My Story...
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Hi and thanks for reading.  I guess I need to bring you all up to speed with my story, just so you know, and because I always find it interesting to read about others.

I choose not to put my name here, just for privacy's sake.  I know I have photo's, but its different some how.  You can call me Kumantjai.  I am a thirty year old mother of two.  I am happily married with a very supportive husband.  Supportive in the sense that he wants me to be happy.  He has known me at my heaviest so I know that he loves me for who I am and not what I may become in the future.

In the beginning...

I always thought that I was hideous and grossly overweight as a small child.  I look back at those years now and wonder why.  Well, I guess I don't wonder, I just don't understand.  I know why, it was because of the influence of people that I trusted and respected, because as a child, I thought that what others said was important and most of all, true.   As an adult now, I can watch and see these people with different eyes, knowing more about who they are and why this has happened to me.  I don't hold it against them in a negative sense, not so that it affects my relationships with them, I simply see a reason in them, for my current predicament.  What is important here is that I KNOW that everything that was every said and done by these people was done out of fear and out of LOVE.  For the entirety of my school life I was teased and ridiculed. Names like Fatty Boombar were standard measure.  Sure I had friends, but think mostly because I had lollies.  I don't think I really had a true friend until I was in Senior High - maybe 16 years old.

My very first year of school saw my first memory of sneaking food.  I used to eat other kid's lunches, and some of the kids would even bring extra's for me.  I had one friend who would bring an extra piece of fruit cake for me each and every day.  Gee it was good!  My Mum was ratting her brains out trying to figure what was going on.  She still doesn't know the extent of it to this day.  I hope that when she reads this, she sees it for what it is - my life experiences and reflections that make me the person that I am on this Weight loss Surgery Journey.  (This is not an attempt to sledge anyone, it is my life story.  If you are related to me in any way and read this please understand this too.)  Anyway, the cake lead on to sandwiches, which lead on to trips to the shops at lunch time with other kids and sharing their lollies, which eventually lead to me stealing money from home to buy my own lollies at lunch time.  I would get a $2.00 bag which in those days was HUGE.  I would eat most myself, but precariously gave out to those whom I wanted to be my friends.  Eventually the stealing money thing lead to lunch orders, so I would take a sanga for recess, which my folks thought was for lunch, and head on down to the coffee shop for lunch - choc. milk and lollies or hamburger and choc milk - just depending on how much money I could get, and don't forget the soft serve yogurt from Farmers Store.  What a life I led.  It all nearly fell in a heap one day when Mum, obviously on the trail, trying to find out what was going on, came  up to school at lunch time.  She caught me with some lollies.  I got out of a big dilemma because one of the teachers had asked me to get his lunch for him as I was so trustworthy!  I told this to Mum and it seems to me that she went for it, though I know to this day she probably had her suspicions.  I can't  believe that I used to eat so many lollies that I would end up vomiting after lunch from being overfull ( or perhaps it was sugar poisoning. :))!  So that's how my life went throughout most of my school years.  I would also steal money to buy food at the shops nearly everyday after school.  Someone had to go and check the mail.  I would buy chocolates, lollies and nuts and dried bananas whenever I could.  I would eat ice-cream out of the bucket whenever no-one  was home.   I was an expert at disguising toppings on breakfast and ice-cream.  I would put spoons and spoons of sugar under a healthy layer of cinnamon on my porridge.  I would put spoons of fruit salad under my cereal and then on top as well.  I would go back to the kitchen when everyone else was too full to move and I would eat the mashed potato out of the pot, the crispy bits from the bottom of the pan, and perhaps a few spoons of ice-cream if I was feeling brave.  These are habits I developed for life, but now they surface in different ways.  I never felt full then and I never feel full now.  I weighed 84kg when I was eleven years old.  Mum took me to a dietician but they couldn't find an explanation for my weight problem.  I was offered all sorts of bribes and rewards to lose weight, but it just never happened.  Goodness know why.  My husband really doesn't understand this statement.  He reckons that $10 a kilo is good in anyone's book! Lol.

The things I remember about the people that influenced my life as a child include a repertoire of weightloss methods - I witnessed Weight-watchers, Herbal-life, the grapefruit diet etc etc.  I remember it all clear as day.  Mum used to struggle to keep her weight down too, though as far as I remember it was certainly for different reasons to mine!!!  I watched this struggle year in and year out.  That coupled with the pressure of others in my family being very judgmental, (even when I was four years old and perfectly normal!) led me to see the struggle that weight was destined to be for me.  It simply grew and grew and grew.

The In-between Years...

