In my shoes...

For all the people out there who have ever doubted my ability to do anything.  You have never walked a day in my shoes and you will never know the struggles I've had to deal with. I am one of the strongest, big heart-ed  person you could ever meet. I will care about you before I even get to know you. You may look down on me for the choices I make or the choices I'm going to make, but I am taking charge of my life right now and I wont let your feelings stop me from pursuing my journey. I've been struggling with doubters putting doubt in my mind about having my VSG (Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy) And you know what! I have come to terms with they will have their doubts, because they are scared and for whatever other reasons they want to have it. But I am doing this for me no one else. And I am doing this to make sure I am around a lot longer than 30 years old. Who wants to have high blood pressure, diabetes and constant migraines, and back problems that are out of this world at 30 years old because of something that can be changed. I have high blood pressure and I am pre-diabetic. And my migraines were only getting worse. Thankfully with the doctors I found Topamax to help!

I think my best and my worst quality would be that I care so much!

Its been a wk and half since insurance paper work was sent it, and I am still waiting!! :)

Confession.

So... its been about a week since they sent my paper work and letter into the insurance company and I havent heard anything yet. I am not expecting to hear anything for a couple weeks yet, but Im still waiting for the good news. I got a bunch of complements yesterday the baby shower I threw for my little sister from people I havent seen in a while. Telling me how good I look and how they can tell I have lost some weight in my face already. It is nice to hear people tell you that you are looking good. But does that mean you were looking bad? LOL

It is just nice to hear that people can notice the changes we work so hard to make for ourselves.

I have a confession to make: I have been failing miserably at working out for a couple wks. I dont know what happened. I was doing it 5 days a week for about 20-30mins to my walk strong DVD and then just stopped. I need to get my Moe Joe going again. I think I will tomorrow! First thing I am going to do when I wake up is work out with my DVD again. Before I do anything else!

I think I just dont do it for a few days and then I feel bad that I didnt do it, and the feeling bad takes over and I just get lazy. Anyone else get like this?

Trust

This was the word of the day yesterday on a Facebook and it really does have a lot of meaning to it if you read the word and then the Quote. I cant imagine going on this journey I am on right now with out the people in my life who love me unconditionally. My family although they may be scared of me having a major surgery and worried about me, it shows me that they care and that they do love me. They tell me how proud they are of me of the weight that I have already lost. And sure in the beginning I got the comments like "If you losing weight right now don't you think you can do it one your own."  And when I would explain to them that no I can't and if I could I would have done it already. They understood I was being serious about this and this is what I wanted/needed. Having someone like Isaac in my life has been the biggest blessing. I have never felt such unconditional love from someone who doesn't need to have it for me. He wants to have it for me. And that's what makes it real, him wanting it instead of having to. He has been with me from the beginning of my Journey. He went and sat with my during my consult with Dr Ben-Meir. Went to a few dietitian appointments. And hes has been here to listen to me question all my emotions and listen to me cry about all the questions and the things I don't have answers to yet. He truly is my rock and keeps me grounded when I need it. In the beginning of my 6 months supervised diet all of my emotions were running together inside me and having a party. And I would just cry. I was happy, scared, excited, eager, worried, wondering and wondering. Still I wonder, but I really wont know until its happened and I can live though it.

I trust that I already have happiness in my life. Will "The Sleeve" bring be a new found form of happiness? I do not know, it's one of those unknown questions I have right now. I am putting trust in myself that only I can  guarantee my success. And I am hoping that with having "The Sleeve" that I can begin to really Fly. Right now I am still living on the run way waiting for the take off.  

Mobile blogging...

Well I guess I am going to be getting pretty good at this blogging thing. I have figured out how to do it from my phone!! 
I was able to talk to my best friend from college tonight Anna! God I miss her. Wish we lived closer. I was able to share with her the recent goals I've accomplished so far in my journey and she is just so excited for me. It makes me feel so good to have people like her and Isaac in my life.
I have come to decided on a goal weight I want to be at when I reach "goal" I am going for 130lbs and I will be happy with that goal. That gives me about 152lbs to lose (a whole other Shauna to lose LOL). What would the world be like if there was another Shauna.... hmmm

Psych. Eval

 Yesterday I finally got word from my patient advocate that she received my psych. eval and she could send everything over to the insurance company for approval. I am so supper excited. I hate waiting though. 6 Months went by really fast... Whats a couple more weeks right?? Still hoping to have surgery in Oct. for a wonderful Birthday present to me!

