Chapter 2: Weight Loss Story

My Story related to weight:

I am one of those people who wasn't overweight my whole life.  I was probably 135 lbs at the age of 18.  Then I had children and with each child, I'd lose some of the weight and then pack on even more.  Add in that I really never was the dieting type or even exercising type, weird since I loved to play sports growing up and was a total tomboy.  However, after having my first child, I just never really took care of myself because I started out as a young mother, who was always working and making sure bills were paid.  A lot of my jobs at this point were sitting in a cubicle in an office environment.  Its amazing how 100 lbs can get on a person without really noticing until its all done.  But after my last son was born in the beginning of 2009, I decided enough was enough.  I needed to get this weight off for my health and to be here for my children.  So I decided lets go with getting the Lap Band surgery in November of 2009.

At that point, I had no co-morbid conditions but I qualified based on the fact that I had a BMI of 40+ for 5 consecutive years.  Its crazy because I would go every year for my physical and knew my weight wasn't going down.  So after looking into things and talking with others who had the lap-band, I decided it was the right thing for me.  I couldn't go the extra length of other weight loss surgeries.  At least with the lap-band I knew if it didn't work I could have it removed and go back to normal.

I did pretty well with the procedure.  I was up and going right afterward.  I probably could have went back to work the next day but I made sure to take the time I needed and came back after 4 days out.  I healed up well.  I followed the rules in the beginning.  I lost in total 30 pounds in the first 4 months.  Then had to stop getting fills until I was cleared by my gastro-doctor about having h-pylori bacteria.  It was a disappointing blow to my progress.  I had to wait 3 months to get another fill, since the antibiotics were a round of 15 days and I would have to wait about 6-8 weeks to do the test saying I didn't have the h-pylori bacteria.

After I got cleared on that, I found out I was pregnant.  I guess from losing 30 pounds it was that easy for me to get pregnant.  I had the IUD removed only a few weeks before getting pregnant and was planning to get the Essure procedure done (permanent sterilization).  So plans were changed and I was going to get unfilled at that point.  Then we found out that the baby stopped growing and I miscarried in late June at 10 weeks along.  However, everything didn't clear out from the miscarriage and I had to have a D&C procedure at the beginning of September after attempting to do it with a medication.

After going through all that, I just waited on continuing the weight loss and fills for my band.  So many life complications and dealing with a loss like that.  It was then decided to go forward with the Essure procedure again and I had that done in early November 2010.  After that, I decided I needed to move forward with my original plan of losing weight.  I got my last fill right before Thanksgiving 2010.  My band is now filled to 6.5 cc's.  My weight loss has kicked back in and now I'm having to re-learn the basics of the lap band rules.

After a few months of getting on track, I've now fallen back into my original habits prior to the band.  As you can see, even with surgery its not an easy thing when it comes to losing weight.  As I've always said about myself, I'm a work in progress.  It never ends, even with weight loss.

**** UPDATE !! 10/18/2014 ****

I have recently been approved for the vertical sleeve to be done on November 4, 2014.