The story that brought me to weight loss surgery

My journey has been going on for my whole life. I was always a tubby child, never fitting into the fashionable clothes that my mates were wearing, feeling self conscious wearing a swimming costume with friends, and never really understanding why I was the last one picked for the teams in school PE lessons. Words like 'Puppy fat' were used around me and 'she will lose it when she gets older'. Trouble was, I never really did.  This carried on in my teens when I was always larger than my contemporaries. In reality, I was wearing size 16 skirts and size 14-16 blouses and I was looking well, but just bigger than the others ! One boy who I was supposedly a girlfriend to for all of a fortnight jokingly called me 'Big Bird' which to this day still smarts. I guess I developed an 'I don't care' coping mechanism, but all I really wanted was to be slim and pretty like the others.

When I went to start my Nurse training in London in March 1989 I was given a size 18 uniform and wearing a real nurses uniform for the first time in my life, felt totally right. I had always dreamt of being a nurse, and now here I was, working my dream on the wards. My uniform was already baggy by the time I started my first placement on the wards though.

My time off was a bit of a disaster. I rarely ate anything, hence the baggy uniform. I was struggling with a lot of negative feelings about myself, and my coping mechanism was to self abuse by not eating. I just didn't feel worthy, and to be honest, after a few days I just didn't feel hungry anymore. I would have the occasional meal, but I was clinically depressed and put on medication to help get me out of that rut. I dropped from dress size 18 down to a size 12 within 10 weeks of leaving home. My boyfriend at the time saved my life. He stayed with me, sleeping on my floor,  to make sure I did not top myself in the night. He became my husband in 1992 but even then, I am sad to say, neither of us loved each other enough for that sort of commitment. It was his loneliness and my need to be needed that took us down the aisle. He and I lived together from 1990. I have photo's of me and him on holiday in Turkey that May and I would have been a size 10-12. I looked great looking back at them now, but soon by living with him and feeling more secure, my weight began to creep back up.

I was a size 16 when we married, and a size 18 when we got home from honeymoon. My weight carried on increasing steadily over the following years. We had decided to try for a family, but it just was not happening. This made me feel so helpless, and so I went to see my GP. It was on a routine hormonal blood test that it showed that I had Poly Cystic Ovarian Disease. I was referred to the endocrine team in London's St Thomas's hospital but really they did very little. Shortly after, we moved to Leamington Spa. I was referred to the Assisted Conception Unit in Coventry's Walsgrave Hospital and to cut a long story short, I miscarried 7 times in the 10 years that we were together. I had IVF and a more complicated version of IVF called ICSI which resulted in my getting pregnant but I had an ectopic pregnancy and had to undergo emergency surgery to save my life, during which, I lost my right fallopian tube. I was 19 stone 3 pounds, infertile, and even with assisted conception, my chances of holding my own baby were small. I remember staring at the ceiling in the hospital that night, and never feeling so alone in my whole life. There were already cracks appearing in my marriage, and the pressure of this really brought them out.

My friend Eileen and I went for a coffee together about 2 weeks later and she mentioned tactfully that maybe I could go with her to Slimming World. I felt I would be humiliated at the scales in class, but she assured me that it would be ok. I went with her, and over the course of the next year, I lost nearly 5 stone in weight. Everything changed for me that year. My marriage was in tatters, my fertility treatment failed time and time again, and yet my weight loss was giving me a new sense of self esteem that I had not felt before. I was eating a healthy diet, and I felt great. I cycled each day 3 -4 miles on an exercise bike and the weight just fell off me. I loved the feeling of people looking at me and not recognising me at first. My self esteem soared.

This was perhaps in part why, in January 1998 when my marriage reached breaking point, I got the courage to decide that I no longer wanted to waste my life on a relationship that just was not working for either of us. I sensed he felt the same although when I told him that it was over, he seemed genuinely upset. Friendship between us had never been an issue. We were just not meant to be together though. When the pieces of the jigsaw just don't fit anymore then there is no point trying to force them into place. It's a shame, but our break was a burden lifted from both our shoulders. He was going to move out, but then a week later I found out I was pregnant without any fertility treatment at all. Because all my other pregnancies had ended badly, and the ectopic had nearly sent me to my grave, he stayed in the house ( in a separate room) just in case I was ill this time too.

The computer was in the spare room which was now where I was sleeping. I had already met a lot of people on line and got chatting to one person in particular, Automan. I confided in him about my marriage breakdown, and the pregnancy, and told him lots of things about me which seemed so bizarre considering I had never met the guy. He told me stuff about himself too, and we just seemed to 'fit together' from the very start. He lived in Northern Ireland, and I was in the middle of England. That was a problem. We wanted to meet but it just was impossible. Our conversations on line became letters and phone calls lasting hours, and we fell in love with each other before we ever clapped eyes on each other. It was a love that I had never experienced before, where it was totally unconditional, and he has never for one moment given me reason to believe that he will ever change his feelings toward me.

