twinone
I am only 5' 1" tall. At 51 years old my weight had climbed to an all time high of 235. I have an indentical twin sister who never got fat. She always stayed at 120-130. I have a living breathing example of how I should look. My twin sister lives about 4 hours away and always "kindly" incouraged me to lose weight. My sister said she wanted us to grow old together and was truely worried about my health.
In high school I weighed 130; after graduation, marriage and children I went up to 180-200 pounds. I have been fat most of my adult life. I have a lot of overweight people around all me all of the time so it didn't seem so unnatural. It didn't bother me as much as it would have if I had been the only fat person OR if my twin lived in the same town. Even so, I never wanted to be a 200 pound woman and tried and failed at more diets that I can count over the years, usually losing and gaining back the same 30 pounds.
I have always been phyically active even with the extra weight. The last few years though I have started having knee and back problems. (My body is getting too old to carry the extra burden). I never thought of myself a morbidly obese until I had to have knee surgery. When I saw that written in the doctor notes I was embarrassed and frightened. After surgery on my knee I still find it to be weak. I knew that carrying that extra 100 pounds had put a huge strain on my joints; as I age I will lose more and more of my mobility.
My biggest fear is that I will not be able to do the things I love --ride horses, motorcyles, walk long distances, etc. I am the type of person that hates to be taken care of. I am really independent and do not want to rely on others. I joined a diabetes prevention program for the last three years and learned a healthier way to eat. I have faithfully followed the plan hoping that it would be all I needed to get the weight off. The plan prevented diabetes and made all of my test levels come within normal range, but it did not get the stubborn weight off like I had hoped.
By chance I had some co-workers who were looking into WLS. One of them had the sleeve procedure done in Mexico. Another was looking at the band or RNY along with her husband. Then they decided to also go to Mexico for the sleeve procedure. BUT I found out that they had the same insurance as my husband and this insurance will pay for the LapBand or the RNY procedure. I also learned that my husband's company was going to change insurance providers and the options may not be available next year. I got myself in gear in May and did what I needed to do to get the procedure before I lost the option. Insurance required that I lose 5% of my body weight prior to final approval. I reached that goal in August and was able to have RNY surgery on September 22, 2009.
In doing all of the tests and procedures that are requried for the surgery my surgeon found out that I I had a Hiatal Hernial which had created Barretts Esophogus. They found pre-cancerous cells in my esophogus that I would never have found otherwise. My WLS surgeon fixed the Hiatal Hernia at the same time as the RNY. He will "zap" out the pre-cancerous cells in a few months. I consider this a BONUS for me. I would have never know that I was at risk for cancer if I had not pursued WLS.
It seems that WLS has already saved my life.
