The Start of my Journey Towards Being Born Again.....South Florida

I’ve been in this forum for almost a month now. I had decided to wait to visit my surgeon for the first consultation on 4/2/15 to tell my story.

I am currently 51, 5’ 3 ½” and 245 lbs., BMI= 43. I used to be a small thin girl when I was little and so flexible I could put my leg behind my head! As puberty came along I wasn’t such a thin child, but not terribly overweight, but as the years rolled around and for the rest of my life, I’ve struggled with weight issues. In 1993 before giving birth to my only daughter, I weighed 199 and was 29 years old. In the 2-3 years that followed, I managed to lose a lot of the weight but never got back to my weight pre-baby. Fast forward to about 15 years ago and since then I’ve been doing the traditional yo yo dieting, losing 20-25 lbs and putting it back + more, and then again, and again. Like most people I’ve tried everything (Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, HCG, Quick Weight Loss, Atkins, Weight Watchers, pills, cabage diet, grapefruit diet, etc, etc, etc). There’s no surprise in the fact that my body has become resistant to losing weight. About 6 years ago I had attended a weight loss seminar at the hospital where I work. At that time only the gastric bypass and lap band were being offered. I knew for sure that the gastric bypass was not for me. I never had any interest in rearranging my intestines, and I couldn’t bring myself to make a decision for the lap band. So I dropped the idea of surgery altogether. Years after, on and off, I would think about the lap band again, do more research, reading pros and cons, and I just didn’t feel convinced of the lap band. About 2 or 3 years ago I heard of the sleeve for the first time and started reading about it, but again I felt that this was too drastic of a measure to lose weight and that I should try to do it the traditional way (AGAIN). Add to that the fact that my husband agreed that it was too drastic and was discouraging me from doing it. In 2013 again when I thought about this, I made the final decision that I did not want lap band as I didn’t want a device in me to lose weight. This was when I signed up for Quick Weight Loss Center and started walking a LOT more with my husband. In 4 months I had only lost 17 lbs. (Nov. 2013 – March 2014). That was pretty much the final straw in my discouraging journey. Since then I didn’t care to do anything anymore.

Just as a little background in my nutritional habits, I am not one to eat a lot of fast food or fried foods. I was raised with a mother who always cooked homemade and I lived outside of the US for many years, so I’ve grown up with good eating habits. Unfortunately I have a good appetite and of course I’m addicted to carbs and sweets. I know that losing weight slower is better, more effective, and healthier, but there’s a limit to that!!

Come 2015 and I have now reached 250 lbs. and at the beginning of March I called Dr. Brett Cohen, surgeon, and made that appointment for my first consultation. I sat my husband down and told him that I had finally made this decision and that I needed him to not be scared anymore, because I was leaving my fears aside. I was doing this no matter what, and that I needed his support now and I wasn’t going to change my mind. A couple of days after that I found this site and signed up for this forum. Everyone here has been a blessing, so supportive and not hesitating to share their experiences and advise. I think between March 6th, when I signed up and now, I went from being 90 sure of doing the surgery to 100%!

So today, 4/2/15, I have met with my surgeon. He’s as nice a guy and pleasant as the reviews I had read about him. So that was a big plus. He wanted to know what surgery I had in mind and why and how I had made that decision. What left me so discouraged was hearing that my insurance (remember, I work for a hospital and we are SELF insured) is requiring a 6 month nutritional/evaluation process prior to surgery. The doctor confirmed that a lot has changed with our insurance because they only used to require a 3 month process. This again made me angry towards our insurance because in the last 3 years they have changed many things for the worse. After giving myself a few minutes to let the steam out, my husband and I sat with a coordinator to discuss the next steps (nutritionist appts, cardiologist, pulmonologist, psychologist, etc). I managed to calm down and remember the end game and that I’m still fortunate that the insurance does cover my surgery, minus $150 co-pay. That…… I cannot complain about… but as I feared I have to arm myself with patience!!!

I think that’s it in a nutshell.

Until next time.

So I've made all the appointments I can make so far:

4/15/15 - psych eval (God help me.....if you don't hear from me it's because they committed me!!)
4/16/16 - nutritionist (I'll be teach her a thing or two about eating healthy....cause you know we all know it all don't we?)
4/21/15 - pulmonologist (we'll see if I'll have to do another sleep study. Had one about 8 years ago)
5/5/15 - primary for yearly physical in addition to blood work the surgeon wants in advance

So I'll be busy for a while and I'm more than happy to get everything started. The cardiologist is the only one left and I was told to wait until closer to the end of the 6 month period (which is SUPPOSED TO BE closer to surgery....but only if the surgery approves it! We'll see how that goes).

Oh the joy...... :-)

ta ta for now!

So this Saturday it'll be 1 month since my first appointment with the surgeon. I’ve survived the first month of this 6 month wait period. I have to be honest as I haven't been that great with 'dieting' as they expect me to be for this evaluating period. Simply because when I made this decision to have surgery, I truly felt fed up with dieting and failing......so right now I feel stuck between what I ‘should’ be doing and what I don’t feel like doing. I'll do what I can, that's all I can do.

So as I move forward today I received my Unjury trial package so we'll see how these taste. I like that they send suggestions on how to use them.

Monday I have my rescheduled appointment with the pulmonologist....'"can't wait" to see if he'll want to do another sleep study or not. I had one some years ago, and oh surprise I needed a c-pap machine. When I received it I lasted 2 nights (of which I actually used it for 5 minutes) and returned it, and proposed to LOSE WEIGHT to resolve the issue…. aha......we all know how that went or I wouldn't be here. It’s no fun trying to sleep dressed like an astronaut.

Tuesday I have a yearly physical. I already got a sneak peak of the results and thankfully things aren’t horrible but could be better and I know getting healthy and losing weight will take care of that. I have been pre-diabetic since last year and that is the one thing I’m terrified of.