I had been thinking about having bariatric surgery for a long time. I always thought it was a bit too extreme for me since I can still walk and take care of myself. I thought, “this is something for people who are so large that they are bed ridden. I can do this without surgery since I can get around okay.” As the days went on and my battle with my weight raged on, I started to realize that even when I was successfully losing weight, I was still so large that it didn’t make a significant improvement. In fact, it was like there was no improvement at all. I started to get very depressed about it. Also, I was finding it very difficult to find any kind of exercise that I could do without being in terrible pain. I have back issues and degenerative disc with bulging and ruptured discs. This causes not only back pain but pain in my legs and ankles as well. I was basically stuck to swimming since it was the only thing that didn’t make me want to curl up into a ball and cry afterwards. Yet swimming was hard to do frequently because of the fact that I don’t own a pool and don’t have a lot of time to plan trips to the YMCA between work and my kids. So I feel like I was truly stuck with no way to really get my life back.
This was the point where I knew that I really did need that extra help. I really did need the head start that bariatric surgery gives you. And that’s what the surgery basically is, help. It doesn’t work like a magic pill that makes you perfect again, it just gives you that extra edge so you can get your life back. There will be a lot of hard work going into this surgery. I will be learning to eat again like I never knew how before. Smaller bites, chewing everything triple time, completely different foods than I have ever been used to eating. You can totally regain all of your weight and more if you don’t make the surgery the start of a total life change. I feel like a lot of people don’t realize that. I will finally have some pressure off my joints and back so that I can exercise and play with my kids. The thought that I may fit on amusement park rides again one day gives me a thrill all on its own. I never realized the things that current me is missing out on until I had the idea that I may get those things back one day. I had given up on them completely. Had resigned myself that some things would just never be for me to be able to do again. I am hopeful now that I may get them back. That I may feel human again some day.
If you’re thinking about surgery yourself you should know that there are a lot of prerequisites to have a bariatric procedure. You have to be at a certain BMI and your insurance may require that you have certain conditions as well. You have to be on a doctor monitored diet for 3-6 months, mine is 6 months. There are nutrition classes, meetings you must attend, so very many forms to fill out and even a several hour psychiatric evaluation. I’m currently half way there since I just finished my 3rd weigh in. During the 6 months, my insurance requires me to not gain any weight. Not even a pound. I so far have been doing well. All my requirements are met with the exception of the remaining 3 weigh ins and my nutritionist meeting with completion of her requirements. Then I’ll just have to get my surgery date set up. I try to think every day that this 3 months has flown by so the next will fly by as well. It can’t seem to get here fast enough for me. I’m ready, I’m so ready to get my life back. I think I’ll probably keep posting blogs about my journey here just for the simple fact that when it’s all over, I want to look back and see how different I am from the current me. So I can see that even if things aren’t going my way at the time, I’m a world apart from the me at the beginning. And that is a huge deal to me already. I want to see during the hard times that it was worth it.
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