A Little Background

I decided that exploring a bit of what led up to my decision for this surgery would be in order. So here goes....

I am and always have been, a somewhat vertically challenged person. In all my elementary school class group photos, I am easy to find - always the person on the far left end of the front row. Whenever we had to line up by height for anything (P.E. games, choir standing position, anything symmetrical), I was always at very end of the short side. You get the picture. All the way through my childhood to my early-mid-30's, I had the body build to match. I was a teeny-tiny, itty-bitty person. When I got married at age 21, I was 4'11-1/2" tall, weighed 96 pounds, and had a 21" waist. At age 34, I weighed 102 pounds. I also had 6 children ages 4-1/2 through 12. I was, at that time, a college return student finishing up my degree, and at one point that spring, heard two middle school students walking down the hall behind me (I was doing a practice teaching assignment) wondering if I was a new student. I couldn't imagine ever being anything else but tiny.

Then the impossible happened. A few weeks before my 35th birthday, I noticed that my clothes were getting tighter. I started watching what I ate more carefully, cutting out cookies and chips (my two absolutely most favorite snacks). I was already getting lots of exercise walking all over campus (still a college student) during the morning and keeping up with the house and the kids all afternoon and evening. Nothing worked - I just kept gaining weight. About 3 months after my 35th birthday, I went to the doctor and confirmed new suspicions. Yes, I was expecting another baby, and was about two months along. I also weighed in the upper-120's. Considering that I had never weighed as much as 140 in any of my previous 6 pregnancies, this was, to me, a high starting weight.

I kept busy during my pregnancy with kids (now ages 6 through 13-1/2), house, student teaching, voice lessons - the usual - and gained weight at a fairly normal pregnancy pace. The day I went into the hospital to deliver, I had gained 22 pounds since my first office visit. I had reached 150 pounds - more than I had ever weighed in my life. I told myself that I would drop the 25 pounds of pregnancy weight within the first month, just as I had done before, but it didn't happen. For more than a year, I watched what I ate and walked every day; keeping myself healthy, I'm sure, but not losing weight. Then our family became acquainted with TaeKwonDo.

I began attending 5-7 workouts each week - 3-5 during the day while the kids were at school and at least 2 evening classes with the family. Our instructor once told us we were burning 600-800 calories per class. With my 1200-1500 daily caloric intake, I should have been losing weight like crazy. Within the first 3 or 4 months, I dropped to 135 pounds and could go no lower. After nearly 2 years of TaeKwonDo, we moved to a new place - a new state - where the TKD opportunity was no longer an option for me. I began gaining more weight. I tried, from time to time, to limit my calories and became quite adept at estimating calorie counts. I would lose a few pounds, but then they would come back on and bring a few of their friends with them.

Shortly before my 43rd birthday, my husband gave me gift - a gallon jug filled with cash. It was the amount of a project bonus he had received at work, and he told me to do whatever I wanted with it. I decided to use it on Weight Watchers. I started at 168 pounds. In 10 months, I lost 50 pounds - under 120 for the first time in 9 years. I quickly settled in at 122-125 pounds, which I was happy to accept. I looked good and felt good for the first time in a long time. I maintained this weight range for about 3 years before the weight started creeping on again. I used everything I had learned in WW and started a walking regimen again, but to no avail - I just kept gaining.

By my 51st birthday, I had reached 200 pounds for the first time. That summer, Jack was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. This brought about changes for both of us. One of the biggest changes was our introduction to the Atkins diet. Jack's doctor told Jack he wanted him to follow the Atkins plan, so we did it together. This was at a time when "Atkins" was the equivalent of a dirty word in nutritionist circles, but it sure worked for us. In nine months, I lost 63 pounds, and was down to 142. Then I went into the hospital for some minor surgery. The hospitals at that time were not into providing low-carb meal plans, and would not give me diabetic meals because I had not been diagnosed with diabetes. So, I ate my carbs. When I got home, wonderful Relief Society sisters provided wonderful meals for me and my family with lots of bread and potatoes. *sigh* I had been sabotaged and I was hooked on carbs again, even though I tried to eat them sparingly.

Jack maintained his weight loss much better than I did. The pounds, and even more of their friends, slowly came back. Within 4 years (just before my 55th birthday) I was up to weighing over 220 pounds. I tried Atkins again and lost about 20 pounds, but the weight started coming back on even as I ate no sugar, bread, rice, pasta, or potatoes. Soon the weight was back, and I thought, "Why even try?" A year or so later, I tried going back to Weight Watchers. I lost 11 whole pounds before I started gaining it back, even as I counted points and ate only my correct totals each day. After a few months, I stopped going and stopped trying. This pattern continued - trying various new eating and exercising plans, even joining a gym and doing regular workouts - with the same results. Some weight loss (up to 20 pounds - not even noticeable at my height and weight) followed by the return of the weight plus a few more pounds, till everything came to a head near the end of the summer of 2007 when I was 59 years old.

