I am Mags, I live in a rinky dink town called Willow Grove, and Yes, I do still live at home at 29. My life hasn't been totally easy, but then again, most people say that.
As a kid, I moved around a lot. I was always the new girl. Many of the places I have been in the Philadelphia area as follows, in PA: Warminster, Warrington, Glenside, Horsham, Plymouth Meeting, Norristown, King Of Prussia, and Willow Grove. I also lived in my trailer for about 2 months after I was flooded out of my house, which was in Upper Black Eddy. In NJ: MT Laurel, Pemberton, Browns Mills, Mt Holly, and Southampton.
I finally settled into Willow Grove for now back in 1989. I graduated in 1992, just in enough time to help my dad out. After HS, my dad developed diabetes from his MO State. I would be the one to remind him to take his medicine, watched the sugar intake in his diet, you get the idea. Little did I know what was to come.
On July 4th weekend, 1993, my father started becoming ill. We thought it was from his back problems he was having at the time, so we thought nothing of it. When my dad woke up two days later feeling better, his left leg was still beet red and swollen. So off to the Dr he went. The Dr then sent him to the hospital to be admitted, and they weren't really giving him anything for it. This was July 7, 1993. On July 8, 1993, my dad was found in his hospital bed, just about dead. They brought him back, and he spent about 10 days in ICU. He spent another 6 in PCU, and another 5 in a regular room. In his time in ICU, he started feeling like something was wrong with his leg. When the Drs finally got to him, his left calf had looked like something had eaten into it. He had these brownish black spots in the center, open tissue surrounding the good and bad skin, and then the good skin. We would later find out that his condition to cause that was a disease called Venous Disease.
My dad came home and the family took turns taking care of him. I pulled double shifts at times. He proceeded to go in and out of the hospital about 41 more times in 7 years time. We were never ever prepared for what happened the night of May 19, 2000.
My Dad's leg was healing great, thanks to a drug called Regranex, as well as 3 skin grafts. I can honestly say that if he would have lived to this day he would have had a healed leg. Anyhow, for the past week, my dad had become wierd and started arguing with everyone. He argued a lot with me over my losing my job, about me taking the time off yet again to be sure he was ok, and how I was getting rounder and rounder before his eyes. That morning of his death, he was ok. He was actually online bidding on a scanner. Later on that morning, I woke him up to eat breakfast, and he said he wasn't hungry. So I left him be. Later on, his nurse called to come over, and I tried to wake him up, but he wouldn't wake up. I think an hour after the nurse got there, we finally get a hold of my mom, and had her come home and get him up. When he came to, it was like he wasn't sure of things. I was afraid to leave him alone at this point, but he assured me he was fine, he was going to sleep, and that he would wake up, so I went out and did my usual run around with my mom. We came home, and talked to my dad for a few moments, and he asked my mom to call his aunt and tell her that he was ok, that he would call tommorow and talk to her. My mom was outback talking to her when my dad told me that he was going to lay down and sleep some more when I decided that I was going to check my e-mail and go to bed early. I sat down and turned on this machine, and that's when my dad screamed out and died.
About two months later, I started the same trouble he did. It felt like someone whacked my legs with a tire iron. I developed purpley-black blisters, and then about 7 days later, these blisters popped and caused open sores on me. I did my hardest to keep them closed, but with my legs always staying moist, it was difficult.
I was involved in a flood a year later. In the course of one night we received 10 inches of rain. That night we were driving around in this storm because we got a call to come home because our basement was about 4 ft under in water. We drove around for an hour finding every road to be flooded out. When we found a clear path to just go back to my aunt's house we took it. Just as we turned a bend, we had a three ft wall of water come at us. I remember especially my mom saying to me, "Take off your seatbelt, unlock your door and keep your hand on the handle. I'm going through it." We made it through and sat for 3 1/2 hours waiting for things to subside down to get to my aunt's house. In that course of time, I saw what I thought was lightening in the sky and I would come to find out later it was the apartments about three minutes from me blowing up because of a gas dryer becoming dislodged from the flood waters. We made it home the next day and three days alter, we were told to leave the house because the water reached to the first floor.
All the time I was out of my house, I thought about that night and cried a lot about it. If we seriously had to bail out of the car, I would have never made it. I would have died in the car, because there would have been no way I could have climbed over the seats and fit out of the hatch back of my mom's car, and I wouldn't have been able to fit out of the little bit of an opening that the door would have opened with rushing water coming at it.
It was after I was flooded out of my house that I got health care. I had my legs looked at by a Dr. I was referred to a wound center. That was when I was actually diagnosed with my leg condition, same as my dad's, Venous Disease. It was then that the talk of seriously going for WLS came up.
When I was asked, I thought, are you crazy? I'm not letting them open me up and rearrainge my insides. Slowly, however, I was noticing that my weight was climbing. I was noticing that my weight was causing the troubles with my legs.
I kept running through my mind the cause of my father's death, which was a massive heart attack, the leg condition I had, the flood that I knew if I had to bail out of the car, I would have never made it, and the fact that I was told that I would lose both legs to a double amputation by the Summer of 2003, and on top of that, being told I would die by the time I was 32, it was just enough to push me.
That was when I made the call.
I met my surgeon, Dr Noel Williams on April 16, 2002, after 6 1/2 months of a wait to see him. I had no clue as to what to expect from this consult. The minute I met him, I knew he was the right choice for me after my mother made the crack about him looking like my grandfather on my dad's side. He was very knowledgable in this field, and I had no problems signing papers to consent to surgery.
My insurance papers were sent in on June 10, 2002, after glowing recommedations for this surgery from my surgeon and the psychologist were written.
With all of that behind me, and what was to come, I was glad I decided on this.
