there was no repair, The Band failed me and it needed to leave as soon as possible. He said he could replace The Band, the doctor wasn't listening to me. I told him I gave The Band 3.5 years of my life. The Band made me think I was the problem and all along it failed me and often made me sick than healthy. When the doctor told me about a new Beau in town, I immediately became excited. I wasn't sure if I measured up but the doctor told me he wouldn't fail. He told me the new Beau called The Sleeve was making a lot of women happy........................hmmmmm, and some men. I thought, "Shut the front door." He told me he hasn't met anyone who divorced The Sleeve.....as a matter of fact he said the marriage is permanent. Before I decided to move forward with this marriage, I asked a bunch of questions and researched my soon to be permanent partner. After my due diligence I set the date.....we are getting married on 8.23.12. I know this is a marriage made in heaven, I keep hearing about others who made the same commitment and they have nothing bad to say. As a matter of fact, they said it is a little bumpy a for a few days in the beginning but they couldn't understand what took them so long to see Mr. Right. Yep, so yes, in sickness, or health and until death do we part.......................I am commiting my life to Sleeve.

Are you kidding me? Why do we have Pizza Hut ads showing up on the home page of RNY talk? Saw it today on the site and thought: You know, this was the one place I thought I could go without being bombarded with food ads. And it's here TOO! I know the site has to support itself, but pizza ads?! Please don't put temptation right in front of us!

So I thought I'd begin my blog by talking about what my life was like leading up to the surgery. My story is probably quite similar to many of yours. I have been overweight since I hit puberty at age 11. In that same year I was molested by someone I trusted and there was never any resolution. All of that coupled with the fact that my family (especially the southern - Mississippi family) did not have any restrictions on how much or what we ate, I was doomed from the start. I ate my way through middle school and high school. I was always the fat kid; the girl picked last and picked on. During this time, I moved around a lot. My mom and stepdad (who raised me) were getting divorced, my mom was on Meth, and life at home was hard so I tried living with family in Montana, Oregon, and Mississippi. And through it all I ate. High school was particularly troubling. I never had a boyfriend; I was ostracized by the other students at school. I was very unpopular due to my weight. I went to my prom...alone. All I wanted was to be accepted, but no one could see past the fat. My one saving grace was that I was smart and graduated with honors. I was now living in Las Vegas with my Step Dad Brian (who raised me and who I consider to be my Dad). He encouraged me to eat better, but after years of overeating, it was easier said than done. College made it worse. I started at community college and worked a full time job at the same time. Needless to say, my eating habits took a dive in college due to my busy and stressful schedule. I had moved out, took on a second job, and transferred to the university. In my desperation and loneliness, I started seeing a married man (one of the single biggest regrets I have in my life). After college, I got a job working for the local cable company, but always felt like an outcast because of my weight which had spiked at 255. Then my doctor turned me on to South Beach. At first it worked great! I lost nearly 65 pounds. I started feeling better...but as with every diet I tried, I started to plateau, got frustrated and the rate of loss, and fell back into poor eating habits. To make matters worse, during the plateau I was out of work for 4 months due to the recession and gained all the weight I had lost back and then some. I finally found a new job in HR at one of the casinos and tried to get back on track with healthy eating. I gave up eating from any restaurant with a drive through and gave up drinking soda. It worked at first and I got back down to 255, but it was short lived. My office was right across from the employee dining room and all the free lattes I could drink and brownies I could eat. In the course of a year I ballooned up to 268 pounds. My company started to offer onsite weight watchers programs so I joined up with my best friend of 14 years and we started to lose weight. She lost 60 pounds, I lost 10. Frustrating right? So I went back to good old South Beach which I had success on before. I didn't lose more than 20 pounds. I was getting very down and for a time completely gave up on myself. I started eating fast food and drinking soda again. I figured that I was one of those people who couldn't lose weight and why bother fighting it. I had flirted with the idea of weight loss surgery for about 8 years up to this point but always had a reason why not to do it. Then I had 2 major wake up calls, the first is I developed sleep apnea as a result of my weight. If you have ever had this you know how terrifying it can be to be jolted awake in the ***ht, heart pounding, gasping for breath. My doctor said the only way to get rid of it was to lose weight. The second wake up call came when I had an appointment with my OB GYN. My period had gone from a 4 day light flow to a 30+ day light, then heavy, then light flow. As it turned out I had developed menorrhagia. To top it off, my ovaries had stopped regularly producing an egg. To put it bluntly, my weight was making me unable to have children. I never realized how much I wanted kids until I was told I couldn't have them...unless I lost weight. My weight had skyrocketed to 285 pounds and I knew that if I didn't make a PERMANENT change that my life would be short and unhappy. Enough was enough. I started getting serious about the surgery option and doing a lot of research. Then after a year, I had sleeve surgery on July 10, 2012. It was time for a change. I chose the sleeve over the band because I knew myself well enough to know that I would probably chicken out at some point and have the band removed and balloon right back up to where I had been before. With the sleeve, I took that option away. I needed something permanent! I now have 2 birthdays, the day I was brought into this world, and the day my new life began…July 10th, 2012.

Yesterday was my one month post-op anniversary. I am 20 lbs down and really feeling good. I am still struggling to get the 64 oz of water my nutritionist wants me to get, but I am getting close. I have only had one fill and that was interesting. My doctor does fill with floroscopy so they can see and hopefully make sure they don't over fill. My 10cc band currently has 2.5 cc's. While my fill did not hurt a bit, I passed out. Apparently I have a sensitive vagus nerve, when the fluid was pushed into my band quickly I got dizzy and went out for second. It passed quickly and the doctor said that from now on they would have to push fluid slower as to not agrivate the nerve. I go back in one month and hopefully will be down another 20, but know that is unlikely. The first couple of weeks I was dropping lbs like no bodies business, but now it has slowed to the 2-3 lbs a week. I am just happy it is headed in the right direction. I am so looking forward to being in onederland. I am enjoying the lower grocery bill each week. I find I eat so little it take fewers groceries for me and my hubby. Don't get me wrong I am still eating, but I am just eating so much less than I did before surgery. Of course the extra eating and eating the wrong things got me to 244, so now I am turning that around. I am so thankful to have had a good experience thus far. I am so scared of getting stuck or throwing up that I am VERY careful when eating. So far I think the best part of finally having had the surgery is the feeling like food no longer controls my life, I control it. My days aren't about what and when the next meal is, it is about the here and now. I do wish I would have done this 5 years ago when I first looked into it.

So I'm so excited to say that after almost 2 weeks of stalling....my weigt finally started going down again!!!...I just want to say thank you to the ones who gave me some helpful advise and helped me keep my head on straight when I was feeling like a mess...I am so very thankful for this website and all the helpful blogs and all the people who take the time to extend helpful words when things aren't going exactly like you thought they would...It's nice to be able to talk to people who are going through the exact same things as I am!!!!