mystory

My Story

   My name is Lorie and I'm a 31 year old wife and stay-at-home-mom of three terrific little boys. My battle with weight began when I entered my 20's. Up until that point I'd always had a tendency to gain, but I wasn't severly overweight. I had dieted a little as a teenager. I even took off 20 pounds my freshman year, but I was never severely overweight as a teenager. I had a tendency to turn to food for comfort and it really began catching up with me in my early 20's. I tried a few fad diets and had some moderate success but the weight always returned plus a little more.
     I hit 200 pounds for the first time just before my husband (Mike) and I got married in 1992. I was devestated. Two hundred pounds! I felt so unfeminine. I tried a physican supervised liquid fasting diet and I was able to take off 10 pounds before the wedding but the diet was so unrealistic. I had to drink liquid meal replacements throughout the day and for dinner every night I was allowed 8 ounces of lean meat and two cups of salad with diet dressing (yuck!). Did I mention that was EVERY NITE? It only took a few weeks of that drive me bonkers and I gave it up. I tried another diet where I chewed large meal replacement tablets all day and was allowed dinner...again not a long term solution. The weight continued to pile on slowly but steadily. I tried a series of other diets, some of them popular nationally known diet programs.
     In August of 1993 we found out our first child was on the way. I didn't gain too much weight in the begining of the pregnancy, but toward the end my weight shot up to 260 pounds. I felt enormous. After delivering in March of '94 I lost about 30 pounds and vowed to never get that high again. But as usual the weight crept back on. I became very depressed and I went on a Biblically based diet program for several months. I lost about 50 pounds and felt great. Then I got pregnant again! My weight went up even higher with my second pregnancy, I think it was about 270 pounds. Just after the birth of our second child we moved away from our home town for the first time ever. It was a stressful time in our lives and I ended up loosing 30 to 40 pounds. When we moved to Hanford, CA (where we now reside) I weighed about 235. Since we've been here, despite several more attemtps at a variety of diets my weight has climbed higher than ever. In October of 1998 I found out I was pregnant with our third child. I started that pregnancy at 260 pounds which scared me to death. The day I delivered my weight was up over 280 pounds. The midwife who did my prenatal care decided to induce labor a few weeks early because my blood pressure had become a danger to me and the baby.

   When the baby was born, he was very strong and very healthy but weighed a mere 4 pounds 10 ounces. I was told that it was because of my blood pressure.    After my pregnancy my weight went up even higher. My top weight ever was 301 pounds. You can imagine what THAT did to my self esteem! The midwife (who is also my primary care provider or "pcp") encouraged me to loose weight and a couple years ago even suggested wls. I tried to find out if my insurance would cover wls and was turned down so I gave up that idea. Eventually I was reffered to a cardiologist to follow my high blood pressure. He explained to me the effect my obesity was having on my heart and did an echocardiogram to see if there was any enlarging of the heart yet. Thankfully there wasn't, but he stressed to me over and over the need for PERMANENT weight loss. I gave a few diets half hearted attempts since then, but I found it harder and harder to believe in any diet program. After believing in so many of them, throwing all that money away and ulitmately failing, I'd becomed very disillusioned and cynical.
     In the spring of 2001 my Mike was talking to a friend from work who was considering wls. He told Mike that if I was still wanting to look into it to try again because our insurance was covering it now. We called and got an appointment with my pcp and then a consultation with Dr. Richard Betcher in Fresno, CA. I had my consultation on June 28th, 2001 and my pre-op appointment and class July 23rd. My surgery was August 13th at 10 am (gastric bypass RNY-laparoscopic).
     The excess weight has hindered me in so many ways. I was having pain daily and performing some of my routine tasks had become extremely difficult. Public seating had become a source of anxiety for me. I started back to community college for the first time in 11 years in 2000 and each class meeting I worried about being able to fit into my desk. It was always a struggle to get into and out of it and although I finished a lot of my tests ahead of everyone, I'd wait to get up so I wouldn't become the center of attention in a quiet classroom. Public bathrooms had become more difficult to use and I had to be careful with restaurant seating. Probably my most humiliating experience was when Mike and I went to a local fun park. We tried to ride a ride together and when I went to get in, I didn't fit. This happened in front of a line of teens and early 20-somethings, you can imagine how I felt. My dear sweet husband was my hero that night. Realizing what was happening, he got out of the ride, put his arm around me and walked away with me with his head held high, telling me how much he loved me. Thinking back on it still brings tears to my eyes.
     Our 10th wedding anniversary is coming up (6/27/02) and I am so excited. Not only will I get to celebrate 10 years with the man I adore, but I will look as good the day he married me maybe even better! What a special treat for both of us! :)