Hello family, friends, and fellow bloggers,
For those of you who may be viewing this page and know nothing about me, here's the brief version: My name is Ashley and I am 25 years old. I live in Virginia with my husband Vince and two dogs, Emma and Simon. I am a pharmacy technician and my husband works as a level 4 operator at a medical product manufacturing company.
I have been overweight pretty much all of my life. I know, I know, a lot of people say that if you're so unhappy being overweight, then why don't you just lose it? Not as easy as it sounds, but I wouldn't expect someone without a weight problem to even begin to understand how diffcult it is. But let me lay this analogy on you: An alcoholic knows what it's like to have a drinking addiction. The smoker knows what it's like to have a nicotine addiction. The heroin user knows what it's like to have drug addiction. You know where I'm going with this, don't you? Of course you do... a lot of overweight people have a food addiction. A mental and emotional dependence on food. Comfort food they call it, right? They couldn't have chosen a better term!
My weight didn't really start to affect me that much until high school. Let me just state the obvious: Kids are cruel. If you can think of a fat insult, I'm sure I've heard it before. I'll just be blunt: I HATED high school. I hated it so much that my Junior year I missed 35 days of school and my Senior year I missed 42 days. Sure, the assistant principal called me into the office to see why I wasn't coming to school: and I told her flat out what my problem was. Her reaction? "Your grades are still good so just come as much as you can." Really? No assistance to help with the bullying? No guidance to help with the emotional struggles I was developing? Thanks a lot lady, you really took the "pal" out of principal.
Graduation from high school I thought was the best day of my life. If it had been up to me, I wouldn't have even went to graduation. (Just mail me that diploma please!) I thought that it was finally over... the taunts, the people, the self-consciousness. But then I got into the real world. For any other kids out there thinking that it ends : it doesn't. Turns out that ignorant people are all the place... and are just as rude, mean, and nasty as kids.
So within the last few years I've tried dieting... many, many, many times. I've learned recently that 95% of people that try to lose weight, even if they succeed, end up gaining it all back plus some. So, I started looking into my options, and this is what I have decided:
So here it goes: I'm going public with my decision to have gastric bypass surgery! Wow! I never really thought that this option would ever come into my reach, but it looks like I was wrong. I've been thinking about it for quite awhile now, and my doctor has encouraged me to look further into it. My husband and I attended a seminar on Friday to get more information and to set up a consultation with the surgeon.
I am starting to develope a good support team (which I've been told is crucial), including my husband, parents, sister, and co-workers. I told my parents about it yesterday and I was able to come clean with some other health problems that have been haunting me here lately. It feels good to finally have these things out in the open.
I think this is good enough for my first post. I still have a long way to go, including insurance approval from anthem and cigna. I will keep everyone updated. Please keep me in your prayers!!!
