DianaDickey

THE TITLE OF MY STORY IS:  I HAVEN'T LIVED YET AND I'M NOT READY TO DIE I am 37 yrs old and have been obese for 20 yrs now.  As a teen I always struggled needing to lose 10-20 pounds, but for me that was something I could manage. I had my daughter the day I turned 18 yrs old and wouldn't change that for anything. I became a mother at a very young age and my life as I knew it was very different for a teen. This is where my weight problems started, but were small compared to now. Now I'm 360+ and this is 200 pounds heavier then I was at 9 months pregnant. I now am Super Morbid Obese I believe. The word Obese was bad enough and this is just frightening. The weight gain over this 20 years is due to all my failed attempts at diets. Of course I am an emotional eater, but through weight watchers have learned how to recognize and manage this over the years. After each diet I have always lost 75-80 pounds, but never a pound more. I would then re-gain much more weight then I started at. The only success I had with a loss and slow weight re-gain was weight watchers. I just really believe in the program, but once I stopped no matter how many times I tried to go back I could not make it work for me again. 10 yrs ago I started to research gastric bypass. I still felt like I could lose the weight on my own and was not going to have any surgery. Like I said I always lost alot of weight, but never lost enough, or could stick to anything longer than 2 yrs. My last attempt was being monitored by a doctor and taking diet pills, shots, and exercise. My heart felt like it was going to blow up, but I continued to do this for a year. I was really into exercise at that time, but with the pills I was afraid I would have a heart attack. No joke my heart raced just sitting and I was afraid to workout anymore. My blood pressure started going up after 75 pounds was lost and the doctor had me taking 6 pills a day. He refused to agree the pills were causing my blood pressure problem and said I had no need to cut back on the pills. I kept doing it even though I felt that any day my heart was going to stop. After asking myself many times if I wanted to die from the pills I decided to quit and my appetite came back with a horrible vengeance. Not just my appetite was effected, but I failed myself again and my heart could not take anymore failing myself. I am ready for weight loss surgery and am commited to a life style change with the use of a tool that will help me on this journey. Now my body is telling me I need to do something and soon. In just months it has become hard to walk, sit, lay. It hurts me to sleep as my bones feel crushed. After my last failed diet I just don't want to fail again. Besides the physical pain and health issues I think the damage it is doing to my self esteem is worse. How many times can I pump myself up and work harder then the average person dedicating everything to weight loss and fail? How do I get myself through that? I mean it is just weight right? This is my dream to dress easily without stopping for breath, my dream to para-sail with my husband, my dream to hike, my dream to sit on back the jet ski my hubby is driving, so when I fail over and over again I began to hate me. I feel responsible for the ruined vacations, the pain, the depression that goes with it. This is how I have come to my decision for Lap Band. I chose Lap Band for several reasons. Gastric looks very dreamy to me. 1 year and my weight is all gone who wouldn't want that? After many months of research and looking at my life with diet's I know I can lose the weight, but I need a tool to help me get to my goal and keep it off. A tool that will help me by stopping the destructive eating that ruins me in the end. The band has so many benefits and long lasting ones as far as I'm concerned. The risks do not frighten me like gastric bypass risks. It is reversible if needed and you can't beat that. I just pray that after all I have done to meet my insurance requirements they will approve me and pay for it. I can't afford it, but I need it. I think to be denied would be like a death sentence for me. Though I know I would have to pick up and keep trying because I will never give up on myself. This is my story and I'm stick en to it.