Welcome to the land of band!

Hello! And welcome to my little corner of the web. This is going to be mostly limited to the story of my obesity and how I hopefully kick obesity's butt with my new friend, the lap band. I have always had issues with my weight. When my mom took me took my first check-up at 6 weeks old, the pediatrician lectured her for feeding me too much....it's gone down hill from there. I was the kid who was always picked next to last in school because I couldn't run fast (there was always at least 1 geeky kid who always fell and saved me from being dead last, God bless 'em). I was teased, called names, all that fun stuff. By the time I was 10 I was ashamed of who I was (probably younger than that even really). I had a few close friends but outside that group I was shy and insecure. I can't tell you how many nights I cried myself to sleep over all this. As I look back at pictures and things, I really wasn't THAT big back then, but you know how kids are! By 6th grade I weighed 140, by 8th grade I was wearing a size 16 or 18. In 1986/1987 wearing a size 18 frequently meant old lady clothes....mom and I had to search high and low to find things that fit me and weren't 100% polyester old lady slacks and mumus. Again, I'd cry almost every time we went shopping. By the time I graduated high school I was closing in on 200 pounds. I continued the steady gain and was a 22/24 when I graduated college. Then I got married and exploded. I was 295 when I got pregnant with my son (I was 30). I had massive morning sickness throughout the pregnancy and actually lost 20 pounds the first couple months. I developed gestational diabetes (insulin and all, fun stuff) and was only 298 at delivery. Then I got divorced (a story we'll save for another day) and instantly became a single mom with a newborn, working full time, going through the emotions of getting divorces etc and went up to 312. Yikes. What a number!

I come from a family of feeders. When we get together we feed eachother, it's how we show love and how we celebrate. Something good happens you eat, something bad happens you eat. When I was 8 my mom had a gastric bypass. She did awesome. She started going to aerobics and watching her diet and now sits around 160-170, she was close to 300 when she started. From the point she got her bypass she started dragging me to aerobics with her and putting me on diets. At the time I hated her for it. After school instead of going outside to play I had to go to aerobics, I was not a happy camper. Thus began my life long hatred of exercise in virtually all forms! It also began my lifetime of dieting. I was never a fad dieter, just one of those "Okay, Monday I start eating better and exercising" types. I'd do fine for a few weeks then feel like I was starving and give up. Over and over, and over again.

Several years ago I decided to get a gastric bypass. Two weeks before my surgery (approved and all) they fired my co-worker and revoked my sick leave and I had to cancel. Then the marriage, baby divorce, etc. About two years ago I started looking in to getting a lap band. My insurance wouldn't cover it, however, a year later they announced they've start paying partially for bariatric surgery. You had to go through a six month HMR diet supervised diet (which cost a fortune and they of course didn't pay for). I started the program last February and while miserable did fine the first couple months. However, I grew resentful. I felt like the staff treated us like we were idiots. I got the impression they thought if you were fat you were lazy and stupid, the dietician was the worst. She was rude and disrespectful and eventually work started whining about me leaving 1 hour early 1 day a week and I dropped out. Truth be told I'd just had enough. I didn't like the program and my attitude was getting crappy and I just couldn't take it any more. (please don't get me wrong, I know some awesome dieticians, in fact the one I have now is great, but the one at the program gave me the impression they just wanted your money and didn't really care how you did). In Oct 2009 I heard the hospital system I was working for was discounting bariatric surgery for employees, so I started looking in to it. Turns out the doc, hospital, anesthesiologist, etc had formed a bundle price of $11500 for the surgery and a year of post-op care and fills. Our insurance pays a flat $4000 on bariatric procedures, leaving me $7500 self-pay. As a very generous early Christmas present my parents offered (Offered, out of the blue!!!) to go 50/50 with me. (they say it is in an investment in my future as well as my son's future....I love my parents). I went to the seminar the last week in October, did all my other meetings in November and was given a surgery date of Dec. 16 before ever meeting my surgeon. My pre-op was Dec. 3 and I was 294. By the day of surgery I was 282. Surgery was amazingly uneventful and after a couple weeks in bandster hell, I went for my first fill in mid. January at 271. Fill #1 helped some, I got full faster but still could eat much more than I should and was hungry every 2 hours. Fill #2 was this past Monday and I was 264 (Feb. 15) and has been AMAZING so far. I'm having a few issues with getting just a little hung with my first bite or two almost every time I eat but those resolve in a minute or two and then I'm fine. I'm eating small but not ridiculously small amounts and almost never hungry between meals now. I know this will likely loosen up but right now it's heaven. According to my scales yesterday I'm down to 260 (my docs usually weight me about 2 pounds heavier).

So, there's the low down on how we got here. Future posts to be shorter and hopefully more amusing but I wanted to get the facts down so you know where I'm coming from!