The Other Me

I guess I can't have my own blog without talking about "the other me". The person that I was just 4 years ago. Most of you remember me like this picture above. Here I was actually one month pregnant with Lilly. This was also 5 months after my weight loss surgery. I had lost about 100 lbs at this point. I would still lose another 30 during the first few months of my pregnancy. My doctor was not happy about that but my body was going through changes and I couldn't stop it even if I wanted to.
This picture was taken 14 weeks after my surgery, weight loss at this point was about 75 lbs. To get to this point took a lot. But by this time I was feeling a lot better.
This was my date outfit for me & Gerardo's first New Year's Eve together, ringing in 2004. It was 11 weeks after my surgery, and my weight loss at this point was about 65 lbs. I was gaining more and more self confidence every day. I was pretty much feeling on top of the world. It wasn't so hard anymore to deal with the surgery. I also had a wonderful man in my life and was starting a whole new chapter in the book of me.
This picture was Christmas Day 2003. It was 10 weeks after my surgery. This was a pretty hard day with every one eating a big holiday meal and I knew that I couldn't. Jacob and I took our first trip ever to Disneyland and I could actually keep up with him, not to mention fit in the seats on the rides.
This was me before surgery 296 lbs. That's a lot of pounds of misery. Unless you're fat, you will never understand what a fat girl goes through. A lot of heartache, heartbreaks and headaches...literally.
This picture reminds me of all of the things that I missed out with Jacob. We couldn't go to amusement parks because I couldn't fit into the seats on the rides. I couldn't run with him because I would get so out of breath that I felt like I was going to die. Overall, I was embarrassed to look the way that I looked. And I hated the way that I felt.
So let me tell you the truth about weight loss surgery. It may change the way that your body looks, but it doesn't change the way you feel inside. This was probably the biggest mistake that I made when I took the leap into surgery. I am still and always will be a fat girl on the inside. The reasons why I would overeat did not go away. My ability to eat a lot went away, but that only made things harder. I remember one month after my surgery was Thanksgiving, I can remember sitting there sobbing because I couldn't grasp the concept that my body couldn't eat but my head was telling me that I wanted to pig out.
A few days after my surgery I was praying to God to take me because I thought that dying would at least take the terrible pain away. They don't tell you how bad it is going to hurt.
At the beginning was the worst of it. Awful constant pain, trying not to get addicted to the pain killers that they give you. Getting used to having a small stomach is totally mind blowing too, during the first weeks after surgery my meals would literally consist of one ounce of half chocolate ensure & half water. How much is an ounce? Think of one of those little cups they give you with cough medicine.
As time went on things got better. But I will, like most wls patients, have on going problems for the rest of my life. I will always be anemic, I have had 4 blood transfusions so far. I will always be malnourished so I will always have to take a large amount of vitamins for the rest of my life. Then there's "dumping" syndrome, that's when I eat too much sugar or carbs and I feel like I am going to die until it gets out of my system.
I am grateful that I had the opportunity to have the surgery. I lost 130 lbs all together and gained a husband. But, I would never recommend this surgery to anyone.
If I had it to do all over again, I would do it the old fashioned way with diet and exercise.
So in the end I thank God for a new day. I want this experience to be a success, not a failure... so that I don't regret the price I paid for it.