Alright ya’ll. The next few posts are going to be dedicated to my experience having bariatric surgery – specifically the Gastric Sleeve.
For those who don’t know, gastric sleeve is a surgery that decreases the size of the stomach to encourage weight loss. About 80 percent of the stomach is surgically removed, leaving a tube-like portion of the stomach in place, and removing the rest permanently.
To be honest, I didn’t even think I was a candidate for gastric sleeve surgery because while I was overweight, I didn’t weight 400 or 500 lbs nor was I close to being immobile. So when a good friend of mine told me she was having the surgery I thought “what the f*ck?” In my opinion – she didn’t even need it. All she needed was to find the time to work out a bit (pot meet kettle right?!). So I looked into it through my insurance and sure enough – I was eligible for the procedure. But before I begin telling you about everything involved from getting approved to the actual surgery let me give you a little background about my struggles with weight.
My weight was not always an issue. I was a dancer in high school, college and even professionally after college so I was always fit.
Both photos circa 2006/2007 while still dancing
It wasn’t until I stopped dancing that things went downhill. I continued to drink and eat whatever I wanted but the difference was that I was no longer working out 4-5 times a week.
Photos (circa 2009) not long after I quit dancing
So the weight started piling on and by the time I met my now husband in 2011 I weighed about 156. Now that number may not seem like much to most but I am barely 5’0 so 156 is quite a lot. We moved overseas to Italy the numbers just kept going higher and by the time I got pregnant with our daughter I was 186. Fast forward to post birth and I weighed 205! And the weight didn’t come off like it does for a lot. In fact, I kept gaining because I kept eating and I had no energy to work out. I was always looking for the quick fix and wasn’t focused on long term health and weight loss. It wasn’t until I was walking up the steps carrying my then 6 months old that I realized I needed a long term change. I could barely breathe by the time I got up the steps and everything hurt; my back, my knees, my arms, etc.
Left photo (2015) and Right photo (2017) at my heaviest
But you know what hurt the worst? My self-esteem. I HATED the way I looked. I never felt pretty, nothing fit, my clothing sizes had gone from a 3/5 to a 16/18 and I was depressed and miserable. My marriage was suffering a little too because I would always talk about how unhappy I was but my husband always said I wouldn’t do anything about it. To be honest, that always angered me because it’s not that I didn’t want to but I was a new mom and I worked full time. I didn’t want to spend the little bit of free time I had working out. Looking back though, I can see how lazy that must have sounded and it was – I own it.
So after seeing the start of success with my friend who had the surgery, I decided that I was going to do this! So I got the referral from Tricare and scheduled my appointment. Now me being naïve and silly, here I am thinking I will go meet with the surgeon and schedule my surgery for the next week LOL (WTF was I smoking??). Yea shit did NOT happen like that. It was a process just to get approved in order to schedule the surgery, but those are details I will share in my next blog post. There is NO way I can fit this whole process in one blog post lol. So be patient and stick with me especially if you currently feel the way I felt during this time. Support, advice and just hearing other people’s stories helped me survive the first year after surgery so I can only hope my story does the same for someone else.
Photos circa 2019 🙂
-A
Audra Kirsten 