FinallyHealthy2013
So here goes My story:
I had (wow I just wrote HAVE i guess old habits die hard) anyway I HAD been overweight since I was about 6 years old I became morbidly obese when I was between 8 and 12 (Wicked stepmother issues and evil stepsister LOL together they weighed over 600lbs and my step sister was 15) anyway back on track lol. In high school I began loosing weight a little at about 16 but then I had a car accident and resulted in a low back injury that has never stopped hurting. I gained and gained until I was a size 22 jeans and they were tight. I think I graduated at 245lbs (I am 5'8") I tried every diet in the book but nothing helped I would loose like 20 lbs in the first month and then I would stall for a few days and feel great and suddenly my center of gravity would change from the rapid loss (that's just how I loose)and my back would go out and I wouldn't be able to walk for about 3 weeks I would eat what ever was easy and fast so I could sit back down which hurt too but it was more tolerable. And by 3 weeks I would try to walk but unless it was grocery shopping I didn't like exercise so I didn't do it and after a while my mind believed it was too hard. I got to a point I just gave up on myself and the dream of ever getting the weight off and I accepted that FAT was my life and that is exactly how i saw it. I grew and grew and by the time I married my first husband I was 20 and I was in the 280's (2004) He turned out to be an abusive transvestite which was a blast let me tell you! I got to a point that if I looked in a mirror I felt sick because of the emotional abuse. I know now he was taking his hatred of himself out on me and we are friends now and its actually a great friendship. But at that point I hated myself so bad I tried to eat away the pain. I moved into his truck when our bills were too much and that's when the abuse started I left him 3 months later when he threw a strap at me and cut my arm, nothing bad just a scratch but it drew blood and that was the end of the line for me. I got out of his truck in Dallas, Tx and got on a bus back home to Colorado. I was terrified I had never been on a bus before. with in 3 weeks I was taking a bus to St. Louis, MO heading to trucking school. (This is why I don't hate my ex) I caught the driving bug and I spent about 4 years on the road in a big truck. It was the happiest I have ever felt BUT I still hated myself and I refused to deal with it. I ate and ate I was addicted to food to the point I would eat half of a foot long sub and be FULL and feel sick but because I knew it was just behind my drivers seat in the cooler I had to go back and have one more bite and then just one more bite until either it was gone or i threw up (sorry to say but true) but even that wasn't enough because if i did get sick I had such a strong compulsion to go back for one more bite and just knowing it was there I couldn't control myself and I would eat again until it was gone or I was sick again over and over until it was gone! I was messed up bad in the head and got up to 400 lbs. I know I was over that weight but I am not sure exactly how far over because I had to weigh my truck once and it was over weight. no one was waiting so I hopped out and went in to get my scale ticket to see exactly how over weight it was. When I looked at the little machine thing they had it said my truck was fine and when I did the math IT WAS ME I was the extra 400 Lbs. That moment was a huge smack in the face for me and rather than face it what did I do I moved my truck and went and got food.
Fate seemed to inter veind at that point and I got offered a job on the Coor's Beer board running kegs of beer to distribution centers based in Golden CO. Now up until this point I had been running loads for Office Max out of Pennsylvania strictly north east region Maine south to North Carolina and New Jersey out to Minnesota I-80 and North. I was used to the North East, hell I was the driver who volunteered for New York City loads because it was fun. (So I know I am a bit cracked LOL )But back to Coor's I would be running no further East than my favorite city of Chicago and because I loved that run my dispatcher was fine with me having it but when loads changed I was sent West and to me that was a night mare. I don't know what it is about the continental divide but I get this overwhelming dread feeling followed by intense anxiety when I cross it and every time I did over and over again the issues got worse. But I just ate and ate. Within 6 months I finally had enough and took a break from driving. In three months of being home with my mother who lives out in the middle of nowhere 30 miles from the closest fast food or delivery I lost weight. I started driving school buses and really hated it I cant take that many kids at once. Going from complete solitude to 160 kids a day was intense LOL. I kept loosing weight because the bus job was a lot of walking that I wasn't getting else where and I was trying to cut out sodas and anything sugary drink wise but I still was gorging if the food was around. I would mindlessly stand in front of the fridge or closet and graze. All day if no one was home. I then went back to my former employer and decided to go to orientation in my home state of Maryland which is where i had this over whelming compulsion to be. I had planned to just take my car and what I needed for my truck and leave my car with my father so when i got to visit I would have something to drive. Well fate took over again and i got a SWEET job driving day cabs around Baltimore at night moving trailers from the train yards to the final destination and taking trailers to the train for shipment. I was making $20.00 an hour and I was loosing weight pretty quickly. By that point (2008) I felt great I got down to around 320 and I was where I had wanted to be for a long time HOME. Well my job fell apart when this guy decided to grab my boobs and I got him fired and my co workers (all men not that i hate men just a fact) got together and said i was the problem and lied about situations where