happee2bsleeved

I am a 34 year old wife to my partner and mother to my 13 year old son. I have struggled with my weight most of my life and have had many ups and downs throughout. Of course these ups and downs included diets, food plans, pills, starvation, vomitting, good ol' fashion healthy eating with exercise and probably most things available to us. I have lost weight many times in my life and have kept it off for various periods of time, including a period of over two years but have never been able to reach a lifelong maintence point.

The past two years of my life have been extremely stressful and have included the sudden death of my aunt and uncle, the sudden illness and death of my mother (all under the age of 60), getting married (yes, good stres is a problem for me too!), loss of a career-long job and I'm sure many other things that just don't seem as important today. With all of that stress came the eating out, eating crap, toggling between eating a lot and eating barely anything. In time, I ate when I was happy, when I was sad, when I was angry or bored, but most importantly, when I felt empty or alone. I gained roughly 100 pounds in just under two years. I reached "that" point . . . the highest weight I've ever been!

By carrying all of this weight at only 5 feet tall, you would think I have a ton of co-morbidity factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. but I do not. Now, if I am completely honest with you and myself I would tell you I have had asthma my entire life and this past year has been the worst. I wound up spending TEN days hospitalized for my asthma, pneumonia and a collapsed lung. I have no doubt, again, if I'm being honest, that my weight contributed to those things occurring simply because of the sedentary lifestyle I was living.

I will quickly fast-forward to surgery. My best friend of 20 years (you know the one I always dieted with and the same one I always ate with?) decided after much debate to get sleeved. At first I couldn't imagine making a permanent change to my body like that. Couldn't it be dangerous . . . which was SO far off from how dangerously I was living, as a ticking time-bomb? Nevertheless, she has had great success, has been very open about her ups and downs, the great parts and the really crappy parts. She is approximately 9 months post-op now and feels wonderful! While watching her triumphs, I decided I would go to an informational seminar to learn more about the Lap-Band. I walked out of that seminar knowing undoubtedly the Lap-band was not for me but that I needed and wanted to have the Vertical Sleeve done. With my wife and best friend by my side, the three of us walked up to the appointment sign-up desk afterwards and I made the first step is changing my life.

I spent many months going through insurance hoops, health issues and tests galore to wind up going from a May surgery date to an August 15th, 2012 date. I lost a few pounds here and there when I was "trying" pre-op and then I got to a "last meal" mentality, which I do NOT reccommend to anyone. Ultimately, I had a successful surgery this past Wednesday, Aug 15th, spent 2 nights in the hospital (would have been one night but my pulse ox wasn't incredibly stable on room air) and am now on day 5 post-op. It has certainly been a struggle but this site has helped me tremendously with tips, ideas, support, etc. I've been reading without joining. Today I am 13.2 pounds down since Wednesday morning and THAT hope is what is keeping me going. That and looking at my family changing some of their habits because of my committment.

So, that's MY story . . . I'm looking forward to adding to mine and learning YOURS!