tarra
I Am Back
Dec 06, 2012
It's been a long time since I last posted on here and a lot has happened in my life. Back in 2004 I was put on a list in San Francisco to have gastric bypass surgery. By the time 2006 came a long I knew I had to do something drastic on my own or I was going to die and weight loss surgery just wasn't happening for me. I didn't so much as get a call from the place my doctor put me on the list at.
I went on Medifast and the weight fell off from me. I lost all my weight in just over a years time. I still looked big, but my plastic surgeon said the rest was just skin. I was supposed to begin the progress of getting the excess skin removed then, but my regular primary care doctor wasn't good at following up on things and I fell through the cracks.
While I was waiting to have surgery, I started having all kinds of digestive issues and even though I ate healthy and was only eating around 1200 calories a day, my weight started going back up and fast. I tried cutting back on my food, but it still continued to go up. I went to see both my doctor and the nurse practitioner, sobbing and begging them to help me because I could see all my hard work going down the drain.
All I would get from them was, "The only problem you have is your fat." My primary care doctor started pushing gastric bypass on me, but I had already been down that road and it led me no where since my name never came up on the list for the surgery to start with, so I felt cheated and burnt in that area.
A year later when things finally got straightened out for me to have my panniculectomy (my primary care doctor saw the request from my plastic surgeon for me to have an MRI before my surgery, signed that he had seen it, and filed it away without putting in the referral for me to have the MRI I needed - now thinking back on that I am left wondering if at some point UCSF had contacted him with things they needed for me to have gastric bypass and he chose to ignore that as well).
When I went in for my panniculectomy, I had gained back over 100 pounds. I felt like a failure, but went ahead with the surgery. After that my digestive issues got worse and I continued to put back on the weight. I kept going back to my doctor and the nurse practitioner just to keep getting told that my only problem was I was fat and they refused to run any tests.
Finally in 2010 I decided it was time for me to switch doctors. That was the best decision I ever made. I found a doctor who cares, who took the time to listen to me and hear out what I had to say. She not once told me my only problem was I was fat, even though I was officially over 600 pounds again. She ordered all kinds of tests and in the end we learned that I had h-pylori, which were causing my digestive problems, which in turn was causing me to gain the weight back.
I went through the treatment for the h-pylori and it is gone now, even though I am still left with some lingering digestive problems due to me not getting it treated right away, which I could have done had my previous doctor and/or the nurse practitioner would have taken the time to listen to me and run the tests.
I have tried losing the weight on my own with various diets since then with no success. In November 2011 I went to see my doctor and she told me she wanted me to have gastric bypass right away because she was afraid I would die soon if I didn't. I called my insurance as soon as I got home and started the process of finding a gastric bypass surgeon who would pay for the surgery. I filled out the contact form on his website just to be contacted by one of his staff informing me that he had told her I weigh too much to have the surgery and that no surgeon would touch me.
I pretty much gave up, even though I have a cousin who was super morbidly, he had the surgery right before I was told that and he is losing weight and doing great. Only problem is he is in Utah and I am in California and I have Medi-cal, so that limits me to only the surgeons here in California.
I had done research online about weighing too much for gastric bypass around that time and found nothing. The other night I read my cousin's essay that was published in his college magazine (yes, after being completely bed ridden and confined to the house for 8 years, he is now able to walk and he is attending college - gastric bypass surgery truly did save his life) I decided to google the topic once again. I found someone had posted on a medical website a question about what someone who weighs to much for gastric bypass and can't lose weight with regular diets is supposed to do.
The first response she got was not too comforting. The surgeon stated that they don't do gastric bypass surgery on larger people because they are not protected by their malpractice insurance if they do. The response below that from another surgeon got my full attention and if it is true, I think I found the option that is perfect for me. He said that what he feels is the safest surgery for a super obese person and the one surgery he highly recommends for them if the Laparoscopic Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy (VSG).
My goal for 2013 is to learn more about this type of weight loss surgery, find out if Medi-cal covers it the way they were going to pay for me to have gastric bypass last year, and if so, actually have the surgery.
I should add that what really hit home for me in my cousin's essay was when he said he finally decided it was time for him to stop waiting to die and to do something drastic so he could live the best quality of life he could at this point. It's time for me now to do the same thing. I just wish I had the support of my family the way he does. It is hard knowing my mom is against this and every other weight loss surgery. I know that with or without her support, this is something I need to do in order to live.
