Obesity and back again

[Guest guest]

Here is my story to obesity.

It starts over 14 years ago, I'm newly wed, everything is going

great, my husband decided to open a business which he is working

very hard to make a success. I'm working supporting both of us, my

wages cover the house paymen and we are left with $52 to live off.

But nature has a funny way of throwing a spanner in the works. I'm

at work and sweat is just dripping off my face I feel ill and need

to be rushed to hospital. The doctor gives me the news that I am

pregnant but it is what he called ectopic, at the time I did not

know what that meant but all to soon I was told that my tube had

burst and that this is now life and death situation, oh did I

mention how much pain I was in. So I was operated on and the tube

removed and the baby was gone.

Six months later we started IVF treatments, my husband took on a

second job which gave us an extra $125 to live off, and I did all my

IVF treatments alone unless my husband was needed which was not very

often. So my life consisted of failed IVF attempts, my husband was

not there for me so I turned to food. My parents would come over a

express concern on my newly expanding waist line, I would say it is

only a couple of kilos nothing to worry about it is the IVF

hormones.

If my life was not bad enough, then this really set me spinning out

of control. I had just had an embryo transfer and was talking to

one of the IVF staff members, he was saying how lucky I was to have

such a supportive family, this did not make any sense to me so I let

him talk more only to find out that my sister in law who was a nurse

was reading my file, and forwarding the information to my in-laws. I

was just stunned. I left the hospital but not before stopping a

buying so much chocolate and eating it all until I felt sick.

I of course turned to food as my comfort and the lack of my husband

being around the TV became my new best friend. Chips, Chocolate,

Fast Food they where all there for me.

This went on for years, until one day I found out I was pregnant

what joy we are finally going to be parents we celebrated with my

family at 7.30 on a Saturday morning, this elation was again going

to be our worst nightmare, because within the hour I was back in

hospital with another ectopic and my tube had burst again. Our

dreams of being a family gone.

So I turned to the one and only thing that had been there food. My

ever expanding waist line is now really out of control. It's not a

couple of kilos I need to lose it's 55kg oh who cares I don't. But

deep down I did, I knew what it was like being overweigh because my

mother has been obese for as long as I can remember and I also knew

how cruel people could be.

Life goes on and of course the hard work that my husband had put

into the business was paying off, I no longer need to work which

gives us some precious time together but it is like a double edged

sword I'm now more isolated than ever, alone and with food my only

friend. This has got to stop but what I have tried everything when

it came to diets oh yes I was successful for a little while but I

would go off the diets and end up worst off than when I started.

So I looked into this new procedure called Lap Band, sounded good it

promised that I would really reach my goal of being slim, but as

with everything in my life my mother was really against it, which

was really hard to understand because of her own obesity. I value

my families opinion and let them talk me out of doing this and

attempted Craig again, oh yes I lost weight but promptly put

it all back on again and more.

Until Christmas 05 I had taked my 2 nieces away on a holiday we

where walking back from the beach and I struggled to carry the 2

year old there towels, bucket, chair and beach umbrella back to the

cabin, by the time I did get back I had rubbed the skin off

inbetween my legs, it tooks days for this to heal, but I knew at

that very moment when I when home that the surgery was going to be

done and nothing was going to stop me.

I was operated on in March 06 and to date I have lost 25kg I have no

regrets about the band and want to shout it from the roof tops that

I am achieving my goal and each day is a step closer to being on the

outside what I feel on the inside.