I am almost done with The Sleeved Patient Book. It def has alot of great information in it and highly recommend it for people who don't know what surgery to have yet.

WLS Books!

My books came today (17AUG12)! I started reading The Sleeved Life: A Patient-to-Patient Guide on Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy Weight Loss Surgery. And I have to say this I believe I have made the right decision with which surgery to have. She does a good job outlining the different types of WLS's options out there and her reasoning’s for picking the Vertical Sleeve are similar to mine. I do not feel comfortable having a foreign object in my body so the Lap-band was def out; the Gastric Bypass was out just because I did not like the idea of having the rearrangement of my body parts. And St Vincent only offered these three. The Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy is where they remove about 85-90% of my stomach leaving a cylindrical or sleeve shaped stomach in place. With this surgery the outlet valve and the nerves to the stomach all remain intact and while the stomach is reduced in size drastically its function is preserved. 

So that’s a little bit about the surgery I am having. I also go my other book The Weight Loss Surgery Coping Companion: A Practical Guide for Coping with Post-Surgery Emotions. I will read that as soon as I am done with the first one.

5th and 6th Month

So July marked month 5 of my 6 months: I was able to decide for sure that I am going to go ahead with the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy (VSG)  http://www.stvincentcharity.com/programs-services/centers-excellence/bariatric/surgicalpro/vertical-sleeve-gastrectomy.aspx  so I told my patient advocate this and she put it down in my chart for the surgeon. I lost 1.1 lbs this month which put me at 288.5.  

Also this month I had my psych evaluation done, WOW! It was the MMPI-2 which is The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2  this was a True False test of 567 questions  takes about 60-90 mins. I felt crazy after taking. 

During my 5th month I joined an awesome Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?saved&&note_id=10151026831462424#!/SurgicalWeightlosssurgery   and I started following the blog from the Facebook page: http://foodaddictionsbeyondweightloss.blogspot.com/p/contest-giveaways.html  It’s been awesome having these two pages to go to everyday for motivation and support I wish I would have found them sooner, but I am glad I have found them now!!

Month 6: Aug. I had my last check in for insurance purposes on the 14th of the month and I am now at 286.5. I don’t remember the last time I was ever at this weight. But it feels pretty darn goodJ. The other day I ordered two books off Amazon that I thought would be helpful to read and give me some more information that what I have already read about and looked put on my own.

This one: http://www.amazon.com/Weight-Loss-Surgery-Coping-Companion/dp/1453842381/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345174064&sr=1-3&keywords=weight+loss+surgery

And this one: http://www.amazon.com/Sleeved-Life-Patient---Patient-Gastrectomy/dp/1475179693/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345174064&sr=1-4&keywords=weight+loss+surgery

My books should be here by this weekend (17Aug)!!

Since I am done checking in with the dietitian and doctor for insurance purposes I am now just waiting for everything to be submitted to the insurance company and waiting for their final approval and for a call from St. Vincent asking me when I would like to schedule my surgery. As for right now they are scheduling for October! So it could be my birthday present to me after all! Once surgery is schedule I’ll have pre-surgery testing that is 2-3 wks before my actual surgery and it last will last a whole day from 7-am till 3pm I am so not looking forward to that at all lol. They will do some blood work, an EKG, my Dr. will approve me for surgery that day as well, and I will also sit through a few classes and get a lot of information. Good thing Isaac is coming with me as my second brain! I am going to need it!!!!!

 

1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Months

March was my first month with a dietitian and I started at 306 lbs.

April my second month; it wasn’t so good; It didn’t show I had made any progress and I gained 3lbs and was at 309lbs.  I followed the 1500 calorie diet, but I don’t think I was exercising enough.

May my third month; was pretty good, minus trying to exercise and eat right and pack an apartment so we could move.  My weigh in for May said I was down to 298; 11lbs.  I was happy with that outcome and it showed exercising does help, and so does moving into a house that has stairs lol.

June 12th marks my fourth month. I have done ok so far, but I know I really need to buckle down and stick to eating healthier foods and watching my portion size.  I was down 11lbs last month which was amazing.  I get scared every time I go in to get my weight checked to see if I have gained or lost any more pounds from the previous month.  If all goes well I should be having my surgery for Gastric bypass in September at the latest October.  I still need to call a Psychologist and schedule a meeting with them, to talk about the outcome of a surgery like this and how I will be able to handle it.