I had started taking medication for high blood pressure about a year-and-a-half earlier, and about that same time, my cholesterol started rising, and I started having problems with my knees. That summer (July 2007), I traveled to Chicago and Wisconsin to visit with friends and my son Jack's family. By the time I got home, I could hardly walk, and I felt horrible. I went to my doctor for a general physical. I weighed 245 pounds. I broke down in his office and explained all I had gone through to try to lose weight. He repeated his standard line of "with your metabolism, the only thing that will help is eating half as much and exercising 3 times more than is recommended." I asked about my high cholesterol and was told that he could put me on medication, but if I would do as he suggested to lose weight, the problem would take care of itself. I asked about weight loss surgery and was told, "that's not going to help." I told him that if he couldn't help me, I wanted him to send me to a doctor who could. I left his office with a referral to an orthopedic surgeon for my knees, and an endocrinologist for everything else.

In September 2007, my world came crashing down. After x-rays, scans, and multiple blood tests, I was told by the orthopedic surgeon that I had no cartilage left in either knee, and would need total knee replacements of both knees. I was also told by the endocrinologist that I had extreme insulin resistant Type II diabetes (my insulin levels were 90% higher than normal), which had caused metabolic syndrome (my whole metabolic system was totally out of whack) and the out-of-control cholesterol and triglyceride levels. This excess insulin had also been the cause of my inability to maintain weight loss and to regain more than I lost with each try. These yo-yo weight losses and gains had resulted in my having fatty liver disease as well - my liver was loaded with fat cells, and had become enlarged, yielding higher than normal liver enzyme output. The only thing that could possibly help it would be supervised weight loss, and medication to try to control the excess insulin.

I visited with a dietitian, and we determined that the South Beach eating guide would be the best and healthiest plan for me to follow. I started carefully following the South Beach plan and, after a couple of months, had my first knee replacement, followed 7 weeks later by the second knee replacement. After months of physical therapy, I was ready for another gym membership where I started daily "water-walking." I paid more attention to South Beach eating, and by the end of 2008, I had lost 30 pounds. It started coming back again (what a surprise - not!) the next Spring, and unexpectedly, my left knee started "clicking" and feeling uncomfortable. In the summer of 2009, I had to have it totally replaced again. Talk about a set-back!

I was very discouraged, and kept gaining weight. By the summer of 2010, I weighed 242 pounds - nearly 2-1/2 times what I had weighed when I got married. I felt desperate, and brought up weight loss surgery with my endocrinologist. Imagine my surprise when he said "Do it!", told me he had many diabetic patients who had been successful with gastric bypass, and gave me a referral to a surgical group specializing in that very thing. He told me I needed to attend one of their monthly explanation seminars and go from there.

Jack went with me to the seminar in August. I was very emotional and cried through most of it, but it just felt right. It took me a month to be certain that I really wanted to do this, and I set up my first surgical consultation for the end of September. After talking with Dr. M., I was told that with a BMI of 50 (243 pounds), and a high number of "co-morbidities" (diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol/triglycerides, sleep apnea, asthma, arthritis, fatty liver disease), surgery would be quickly approved by my insurance company, and we could very likely schedule surgery before the middle of November. Before the end of October I discovered that, because nothing about this was going to be easy, the insurance company didn't "quickly approve" anything. They set up a series of hoops that I would need to jump through first.

I got my required psych evaluation taken care of right away, and even got the three requisite visits with a psychologist in before Thanksgiving, but it took a couple of months to get my other doctors moving on specific letters they needed to write. Everything was finally gathered up, sent to the surgeon's office, and faxed to the insurance company by the middle of January 2011. The "approved" reply came back on the 10th of February, and we scheduled a final consultation with the surgeon on February 17th, and surgery on March 9th. When I weighed in on the 17th, I had dropped to 234 pounds. I am really not sure what triggered that, but it was a nice start.

Beginning February 23rd, I started my 1000-calorie-per-day, pre-surgery diet. I was supposed to eat nothing but protein and vegetables during those two weeks, to rid my body of the carbs/sugars that it craved. If I could do that, I wouldn't have to struggle with those cravings while I was dealing with the shock to my system that this surgery would be. When I went to the doctor for my final pre-surgery class two days before surgery, I weighed 224.5 pounds. The morning of my surgery, I checked into the hospital weighing 223. I had my surgery (laparocsopically) Wednesday morning, and came home Thursday night - very sore, but not at all hungry. I checked my weight, and found that I weighed 227.5, from all the fluids they had been pumping into my veins for two days. By Friday night, I was at 225, by Saturday morning, 223. Sunday was 220, Monday was 217, and Tuesday (the giggling day) I weighed 214 pounds. On Wednesday morning, one week after my surgery, I was 212 pounds - down 11 pounds from the Wednesday before.

I think I am in for an exciting downward weight rush. I need to find a ticker to keep track of it here. I also need to figure out the picture-adding thing here so I can show what has been, as well as things to come. If you made your way through all of this, thank you for reading what got me here. I hope you keep joining me through the rest of my journey.