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Surgeon: Dr. Jossart, San Francisco, CA Most recent update: September 29, 2004
by Janet: Being an obese person has made relationships almost impossible. You get hurt so much that you tend to put up walls around you to protect yourself from further hurt. It is like being an Ice queen encased in a thick wall of ice where people can see in but not really ever get to you. I know how hard it is to let that ice melt away. In fact I have never let it go completely away. For that reason I am positive many of my relationships have suffered. I can only pray that this surgery will give me the opportunity to brake out of that ice Tomb and really live life like it should be enjoyed. I am sure my story does not vary much from a lot of yours. I was normal size until I turned four. At the age of four my mom told me that I just started gaining weight and never stopped. I was on one diet after another, the “life style change” and of course every weight loss pill that has been made. I have been stared at, laughed at, make fun of, criticized, ridiculed, mooed at, barked at and ultimately made to feel like I was not fit to be on the face of the earth. I am a thirty one year old soon to be divorced mother of one. My husband Glen has been nothing but supportive through this all. Unfortunately we make better friends than lovers. I am not sure I would have been able to continue the pursuit for surgery with out his support. I can feel death in my body. Each day that goes by I feel like a little bit more of me dies. Whether the death is emotional or physical, it is very real and intense. I really think that it is a close tie to each other. The emotional pain some times hurts worse than the physical. No matter what kind of pain it is, it is devastating. I was always the girl who was every ones friend but no one really was my friend if you know what I mean. I had lots of boys who were friends but NEVER any boyfriends. Oh I had a few who were more than just friends but were always too embarrassed to admit they ever liked me. It might make them less of a man because they liked a FAT person. It hurts. Every day of my life I have to wake up to this extremely obese person who I can not stand. Now if being heavy was not bad enough other things had to complicate my life. Things that just added to the worthless feelings I had because of my weight. I was a child of divorce; I had several back and ankle injuries, I had a family who I am sure meant well but always had to add their two cents in about my weight, you know the ones I mean, “Oh you would be so pretty if you were skinny” and I really like this one “if you would not eat so much you could control your weight”. I tell you if that was true do you really think we would choose to be fat, or allow ourselves to get to the point in life where it is such a struggle to get out of bed in the morning some times you wish you would not wake up. I can not imagine any one choosing to be fat. Feelings of despair and loneliness, the embarrassment, the shame that you are made to feel because of societies “standards”. And for those who have kids it is even harder. To see the look of hurt in your child’s eyes because your unable to run and play, and chase and push them on the swing. There is nothing that has hurt me more than that. For that reason alone it was enough to give me the courage to make this decision. So what follows will be the road I have had to travel to get to this point. I am not sure where to start to tell you about the obstacles I had to go through to get here. As all of you are aware the insurance issue has to be the biggest pain in the ass. I have Medical Medicare. I think the component to success when it comes to surgery is four things:
I contacted my Surgeons of choice office and asked what I needed to do. My goodness there was a lot of tests to complete. I tell you they have you jump through some hoops. By the time you are able to get the surgery you will know if you really wanted it or not. If I had not wanted to have surgery so bad I would have given up after the first few months. I stumbled upon one road block after another. I had to have a sleep study test done. I ended up having sleep apnea and surgery could not be done until after being on the CPAP for at least 2 months. I had breathing tests and cause of having asthma I had to have pulmonary tests done. Blood work, my goodness they take enough blood to feed a colony of vampire bats. (LOL) Oh and there was the good old psych evaluation. Electro cardiogram, an echo cardiogram, and complete physical just to name a few more test to stumble through. I had a slightly abnormal Electro cardiogram so I was required to have a Persantine Thallium Stress test. Talk about frustrating. I had an appointment to have this test done so I made the trip to San Francisco (6 hour drive). I got there and they supposedly had a miscommunication and I was unable to have it done. So a six hour trip for nothing. I rescheduled for one week later. I called Michelle my surgical coordinator and asked her to phone and confirm that I was actually going to have to test. She called me back a few minutes later to let me know they said they had never heard of me. URG!!!!!! So once again I had to reschedule this time they got it right. Oh that test was the worst thing I have had to do so far. The medication they gave me made me sick to my stomach. Well I finally got it done. When I arrived home from my trip to SF I already had a message from Ann asking me if I were ready to schedule my surgery. Oh my I was freaking out. After 4 or 5 years of doing research and a year of