My Story

Feb 21, 2010

Well I guess my story is like so many others here. I have struggled with being overweight all of my life. Even as a child I was always big and like many others suffered the fate of the "fat kid". At a certain point in my teenage years I stopped weighing myself, this period extended into adulthood. Now let me just say, even though I was always an overweight person, I lived a very active and full life. I had many friends, I dated and did not let my weight stop me from doing anything, at least for a while. The point is even up into my late 30's I did not define myself through being a fat person. In fact I had a great time. I traveled all over the world (was a Travel Agent) and generally had a busy life. As the years went by my work required me to sit all day, and working extended hours I became very sedentary. As the years piled on so did the weight. Fast forward to 2007, here I am in my 50's already having pain in both knees, dealing with high blood pressure, and a lot of depression. To top it off I slipped and fell in my bathroom and popped out my right knee! Ouch!  talk about pain, and it did not get better. So after continuing to try to work on this bad knee I finally go have it checked out and lo and behold, I have stage 4 Osteoarthritis, which means bone on bone, not just in the injured knee, but both knees. Yikes!!!  this isn't going to get better I am told, "you must lose weight" even to have the treatments for the knees.  So here I am I have been researching, reading, talking to friends that have had WLS and doing much soul searching. 
Big decisions like this one are never easy for me, this one has been  especially difficult. Now I am in the preop phase, going through so many tests.  For me the fear is as for many of us, not waking up from the anesthetic. My health is actually pretty good except for the blood pressure so all should be fine, but there is always that what if factor. But I am at the point where it almost doesn't matter, my life has to change.  I am in daily pain because of my knees, and had to go on total disability because of it.  I am going stir crazy and want to get back to work, and if this is the only way to be successful then it's worth it to me.
I don't have a date for surgery yet so, I am going to have to be patient.  But now that I have made the final decision to go forward with this journey I am getting very excited.  I have read many stories written by others here, and have gotten so much information that has helped me.  I really hope I can return the favor to others in the future
Vicki   

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