After waffling back and forth for a good bit of time on the issue of necessity (Denial, it ain't just a river in Egypt!) I'm ready to accept facts and meet with a surgeon about WLS (weight loss surgery for the uninitiated). Although I've been overweight for ALL of my adult life and obese for a good part of it... For some reason I just couldn't seem to admit it was so bad to myself. I guess in some ways that's lucky? I mean... I don't look in the mirror and think "OMG what a MOOSE!" (usually). But, when I see photographic evidence of it... Well... I can't deny that I'm sickened. After I've had some success and feel I can look at it as "the old me" I'll scan in and post the picture that gave me the strength to do this. Right now, I'll be candid and say it's just too embarrassing and painful to admit. (My own husband hasn't even seen this pic-- I hid it from him).
Hmm. You're probably wondering who the heck I am, aren't you? I'm Melissa. Hi. *waves* You can call me "Liss" for short as many of my IRL (in real life) friends do. I turned 32 in January, have a fantastic husband, and the 2 cutest children in the whole wide world-- no I'm not biased. I'll post pics. You'll agree. :) My little girl is almost 3 (in April) and my son will be 6 months old this week. We live in Alabama, which I wouldn't trade for anything. I love being a Bama girl! We've got Crimson Tide football, a fantastic NCAA gymnastics team, the mountains, the beach, good ol' Southern values, amazing food (might've been some of my problem, eh?), and decent shopping (well, not in my city, but I'm fat... Clothes are a bit of a non-issue for me-- my kids, however, are fashionistas!). I'd rather live in the northern part of the state than here in the south, but here is where I am, so... I'll make the best of it.
Anyhoo. I have a WLS seminar to attend before I can meet with the doctor. I will attend the seminar on Wednesday night. Just 2½ days away. I'm nervous, but I can't wait. After my research, I'm set on the Lap Band. Hence my blog title. I know some people refer to themselves as "Banders" or "Bandsters" but... "Bandit" makes me feel all rogue and sexy-ful (think Catherine Zeta-Jones in "Entrapment") so I'll stick with it. I got the recommendation for the surgeon from my friend Chelsea. She had full on gastric bypass back in '02 and can't say enough great things about her surgeon Dr. Weinstein. Well, he does banding, so I'm gonna get with him to get my life back. I'm a little nervous that my insurance will make me jump through multiple hoops, so I don't really know how long the process will take from initial consult to actual banding. I've heard weeks... I've heard months... I've even heard upwards of a year. *twitches* I'm hoping for weeks. :) Months would be OK, I guess... It's just that once I've set my mind to something, I don't dilly dally. Why waste the effort? If you know you're going to do something, DO IT! So, I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs, at least until the seminar Wednesday night.
This will likely be my longest day of blog posts, just because I'm going to go through my pros and cons, what I hate about being fat, what I look forward to about being thin, and so forth and so on. I'm documenting for me, of course, but also for you. Reading some of the blogs on banding have just given me the warm fuzzies and I want to do that for people as well. The first one I read (and my favorite because her before and after pics are AMAZING) was Catherine's blog at http://chroniclesfrombandland.blogspot.com/. And then at the lapbandtalk.com chat room I met Mel who has also had an AMAZING transformation (her blog is at http://notasfat.blogspot.com/). Seeing people who have had such tremendous success almost brings me to tears (OK, OK... I admit, it DOES bring me to tears sometimes to think I could be one of them one day!). So... I offer up my journey to you! Right now, though, I have to go nurse the littler one. He's in a bit of a mood and his sister is too enthralled by Oomie Zoomi to play with him and let Mama type. :) I'll be back later with my pros and cons.
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