What was the final straw/final trigger for you having WLS/starting the WLS process?
My final straw was December, 2014. I was visiting my brother and his family for Christmas. He asked me to run to the store and get an item he forgot for dinner. My niece had her drivers permit and wanted to drive me to the store. When we got there she literally begged me to stay in the car and wait for her to get the item. I remember being confused, but went with her in the store anyway. As we were walking in she ran a head of me and wouldn't walk with me. It struck me hard, I realized my niece was embarrassed to be with me. It hurt so bad. When I got home I immediately started to research WLS, a year later I had the VSG. I never want to feel that hurt again.
on 11/17/18 1:26 pm
For the longest time, I never seriously thought about having surgery, being convinced that I could conquer my obesity on my own. And I did, yo-yo-ing way down the scale from on high over, and over, and over again. I favored extreme diets, whether I made them up or, more often, whether I lived on 5 or 6 100-calorie shakes for as long as I could hold out. I lost tons of weight and always felt great when I did!
The problem was that once I was thin again, I always bounced back up and within around 18 months was seriously gaining again. What a way to live!
I had this surgery more to help myself stay thin, rather than to just lose. Also, previously, when I'd be back down and was feeling slinky in normal sizes, I would always make the assumption that I had conquered the Dragon permanently, and that my previous obesity was a thing of the past, never to be revisited. Ha! That Dragon is ancient and wily, coiled and hiding in the depths of my brain, patient and calculating, plotting his next assault. Masterful, wicked old reptile! He knows all the tricks, all of the sly whispers and sibilant promises that just one bite won't hurt, that I don't need to weigh my portions, that I have it all under control. Vicious creature!
Today I reached my goal of being in the (albeit high) 130's. I am going to take a bit more off in order to have a little leeway for what seems (based on others experiences) to be an inevitable bit of bounce-back. As long as I can maintain under 140, I will consider myself fabulously successful, but I do know that it won't happen without steady and continuous effort on my part.
The trigger for me was a nurse who took my blood to have my thyroid levels run (I am hypothyroid). I commented that I had had many painful misadventures in phlebotomy, and hypothesized that this may have been due to being overweight. She told me, very privately and kindly, that she had had gastric bypass surgery, and that both of her daughters had had it as well. She told me that she used to weigh in the 300s, that the surgery was not magic, but that it was a tool which had enabled her to reduce to and remain at a normal weight. She wasn't super thin, but she was not obese by any means. It was the first time I had ever actually met someone who had had WLS, and it got me to thinking that perhaps there was help for me after all. Over that next year I suddenly had decent health insurance which would cover the cost - such an incredible blessing! It still took a while - probably 18 months or so - for me to actually have the surgery, and in the interim i saw my friend and neighbor go through her VSG. I decided based upon her experience to have the RnY instead, but swung wildly in my emotions between thinking I was freaking insane to consider altering my insides so drastically, to being gung-ho. My emotional see-saw was very intense, and I was scared of the surgery. But by the time I started my 2-week liver-shrinking pre-op diet, somehow all of my worries and upset were behind me, and I arrived at the hospital supremely calm, happy, and willing.
It's literally been a lifesaver for me. I will do whatever it takes to stay healthy and lean for the rest of my life. I know it won't be free of struggle. That Dragon is real, and malevolent! But I have a miraculous tool now with which to fight for my own life, happiness, and well-being, and I am so incredibly grateful.
Hi Jen and Others:
My story isn't as dramatic as those of many of the people who have already posted. But, here goes...
My 60th birthday, 3 1/2 years ago, put me into a big tailspin.
I was never tall and thin, like my brother and sister, *****sembled the Italian half of my family. I was like the Russian half of my family...short, stocky, and slightly overweight. Unfortunately, I became morbidly obese in my 40's related to my long-standing depression that I have been treated for since age 25.
I remained at my same high weight for years with many attempts to lose weight. However, I was never successful for very long. As a physician, I would struggle when I had to tell patients that they needed to lose weight. Even though I would always assure them that I personally knew how hard it is to lose weight, it just didn't feel right that I was the one telling them to lose weight when I couldn't accompli****
Whatever healthcare setting I worked in, it seemed that I was always the one who weighed the most in the group...even among the men! It was heartbreaking, but I still kept trying and failing to lose weight.
When my 60th birthday rolled around, I took stock of what I accomplished in my life and the things I would not be able to complete in my remaining lifetime. It was quite a solemn time for me.
In the midst of this turmoil, things happened where I worked for the prior 11 years. Suddenly, I found myself looking for a new job as I was turning age 60! Things were feeling pretty dismal.
Preying on my mind was one of the things I desperately wanted to accomplish. For about the past 20 years, I wanted to lose 100 lbs to get to a weight of 150 lbs, not my "ideal weight," but a weight I was comfortable at. Out of the list of things I would not be able to accomplish in my lifetime, this seemed to be my most profound disappointment. Naturally, I blamed myself for being "too weak" to stick with a diet and exercise program to lose that weight.
It was June 2017, about 2 years after my stormy 60th birthday. Out of the blue, my friend told me she had to have surgery because she had severe acid reflux. She had the early stages of esophageal cancer from long-standing reflux. Being a physician, but not a surgeon, I asked her details about her upcoming surgery.
She told me that she was actually having "weight loss surgery" even though she didn't need to lose much weight. I was really confused. She then explained that RNY is the surgical treatment of choice for severe acid reflux.
By July 2017, she had her surgery. Although RNY sounded like such a complicated procedure, she flew through the surgery. Soon after, she seemed to be eating okay and she even lost her little bit of excess weight very rapidly.
The gears in my brain started turning. I thought, maybe I can have weight loss surgery, too. By then, I was employed by a different local hospital system. Once again, I was the heaviest employee in my new group of co-workers.
I was very fortunate when I discovered that my new health insurance covered bariatric surgery and that the hospital system I was now employed by had 2 medical facilities that were Bariatric Surgery Centers of Excellence! One of the centers was only 5 minutes from where I worked.
There was a 2-month waiting period for my first Bariatric Surgery appointment. October 2, 2017 was the big day for that appointment. Since then, I never looked back and I forged full steam ahead. I had my RNY on 8/20/18.
Guess what? I'm 63 now and I have already lost 72 lbs! It looks like I will get my wish to lose 100 lbs after all! 
---Joyce
Height: 5'2" Starting Weight: 260
Surgery Weight: 232 Goal Weight: 140
Current Weight: 179
"Fall down seven times and get up eight."
