Renee W.
This was my letter of intent to my doctor and insurance company. This is my story!!
March 15, 2008
Dear whom it may concern:
My name is Renee Walton. I am currently a 37 year old 277 pound Morbidly Obese single mother of 4 children. My BMI is 47.5. I have been overweight the majority of my entire young and adult life. I have always been very self-conscious about my weight and my body. I remember my friends or at least I thought they were friends, teasing me and calling me names like "Renee Grenade" and "Walton the watermelon", stupid little names I know but they had a big impact on the way I saw myself. I've always been what I consider "big boned" and short-- I'm 5'3.5". I matured early and had reached my full adult height by time I was about 14 yrs. old. I was a girl in a young woman's body, but with the view of myself that I had in my own mind all I saw was a big (meaning fat), awkward, shy person who didn't really fit in. As I got older, I became the bully as it was just easier. It was easier to be angry and just beat everyone up as a child than it was to deal with the feelings that I had. I grew up in foster homes and on the streets so I was not considered a pillar of society. I was physically and sexually abused as a child so I did not have any respect for adults or authority. I was one of the “lost children with no home and no venture to succeed”. I think I got used to being told that I would never be anything, go anywhere or be able to be loved because I was an awful kid and did not deserve love. I took that to heart. I was overweight I think now looking back as a guard to protect me from others. If I was fat then no one would notice me. I wasn’t loved anyway so this was easier to be what everyone said I was to be.
I began looking at gastric bypass surgery back when Carnie Wilson had her surgery and a few years ago when a friend had hers. She had lost 110 lbs and she looked terrific!! I have another friend who had it right before Christmas. She is already down 25 pounds, however she did it for the wrong reasons in my opinion and is not living the lifestyle she should be living post op. She is eating the wrong foods already and her incisions are all infected from her not taking care of herself. She is not walking. Just makes me angry and what a waste. There is probably someone who did not get help as she got help and she is not deserving as she does not protect it or appreciate the tool she has been given. I just do not understand how you could go through such a traumatic procedure and not commit your life to living the values of the tool that is given to you. I was really resistant to the idea of gastric bypass surgery though, because I had heard some negative feedback. I focused on that negative feedback for a long-time. I had told myself over and over again that I was a single mom. My children only have me! If something happens what will happen to them? Is it worth it? Is it worth the lifetime change? Can I do it? Am I worthy! I knew what caused the weight, I knew (in theory) what had to be done to lose the weight and I knew about the medical problems that have already and could continue to develop from being overweight. I had put this weight on all by myself, no one had force fed me and I could lose it on my own. WRONG!!! I stayed on the diet rollercoaster for many, many, years, but the results were the same--lose some, gain some more. The only difference was that some of the co-morbid conditions that come along with obesity started to creep up on me.
I was recently asked by one of my daughter’s teachers at the high school why I would want to do such a thing to my body as to have my chest cut open with all these incisions. She stated that we only have one body and if we do not make healthy choices for it, then shame on us!!! She also wanted to know if I was scared. I did not even have to think about what I was going to say. I advised her that I was terrified and fired up all in the same emotion. This is a tool that I am praying will be provided to me. A tool that will not be an easy task to take on! A tool that I will have to use for the rest of my life and there is not an “I changed my mind, 3 day return this policy.” This is a tool that I have prepared for and am ready to give my entire life to. This tool will give me the opportunity to turn my life around after the years of heartache, pain and depression. This will take my co-morbities away (hopefully) and help me to live longer. This is a HUGE personal decision that I have not come to lightly. I have researched and researched until my hearts content. I have followed Carnie Wilson and Barbara Thompson through their entire process and the challenges and the struggles they went through and continue to go through. I have been attending support groups of others who have already been though the surgery as well as those who are still contemplating whether or not they want to go through such a life altering tool.
I have completely quit smoking after having smoked for 29 years. I have tried over and over to quit and have not been able to stick to it. Once I decided that I was finally mentally ready to have this surgery I quit. I have been smoke free for over 20 months and will be for the rest of my life. I do not miss smoking for even a second. I have no desire. Why?? Because smoke free is a requirement and part of the life long commitment to the tool that I want to be approved for me to have. I have tried to quit before, the difference between then and now is that I know in my heart that I was not ready so I did not really commit to quit smoking. This is not the easy way out as some may think. It has been a very difficult and family involved choice.
To put it blunt… I am morbidly obese!!! I am disgusting to look at, to love and to want to be around with in my eyes. Everyone can and has told me that “Oh, you do not look that bad”, or “you are not that big”, or the most famous one, “You are such a wonderful person and it is what is on the inside is what really counts.” I am so sick and tired of hearing that. I am fat, obese, and completely morbidly obese. It is so disgusting to even say the words morbidly obese. I have used every diet that I can think of and afford.
