Egyirba H.
I come from a long line of efforts to lose weight commencing at about eleven years old when my mother had my doctor affirm that I would "never get a boyfriend" if I didn't lose weight. I wasn't really big, then, just plump, but that didn't stop the train of techniques, gimmicks, diets, efforts, I was "encouraged" to endure from that time on. When I look back at pictures of myself then, I just don't see it. I don't see what she saw. My two younger sisters where of slim-build, so this wasn't an issue for them, ever, but I really and truly was not overweight.
At any rate, I grew up always hearing (in actuality, or in my mind) that I'd never get that boyfriend. I must've set out to prove my dear old mom wrong because that was never an issue for me. But disproving my mother didn't bring satisfaction. By now I had learned to love the comfort I got from food, the delight of satisfying my oral desires, the pure bliss of indulging my every pleasure with food. I could eat and feel good, feel relief, feel happy, feel momentarily not bored, feeling numb, feeling nothing. Meanwhile I begin to bloom!
Reaching my final weight at the age of 56 of 308 pounds by now I had acquired arthritic knees and lower back. I was a type-2 diabetic, hypertensive with high-cholesterol, and now required a sleep machine. Surely this was my "bottom". I couldn't bear it anymore. I couldn't get around well, was in pain a lot and began to think, "you're too young for this." If I was becoming so immobile in my fifties, what would happen when I got to my seventies? Eighties?
Always I had been interested in bariatric surgery since I had discovered there was such a thing. Various obstacles along the way has made it a 4 year process to get here. But I'm happy to say that I finally made it! I am just a week out of surgery and hope to chronicle the journey along the way.
