Hello Everyone,

I am new to the site and thought it might be nice to document my story here and give and receive feedback from others who have had the surgery. My story probably begins like most of yours. I have battled weight issues all of my life. I was a fat kid, thinned down during my teen years a little, gained it all back in college plus some extra and spent all of my 20s and half of my 30s, 50-80lbs overweight.

After years of struggling with all non medical methods, I decided to see a weight loss physician to get diet pills. After some up and downs with the diet pills, I finally got really serious and started slowly migrating to jogging from walking and managed to lose down to my adult low of 205 at probably age 37. I spent the next couple years running 5k every day and was able to eat pretty much anything that I wanted and stayed around a nice 210-215 range (I am 5'11"). Life was good and I was able to wear nice clothes, had tons of energy and looked and felt great. I had finally whipped the overweight demon and would never go back to "that size" again. After 2.5-3 years of living up to this promise, my world was rocked!

In Dec of 2011 just 4 days before Christmas, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I was immediately put on very strong steroids to reduce the swelling around the site before surgery. After my diagnosis, I was so depressed I stopped running and that coupled with the steroids, I gained weight very rapidly. I gained over 40lbs in less than a month leading up to my surgery! After a couple months of recovery time and what appeared to be a successful surgery, I was starting to exercise (walking) and trying to get back to my life when my symptoms started reappearing. Long story short, I had regrowth at the tumor site and had to go back on the steroids and have a second surgery along with 6 weeks of radiation therapy even though this was a "benign" tumor. I have been totally disease free now for 1.5 years but the medicines/treatment have left me at the highest weight ever of 327lbs! I have tried for over a year to make progress but the weight refuses to come off. I have no energy to exercise, my back hurts if I try and I have just lost the zeal and vigor I once had. Something has to be done.

A friend of mine had the VSG last year in Mexico and has had wonderful results so I started researching this as an option to get my life back. I decided this was the best route for me to take last month and I put the wheels in motion to get started on this journey. I found a very reputable Dr surgeon in our area and decided to go for it. I had all my pre-op work done yesterday and I started the 2 week Optifast diet today. So far, I am feeling great and my motivation to do this right is very high! I will post updates as I go through this journey!

Thanks for sharing, JRUSS! We are all here for you, and you are not the only member with a history of a brain tumor!

So glad you are here...and thrilled you are going to keep up posted....I was 380 when I had my surgery.....So you have less to lose then me..your going to do great!!!!!!! We are here for you!!!!!