NSV: Unrecognizable (and a small rant)

Sitting next to my 16-y-o son in his therapist's office.  The therapist says, "Where's your mom?" I said, "I'm right here." He looked at me in disbelief. I hadn't seen him in 6 months or so...I told him I had WLS.  He then proceeded to go on about a horror story of one of his patients and how sick she is to this day and malnourished (right in front of my son).  UGH.  I answered with, "Well I'm strictly following my surgeon's plan, so I'm hopeful that won't happen to me, in fact I'm healthier than I've ever been."  

That's awful but your reply was PERFECT! 

That is just wrong on so many levels!!! I would not have been so polite. I probably would have told him that he better be doing a better job counselling my son because he is severely lacking in etiquette. Yet another example of the lack of knowledge most people have about WLS.

I love reading your posts and you are an inspiration to me. Keep up the great work!

Chris

One of my favorite stories so far is, sadly, from my step-mother's funeral last fall.  As you can imagine there were many members of her family whom I rarely saw, especially since I moved away from home nearly 20 years ago, and all of them knew me as much heavier.

During the calling hours my brother and I took turns staying near my dad up in the front and at one point I took a break and sat in the back row.  Also in need of a break, my step-mother's brother eventually came over and sat next to me.  We made some small talk about this and that and eventually he gestured toward the front of the room where my brother and father sat and asked me, "Where's the other brother?"

"Talking to you."

Classic!!

OMG...this is such a great response.  I bet the look on his face was priceless.

Why are some people hell bent on relaying the horror stories and not the successes?

It's the same thing with pregnancy and child birth...people feel the need to tell the poor pregnant women about their (aunts, sisters etc) HORRIBLE birth experience blah blah blah

It seems that everyone I tell I have had WLS have a story about a cousin or a best friend's aunt who had major complications or gained all their weight back.  That's so NOT encouraging.  I think people are just trying to relate, but I HATE THAT!!!  I often counter with, "Do you know anyone who is really fat and has complications or health problems, because I do, and it's not me."

I work for a law firm that specializes in medical malpractice.  When the two managing partners learned that I was scheduled for surgery, they sat me down and told me of every horror story, death, malnutrition, complication, etc.  While I appreciated their concern, I am 52 years old and completely able to make a sound, informed decision regarding my health.  After all, I weighed 252, am 5'1", diabetic, high blood pressure, sleep apnea and have a family history of colon cancer.  I'm now a little over 5 1/2 weeks out from surgery, have lost close to 40 lbs., off most of my medications and feeling amazing.  Every week, they check in with me to make sure I'm not going to implode or something.  Why do people have to focus on the negative?  This is the best decision I have ever made.