Some back story to the decision to have weight loss surgery.

It took me a full complete year of research before I decided to go for weight loss surgery. In the end, I went with vertical sleeve gastrectomy, or what is more commonly known as "getting sleeved". Funnily enough when I finally decided to tell my sister in law in a text, she thought I was going to get my arm covered in tattoos. It led to some funny texts before I figured out what she was thinking.

The plan was that my husband would travel with me when I went for the surgery two years ago, but as fate would have it, he had to have hip surgery about a month before I was to go to Tijuana, Mexico and he couldn't go. I didn't want to ask friends to take vacation time to go with me, so off I went all by myself. When I think back on it now, I don't know if I would do it alone again, but I can fill you in on it all as we go along.

In the year leading up to my decision my blood pressure was extremely high, and I was on medication. I went on an extra "water" pill and my pressure was still staying high. I was extremely low on energy, I hated going out where I had to dress up at all, and I was sick of dieting, losing a few pounds and then gaining it back. It felt like all I thought about was food, exercise and dieting. I constantly beat myself up for overeating, and would try to plan ahead when we went out to such an extreme that most times the fun was lost. I knew I had to do something, but I was absolutely terrified of surgery. Every time I have ever been put "under" I did not react well. My heart has stopped, I am sick to my stomach, I have a hard time waking up(every single time for this point), and I'm generally one of those foolish people caught on camera who are crying, laughing and not making any sense. I remember one time that I just was partially sedated for a procedure, and it took me two days to be able to walk around and make any sense. During those two days I would wake up crying, telling my husband, Tim, how much I loved him and I was sorry. I would fall back to sleep and even if I woke up 20 minutes later I would repeat the whole procedure. So thinking about all the horrific things that could happen to me in another country, alone no less, made me almost cancel the whole thing three times after I had decided to book it. But I didn't. And this week marks two years.

When I booked the surgery I was sitting at about 260 pounds. I say that as a guess. When I hit 250 pounds I literally hated checking my weight. I remember trying for a couple of weeks to lose some weight, and when I got back on the scale it said 252, so I stopped weighing myself. When I filled out the application, I put down 260, but it could have been a little higher, or a little lower. I never in a million years imagined my weight would get to that point. I can remember after my bone marrow transplant years ago that I promised that if I got better I would always look after my body, but as the years went by many hard situations, and stress had brought me to the point where I felt completely overwhelmed on how to get it back under control.

What was the final push for me? I really love my family doctors. I say doctors because in my whole life, I have only had four. Dr. Bernie MacLean brought me into this world, and was my doctor until I was 25 or so. Then I had Dr. Nicholson during my pregnancy with Mitchell. Dr. Pluta was my doctor when we lived in Mackdale, and for about the last 8 years I have had a wonderful doctor here in Fort McMurray by the name of Dr. McCombe. I have always been very particular about my doctors. I have to be comfortable with them, they have to be willing to answer all my questions, and they have to have my complete trust. So when I finally went to Dr. McCombe I was nervous. If had said it was a horrible idea, I would have put the idea out of my head and never thought of it again. But he was so supportive. He gave me research to read, and talked about the benefits of losing weight and keeping it off. Part of me had hoped he would convince me not to do it. Instead he gave me information and helped me prep, and told me what to expect afterwards.

Everyone is different, and the same is true for those who decide to go for weight loss surgery. We all have to prep differently, we choose different places to go, and we all have different results. In my next post I will start telling you about the actual trip and what the whole experience was like. For all my research and experience, I literally never once regretted the decision. I have been sitting between 125-129 pounds now for about 8 months, and I literally had 170 as my goal weight. You never know what you can accomplish until you put your mind to it.