I have decided to share something important. No, I'm not pregnant nor dying or anything like that. What I am sharing is something that I said I never would do, that I was always totally against, that I spoke out loudly about. I am getting Lap Band surgery.
HA! Thought it was something major, didn't ya?
Well, I guess in a way, it IS major. It does involve surgery, anesthesia, and a lot of work. However, I'm not really worried about that. What I am worried about is how people will look at this decision. Will they look at it with derision and with the same sense of asshole-ishness that I did? Will they be accepting, and fully support this idea? Will they not care? I'm thinking it's the latter question, but due to my mind being completely effed up in the way it thinks, I am of the opinion that people talk smack about me all the time and this will just give them more ammo. But I digress...
I didn't come to this decision lightly. It has been on my mind for months. I have been researching it since May. I do not want to get the full on "reroute your internal organs to lose weight" surgery. That just scares the crap out of me. With Lap Band, they do laparoscopic surgery that is minimally invasive and can be reversed if there are issues. I will also have a cool access port (to inject saline into the band itself in case it needs to be tightened), which will sort of be like those holes that Neo had in the movie "The Matrix".
So what caused me to decide to look into this? Well, the fact that I have been eating right and exercising for most of the past year, and the same ten pounds have fluctuated sort of made me realize I was stuck. My blood pressure rising and rising was another indicator I needed serious help. I had a doctor's appointment today and told my super awesome wonderful doctor about what I was thinking of doing. She fully agreed with me and wrote me out a referral then and there. So I spent my day researching and looking at different hospitals, calling around, etc.
The first place I turned to was my hubby's employer: the University of Chicago. Sadly, because I have Medicare, they will not do it. When asked how much it cost out of pocket, I was quoted $60,000. I nearly shit a brick. The next place I tried was Mercy Hospital. They DO take Medicare, and they have a program that is solely concentrated on Lap Band procedures. I emailed them earlier and will hopefully hear back tomorrow. I also found that the University of Illinois does them, along with Northwestern. So those will be other places to try if Mercy cannot accommodate me.
Like I said, I'm not going into this blindly. I have gained nearly 100 pounds since moving to Chicago from California. My knees are giving out. I sweat all the time. I get exhausted easily. I can't keep up with my son or husband. Most of all, I hate looking at myself in the mirror and in the rare pictures I take.
I know this will not be a quick fix solution. Lap Band surgery is a weight loss tool. This tool follows certain strict rules. If I don't follow these rules, I can seriously injure myself, or worse yet, puke my guts out (I hate puking). I am completely down with liquids and pureed foods for the first month or so. I can handle that. I can handle cutting out sugars and alcohol. I can handle anything this surgery asks of me because I want to be healthy. No, I don't want to be supermodel thin. I'm shooting for my old sizes of 14/16.
That would make me happy.
UPDATE:
I am attending a Lap Band seminar on September 15th at Mercy Hospital. We'll see what happens after that.