Once I left home, I found a new sense of being.  I had just started university and had finally made some real friends.  I had my first experiences with alcohol and night clubs, and of course, guys.  I wondered how long it would take to get a boyfriend in this way of life.  Too long I discovered, and consequently blamed it on my weight.  At this stage of my life I weighed in at much the same as I am now - the average for me - 96kg.  I took extreme measures to find myself a boyfriend and became bulimic.  For a little over a year, I ate regular portions and then purged as often as I could.  I often had binges when my flat mate went home to her folks, eating her 'secret' stash of chocies, biccies and the like.  Heck, I even ate her super duper saved up Easter egg...then purged it of course - what a waste!  I got down to an all time low for me 84kg.  I see photo's and wish I could be there again.  The problem is I can't for the life of me get under 94kg.  I don't even remember what it was like to be in my body at the time because I was so worried about the figure in the mirror matching up with the number on the scale.  It never happened of course because my head didn't recognise that there was any difference in my body at the time.  I found a boyfriend at the end of it.  Thought I didn't need to do what I was doing anymore and ballooned up to 120kg.  That took years to get under control.  I eventually got down to about 108kg and stayed there for some time.  By the time I graduated university I was still at 108kg.  I was in love with a darling man and a fabulous hairdresser to boot!  He loved me for who I was ( and perhaps because I had virgin hair - healthy because it had never had a colour in it.  It was a blank canvas.)I was trying everything I could to lose weight.  I was walking everyday for hours with my dog, I was watching my intake of food, and at some stages starving myself - to  no avail.  It was at this time that I got a job working interstate.  My boyfriend was coming with me, he was going to follow two months later, just to finish up his job and what have you.  I was in my new, particularly isolated community with only 7 other people of my culture for 9 days when I received a phone call to say that my new fiancé( he proposed the night before I left) had ended his own life.  He was very ill with a brain tumor at the time and we both new this, but he was just waiting for me to be gone and be happy.  Consequently I ate, and ate, and ate. (Oh there were a few beers and other beverages in there somewhere too, along with several packets of cigarettes.)lol.  At the end of my second year in my new job I weighed in at a whopping 137kg! Started thinking and researching WLS at this point.   I met my husband in that year.  About a year later we wanted to try and have kids.  I wasn't fertile because of my weight, I had to lose to conceive.  So, because my regular walks and bike rides were obviously doing nothing, I got into herbalife.  Quite delicious, but terrifically expensive.  I lost a little, got down to 120kg, but couldn't afford to keep it up.  I got more physical with a friend of mine and got down to 115kg and got pregnant! Hooray!  (There were several attempts to lose before this, but nothing worked and it was mostly calorie counting...)

The End phase to bring us to today.

Pregnancy was great!  I loved it.  I didn't gain too much until the last trimester when I moved to my folks.  I was chronically ill and couldn't continue working.  My not quite hubby was visiting his folks overseas at the time.  I grew a bit, was 129kg when I booked into hospital, but was 105kg on my discharged!  I was rapped! Madly went on a fitness spree to see if I could get to 100kg and did, then got down to 96kg again.  Several moves later and I was back up to 108kg.  Got pregnant at 96kg after easyslim at less than minimum points everyday (no less than 15 points and I averaged 9!)  Had gestational diabetes with second pregnancy.  I felt awful if I ate carbs.  I researched this problem and discovered the Atkins diet.  I did this at the maintaining level while I was pregnant and breastfeeding until I could tolerate carbs again.  I felt amazing doing Atkins.  My skin was great, my body was certainly different.  I did lose a bit but couldn't get under 92kg.  I became soooo frustrated at this.  I also become extremely constipated.  I would go up and down like a yo yo.  The scales took over my life in a way they never had before.  I was getting on and off them up to 5 times a day!!!  My husband has taken them and hidden them in an attempt to get some sanity back into my life.  Thank goodness for him.  The last time I got on them I was 98kg.  That was about 2 weeks ago.

When we moved again to the place we are now, I went to the Dr to talk about WLS.  He didn't seem to keen and sent me to a nutritionist.  She was great, but couldn't tell me anything I didn't already know.  9 months later and a gain of 6kgs and I was back at the Dr.  I was expecting him to give me drugs, as that is what he said he would do when I had finished breastfeeding.  I said to him at the start of the visit that If I couldn't take the drugs while I was breastfeeding then I didn't want them.  Who knows what you are doing to your body.  So he more than cheerfully wrote me a referral to a visiting surgeon.  I couldn't believe his change in attitude.  He said he wanted to see how serious I was the first time, so that was nice of him.:)  I had my appointment with the visiting general surgeon and he wrote me my referral for the  surgeon of my choice.  WOOHOO!  So that is where I am at now.  Waiting for my appointment in Melbourne on the 27 June 2003.  I have been booked in for nearly 5 months!!! Its only for my first consult, then I have to wait till after May 15 2004 for the Op.  The wait itself will kill me!

I am hoping to get a gastric band.  I have contact with others who have had this procedure, and although I am getting swayed by the results of the RNY etc, I know this is it for me...

Wish me luck...