5 months out from RNY and the AZ heat hasn't killed me yet! ;)

[BlueBongo 52]

So I'm not so great about sharing my journey or talking about myself. I am always the advice giver, caretaker, and listener... so you'll have to bare with me through out my long winded discussion of my massive lifestyle changes.

I've yo-yo'ed with weight since I was about 18. Between stress, depression, anxiety, and life... I managed to pack on 330 pounds at my heaviest (as seen in my largest photo!). In 2012 I was diagnosed with Pseudotumor cerebri (Intercranial hypertenstion) which also caused Papilledema. What is Pesudotumor cerebri and papilledema, you ask? (Well, I'm gonna tell you even if you don't want to know.. mwahaha!)

Pseudotumor cerebri is a condition common in women of child bearing age (and women with a long history of birth control as was in my situation) that causes the body to create excess spinal Fluid. Why is extra spinal Fluid in the head so bad, you might ask? Well, your sinuses, eyes, brain, and skull are already full.. in fact, your head is already full of spinal fluid. Adding MORE pushes everything in your head together causing horrible pressure and forcing it out of your skull in the most painful way possible.... here is where the patient would get regular SPINAL TAPS AND/OR A SHUNT TO RELIEVE THE EXCESS PRESSURE! There is no real cure for this and being overweight makes it worse as your body compensates by creating even MORE fluid due to the excess weight. Papilledema is the pressure that the excess spinal fluid from this condition puts on the eyes causing blindness and other serious eye injuries.

Fast forward to 2015... I broke my foot at work and was rather sedentary for a few months, gaining about 30 lbs. This set on my pseudotumor and issues with papilledema. I was back up to about 320 and miserable... OH SO VERY MISERABLE. This condition just about caused my death twice in 2015 and my doctors told me I needed to lose a massive amount of weight quickly. The neurological medications I was on to treat this sort of negated losing more than a pound or two per week, and that wasn't enough weight loss to help the condition and pain. So I began changing my entire diet, went to counseling, and also decided to pursue RNY Gastric Bypass after a great deal of research, classes, and educational information about various options and long term benefits/downfalls of doing such drastic procedures.

On January 27th, 2016 I went in to St. Luke's in Phoenix with my amazing and steady surgeon, Dr. Rob Schuster and was up walking to dull the pain as soon as the anesthesia wore off that day. My recovery was really best case scenario all around because I binge watched "My 600 lb Life" before going in and didn't want to be miserable while in the hospital for a few days and also wanted to kick my butt in gear to get on with this second chance at life. It was a massive lifestyle change. To anyone that thinks or feels surgical weight loss is an "easy way out" or in general isn't difficult has no idea the months and months of work people must go through, the hoops insurance puts you through, plus the amount of will power and motivation someone must have through good and bad to ensure they stay on top of all of it both before, during, and after surgery. You are forced to change your entire lifestyle, you change your relationship with food permanently, and learn to make far healthier and wiser choices as you can literally only put 4 oz of anything in you at any time and it MUST be seen as fuel or your honestly doing it wrong and hurting yourself in the process.

I've dropped close to 90 lbs so far with another 50-60 to go to reach my goal. I feel better now than I have since I was 18. I am so much happier, healthier, and in general just more motivated to take on life.

My life in the past two months has literally crashed into perfection. I can't think of a better way to sum it all up. My goals in life are to live simply, be happy, love honestly, and just be myself. I'm extremely blessed and grateful for how my life has crashed into perfection recently and wouldn't change it for the world, even with the nuances and odd things life may bring my way. I'm all smiles these days!

[James Marusek 5,244]

Congratulations on your weight loss thus far. Curious. Has the lost weight affected your condition: pseudotumor cerebri?

[BlueBongo 52]

The weight did affect it when I was heaviest, losing the weight was the closet thing to a "cure" I will get. Mainly the extra weight caused my body to work in overtime creating even more excess spinal Fluid, causing even more excess pressure.

I work for an airline, fly a lot and scuba dive a lot....I've not been able to do those two things in three years because my head would literally explode due to excess pressure from the extra spinal Fluid on my skull and the added pressure from the atmospheric changes.

I've had no issues with this condition since my surgery. In fact, my papilledema swelling in my eyes from the pseudotumor haso been reduced by 85 percent in the 5 months since my surgery and I will be completely off the neurological medications in the next few months!