The Journey Begins

Ever since my first child was born I have had a hard time losing weight. Much of this I "blamed" on genetics. Although my mother was always "normal" weight (my Dad constantly reminded me she was 104 pounds when he married her, subsequently making me think at 118 pounds and a size 8 in high school, I was overweight) Dad's family was of Germans from Russia heritage. His mother and three sisters were large breasted, ample girthed women -- which worked well in the Dakota prairies but didn't fare well in the image conscious latter 20th century. I recall weighing 140 pounds after my first child was born and thinking my life was over. Even 13 years later after my twins were born and I weighed 190 pounds before they were born I thought why even bother. After they were born I only lost about 30 pounds. Despite Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Atkins, South Beach, and everything in between (remember the cabbage soup diet?) everytime I'd lost a few pounds and gain even more back. When I got so I could only shop in the Plus sizes then I really thought my life was over. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't lose the weight. All through this time I was also going through medical problems for diagnosis of continuing pain which, after six years of tests including CT scans, MRI scans, IVPs, and different meds - thousands of dollars worth - was finally determined to be fibromyalgia.

My sedentary lifestyle hasn't been of much help in weight loss that's for sure, I have an office job as a medical transcriptionist for over 30 years which has recently morphed into both doing that and patient assistance/patient advocate (think of as social work without the MSW degree) for a medical clinic. I used to get a lot of physical activity, mainly hiking our many hiking trails as I grew up literally in the shadow of Mount Rainier. And I used to always be on a softball team until the mid 70s. So I wasn't exactly afraid of exercise. Something just happened that turned off that switch. It was a "Catch-22" situation -- the more I gained the more difficult it was to exercise so the more I gained and even more it became to exercise and so on and so on.

In March of 2007 I discovered that my medical insurance finally covered the LapBand surgical procedure.This procedure is different than the Gastric Bypass in that your basic anatomy is not changed during surgery. Instead (click on link above) a band is placed around the upper portion of your stomach thereby controlling the amount of food you take in. In other words it is a tool to assist one in attaining good health. Fortunately I had not yet had any of the serious conditions that can occur with obesity like diabetes or hypertension but I did have edema of the legs, high cholesterol, and urge incontinence, on top of the fibromyalgia -- all conditions which should improve with weight loss.

My insurance had a bariatric surgical policy and I immediately did the prerequisites for surgery - physician and dietican visits with a focus on weight loss and education. I read a very good book, Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding: Achieving Permanent Weight Loss with Minimally Invasive Surgery by Jessie Ahroni I lost 30 pounds but didn't know if the surgery was for me. The surgery is a radical one and a lifestyle change that shouldn't be taken lightly. It would mean a lot of hard work.

After a year of thinking, of seeing the results of several coworkers, I decided to investigate surgeons. My search for a surgeon is in the next post.