they had said things to me and I didn't report it because I am a trucker I have thick skin lude jokes are funny to me and I do not get offended by them. I got fired and sued them which got me next to nothing but oh well. That pushed me into my next job where I met my now husband. Things happened quickly and we had our son 276 days before we had known each other a year ( I can admit it now I was easy that's all there was to it). He moved back to Colorado with me and I was about 285 pounds in March of 2010. I got pregnant with my daughter within 2 months and by July I was back up to 310. I was so upset I wasn't eating because I was pregnant I had eaten so much in those 2 months I gained it back. I lost weight when I was pregnant both times which I was happy about but after my daughter was born I was heading back up from 280 Feb 18 2011 till March 26 2011 I was back to 296 that was when i asked for help from my family doc (well PA but he was great and IMO a Dr.) He immediately said weight loss surgery gastric bypass and that was my wake up call this time. I was terrified I thought ok maybe band and I had considered bypass before but I felt like I was too small for something so drastic. I went ahead knowing this might be my LAST chance at weight loss and a normal life. I also wanted to set a good example for my kids and I was so addicted to food I knew they would learn from me and that wasn't ok in my book. I was on a wait list to meet with my surgeon and I was shocked when they called me in June i was sure I wouldn't be called till September at the earliest. I met with Dr. Rothchild June 26 and had the heart monitor test ( i have no idea what its called) they weighed me and did normal Dr office stuff then he talked with me about my options Band Sleeve (which I had never heard of and instantly wanted) or By-Pass I made my mind up right then this was what I had been dreaming of making my stomach smaller, that was the answer. He said that because I had been on so many diets and I was at the weight I was he had no pre op diet requirements and I had to go to a nutrition class and a psyc eval and then I could schedule. That blew my mind I thought I would be looking at a year or more before i could actually have the procedure. I thought I would have hoop s and hoops to jump through. The Dr. office did all the insurance stuff and I was scheduled for their next NUT class which was July 11. Well I fell down the steps twisting my ankle and breaking my tail bone that day on the way to the class. I had to reschedule for the following month (the class was only that often). So August 10 I did the class and the next day they called and said my surgery date was going to be Sept 13, 2011. WHAT?!?!?! I couldn't think I cried and screamed every emotion in the book hit me hard. I got scared terribly and I was ecstatic at the same time. Surgery day was upon me and I was terrified I thought what if I don't wake up but then I kept thinking if I don't wake up is a risk I was willing to take because the alternative was keep digging myself into the same old hole and drag my family in with me.
I woke up feeling "fixed" both mentally and physically. Yes the first 3 days were bad I threw up a lot it hurt to throw up but that was the only pain in the back of my throat where it was raw from stomach acid. And I didn't know I was going to wake up with a catheter or a tube up my nose and into my stomach. That really kind of scared me and I knew about the drain but that wasn't an issue at that point. I wretched a lot but after the eating pattern I had it didn't bother me that much. I got mad about the catheter and I complained saying it hurt to get them to take it out once I was able to walk to the bathroom. The next morning (second day) I had the leak test and as soon as it was over I began wretching because they had to stop the suction on the tube in my nose so my stomach was filled with the black stuff (don't know what it is but they said it was normal something your stomach does when traumatized) I wretched so hard I pushed the tub out the nurse was mad but took it out anyway. Once the black stuff came up I was fine able to sip liquids (clear). I felt pretty normal other than the IV and the Drain in my side which I would have for 7 days. I went home the following day and had no issues until day 6 when a stitch came loose and my drain tube moved about an inch out. It freaked me out and when i went to stand up to tell my husband I felt like something was stabbing me inside my left lung. I was positive it was because of the drain and I was not really scared I was more annoyed and wanted it out. We had to call the local volunteer fire dept. Because I was still too heavy for my husband to carry. The fire Dept.completely over reacted and called out the helicopter and they were SURE i was having a heart attack. Well I can say I have never been in helicopter before and that was AWESOME LOL I had testing and a contrast MRI which was not fun( I tasted metal for days after that). I was sent home with the drain and orders to just go to my Dr. appt the next day to have it removed. They gave me painkillers but it still hurt.
Now you might hear stories about having the drain out and I think a guy I know said it best. He said “it was like the Dr. reached down and grabbed my balls and was trying to pull them out with it.” (thank You Ben for that image it was perfect) I being a woman don't have balls but YES that is EXACTLY what it felt like LOL it was only for about 5 seconds and it stopped so don't be scared of that. My diet until then had been liquid (unless you count the beef jerky I chewed and sucked the flavor out of on the way home from the hospital (temptation is a bitch when your husband is driving me home munching on jerky oh and I did have a few bites of watery mashed potatoes on that ride as well) and was supposed to be on full liquids until day 10. Well being totally honest with myself and you I ate half of a Burger King Jr cheeseburger on the ride home after the drain was removed. I stuck to the diet after that because that burger hurt so bad.
