Describe your behavioral and emotional battle with weight control before learning about bariatric surgery.

I'm 52 years old, mother of 4 and grandmother of 7. I have been stuggling with weight problems for at least 30 years, however for the last 10 it has been the worst, I'm 434 right now and am so very sad, I feel as though I'm sitting on the side lines of my life and watching it pass me by. When we take the grandchildren to the park, I need to sit at the table while my husband plays in the water with them, or pushes them on the swings. Going out to dinner is always hard, I'm never sure if I will fit in the chairs, going shopping too, I need to make sure the store offers scooters for me to ride. I'm mostly afraid that I will die!!, and I'm not ready for that. The operation I'm haoping to have is the gastric by pass, here in Ottawa at the Civic Hospital. With any luck it will be this year.

What was (is) the worst thing about being overweight?

The way people look at you, and little children asking "why are you so big?" Going to the bathroom and needing help, not bing able to take a shower alone, falling and not being able to get up, needing to crawl to a flight of stairs in order to get up!! Feeling alone and desperate for change...

If you have had weight loss surgery already, what things do you most enjoy doing now that you weren't able to do before?

I'm still waiting to go in for my operation