I have a lot question running through my head as of right now.  I have always been a heavy person, and never thought of myself as ugly, but as pretty, but heavy.  And when I do have surgery and start to lose weight a little at a time, what will I look like, and will I still be pretty on the outside.  Will I have saggy skin?   My boyfriend Isaac does an amazing job at letting me know how beautiful I am and that I will still be beautiful after.  He reminds me that I am not as heavy as the people I see on TV and I most likely will not have the complications that they do after surgery.

I am scared to find out what the future holds for me and wonder what kind of person is hiding behind all the weight. I have carried around with me my whole life.  I am excited to one day be able to enjoy shopping for clothes/ more so a Wedding Dress and getting pregnant and being healthy enough to carry a baby and being able to see my belly grow and get bigger because I’m caring for another life and it’s my responsibly to see that this life is brought into this world healthy and into a loving home.

I can’t wait to see how the future unfolds for me.

Why Blog...

I used to blog many years ago when I was in high school and in college. "WOW" that sounds funny today it was many years ago for both 10 for high school and 6 for college. And I think I stopped doing it once Facebook got popular. Now I love my some Facebook LOL, so I am going to try and change my ways a little bit and try to write in my blog instead of Facebook or maybe I'll do both!

But the reason I am starting up this blog now is because at the beginning of 2011 I decided to look into Weight Loss Surgery.

 I’ve been heavy through all of my teen and adult life. I can remember adults when I was younger saying that I was just big boned and I would grow out of it, well I never did. I think it was their “Nice” way of saying that child is fat. I may have been a heavy person, but I never let it stop be from pursuing things I wanted in life. Like a relationship, learning how to drive, or graduating high school and going to college. I have tried losing weight in the past, but I never really think I was losing it for me I was losing it because someone else was pushing me to lose it.  During high school my parents had taken me to the doctors for something other than a weight issue and I ended up being put on a Medication that was to help you lose weight and I was only supposed to be on it for 3 months and that was it. Well the doctor thought he’d just fill it in the office for me. And it worked I was losing weight with it, but them we moved to a different city and I was never taken to my Drs. appointments  again. And the weight came back on.

            At the end of high school I met the first person I ever fell in love with and gave my whole heart to. I was with him for 6 years. And my weight was always an issue. And I would join weight watchers to please him and try to exercise with him to make him happy and it was never really for me. I did lose weight with it, but once I stopped going for whatever reason the weight would come back on. Being in a relationship where I was always judged on when I slept, or napped or exercised and for how long I exercised and it never being good enough really took a toll on me. So I was single for about 2 years after him and I met the most amazingly supportive man I could have ever hoped for in a man in Oct of 2009. He has been nothing but supportive and helps me through everything my ups and my downs. Even my breakdown and cry moments when all of the emotions of having WLS decided they want to meet and I cry lol. He pushes me when I need to be pushed and pulls me back when I go little too far. He’s everything I need.

After looking into Weight Loss Surgery at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center for Bariatric Surgery I went to a seminar. Later found out my insurance had indeed covered WLS, but I decided a bigger change was in store for me in my Career path and I left my first "REAL" job out of college in Mar. 2011  to take on a "temp" job for a Pharmaceutical Company that made Cancer treating drugs among others. I also gained a new title with this leave, I went from a Quality Control Tech. to a Quality Control Analytical Chemist and when from testing graphic art inks and pigments to tests in process Pharmaceuticals. Since I decided to take this career change my insurance of course changed and was horrible being a temp, so I had to put off WLS. After 6 months of being a temp I was contacted by another company for a full time position and this was a huge step in the right direction for me. I decided to take the interview and found out it was a Radio Pharmaceutical Company and I would be working nights instead of days, and benefits started day of hire and they were great benefits too. I started my new job Sept 2011.

I was still thinking about having WLS and it was running through my mind like crazy. Finally I decided to call St. Vincent Charity Medical Center for Bariatric Surgery and asked if I needed to sit through another seminar and asked my patient advocate to check my new insurance to see if it was covered. It was covered and my insurance company wanted me to do 6 months of medically supervised diet and exercise as well as have a psych consult. Next I set up my consult with Dr Aviv Ben-Meir. And then started my 6 months!