The Scale Tips

Hello, I am Sarah. I am a 29 year old mom of an amazing 8 year old. I decided in May 2014 to have weight loss surgery. I was tipping the scales at 295 lbs, and I am 5’6″ tall, I need help. I finally got the courage to start calling the doctors office to get a referral placed to see the general surgeon back in May. Well I was having difficulty getting the referral placed to the correct doctor, my insurance kept bouncing my referrals to an Endocrinologist, because they wanted to rule out Diabetes, which I had ruled out several times prior. Very annoying. This process seemed to be hitting a wall, and I was getting tired of how slow the progress was going. I had ended up looking at the Navy hospital and finding that they offer a self referral process for weight loss surgery. I had my doctor send over my stats, and I was then scheduled for an initial appointment in July, FINALLY! 2 months of work finally yielded a result.

I had been doing my research on which procedure I was leaning towards. I had ruled out Lap-Band, as the complications and the slow weight loss were definitely an issue for me. I have been torn between Vertical Sleeve and a Bypass. Both have similar results, and success rates. I really have a bunch more research to do before I even come to a decision.

I didn’t tell my husband until recently that I intend on having weight loss surgery. I told a few select people, and they have been really receptive so far. Although, we took my son to the Disneyland hotel for his birthday present this year, and I invited a friend and her family; My friend kept saying while we were at the pool, “don’t you wish you were here after you had your surgery?” I guess she was more uncomfortable than I was with my body. This was a good friend of mine who just was more concerned with my surgery status than I was. Reality is yes, I would have liked to have been there after I had already had my surgery and lost weight, it would have been nice. But, my body has gotten me this far, and I am who I am. It bothered me that she was so focused on my weight at the pool, and I wasn’t.  Honestly, the more that I tell people about my surgery, I feel like they are judgmental, I am taking the easy way out.

One very silly and most annoying instances that I had when I had opened up about my weight loss was when someone told me I just need to eat better. What most people don’t know is that I also have a pituitary tumor which causes high levels of cortisol, causing me to gain weight. Eating better isn’t really the solution for me. I could eat nothing, and I am still going to gain weight because of the hormonal imbalance from the tumor. Only time will tell how this journey goes.