I was back to my normal feeling self by day 14. At two months out I was back to eating normal stuff but I had been researching The Daniel Plan that I found when I looked up Dr. Amen for my mother. It was all about getting chemicals and toxins out of your diet and I was hooked. I jumped on board and since I have been able to control how much I eat for the most part ( I still have a bad day here and there) I started buying natural foods and the website for it has wonderful easy recipes which I found great in the puree stage because they have lots of yummy soups.I also got the idea in my head that I WILL succeed and the more i told myself that the more it became truth. My brain had to be retrained to believe in ME and not believe in limitations that I told myself I had. I began attempting to do Yoga telling myself that if healthy skinny people could do it so could I. My yoga began as simple stretching exercises and as I stretched and breathed into the stretch I was getting more and more flexible and it was some form of exercise that didn't hurt for days afterward. I have never been big on routine and an exercise routine was NOT something I was going to do. I just did it when ever I felt like. I tried to do it once a day once I began accomplishing goals I had set like how far I could bend over. It felt great on my back injury and I just began feeling more and more relaxed as I moved into different stretches always listening to my body and what it was asking for. In the beginning I could hardly sit on the floor with my legs out in front of me I worked on just sitting with my legs in front of me and trying to get them to just sit so that my toes were pointing up and not out and my knees were straight. Let me tell you that took weeks and weeks just to get there but it always felt good after. Eventually I got more and more flexible and now well if you look at my pics at the end of this (book lol) You can see how far i have come. I can touch my toes and do sit ups from an upside down position (that's what I was doing in the one pic if you’re wondering). I got a bit of what I used to call bad news in November 2012 I was diagnosed with the Fibromyalgia and the old me would have started eating and saw it as the end of the world just one more thing I have to just live with. But surprisingly fate happened in again and my uncle looked at me when I mentioned it and with a straight face takes off his hat, head shining in the light, and says I just found out I’m Bald! Its just awful! That made me laugh and I was able to look at Fibro as a huge positive. I say that because the recommended treatment other than mood enhancing pain killers like Cymbalta is, EXERCISE! I thought it was quite funny actually being that in my head I was thinking “Oh great I have a disease that requires exercise great just great and then i looked in the mirror and remembered I wasn't 400+ lbs anymore and exercise feels GOOD. And like I said I prefer and can afford natural medicine since Cymbalta was going to cost me $475.00 a MONTH. Yeah NO! My meds cost the effort it takes to grow a garden. (And for those who would get worried about my kids this is kept very secluded from them I am VERY careful about that. They will make that choice for themselves once they grow up I will not influence them in ANY way on that issue.)
Anyway, now its been 17 months since my surgery and I honestly see it as my re-birth-day! It has given my life back to me and I see things from a whole new perspective. I have become able to enjoy everything in life without fear of being too big. I have exceeded my size goals when i fit top and bottom into a medium with room to spare. I still have a little left to lose but this last 23 pounds is coming off pretty well right now and I am just going to enjoy the ride lol. I still have my pre surgery issues but not nearly as often. I didn't have anything weight related but I have had Migraines since my accident in 2000 and they act like seizures which is great when I cant stop hitting myself literally but we are still working on finding an answer to that one and my back will never heal all the way but I do not accept limitations when it comes to that I keep on going now because I know I can deal with the pain so that I can stay healthy and not go back down that old bad habit road. And I have developed anxiety which seems to be a result of the weight loss but I think once my brain and body image catch up to reality it will go away. Its manageable I just have to stop and meditate or it can bring on migraines. But all in all I can totally live with the new me and I am so glad the old me is no longer. I can't thank my surgeon Dr. Kevin Rothchild of Denver’s University of Colorado Hospital, enough! He saw the potential I had and the desire I had to get here and the look on his face at my last visit was wonderful. His new medical assistant even said to me “When I saw you sitting out there I didn't think you could possibly be a surgery patient. I still get tears in my eyes when I think about that moment.
This journey has not always been easy. In fact most of it has seemed hard almost insurmountable but if you begin to retrain your thoughts and remind yourself of whatever motivational saying you hold dear, you can succeed. This has been a huge life changing thing and it has been scary at times but the light at the end of the tunnel is absolutely amazing!
I want to say to ANYONE who wants to do this and is a candidate for it DO IT! Take the chance that this will work your life is worth that much!
About Me
Before & After
rollover to see after photo
