Roxanne C.
First of all, you'll probably never see a full body shot of me immediately pre-op, other than the one my surgeon took, which I will post as soon as it's emailed to me. I would avoid cameras because of my weight. The ones in my album are from August of 07 and my surgery was done in August of 09. I hated having my picture taken! Hopefully that will change very soon!!!
My story about my struggle with my weight is pretty much like anyone else's. Nothing special here. I joined obesityhelp.com while researching a surgeon here in San Antonio. The insurance is terrible at my place of employment, there was no way that surgery was to be covered. I had resorted to saving my money to have it done, but let's face it, $18,000 is a lot of money, and that was barring any complications. I was halfway there when I went to buy some new clothes because again, I was growing outwards... Noone's fault but my own. I could barely wiggle myself into a 2X top. If I hadn't had my 12 year old daughter with me, I probably would have burst into tears in the dressing room. "This is it," I thought to myself. I was tired of being the biggest one at my work. I was tired at the way that people looked at me. I wasn't born big. I was never a big kid when I was growing up. Sure, when I was 6 or 7 or 8 years old I'd wear the "Husky" brand jeans from Sears, but I grew out of them quickly. At one point in high school, I was even anorexic. At 5'10, I ate barely enough to keep a bird alive and would go through the day not being able to remember if I had eaten. Makes me chuckle now. When I got pregnant with my daughter, I weighed 125. One hundred twenty five. I was a size five.
Fast forward 12 years later, and I find myself struggling for breath while having a conversation and trying to clean house at the same time. I can't walk up the small sloped hill from my parking lot into the building at work with any coworkers, I'm too emabarrased for them to see me sweating or not able to talk because I can't catch my breath. I can't bend over to tie my shoes without feeling like my veins in my head are going to pop. Forget me whining about the various aches and pains in my joints and the sleep apnea, hypertension, blah blah blah.
I'm killing myself slowly, and the worst part is, my child is watching it. She's learning that this lifestyle is "the norm" - and I'm not okay with that.
So I left the dressing room, came home, and got online. I applied for financing to cover the rest of the surgery when I came across a link for Dr. Armando Joya in Puerto Vallarta. Now, let me tell you, as a nurse living less than 3 hours from the border, I can't even begin to tell you about some of the horror stories we have heard and seen of patients that were cared for south of the border. But I went through pages and pages and pages of reviews for Dr Joya. Literally almost all of them were positive. I emailed some of his recent former patients. A few complaints about the staff at the hospital, but hey, who DOESN'T complain about us nurses?????? Almost every single review I read and every former patient had nothing but praise for him and his skill. It made me feel better that he did part of his residency and even a fellowship here in the states.
Not quite sure I was going to be approved for financing, I thought it wouldn't be so bad to have to wait to save the rest of the money for surgery with Dr Joya. The rep from surgeryloans.com called me back the next day with an approval. I called Dr Joya's office and spoke to Gerald that day and was happy to find that there was not long of a wait to have the surgery done.
The ball is in my court now. I have these papers in my hand, all I need to do is sign them and fax them back to surgeryloans.com, call Gerald back and schedule a date for my surgery.
I'm on my way to reclaiming my life back. Not for me. For me AND my daughter.
