Reality Check

So, I?ve posted in this group before about being uncertain about Bariatric surgery but knowing it?s a tool to literally save my life. I had an initial appointment booked with surgeon Dr. David Brandon Williams at Vanderbilt (where all my specialists are), but canceled it again (5th cancellation).

Well I?m back in the medical hospital again with erratic blood pressure, severe headaches due to my IIH, and off and on chest pain and today the internal medicine doctor seeing me point blank said ?you?ve got to get this weight off you or you may not survive the full life you want to live. This weight is killing you?.

So I?ve rebooked the appointment and it?s on 9/18. I?ve got to do it, no matter what.

I?m almost 33, 5?1? 271 pounds, BMI of 51.2, (I?ve gained about 5 pounds in 2 weeks).

My current co morbid conditions are Right Heart Strain/Heart Failure (just diagnosed), labile hypertension, severely high cholesterol and triglycerides, fatty liver disease, Type II Diabetes that is not well controlled, past history of PE, Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension, widespread arthritis, frequent shortness of breath, Sleep Apnea, PCOS.

My mom died at 50 of a massive heart attack and lung failure, maternal grandfather passed at 76 of a massive heart attack. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension run rampant in my family.

I don?t want to be next in the line of deaths in my family due to weight related conditions. So I?m finally ready to start this.

Welcome back. Your posts were some of the most recent ones in the forums last year when I joined initially, and I remember reading them.

Hopefully you're in a better place mentally and have prepared if you want to move forward with surgery. You've got almost a month until your appointment - start making small changes now! Anything you can do will help in the long run, especially since surgery is only a tool along the way. Best wishes.

That is my reality if I don't go through with surgery. Doctors are saying without it I probably won't see 40. My mom died of multi system organ failure due to co morbid conditions and severe obesity at 50 and it was such a devastating thing to witness. I don't want that to be my reality. But if I don't get the weight off, it will be and I've tried for years without surgery and been unsuccessful (I've been obese since I was a young child).

This diagnosis of heart failure at 32 feels like my rock bottom and my signal that if I don't get the weight off and go through with surgery, it WILL kill me like weight killed my mom and that is devastating to think of

If it were easy to get the weight off without surgery, then weight loss surgery would not exist. For most people it is the only way to lose weight and get your health back.

Wow! Bless your heart~ literally~ sounds like your health problems have made your future, for you. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE talk to a therapist before any type weight loss surgery. It really has to start in your brain. You already know you in poor health, yet you haven't already lost weight, or addressed WLS. The surgery WILL NOT stop with the surgeon's scalpel. Therapy~ even one session can be so helpful!

Godspeed, and please keep us updated!

What Gina said 1000%
As much as you know that weight loss surgery can save your life, going through with it even if you know the life you will gain will not help you unless you get to the core of of why you emotional eat, especially if there's a foundation of trauma in your past that goes beyond losing your mother at a young age.

Without a lot of therapy you'll just find yourself without the emotional tools you need minus using food as a coping mechanism and that's the last think you want after going through what you need to, to have bariatric surgery in the first place.

I like Gina am a gramma grad, I see people who mourn losing food as a coping mechanism to the point that the engage in other self destructive behaviors.

Please, please, please get to the root causes of your emotional eating while going through your surgeron's protocols and if they don't include extensive therapy after cancelling 5 times, don't go through the surgery without it.

This is being said with enormous caring and a desire for you to succeed versus you going through whatever bariatric surgery you elect to have and not in recovery only for your surgery to fail and cause you more problems.

You deserve to feel healthy and whole and it's possible to feel that way not just going through therapy prior to surgery but making sure you have lifelong support professionally and with peers as you go through the process and life post operatively.

Wishing you all the best. Peace, Lisa

"will not help you unless you get to the core of of why you emotional eat"

THIS ??????

None of us got to the point we needed wls because we're happy. Until THAT is addressed and the work, the REALLY hard work is done, nothing will keep the weight from coming back on, or transferring that behavior to something else.

I don't know if my response which was the last one on this thread didn't sit well with you, I hope you know I meant well and wish you the very best.

I've been in the bariatric surgery communities a long time, I know thousands of people at this point who've had surgery.

What I said to you, I'd say to anyone and that is get extensive therapy prior to , during and post operatively as well as the support of one's bariatric peers.

I get that you may feel you are finally ready after everything you've been through to finally have surgery.

Just saying it couldn't hurt even if you've already addressed trauma and foundation for overating to continue to do so, so you are the best possible place medically and mentally that you can be both prior to surgery and after it.

Sometimes when grads on here show concern, it's not like we think we are better than any other post op.

But what we are usually more experienced, especially for those of us who've remained active in the bariatric communities not just in our own experiences but others.

In 2001 we had OH here and yahoo groups and our surgeons usually had an offline group, there's way more support for the taking when you need it then what w had and then there will be a time, that you'll also pay it forward and give support to.

That's the beauty of the bariatric surgery communities we do look out for one another even if we may not see eye to eye on every topic.

So hopefully you understand my original response and why I'm reiterating the importance of support both professional and peers and again, it's not specific to you, it's helpful to anyone who's having or had bariatric surgery.

Wishing you all the hest. Peace, Lisa

How did your appointments go?