Then just after my birthday in March I felt a familiar feeling, and I knew that the baby had died. The scan confirmed this the next day. I miscarried again, and was in hospital overnight again to have the baby removed. You never harden to the loss of a child, even after 7 of them. I was heartbroken, and so was Alan, AutomanUK.

2 weeks later, I flew to Northern Ireland to meet him. I was a curvaceous size 14 then, although still a big girl in my eyes. He had been so supportive and loving toward me through my pregnancy, reassuring me that I would not be alone and that he would be there for me. Meeting him in the airport was the most life altering moment of my existence. We fell into each others arms and have been inseparable since. I sold up and moved to Northern Ireland. Instinctively I knew it was the right thing to do because he was my 'Mr Right'.  I got divorced, and Alan put a beautiful diamond solitaire on my finger .

Exactly a year to the day we first met, our daughter was born. Considering I only had one fallopian tube, PCOD, and Endometriosis, achieving pregnancy unaided was a miracle in itself. She was a little surprise to us both, but we were so happy to be having her too. Getting past the 8 week mark was nerve wracking, but I added the complication of moving from England to Northern Ireland !! We moved again to our newly built house when I was 35 weeks pregnant !  I put on about 2 stone in weight during the pregnancy, and due to having an emergency caesarean section was unable to exercise for ages afterwards. She was a demanding baby and I was so tired that diet and exercise were just things that only single people with no children seemed capable of !! Alan was a svelte 10 stone guy, 6ft 2 and a chocolate addict. My will power was low to non existent and I admit that I allowed my weight to creep up by eating stuff I knew I shouldn't but I was just too busy with a new baby to be worrying about standing and cooking for hours on end. I returned to work when she was about 2 months old and began agency nursing, doing night shifts, so that I could be home with my daughter in the daytime. My uniform size in pregnancy was a size 20 and afterwards my new uniform was a size 22. I swore that Alan boil washed it once and it shrunk, but I could never prove that !!

We married in the Caribbean when our daughter was 17 months old. My dilemma when choosing a bridal outfit was 'what will cover my curves?' and trying some gowns on in a shop turned out to be a nightmare because they just did not cater for girls my size. Were girls my size not supposed to get married ?! I had a dress made which was just perfect. It was cut and tailored to cover what needed covering, but I was annoyed at myself for not being the bride I wanted to be for Alan. It was a magical day though, and we had a ball.

Shortly after our wedding, we decided to give Rachel a little play mate and our son, Aidan, was born in October 2001. He was a whopping 8lb10oz baby, and I was huge when pregnant with him ! This weight never left me, and I managed to add another stone to the scales between having him and getting pregnant with our last little miracle baby, Michael, who was born in June 2005.

I was sterilised when Michael was born. Having had 7 miscarriages which broke my heart 7 times over, and then my 3 beautiful miracle children (conceived naturally) who fulfilled my life beyond my wildest dreams, I knew enough was enough. I was complete as far as being a mother was concerned. I got to hold my babies and know the happiness that parenthood can bring. I thank the Lord daily for my children, and count myself as fortunate beyond all measure that I was granted this. Being off contraception though, my PCOD went daft, and my monthly periods became painful and very very heavy.

I began researching weight loss surgery before Michael was even a twinkle, but it was a pipe dream at that point to take it any further. I tried Xenical and Reductil, with my GP's full support. I tried Weight watchers, but after following the plan to the letter for 10 weeks, the class leader got annoyed at me for not losing any weight. She told me to drink more water, despite my GP telling me that weight loss would be nigh on impossible with my level of PCOD.

I considered a laparoscopic gastric band, not knowing anything about the RNY procedure at this stage. I'd seen a series on TV called ' Supersized surgery' where this magic band was reported to be the miracle that would help me lose my weight. The Hospital Group were responsible for this programme, and although I am grateful that this programme started me on the path toward surgery, I was horrified at the cost ! They did not give me enough information either, and never mentioned that the lapband would need to be filled, and that at that time there was no fill provider in Northern Ireland. I was being lured into this false sense of security that this band would flick a magic switch inside me and make me slim. They even offered to get me operated on within 3 weeks if I paid a hefty deposit right there and then ! It's true it's the least risky operation but I needed something to control me more than a band. I needed something that didn't need fiddling with and at this point, I stopped thinking about the band and got pregnant with our son Michael instead ! When I had him, I was back up to just under 20 stone and in size 30-32 clothes.

