My daughter is beautiful with light brown hair and highlights women would pay good money to achieve and big Brown eyes. She is naturally athletic, excelling at whichever sport she tries. She is her coache's dream, someone who is driven by being the best, can hit left handed or right in soft ball and shoot right or left in basketball. She is smart, confident and stubborn. It never occurred to me that she would think of herself as getting "fat", because she is so FAR from that! Yet, one day she pinched a little bit of her stomach and said, "I'm getting chubby." I was so taken a back by this. In her 9 years, I have not been happy with my own weight, but I have tried to make a conscience effort to not complain in front of my children. Maybe she had heard or seen how unhappy I was with myself without me even needing to say the words to her. I reassured her she was not chubby, she was beautiful and healthy. She then changed the subject to how excited she was to be turning 10 soon. Holy shit. My heart dropped right there. My first born of three beautiful, spunky kids was turning 10! Where did the time go? In 10 years I had given birth to a daughter, 2 darling blonde boys, had a miscarriage, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, my mother was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer and passed away, my great grandmother, who was my best friend, passed away, moved 500 miles from my friends, gain 100 pounds, and the list could go on. Point being, 10 years flew by. I knew then I needed to make a change before another 10 years flew by. I didn't want to gain another pound. I wanted my children to know a healthy, happy mom. Most importantly I wanted to make sure that they didn't have unhealthy body images, but how can I do that if I don't have one myself? So, I sought the help of my next door neighbor who had amazing results from gastric bypass RNY surgery last May. She was a true inspiration for me. She and I started about the same weight and now she was nearly 100lbs smaller. She exercises daily and I knew she would not only be a great source of information, but would kick my butt if I decided to give up on my goals. On November 7, 2013 I went to my first seminar on WLS. Jen had said, just go and see if it's right for you. My biggest concern was how it would effect my MS, but I was given the green light. That night I decided to quit smoking, start dieting, exercising and moving forward with a lifestyle change!
Since November, I have met with my surgeon, Dr. Wayne English, MD, FACS on many occasions. During these visits I also met with my Dietitian, Physician Assistant, and Psychologist. I under went various test such as a two nicotine test, to make sure I did in fact quit, a sleep study to see if I have sleep apnea, which I don't, a psych evaluation to make sure I'm not (too) crazy, chest X-ray, and EXG, and a PH-BRAVO test to see if I have ulsers and acid reflux and a mamagram to insure that I am cancer free given my mother's history, which thank you Jesus I am! Lots of preparation! And few tears!

At one point I feared I wouldn't be having surgery at all! My Bravo test came back showing that I may not be a candidate for sleeve because I might have acid reflux. This crushed me. I already knew that gastric bypass was not an option for me because I have a life long need for steroid treatment when I have an exacerbation (flair up) of my M.S. With bypass my body would not tolerate the steroids. I felt defeated. M.S. was partially to blame for me gaining weight in the first place, since I had not been able to be as as active as I once was and when diagnosed it shocked and depressed me. Now that I was ready to change my life, it was trying to steal that opportunity from me. WRONG! I knew in my heart that I didn't have the strength to lose a hundred pounds on my own if I had a flair up that kept me down for weeks at a time, but with the help of surgery I could and would work so hard to reach my goals.

I got the call! Time was passing, and I was thinking the worst. I had been sticking to a low carb, high protein diet and exercising for the first time, ever in the last ten years. Our kids saw me working out 4-5 days a week and they loved it. When they asked if I was doing it to get skinny, my answer was always, "No, I want to be healthy." I started to think that even if surgery didn't happen, I would lose this weight one pound at a time. And I was. In the last year I have lost 46 pounds on my own! My husband Is my encouragement. He keeps telling me how proud he is of me and that means so much! He brought me the phone the other day and it was the surgeon's office with the best news! They said I've finished all of my qualifications for surgery and I'm cleared for surgery! So we set a date for April 7th, 2014! My new life will begin soon and I can't wait! I'm counting the days!

Questions for thos who have had surgery before me:
I'm such a huge water drinker now. I drink about a gallon+ a day, with huge gulps during work outs. Was learning to sip smaller amounts hard? How long was your hospital stay? Was there a lot of throwing up? This may be my biggest fear, lol! What is your exercise of choice? How quickly did you start to lose weight?