sleevingbeauty17

Hey Everyone! My name is Mallory, I am 28 years old and weigh 265 pounds, and I am looking into getting WLS. My story begins when I was a kid. Up until I was 11 years old, I was a twig, and I loved eating healthy, so much that mom called me her little bunny rabbit. Around the time I hit puberty, I had gone on a trip to see my grandparents over the summer for a few weeks, and when I came back, the outfit I wore ALL the time comfortably was now about to pop a button. My mom tried to get me back on a diet and I was eating pretty well but the weigh was there to stay. Shortly after that, my mom and step dad split up and it was me, my mom and my two sisters. My mom would work multiple jobs and I would babysit my sisters. Between that and my weight gain, I was dealing with some serious teenage angst and was taking out my aggressions on food. Over the years I would try diets and excersize plans, and they would work for a little bit but then I would hit that dreaded 30 pound plateau, and I would start slipping into old habits. In the spring of 2011 I had decided that enough was enough, and I started training for a 5K. I was doing really well, had overcome that 30 pound plateau and was on the road to success. I was sop proud omyself, I had FINALLY gotten over that hurdle that i had been struggling with for years. In December of 2011, I was involved in a hit and run car accident. The guy who hit me had been texting his girlfriend that he had just gotten out of jail and was on his way home. Because he was texting, he didn't see the stop sign he ran and plowed into my car at about 55 mph. That is when my life changed in an instant. My right Tibia and Fibula had been broken and I was rushed to the trauma center at Ventura County hospital. My fibula was snapped in half with a nice clean break, but my Tibia was shattered into 4 seperate pieces, one of which was missing (compound fracture, bone fragment was still in car) and had to be held together with a metal rod implant and a few screws. I was very fortunate to have my fiance there to help me through the healing process. It took me a long time to heal, but 9 months later, my doctor cleared me to walk down the aisle at my wedding without my cane or walker. I was still in an enourmous amount of pain by the end of the day but I was so proud of myself. I had managed to maintain my weight during that time, but as it turns out, regenerating bone uses up a lot of calories. Once I was back up and walking around on my own, I was able to go back to work. I still was terrified to drive so my then-husband had to take me everywhere in his car, however him being unemployed, he didn't really have much else to do. Anyways, that whole process and a bunch of other issues ended up with us dissolving our marriage. Around the same time, my family sold their home and moved to Nor Cal. I have never lived more than an hours away from my family so this was a rough time for me. Shortly after the seperation and right before my family moved, I ran into an old friend at a birthday and we hit it off instantly. We started hanging out all the time and he really helped me through a lot of the emotional stuff I had been dealing with for a long time. We started dating and have been together ever since. He has been really good in supporting me with my decision to move forward to WLS and I am so happy to have such a great team of people to back me up.

I had my first appointment with my PCP at Kaiser in Oxnard on 6/22/2015 and he ran a full blood panel and referred me to the Bariatric Department in Woodland Hills. The next day, I recieved a call and scheduled my orientation meeting which is on 7/22/2015 to discuss the 3 types of surgery they do and get me started on the process. So far I am leaning towards the Sleeve but I am keeping an open mind as the surgeon will know things that I don't, and that may change with option I persue. I will keep this time line for my So Cal Kaiser experience updated as this was the one thing I really had a hard time finding.

*******Updates*******

6/25/2015 - My blood tests came back and it turns out I have High Cholesterol. My doctor put in an order for Atorvastatin (Lipitor) to help with that.

7/22/2015 - I had my Options Orientation. I waited a month before i signed up for classes to give myself one final cooling off period, then it was full steam ahead.

10/1/2015 - I started my Options class at Kaiser Woodland Hills.

1/7/2016 - Hit my 10% weight loss goal to qualify for surgery. Yay!

1/14/2016 - I graduated My Options Class. This is usually 12 weeks long, however we had 4 holidays on Thursdays during our class period so our class turned out to be 16 weeks. It still went by really fast.

1/19/2016 - Got an email saying my referral had been sent to the Kaiser Bariatrics department in West L.A. I received a call on the same day to schedule a meeting with Dr. Scott Um.

2/1/2016 - Surgical Consultation Day! Almost there!

Best of luck to all of you in your journey! I hope to meet a lot of you and build a team that can help each other through this process.