dhazlegrove

I started my life at a fairly average weight, then after a surgery at age 3 or 4 to correct a hole in my bladder, I began to put on weight and have been overweight ever since,  To answer your question, no, there was no apparent reason that the bladder surgery should have caused my weight gain.  I was just lucky enough, I guess, to put weight on and keep it.  

I've been in and out of programs all my life trying one diet after the next with none of them doing any good,  I guess the food always won out.  I guess it was a crutch. I guess I'm an emotional eater.  That's as good an explanation as any.  Right?

At my heaviest, I was between 610 and 615 pounds, 100 pounds of which was water weight.  I was admitted to the hospital for congestive heart failure, weighing 615 pounds, and after a week of IV diuretics, I weighed around 490  when I was released -- literally losing over 100 pounds of pure water weight over that week long hospital stay.  My weight since then generally floated between 490 to 560 or so,  

I finally reached my limit in 2013.  I no longer wanted to just wait for the inevitable: I wanted to take my fate back, at least what I could of it.  I'm hoping that the commitment to weight loss surgery will help me have many more years with my wife and kids.  At my initial weight loss visit on December 5th, 2013, I weighed 500 pounds.  My journey was well under way.  I had jumped through all of the familiar insurance hoops of the months of managed care visits.  I was already halfway through my liquid pre-op diet when I went in for my cardiac clearance.  Unfortunately, at that cardiac visit, they found a blockage, so I ended up having stents put in on January 21, 2015.  My original Sleeve was scheduled for January 22, 2015.  Yea me!

After the stents, I had to undergo a year long regimen of Plavix meaning all of that work just went, poof.  I took solace in the fact that I had to have it done and I was better off for it.  It was February of 2015 when I got to start all over again.  My first ... well, my NEXT first visit, was February 22nd, 2016 and I weighed 533 pounds.  I started my managed care visits again ... the insurance has to have their cut don't they?  Lucky me ... again ... around April 11th, 2016, I fell in my home and broke my right foot.  That break dislodged a blood clot and I went from sitting in my living room with my wife on the evening of May 4th, discussing what we were going to do for Cinco de Mayo, to wondering why I was staring at an ICU ceiling and listening to the radio as they were wishing everyone a happy Cinco de Mayo,  Yup, clot went where it shouldn't have.  I spent from Cinco de Mayo, or May the 5th to July 1st in a rehab.  I was SO happy.  Well, at least it didn't interfere with my managed care visits this time.  

Around the last week of June 2017, I got the call I had been waiting for since December of 2013,  The insurance was finally satisfied and had approved my surgery and it was set for August 4th, 2017.  HALLELUJAH!