Danette H.
I have been overweight my whole life. Obesity is a problem on both sides of my family. Everything in our lives revolved around food. So at an early age I became an emotional eater. As I aged I ate secretly; not realizing that although I hid the food I could not hide the weight gain. I had no support for losing weight, my mother who lives with me, but not able to work loves to cook, so when I get home from work there is some soul food ready to eat and I ate it, gladly. I was diagnosed a diabetic in 01/08 and my grandmother died 03/08 from complications of diabetes. RED FLAG!! I prayed for directions and I prayed for directions and I did all of the things that I was taught from diabetic teaching classes. I lost 20 lbs and thought that this would help turn my diabetes around. Imagine my surprise and disappointment to find out that I was not any better and in fact needed to add insulin to my medication regimen which also included 4 blood pressure medications. I decided that day I was going to have weight loss surgery. I went to a seminar and started my process 06/08. I was so afraid that I would not get positive reinforcement from my family that I decided to only tell my sons and my mother. They provided no encouragement but did not dissuade me either. Finally, I had an approval and a surgery date Monday, 12/15/2008. On Saturday night, I notified the rest of my family by mass email. Some called and asked why I chose that method, and I was able to tell them that I was neither ready nor able to handle any negative feed back. So far my surgery has gone very well and my sons are doing great at being supportive. My new goal is to let the children of my family know that we eat to live not live to eat and although it has been only three months there has been a change in how my family views food.
