cegirl6
So this is my story :)
Growing up I was always very skinny, though I knew when I grew up and had my kids, I would be overweight. All the females in my family would immediately gain weight after having children. Then they would develop a thyroid problem. And I was no different.
All my life, my dad would stress the importance of not being fat like my mom and all my female relatives. He would call me thunder thighs and remind me not to get fat. When I look back, I can't tell you when I became obese because in high school I felt fat, but when I look at pictures, I realize that I wasn't fat at all. I was normal.... but due to the constant criticism about watching my weight, being called hurtful names, I definitely had a messed up body image. So I would say I became obese in high school...now I wish I weighed what I weighed then......lol
So here I am as an adult and I have no clue what I've weighed in the past 20 yrs. I think when I was pregnant with my last child, I dropped to 189 from 220 due to extreme morning sickness. I eventually regained the same pounds I lost in the months up to my delivery. After that, its all a blur because when I look in the mirror I do not see a fat person even though I know I am.... I always thought... I don't look that bad.
Imagine my shock when I saw myself in some full body pictures. I could not believe it was me. That's when I realized I needed to lose weight. I weighed 269 pounds. I met with my pcp, a nutritionist and started tracking my diet. I cut out soda and limited myself to 1200 calories a day, and I lost nothing. So I asked for some information on wls and my doctor referred me to a bariatric surgeon. I was approved very quickly, but when I went to schedule my date , there was an 11 month wait, due to my type of insurance
I have medi-cal, which is California's medicaid program. So even though I had a long wait, words cannot express how grateful I am to be able to have this done when so many people who have regular insurance are excluded. I know your pain. When I was working full time and paid every month for my BCBS, I attempted to have wls, but I was denied and chose not to appeal.. I had six kids, couldn't afford to take time off work and had no one to help take care of my kids while I would have been in the hospital. This was before laprascopic and to be honest, I was in an abusive relationship and I didn't care anymore about being healthy or how I looked.
So even after scheduling my date, I was still determined to try and lose some weight...I started a diet and exercise program to try and lose the weight on my own. I had 11 months to try...lol.......I kept up my diet and I started walking every other day, and one day I walked about 5 miles.... thinking... look at me, I can do this. But what I ended up doing was tearing my meniscus and needing surgery. Then I developed a blood clot. I'm finally off coumidin and have just been cleared by my pcp for surgery.. As of right now, I still struggle to walk every day. Even after surgery, the doctors believe my cartilage is still torn, but they do not want to re operate until I lose weight. I still go to physical therapy every week, but I'm not making much progress....I also broke my leg and ankle 13 yrs ago and I never regained full movement and the last time I saw the doctor they were talking about fusing my ankle joint.So bad left knee and bad right ankle. This weight is slowing me down and I'm determined to not let it slow me down anymore. I'm ready for this...
