Carl Kilgore
My story starts with me at 383 lbs and experiencing increasing medical problems. In Jan. of 2011 I came home from work and had a soda before dinner. I remember feeling very sleepy and kept dosing off.I felt like someone had slipped me a drug. Someone had, me. I immediately stopped drinking soda or anything with sugar for that matter. I would only drink water or iced tea with no sugar. Within a month I had lost 20 lbs. I was still having episodes similar to the episode with soda when I would eat pasta or rice. Again I didnt like the feeling at all so I cut those items out of my diet as well. I have a close friend who had already had gastric bypass at that point and he had already been talking to me about surgery so I began looking into it. I spoke with my primary physician about getting into the bariatric surgery program, but he had me take a 6 week healthy weight management class and an informational class about bariatric surgery before he would refer me. When I completed those classes I got into the bariatric program. My first weigh in was 361 in april. I stuck to the diet plan and walked everyday. I had several classes and appointments while in the program and finally in july I had my last appointment with my surgeon to set my surgery date. he set my surgery for Sept 7th. I weighed in at surgery at 313. I was alittle scared waiting in preop, to make matters worse my surgery got postponed several hours due to an emergency surgery and I could tell my wife was really scared. I came through surgery great. It wasnt as bad as I had anticipated it being, although it wasnt pain free by any stretch of the immagination. I started walking immediately and would walk for long periods of time. During my walks around the wards after passing their stations 4 and 5 times each walk the nursing staff would say "wow youre doing great". I was in the hospital for 3 days and when I went home I could only hold 3 ounces of liquid at a time. What a trip that was. so fast forward to now, 3 months post op, and I weighed in at 250. I feel pretty good, although we are fostering a couple kids ages one almost 3 and one about 18 months which is tiring I feel pretty good. I am walking atleast and hour a day in addition to walking in the normal course of the day. My hour walks have progressed to between 3 to 4 miles in an hour. I feel differently about food now for sure but its a good thing. I went from a 4XL shirt to now wearing a XL although I still have that feeling that I need to wear loose clothing so I sometimes wear a 2XL which looks baggy when I look in the mirror. My goal is to loose another 50 lbs but I would be happy with another 20. I need to start lifting weights again as I lost some muscle in my upper body during the weight loss but I do feel better. I really wasnt expecting that my posture would be so bad after the weight loss but I find my back hurting and when I realize it I notice that I am all hunched over. I guess my body hasnt figured out that I dont have that extra weight pulling me down yet. Well enough for now I will add more later. Main point is it was totally worth everything I had to go through to get to this stage and I am still on my jurney. I wish all of you the best of luck. It also helps to have supportive friends and family like mine.
