gmarrin
I'm 42 years old, married and have two wonderful children, a daughter 18 and a son 24.
I have been battling a weight problem for as long as I can remember. I was always a chubby kid and from there it never changed. It did get worse after I had children but I would lose and regain weight over and over again. I haven't been under 200 pounds in over 20 years. I reached my highest weight of 297 this past year.
I have many problems as a result of my weight. I suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea and Gerd to name a few. I am short of breath quite often and just don't have the enery or stanima that I use to have. I am very uncomfortable in my own skin I can FEEL what all this excess weight is doing to my body, mind and spirit and don't like it one bit. This is not who i am nor who I want to be.
I decided quite a while ago if I didn't do something soon the rest of my life was just going to pass me by. Plus, my family is so concerned with what my weight is doing to me that my daughter once told me she was afraid of me dying young because of my weight and health issues. This devestated me that my daughter felt so stronly about this that she felt she needed to reach out to me. I knew how this was affecting me but never really knew the impact I was having on her or anyone else in my family. So this along with some deep soul searching is what inspired me to begin my journey into WLS. I never took this decision lightly at all, did lots and lots of research making sure I knew what I was getting myself into and now I am finally here with my surgery right around the corner. This process has taken me about a year and a half. I am excited and very nervous all at the same time. My emotions are like a rollercoaster.... am I doing the right thing? will I be ok? and so forth. I found this website just a couple of days ago and have read many of your stories and I must say they are very inspiring and motivating. I'm glad I found this website right before my surgery....it has given me that little extra strength I need right now.