I have disk degenerative disease. I have had one back surgery and live with back pain every day of my life. I wake up and sometimes it will take me 45 minutes to be able to get out of bed due to the pain. Due to my back problems, I have been in and out of physical therapy and doing non-operative physical therapy to avoid having to have a fusion. I have plantar facilities and my feet hurt all the time. My knees and hips hurt all the time. It is difficult to go up and down stairs and to walk. I have incontinence, and really bad GERD. I have Sleep Apnea. I am afraid that I will die. I will not see my children grow up and their children grow up. I am all they have. I do not have an extended family so they do not have an extended family. I have lived my childhood in an extremely dysfunctional manner due to not growing up with a mother and father.
I do not want my children to feel that pain. I want to coach my daughter’s softball team and be able to run the bases with her. I want to go hiking and camping and interact with my children instead of being stuck in a chair because my back hurts too bad to get involved.
I went on my 1st diet when I was 12 years old. I took Dexatrim like it was candy. Before the diet I weighed 179 lbs., within 2 weeks I had lost 10 lbs. but I never got down to my "goal weight" of 129bs. This was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with my weight and dieting. During the pregnancy of my twins at 14 years of age, I gained over 135 pounds and I was still a teenager. After their birth I went on Jenny Craig and did so many times after to try to lose the weight. I got down to about 195 pounds, but after the birth of my 2nd son I only got down to 210lbs. From that point I was constantly on 1 diet or another. I tried Weight Watchers, fasting, high protein, low carb, only meat, vegetables and fruit, a diet appetite suppressant called "Meridia and Phen Phen/Redux", the grapefruit diet, Dextrim, low-fat, low-calorie, Richard Simmons Live-it Program, Deal a Meal, Suzanne Sumer’s Somersizing Program, Atkin's New Diet, South Beach, the pork rinds diet, the cabbage diet, Jenny Craig over and over and on and on and on. Over the years I lost hundreds of pounds, but unfortunately I would always gain back what I lost plus a little more.
How on earth can I teach my children the fundamentals of good health and fitness if I am overweight? I want to be involved more in their life and not try to control it from a chair or couch. I want to walk into a store and grab something “cute” off of a rack and buy it. I do not want to have to shop at a tent shop anymore. My daughter Malyssa is getting chunky. She is not fat, but according to society and her BMI, she is overweight. She is only 15. She could lose about 25 pounds. I need to change my life, so I can assist her in changing hers. I need to help her stay on track.
It is not the food, as I am not a food junky any longer. I do not buy junk food or soda and we do not eat fast food. I am the opposite. I am a compulsive non-eater. I am afraid to eat as I am afraid of getting even more and more morbidly obese. I know better. I know that I am malnutritioned and have worked very hard to change that. I know what I need to do to be healthy, eat right and exercise. It is all in my head. I could teach a class to everyone else. I just could not seem to teach it to myself. I have failed at each attempt. I want to live by example for my children and my grandchildren. I do not want them to be fat, so I need to not be fat. I do not want them to smoke, so I have quit smoking. I do want them to exercise and be fit, so I should exercise and be fit. I will have permanent lifestyle changes to make. Those would include how I eat, how much I eat. How and where I shop and how I prepare my foods. I have signed up my entire family at the local YWCA so we can all stay fit together.
I do not want to continue to develop more co-morbities like high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol to hit me because I am the way I am. I want my children to be proud of me when we walk down the street or I come to a game and sit in the stands. I do not want them to have to defend me for being fat. My mother and grandmother have both been morbidly obese. My grandmother is now passed due to her diabetes and having a stroke. My mother is not far behind. I will be sure to get them I am sure. I do not want to die.
It is a very hard choice, not one that I have to come to lightly. It has taken me years to make this step and years of doing that just one more diet to see if it works. It will be a forever deal, no go backs. It will be like giving birth to myself and committing to my body for the rest of my life. I am ready for that tool and lifestyle change. I am ready for a new me. I am ready to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
I want to see my grandchildren grow up and their grandchildren grow up. Please approve my surgery. Please assist in providing me with the tool I so desperately need to be able to live my life for a very long time.
I am lucky that I have a wonderful support system. I have my church, my children, my friends, my co-workers and my significant other to help me through this change of life tool. Everyone is 100% behind me and supportive. It is going to be hard, but with everyone on my side, I will be ok. As I have said above, I have been thinking about and researching this for about 7-8 years now. I am ready for a new way of life.
