Lap band surgery?

I don't always eat healthy and I don't exercise and I never, in the past, enjoyed exercising. Well, maybe not so much, "not enjoyed" but just haven't done. Yes, I know it's horrible and I ate every single pound onto my self. I have slowly gained weight ever since I can remember being image aware. By the time I was even aware of what other people looked like I was already bigger than most girls I knew. I was self-conscious and wanted to change it but could never commit to it. I have tried almost every diet out there. I have tried NutriSystem, HerbaLife, HealtheTrim, LA Weight Loss, Weight Watchers, Atkins and many others. I had success with most of these to an extent but then I would hit that 6th-7th week, start plateauing and quit. EVERY. TIME. At which point I would pity eat, then self-loathing eat and finally not-caring eat. This has been the pattern of my eating/health my entire life. At some point during high school I found a good group of friends, a boyfriend and had a normal life. I didn't get made fun of or teased about my weight, at least not to my face, and just adjusted the the fact that I was always going to be a little fat.

The past two years of my life had been the hardest years of my life. Before July 1, 2011, I had never had a death in the family as close as my niece  My paternal grandparents both passed when I was still very young and adjusted fairly quickly. Whitney's death hit me like a ton of bricks, as well as most of my family, too. After her death I felt and harbored a lot of misplaced guilt and pain in my life. The simplest things in life, like showering or getting dressed, seemed like daunting tasks. I think it got to a point, however, that I realized that I needed to stop crying and I quickly found out that when I ate McDonald's or Taco Bell, I felt a little better. Of course, I only felt better for a moment and then the loathing would begin. Let's just say it was a forever cycle in a self-destructive fog and before I realized it and the fog finally lifted I found myself to be pushing 300 pounds. In the last 10 months, I again started the eat healthy campaign for myself and started with a diet called Xyngular, which I did for a few months and grew so tired of the food, I would go all day without eating just to avoid the stupid eye of round steak and veggies that I was allowed. After a few days of not eating much, I broke and ate almost anything that my fat kid heart desired. I also signed up for the Color Run which was a 5k that I did complete, mostly walking because I was not in the physical shape that I had been hoping to be in (because of my own slacking) and I did a few personal training sessions. Even with all of these efforts, I didn't get the results that I was hoping for.

I had a very long conversation with my sister and Mom about these issues and the topic of weight loss surgery came up. My sister had Gastric Bypass quite a while ago and had amazing results but I never thought it was really an option for me. However, there are many different types and many less invasive procedures now that did catch my attention. So about 4 months ago, the idea was planted in my head. After talking to Kristy (sister), the first thing we knew I would need to do was to get a check up and blood work panel from my doctor. The idea was kind of left at that and dropped by me because the idea of surgery terrifies me and the thought that I am fat enough to think of a weight loss surgery as a viable option made me hate myself more than before and also because I am a professional procrastinator and I wasn't looking forward to a doctor's appointment that was bound to end with being told how close to diabetes I am and that I had high blood pressure, or high cholesterol and that I needed to loose weight yesterday.

After a few months of pestering, Kristy (sister) got her way and I set up an appointment.

I was told that I was borderline diabetic with a little bit of high cholesterol but nothing that weight loss wouldn't fix right away. The most surprising thing that I left the doctor's office with that afternoon was a diagnosis of PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome) and a prescription for Metformin which I was told was this miracle hormone pill that will balance all of my issues, help me loose weight and fix all my other problems. Amazing, right? Wrong. I took it for about a week and then upped it to twice a day, like I was prescribed and all of the side effects kicked in. I felt jittery, foggy, tired, shaky and mood swings. If I didn't eat the second I felt myself getting hungry, I was sick to my stomach for hours. So, naturally, I quit taking it, making my hormones unbalanced again, making it very difficult to loose weight again. So here I am, in the cycle again of loosing 10 pounds, gaining 10 pounds. I swear, I have been loosing and gaining back the same 15-20 pounds for years now. 

Now, skip ahead a little bit to last week. I am on break from school last week and this week so I had free time and have spent the majority of last week researching the lap band procedure. I set up an appointment with True Results in Scottsdale for Monday morning (today.) 

So today I went to just find out more and see what insurance says about it. Insurance, of course, said no, which didn't surprise me so I was on to find out what kind on financing options I had. I was a little surprised to find out the total cost of surgery, anesthesia and 1 year of post op appointments is only $9,988. I had a much higher number in my head! The doctor's office has a credit care system that I can apply for and it will cover the cost completely and leave with me 60 payments of $234/month. If I get rejected from their credit program, which also wouldn't surprise me because I don't have a great history, they will finance me for $5,500 and then I am left to come up with the other $4,388 cash before surgery. Then I will have 36 payments of $190.39/month. They offered me to take the next step while there and since I had the time and it was covered by insurance, I went ahead and did it. I got an EKG and pulmonary function test. Both came back with good results and I am on to the next step which is taking all of this information in, thinking over finances/talking to parents, and getting a blood panel done. 

If this ends up going through, I will use this blog to talk about my experiences and my thoughts as I experience them.