By chance, I read a story in a magazine in June 2006 about a lady, Michelle, who had paid half price to have her stomach 'stapled'. She had a procedure called a Duodenal switch. I'd never heard of it before ! Her before and after photo's were absolutely amazing, and awe inspiring. Her story listed the WLSinfo forum (Weight loss surgery) where she is a moderator. I subscribed to this forum and read as much as I could about all the different surgery available, and the lengths people had gone to, to lose so much weight. I was amazed. There I was thinking I was the largest woman on the planet and feeling pretty darn miserable about it, and now suddenly I had a huge support network right at my finger tips. I read up on all the different surgeries, and researched it all. The gastric band quickly got put on the back burner because so many of the forum members had bad experiences with them. Lots had good ones too, but the horror stories were enough to put me right off ! The band seemed to suit those who needed to lose about 4 stone maximum but I needed to lose about 10 stone so the band was not for me. It seemed to me more of a tool to aid weight loss through portion control but a lot of people were complaining about slow weight loss and struggling with getting the weight off. I needed a surgery that would work the first time, and give me some guarantee of a permanent solution to my weight problems. Getting a band fill in Northern Ireland is currently impossible too - there is no fill provider here, so this was yet another factor that worked against the band for me. Then I discovered the Duodenal switch procedure, and the other gastric bypass operation called the Roux en Y.

My main reasons for wanting and needing to take this radical step was seeing my mother disabled and in a wheelchair in her 60's. She was a large lady and crippled with arthritis to the point where she has had so many orthopaedic procedures to replace crumbled joints that Alan said she must be part Borg ! ( Star Trek reference there !) My father has cardiac problems and yet is her main carer, and sometimes struggled to care for her mainly due to their both being overweight. My maternal grandmother was also afflicted with arthritis badly, and osteoporosis. She died of cancer at the ripe old age of 96, but the last 20 years of her life had been limited by her joints, and although she was not especially overweight, she was limited by this too. My grandmother on my fathers side died before I was born, riddled with cancer, and my grandfather was also very overweight. I am in no doubt that the overweight gene was passed on to me, although I have to apportion some blame to myself for not being stricter on myself too. I had a cancer scare in June 2006, which turned out to be nothing sinister in the end, but it was enough to fire off the warning shots that I could be life limited with co-morbid illnesses facing me in the near future. I waited a long time to have my children and I waned to be about to see them become parents, and I wanted to be able to be an active grandparent which my mother has been denied through her disabilities. My mother was my own reflection, and it was now time to change that, no disrespect to her.

So, here I was at the point of reclaiming my life. I wanted to be the wife that Alan deserved, not this large woman that although he loved to the core, was facing a certainty of a future in a wheelchair. I wanted to be able to share my retirement with him, travelling the world and enjoying the freedom of movement that my body at that moment would deny me.

When I was 10 months post op, my parents, who were blown away with my weight loss, both went to Brugge and had the RNY gastric bypass with Dr Dillemans. They are officially his oldest bariatric patients at the age of 70 and 71 at the time of surgery. To date my father has lost over 5 stone and is nearing a healthy BMI of 25, and my mother has lost about 4 stone bringing her to her lightest weight since 1992 ! Without a doubt this surgery has added to their life span, and certainly to their quality of life. Having both been overweight for as many years as I can remember, having this opportunity to now be slim and healthy in weight has been a dream come true for them both also. I am so happy that they also took this leap of faith, to trust me when I advised them that this was possible for them both, and to trust the skill of Dr Dillemans in operating on them. Their weight continues to drop and I am so proud of their achievements.

After one year my weight was down to 10stone 10 and my BMI was finally 25. I was no longer obese, or even overweight. I was now classed as 'normal' ! I went back to Belgium to Dr Patrick Dedoncker, a plastic surgeon, who fixed my saggy tummy and boobs. What a difference a year made to my life. I now have the shape that I could have only imagined but never dared dream would be mine. I even fit into size 10 jeans.

I shall be eternally grateful to my friend Barbra for giving me a stack of magazines to read, which, by chance, lead me to the WLSinfo forum. I have found not just a wealth of information on there about WLS but also friendship that spans the length and breadth of the UK. These fantastic people advised me, shared with me and have supported me in finding the right surgeon to operate on me, to trust with my life and put my faith in. These lovely folk have shared their weight loss stories which amaze me on a daily basis, and I shall be forever in their debt for their unconditional support via the internet, and Belfast support group. I also want to thank my parents, who have been understanding and supportive of my chosen surgery, and funded my treatment because waiting for the NHS here in Northern Ireland would have put my life on hold for years. Most of all though, I want to thank my husband Alan for loving me no matter what shape and size I grew to. He has taken the hideous before op photo's for me which caused me to cry because I never realised how bad I had got. He has shared each weigh in day, encouraging me to keep smiling even in the weeks were weight loss has been slow, and he has not begrudged missing out on our previously frequent take away meals because I can't have them as readily anymore. I never said HE couldn't have them, but he said it was not fair to have one when I could not. He's the love of my life, always has been and always will be.

My blog starts here, and I ask you to share my journey with me. My grandmother always told me to set my hopes as high as the sky, even if I only reach the tree tops ! What I have achieved, I could never have dreamt possible before. Weight loss surgery has changed my life in so many ways and it's a decision that I will never regret for one moment. It was a step of faith to have the surgery, but I had the best surgeon and the love and support of my friends and family, I knew that I could not go wrong.