Sarah’s Weight Loss Journey – “Catching Up”
Today is World Diabetes Day! It is reported that the number of adults with Diabetes will DOUBLE by the year 2030. This would mean 552 Million people would be diagnosed with diabetes. This doesn’t count the massive numbers that go undiagnosed.
Read Sarah’s blog below and support her and the millions of others who are fight to get the weight under control.
“Catching up.”
Most blogs are written about what is going on ‘today’. This one is going to be a little different for a while until I can catch you up to current day. I will talk first about my experience up TO this point with my lap band surgery. But since I also have another surgery coming up in just over a week (Nov.22nd), I will also add a small “At The Present Time” section at the end of each post to keep you up to date with other and then I will just post about what is currently going on. Those that know me will not be surprised. I could never do things the easy way.
Lap Band: So as I mentioned before, it was in the fall of 2008 when I decided that I really had no choice about losing weight. It was do or die, literally. Having tried unsuccessfully at every diet plan out there, and being too big to really be able to exercise, I started looking online at the bariatric surgery options. I was horrified with the description of the by-pass, but the newest and greatest thing at the time was the Lap-band. So I spent many hours researching the procedure online and talking to as many people as I could find who had gone through this, and decided that this was the thing that was going to change my life. Next step…funding. At the time, this surgery was a little higher than it is now. Most places in the Dallas area were charging well over $16,000 for self-pay, and the doctors here in Abilene were a little less than that, although not much. I knew Blue Cross, my insurance carrier from the college, would not pay for it regardless how unhealthy you were or how many obesity-related issues you had. I could blog for days ranting about how dumb this is!!! But as luck would have it, my husband was currently active duty army so we were also covered under the Tricare insurance policy. I found out that if you had a BMI of 40, Tricare would pay 100% of this surgery. So, I called up Dr. Einspanier’s office here in Abilene and made the most important appointment of my life! I was beyond excited!! Cut to my first appointment. Imagine my disappointment when the doctor tells me that I am not big ENOUGH for this surgery. Really??? My BMI was a 43. But apparently Tricare felt that with a BMI of 43, you should have at least a few other health problems, and I did not. So my sweet doctor told me that unless I had 15 grand to shell out, I needed to gain about 10 pounds. I can’t say I was too upset. Tell a fat girl to go eat cookies and ice cream for a few weeks? No problem! And I must admit, out of the three years of this whole ordeal, THAT was the easiest three weeks of the whole experience. It didn’t take long at all. Cake, ice cream, Starbucks mocha lattes, Little Debbies… my last blow out only took about two weeks and I had hit my all-time high of 304 miserable pounds. NOW it was time to start heading the other direction. So I waddled, literally, back in to the good doc’s office and was finally scheduled for surgery on December 14th, 2008. I had to wait until my Christmas break to ensure enough recovery time before going back to work. My family gave me their full support and I was super excited. I would soon be on my way to a new me.
At the present time: I am currently scheduled for a lap-band to sleeve revision surgery on November 22nd. My lap band has quit working. I will tell you more about that in future blogs. I had lost a total of 140 pounds over two years with the lap band, but in the last 12 months I have gained 40 of that back. My new doctor believes that although my BMI is at 31, I still qualify for the revision surgery. I am required to quit smoking, again, and also to start an all liquid diet for a week before surgery. So this will start in a couple of days. I will post more about this experience when I jump on the liquid band wagon.
Sarah
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