perusing my goal of surgery, it was here. Here I am only 2 weeks until surgery and I am anxiously a waiting my surgery date. I will try to keep you up to date on my progress. I have made it down 50 pounds so far. It has been a struggle getting use to what I can eat and how much. I had some problems with the protein shakes that you are suppose to drink for the first several weeks post op. I had to move on to the next step of eating sooner than my Surgeon would have liked to see happen, but I had to do something. Water and Jell-O can only last you so long. I was lucky enough to be able to have my surgery done Lap. I had to sign a consent for possible open just in case. Thank you Dr. Jossart for doing your best to keep me as whole as possible. I only had the stomach half of the surgery done. I will need to go back down to San Fran to have the second part in a 12 to 18 months, to make it a complete DS. My surgeon chose to do it this way so that it would eliminate some potential danger for complications due to the fact that I live so far from them. I am feeling better than I have in a long time. I am only taking 1 of 7 medications that I was taking before surgery. I am taking my vitamins and a calcium chew now instead. HHMMMM Let me just say before you ask cause I know you must be thinking it, Yes I am glad I had it done. I would much rather take the calcium and vitamins than the meds I was taking. I am getting ready to start swimming daily I had to wait to be able to swim because I had a small problem with one of my incisions healing. I am ready to move on hopefully get this weight rolling off again. I will try to keep you up to date as much as I can. If you have any question feel free to e mail me.
My five year old daughter is actually complaining cause I can run faster than her now. I love it. We went to the county fair this year. I actually wore her out. I was ready to keep going and she wanted to go home. Now that is a first ever for me. I am finally able to be the mom I knew I could be. Her and I are both loving it. We took a trip to the water slides. It was the greatest thing we have been able to do together so far. A year ago you would not have even been able to talk me into taking her to them. Let alone get me into shorts and going on the rides myself. The whole process of loosing weight affects so much more than I ever really understood. Before surgery I thought I knew how it would change things. I was so wrong. It affects everyone you know, everyone you come in contact with, EVERY aspect of your life. I am having a hard time visualizing myself as a thinner person. I still struggle with the reality of it everyday. It has for sure been a life changing thing for me. It just amazes me how I am still the same person with the same values and morals that I had before surgery yet suddenly I am treated so different. I think a lot of what is happening is that before when I was fat I was always the "FAT" friend. I was the safety net. I am finding myself coming back into my own person. I no longer have to have someone else to make me feel my self worth. I know what I am worth. I knew what I was worth before but was not confident enough to step out and believe it. Everyone knew that they could count on me being there for them. They can still count on me to be there for them but in some strange way they feel threatened by me now. Well my e mail is posted so that any of you want to ask me some personal questions that I have not talked about on here feel free to send me your questions. This last year MANY things have changed for me. Some of the changes were good and some of them not so good. I want to make sure and offer my thanks to all of you who have been involved in my life this last year. First there is my mom, she is the best mom ever. Thank you mom for everything. I LOVE YOU!!! Then EX husband. We are still great friends and I want to thank him for being there for me. He has been a big supporter of me from the beginning. Thank you Glen. Then there is my EX boyfriend Wayne. He was there for me at the right time, he was what I needed at the moment and a big help for my ego. Being with Wayne was a learning experience and part of my growth in getting to the person I am now. Then there are all of my friends and family who are to many to mention. I love you all and thank you so much for being there with and for me. My surgeons. I could not have done any of this without them. Thank you to all the Staff at LapSF. Doctor Jossart your the best. Last but not least there is J.D., You know what you have done for me. I love you!!! Thank you so much for being my "friend". I hope you are always there for me. I will try to keep you up to date a little better. Once again if you have any questions for me please feel free to send me a e mail.
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Wow. It has been one year. I am so sorry for not keeping my site updated better. The only excuses that I can offer is, I have been busy living my life again. I have been able to do things that I had thought I would never be able to do again.. I am experiencing things like it is the first time ever. It has been so long since I did some of these things I feel like a little kid learning and experiencing it all for the first time. Even the small things amaze me. Little things like how I am able to sit, being able to cross my legs, having to move the car seat forward, jogging when I am in a hurry and not thinking twice about it, laughing(I gave that up years ago I was so miserable). Finding myself again. I am becoming the person I knew was inside of me that I had been buried under all my excess weight.