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

All my life it feels like I have been overweight. I remember in 8th grade a friend of mine called me over in the gym at school and then when I walked over there she pulled my shirt down because my stomach had been hanging out. I have been called fat most of my teenage years especially this past year. Guys will tell me how pretty I am then if I say I am not interested they tell me what a fat a** or what a fat b*tch I am. I pretend it doesn't hurt my feelings but it does. Since I have found out about baratric surgery even my dad told me if I got any fatter I would die because of my diabetes, but yet when I mentioned bariatric surgery he told me I would die from it and how I shouldn't do it. Well I was 275 at age 16. I went to a behavioral facility for 8 months and went from 275 to about 216 which was awesome. I came back home and started eating again and at 18 years old about 2 months before my birthday I was about 342. I am now 20 and about 333. I hate being overweight I am diabetic, and we think I have sleep apnea. When I told my parents I thought I had sleep apnea one day because I woke up from a nap and couldn't breathe my dad told me well just wait if it gets worse then go to the hospital. My mom didn't believe me. I finally went to my first consultation August 2012 and was really excited about having surgery. I let other people talk me out of it so I ended up going from being able to have the surgery the beginning of 2013 to not being able to have it until around March or April 2013. I also got back on drugs recently and it got pretty bad because I started doing meth. My dad told me I need to go to rehab or he wont have anything to do with me anymore. Now on top of being overweight I am going to rehab for a drug problem and still trying to have bariatric surgery. My surgeon recommended the DS to me and I hope to be having it around March 2013.

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

The worst thing abot being overweight is not being able to do the things most young people can do. Going shopping for normal size clothes, feeling confident, having children, and I really hate not being to sit on a guy's lap that I am interested in and looking cute.

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 haven't had bariatric surgery yet but I hope to be able to go on a walk or exercise or even have sex without being out of breath and looking like a sweaty mess when I am done