DianaB.
My story for trying to lose weight started back when I was about 21. I had been pretty normal sized throughout my teenage years. If I did gain any weight, I would live off of soup and carrot sticks for a week and lose it all. That all changed when I had a baby and had gestational diabetes. I gained 60 lbs with my first pregnancy. Afterwards, I did lose it all but only because I got a very severe blood infection that had my in ICU for a long time and I couldn't keep anything down food-wise for months. Then I had hip surgery and being in a bed recovering for 6 months combined with the steroids I had to take for my blood infection, I gained 80lbs in a year. I was soon after diagnosed with PCOS.
During that time, my first husband left me to raise my daughter and deal with my problems alone. When I was 23 I got married again to the man that is my husband now. He took my daughter as his own and adopted her. But he wanted his own biological child as well that he could raise from infanthood. Needless to say, with my weight gain, PCOS, and borderline type 2 Diabetes, getting pregnant wasn't easy. We ended up using fertility treatments and were blessed with our son. Although he was born extremely premature, he is a very healthy 5 yr old boy now.
As soon as our son was born I was diagnosed as having full blown Type 2 Diabetes. I worked hard on losing weight and thankfully had only gained about 20lbs with my pregnancy. When my son was a little over 18 months old, I suprisingly learned I was pregnant again. I was very scared about the pregnancy due to a lot of complications I had with my son, as well as the fact that my Diabetes was not being well controlled at the time. Thankfully, at 35 weeks along I gave birth to a healthy girl.
We moved from Virginia to Oklahoma shortly after my youngest daughter's birth and I started trying to lose weight again. Ten years ago I was always about 135-145 lbs. Now I was topping the scales at almost 245lbs. My Diabetes was once again out of control, and my medicines seemed to make me gain weight. I was always very tired and napped almost every day. Then I found out my liver was starting to develop fatty liver disease. I was also told my cholesterol was so high that my blood is almost white. I couldn't take anything to treat my cholesterol because of my liver.
I had a friend in Virginia who had RNY a few years ago to save her life when her heart started failing. I decided to look into wls for myself so my children might have their mother around for awhile. I found Dr. Greg Walton and liked him immediately. We discussed my options, and I decided to go with the Gastric Sleeve laporoscopy surgery. I didn't go with the rny for two reasons, one being that I was a cash pay and couldn't come up with the extra money, and I was afraid of malabsorption and having my intestines operated on. If the sleeve isn't successful for me, I may go back one day and have Dr. Walton operate again and turn it into a rny, but I'm hopeful the sleeve will work for me.
As part of my pre-op work ups, I had to see a cardiologist. I'll never forget him examining me, looking at my chart, and shaking his head. He told me that I was in dire need of cholesterol meds and really needed to lose weight. He siad he couldn't do anything to help me until I had the surgery. It seemed to me, that surgery wasn't just a want anymore, but that it was something I had to do to save my health.
I had my surgery April 21st. I told all my friends and family beforehand, and mostly all were supportive. Some were actually extrememly encouraging and a lot of people checked in on me afterwards and brought my family meals. The first 2 weeks post-op were extremely rough on me. But I know some people have had complications and I'm thankful I haven't. I'm just dealing with my brain not following my stomach. I think I'm hungry all the time. But now at 4 weeks out, I've stopped having the regrets about surgery that I had in the first few weeks. Things are starting to go a lot better for me now.
