I have been short and somewhat overweight most of my life. High School was not too bad, I was 10-15 pounds overweight, but clothes could hide that. I was always very conscious of it, and to make matters worse, my younger sister, was tall and thin. I always felt like a weeble around her. I compensated by smoking. I was sixteen and smoking like a train. I also fell in love with Pepsi. All my HS photos show me with my smoke and a Pepsi.

The first real big weight gain came when I was pregnant with my daughter, I was 23. By this time my husband and I were living in Phoenix, AZ. I was a Console Operator for the Flight Simulators at Williams AFB. This was a great job, we sat at a big computer console all day. Everything we did revolved around food. We were all trying to out do each other with what we would bring for lunch or dinner. It was to far to go off base to buy lunch, so we all brought food from home. There was food everywhere. Our break room had a full size fridge that was kept stocked like the holidays. When I was 9 weeks pregnant an ovarian cyst ruptured and I had surgery. Thank God everything was OK! My OB said "eat and have a healthy baby". I took that to heart. I ate! After all it was doctors orders! I was pregnant, I was supposed to gain weight now, right? My delivery date came and went and no baby. Two weeks later I was scheduled to be induced. Monday would be a holiday so I had the weekend to make sure I was ready. On my delivery date I topped the scales at 201 pounds. My daughter, Jennifer (5.9 pounds), was born on Monday and I was back at work on Wednesday. I only missed 1 day of work. With work, hubby and a new baby, who had time to worry about losing weight or starting an exercise program? My husband was in culinary school and we eat homework assignments. The bakery course was the worst, I found out that I was a carb-o-holic. We had fresh bread everyday. We even had our own starter for Sourdough bread. Our lives revolved around food. When he graduated we moved to San Antonio, Texas. Jennifer was nine months old. I got a job doing the same thing I had in AZ. The only difference now was I was the supervisor and every fast food place you had ever heard of was at our back door. The first conversation we had in the mornings would be "What's for lunch?" We had french fries and milk shakes everyday! There was Fried Chicken and Fajitas, burgers and tacos, it was all there!

As my daughter got older I tried loosing weight. I tried everything, pills, spas and gyms, drinks, diets, cabbage, onions, garlic - you name it, I even banned food from our work stations. Nothing seemed to work, well at first they did, 10 or 15 pounds. Of course my marriage fell apart. I ran the whole gambit of emotions, first I was shocked, then sad, mad and finally depressed. Well, that loaf of fresh sourdough bread with butter was better company anyway. Oh! and there was that 1/2 gallon of Bluebell Ice Cream. Not to mention McDonald french fries. Who needed him anyway? I had the love of my life with food. Life went on and so did the weight. I stopped using the scale and only looked in the mirror when I had to. I lived in a great big 2 story house and I never went into Jennifer's room. She was on the second floor.

In 1996 I quit smoking! YEAH! When I reach 250 I went to a Dr. and asked for Phen-fen. It worked great! I lost 29.9 pounds the first month and I felt great. The second month another 25 pounds. I couldn't eat anything, I was never hungry. My daughter had to remind me to eat. Then tragedy hit - they took it off the market! I tried to continue with out the pills, but slowly that 55 pounds came back, and they brought their friends.

In September of 1999 we saw the Oprah show about the Carb Addicts diet. It was like they were talking about me. I ordered the books and started right away. It did help with the cravings for the carbs, but in 4 months I had gained 8 pounds on this diet. That's still better then not using the plan or it would have been 20 pounds. In December I was talking to my mother about dieting, again. And for some unknown reason I said out loud, "I should just get my stomach stapled". And my mom said "Well, you should look into it". I had never even thought of such a drastic step. I don't know if it was for the fact that I knew my insurance wouldn't cover something like that or what. I knew they didn't cover the Phen-fen, so what made me think they would cover something like this. Now I had said it out loud and it was like a cloud had been lifted from my mind. I knew I was going to die from all the extra weight I was carrying around, it was just a matter of time. I already had severe problems caused by the weight. I have high blood pressure, my ankles and feet swell so badly that I can't get my shoes on. I had already had my gallbladder removed and a hysterectomy. All due to my weight. I can't remember the last time I had a good night sleep. And stairs! Please, just call me an ambulance. I have become a hermit, the grocery store was the only place I feel comfortable going. Jennifer teases me about having a social anxiety disorder. I am missing out on Jennifer's life also. I have to do something about this.

I started looking into the surgery and learned this was a whole medical field - it's called Bariatric Medicine (for the treatment of obesity). I read many web sites that featured different types of bariatric surgery or weight loss surgery (WLS). Several sites have a BMI (body mass indicator) calculator. A 40 is considered morbidly obese, mine is 55.9. That number just made my heart sink, how had I gotten so far out of control? I learned about the different types of WLS and decided that I preferred the RNY procedure. I found the web site for the American Society of Bariatric Surgeons . From there I located the surgeons in San Antonio. New Demensions Weight Loss Surgery. Their web site has so much information on it, it was a big help. I called and made my first appointment.
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Here are some great WLS Links