Sudsie
What a Journey!!
Mar 14, 2010
I guess my weight loss story is about the same as most. But I'm going to share some of my story here. This is all new to me so please bear with me as I write it. It may take a few days to get this written.
I am the Middle of 5 children. On my 5th Bithday my Mother left us and went on to live her life quite differently and seperate from us. We were raised by my Father and at times by my grandmother. Because of my Dad's work, we would move in with Grandma and live with her for years. Then dad would remarry and we would move out. Most of the time it was into a very abusive situation. We had 2 very abusive stepmothers, and at times I was even molested by stepbrothers. Because of all the abuse in my home life, I turned to food as my comfort. and the more the abuse, the more I ate. we were also members of the "Clean your plate" group. The years we lived with my grandma were the good years that I remember. so by the time I graduated High school, I was huge. I couldn't go into any store and buy clothes any more because they didn't fit. So I had to start making my own clothes. From the time I took sewing in High school I was making my own clothes. All through High School, I was on this diet and that diet.
By the time I was in High School, my older sister had found our mother living here in OK. She started writting to her and so mom started to write to us. We found out that we have another sister living here in OK. I had attended 2 years of College when mom passed away, leaving a 10 yr old (my half sister). Her dad, feeling that she needed a woman around the house, requested of us girls if one of us could come and help raise my sister. So I gave up College and came to OK and raised my sister. There is only 9 yrs difference in our ages. And of course the weight continued to climb.After she graduated and moved away to live her life, I too moved on with my life.
At 33 I married and 8 months later had my daughter and raised her. Because of my weight and health issues, she had to be taken by an emergency C-section. But still I did not care about my weight. Yes, I would try diets and see some weight come off only to regain it and gain more. In 1995, I joined TOPS (Take off Pounds Sensibly) weighing in at my heaviest yet. 506.75 and again worked on losing weight. Only this time I had a support group behind me. Within 1 year in TOPS I had lost 100 lbs. only to gain it back again. Over the next few years I repeated the process again and again. Only to have my weight really affect my health, I became diabetic, would have open weeping sores on my legs that we could not get healed up. My blood sugars got totally out of control, and the clinic I was going to really wasn't doing anything to help me. When I would go in they would tell me that if they continued to be that high they would have to do something only the next time I went in they were still high and nothing would be done. I finally told a friend of my what was going on and she recommended that I change Dr.s so I did. Right away, he started recommending this surgery for me. I told him I didn't want any surgery. But to please him and a few other friends that have had GBS I started on the program to see about having surgery. Got as far as having my surgery scheduled even, but then everything got cancelled by a new medicare ruling. The center had to be a center of execellance in order for medicare to pay for this surgery. Well, by the time the center and hospital got everything taken care of and received their certification. I again had gained back my weight. When the Dr. office called me to come back in to get surgery rescheduled, and my weight was over what my lowest was with them. You guessed it NO Surgery until I was back to 438. Well, 4 yrs later I was still in TOPS and still playing around with that same 100 lbs. But I was tired of not being able to do what I wanted to do, not being able to get around. I couldn't even walk my daughter across the football field on Senior Night, because of my weight. That really did it for me I guess. I had to have some serious help and NOW. I had to do this for me, I could not do it for anyone else. So I got to work on losing weight and when I was getting close to what I needed to be for the DR.s to be able to do the surgery, I went to see my pcp and got everything started again. I had to do everything all over again. But this time I had a different frame of mind about it. I was 418 the day before my RNY. and now I'm down to 300. I feel so much better, and don't have sores on my legs anymore and am able to get around a lot more. I even do walking around Wal-mart now and I haven't been able to do that in YEARS!! I can once again buy clothes in the store!!
And now I may gain a few lbs but I will never go back to what I was before. I am up and moving around and feel GREAT!!
