Why I'm here

[highfunctioningfatman 2,675]

I 'm sole supporter of my family. My wife is a doctor's dream. When I married her she had lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and Raynaud's disease. Since we have been married she has had skin cancer, cervical cancer and most recently this year a brain tumor. She has recovered from everything that has been thrown her way. She's freaking awesome!

My job is to be there for her. I have considered weight loss surgery in the past but have been scared due to family history. My sister had gastric bypass back in 2000. She was quite successful and has kept most of the weight off. My mom was inspired by her journey and had gastric bypass in early 2001. Mom lost a lot of weight and looked really good. Mom had always had quite a few health issues and those had gone away for the most part. December 13th 2001 she went into the hospital with a blue toe. They told her that she didn't have enough Iron and potassium in her blood. She told them that that was impossible because she was taking Iron and potassium supplements. She was discharged just before Christmas stage 4 lung cancer. The hypothesis was that she had had it coming on since the eight years prior when she had quit smoking. She had all of the signs if you stepped back and looked at them of a cancer patient. Her symptoms were so spread out that nobody ever caught it. It was believed that most likely she was a stage 3A when she was operated on for the bypass. The cancer continued to spread and she passed away February 13th 2002. She had just turned 50 years old. Needless to say this scared the hell out of me.

At the time of mom's death I was 24 years old and 300 pounds. My weight has fluctuated as high as 340 pounds and is low is 267 pounds when my son was born in 2009. I have found that stress definitely plays a big factor in my weight. I have a stressful job. Quite a bit of the time I work 12 plus hour days. I am a commercial driver and a supervisor of the warehouse. I deal with a lot of FDA documentation and I am also in charge of quality control. I have worked at my company for 12 years and I tend to be a jack of all trades. I have been offered higher-level positions that will require me to travel and I have turned them down to be with my family. Those higher level positions would actually put me in a little less stress. Once again I choose my family.

I have been a mostly happy fat man most of my life. My screen name high functioning fat man. My weight generally doesn't slow me down or cause me too many problems. The future however is going to be an issue. My job requires that I have a commercial driver's license. The Department of Transportation has been kicking around ideas about requiring anybody that has a BMI of 35 or higher or has a next size larger than 17 inches to go through a sleep study annually to maintain their medical card which is required to be valid to have a commercial driver's license. Now my weight is threatening my livelihood. My insurance will not pay for an annual sleep study. All of that costs approximately 1500 to $2,000 here locally would have to come out of my pocket. The industry that I work in is in oxygen and home medical field. One of the many duties that I have is to do overnight oximetry on patients is a pre-screening to sleep studies. When somebody complains that the oximeter did not work correctly I take it home and use it myself verify an issue. I know that I don't have sleep apnea based upon all of these oximetries. I will now have to pay to prove that I don't have obstructive sleep apnea.

My wife cannot work like most people can. She has issues from her medical conditions. Most people that meet her would never have a clue that she has issues.

I personally know of six people that have had Vertical Sleeve. The first one went to what he refers to as a butcher shop in Mexico. The other five all went to the same surgeon in Mexico. Of those 5, 2 are nurses and one is a respiratory therapist. They all have said that this particular facility is cleaner than any medical facility they have worked in in the United States. That eases my mind quite a bit having personally known of 5 people going to the same clinic.

Do I like doing this? Hell no! It scares the crap out of me! I'm doing this and better my health. I'll be 38 years old at the time of my surgery and I'm scared that shortly thereafter I may never get to see my family again. I have a life insurance policy that will take care of my family if something happens to me but that doesn't ease my mind. I am looking forward to this only to have it done. I could continue on and be happy just as I am. Yes I know this will extend my life longer. Yes I know of all the health benefits but I personally have felt what happens if things go sideways.

As a general nature that I do have kind of a course sense of humor. I can laugh about damn near anything including myself. I'm just hoping that I come out of this the same person that I am today butt smaller. Pun intended...

[highfunctioningfatman 2,675]

[Inner Surfer Girl 12,015]

Welcome!

What a beautiful family! You definitely have a great incentive to be healthy.

I am a bit older than you and was a fairly healthy fat woman until I wasn't. I was sleeved April 20, 2015 in the US and couldn't be happier with my surgery, recovery, and results so far. It has saved my life.

The worst part of my experience was the pre-op anxiety of not knowing what to expect since this was my first surgery ever.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Keep us posted on how you are doing.

[KindaFamiliar 3,867]

@

Good luck to you and yours mate...

If you've ever any questions, don't hesitate to ask...

Like @@Inner Surfer Girl above me, the pre-surgery anxiety was the worst part of the whole experience...

I was convinced I was gonna die on the table...

As you can see, I didn't..

And I'm pretty happy about that!!

Mate, keep us posted with your progress...

You've so much good ahead of you...

Enjoy!!

[highfunctioningfatman 2,675]

The anxiety sucks for sure! I'm certainly not turning back and I research the crap out of most everything that I do. I'm not going to deny that I'm a bit stressed financially as well. It has been a roller coaster year here financially. We finally had all of my wife's medical expenses paid off in December and we only had one bill other than the house and typical electric, phone, etc. We finally bought the start of a project truck for my wife when February hit with the news of her tumor. I pushed back surgery that I was planning for the first part of April. I figured out a way to pay for almost everything without going too crazy into debt. I put a deposit down to reserve my surgery date and the air conditioner died in my vehicle. Not a huge deal to me but because of my wife's rheumatoid arthritis and lupus I need to keep her relatively temperature controlled. I ordered all the parts to fix it and then the air conditioner in the house took a dive! Gee another $5500. I sold the truck that I had been driving to pay for everything that I could but I'm still short a little bit to pay for the rest of the surgery. Not quite sure how I'm going to make the rest so yeah I'm a little stressed at the moment financially. Nothing like adding to the anxiety huh?

[southernsoul 773]

Dear HFFM,

I haven't been on this site in quite awhile, but I logged on today & your post caught my eye. I'm 3 years out this month. Six months after my sleeve surgery, my husband was killed in a fire. The fact is, any one of us could die today, tomorrow, next week, or next month. We get in cars, cross busy streets, fly in planes, and do many other things that expose us to risk. There's no way to control all risk. You sound like a loving, committed husband and father. You are having this surgery to increase your odds of having more time with them. You have prepared for the possibility of something happening to you, and you have provided for them if/when that day comes. You have controlled for as much as you can, and big kudos to you for doing so. The rest of it is simply out of your control. Take a deep breath, kiss that beautiful wife and son, and keep moving forward. Best of luck to you!

[Qwalla 132]

Wow you have gone through bunches. I hope you get answers that you deserve. Sorry for your many challenges thrown your way. Hang in there and hope you will do great with your journey. Life sure does throw us a bunch of curves. I just had my sleeve surgery almost 2 weeks ago. Prayers and well wishes coming your way. It is a good forum if you need to vent. Best of luck!!

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[missdeeAus 69]

Mate with what you have been able to get through in the past.... You can do anything!

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[triplethreat 257]

You have made such a good decision. You have to prioritize your health in order to maximize your ability to care for others. I think being anxious is one of the stops on the journey (so is temporary regret). You will be fine, you will recover, and you will start changing life for the better.

I was a very active fat person. Ok, I'm still technically fat, but really close to being merely "overweight." Many of us have struggled with the choice to put ourselves first but it's absolutely ok to do that. Good luck and keep us posted!

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