Genie's Story: Lap Band Download (First Install)

 Genie is a very dear and wonderful friend whom I met during our Patchogue High School years. We were buddies then, and I have witnessed a number of the experiences she discusses here, though we lost track of each other after college. Where did we find each other? Online, of course! Genie found me. And we've kept in touch ever since. She is very courageous and kind to share her story here, hoping it will be a benefit to others.   (Carole Di Tosti)

Genie:(I Just Want to Testify)

All my life I’ve been conflicted about weight issues, but not always my weight issues. You see the conflict right there!  I’ve been called “a big girl,” by boys in elementary school and “elephant.”  I've been called “big boned.”  I was tall for my age and about 30 lbs. overweight.  I changed residencies a lot when I was growing up. One place my family stayed only 6 months.  I had to make friends each time I moved. I was always the “new girl.”  I was the only girl in my family. My brothers were twelve and fifteen years older than I. All of these issues impacted my relationship with myself and the world.

We finally moved to a small town on Eastern Long Island.  I was in second grade.  I was able to stay in one place for six years until I graduated from eighth grade. During my year in eighth grade, my parents decided to move again to a school district that had a better educational system. I was livid. I didn’t want to move because I’d have to make new friends and go through the "new girl" syndrome all over again, including the taunts and rejections.  So during the summer before ninth grade, I spent the days in my room at the new house punishing my parents for moving, rejecting my mother's attempts to get me to meet people in the neighborhood.   

The school I attended was different from what I was accustomed to in my elementary school where the total class was 28.  At Patchogue Junior High my class was 400 and the school was on split sessions.  I had to be at the bus stop before 7 AM for the morning session and the second half of the year my school day began at 1 PM. The school was also undergoing construction, so at times students had to reach their fourth floor classes via the fire escape.

In addition to having to adjust to all of the mechanics of junior high, lockers, class locations, changing classes and teachers every forty minutes, gym was a hurdle. Who knew about climbing ropes? Me, climbing a rope? Gym was not my favorite "subject." Maybe it started with my first public weighing in front of the entire class; it's what they did in those days...kids were weighed and measured in front of each other. You can imagine my mortification when the teacher sang out for everyone to hear:  182 pounds, 5' 8." I was not safe anymore, but "fair game," to all who listened and heard!

All through Patchogue High I was rather cavalier about my weight.  My mother had to hide the chocolate chips.  It became a struggle between the two of us as she kept the chips from me. I was always on the hunt, for that and other things. I really had no idea what I wanted to do after high school.  In fact, during my senior year I missed 52 out of 180 days of school.  However, my parents had plans for me. They enrolled me in Suffolk Community College.  I rebelled and gave myself a reprieve from their plans.

The summer I graduated from high school, I met a boy. I became pregnant my first year of community college. I knew but told no one; I was in denial. Besides, I’d heard a story that someone I knew just dropped her baby without ever telling anyone; I guess I was following her example.  My parents' plans for me continued without their suspecting my pregnancy, though I had morning sickness and my clothes didn't fit. You see, I was their "good girl," not capable of such rebellion. Even when I vomited in the parking lot of a French restaurant "for no reason," my parents failed to notice the signs.  When it was finally revealed that I was six months pregnant, yes, by that point six months, my mother was in a tizzy, concerned, “What will the neighbors think!”  So I "had" to get married immediately. If the boy wouldn’t marry me, then she had a contingency plan. She had a friend whose daughter wanted a baby. My mother said they would raise my child but I wouldn't know where they lived; that information would be kept from me.

I got married. The boy was reluctant. We were interviewed by my pastor. My mother told me later the pastor didn’t believe our marriage would be successful. My baby was born prematurely in November. He was very small with a collapsed lung. He stayed a week in the hospital. But thank God, he’s healthy, married and is Daddy to my two wonderful grandkids. So sometimes life doesn't exactly turn out to be what others believe for you!

I feel I’ve been depressed perhaps all my life. After each of my three pregnancies, I had continually gained weight until I reached morbid obesity.  Looking back over the decades of weight gain, I don’t think I ever really tried to take it off seriously (though I yo-yoed many times starting diets, then stopping out of boredom or hunger or depression; I'm not really sure why). 

Late in 2008 I weighed 375 pounds and I wasn't getting any thinner on my own, nor did I have the motivation to diet. But I desperately wanted to be healthy, to be able to climb stairs, walk without panting, junk my cane and not worry about having a heart attack just going from my car to a store. I wanted to see my granddaughter walk down the church aisle in a beautiful white wedding dress. What was my life expectancy at this point? I was afraid. Would I deprive my granddaughter of her grandmother and deprive myself of seeing her ecstatic and gorgeous, amidst the flowers and the finery of a big wedding ceremony? 

After considering Gastric Bypass and finding it too dangerous for my and my family's liking, I decided on Lap Band. I had to go through testing to see if I qualified. This process took months and the doctor told me I had to lose weight before the Lap Band surgery. It was probably the hardest weight loss I ever performed, but I lost 16 pounds on my own. Whew! Then in June of 2009 it was time: the lap band was placed inside me.   

To date, I’ve lost 60 pounds, but it hasn’t been easy.  I got MRSA in the hospital, which took 9 months to get rid of because I have other complications and need wound care. (Thank God the wound is almost completely healed.)  In a process of discovery, I’ve been struggling to keep to the requirements suggesting which foods I can eat and how much. This I often do by trial and error. In the beginning it was just liquids. Now that I've graduated to solid foods, sometimes my eyes deceive me into wanting more than my stomach can bear. Other times I don’t pay attention to my body’s signals. Then I pay for it greatly.  The good thing is that at least my body cries out to me when I eat too much. Before Lap Band, it was a free for all; there were NO SIGNALS; I just ate to my heart's discontent. 

There was another problem. I wasn’t losing as much weight as my doctor wanted. I couldn’t exercise because I was having great difficulty walking.  In March of this year I went to an orthopedic surgeon.  He took one look at my X rays and said I was having a hip replacement, NO ARGUMENTS.  He didn’t know how I was able to walk with the massive amount of arthritis enveloping the hip. It was a revelation; I was living in excruciating agony every day of my life and had become so accustomed to it, I thought it was my portion and would follow me to the grave.  Why didn't I run to the doctor about it when the pain started? The reasons are too numerous to calculate; suffice to say I was afraid of his answer, afraid of what it might entail. 

This April I had my hip replaced. I immediately was in a heavenly place without pain and in peace. I had forgotten what it was like not to feel my body's screams. I have about six months of recuperation with my hip, but I can walk and move pain free and now, I'm exercising much more and enjoying it immensely. That is thrilling.

Do I still have issues with food? Yes. At times I try to undo all I’ve accomplished.  Since my eyes are literally "bigger than my stomach," I'm punished with hours of pain for overeating. Sometimes I feel that once I start eating, I can’t stop (an old habit).  Folks, this is no magic bullet. Being obese takes a lot of effort, and curtailing the recycling of overeating also takes even more effort, but it's an effort I would rather make than not.

I still have issues with depression and anxiety and I take drugs and speak to a counselor every 3-4 weeks. I also see a psychiatrist every six months.  But now I  have set some goals for myself:

1)I want to walk without a cane down the aisle at my son’s wedding in October of this year;  2)I want to make some renovations and redecorations in the house; I want to be able to clean it, throwing out or giving away things I don't need, and have new flooring put in and the walls painted. 

These are small steps. But each step is on my journey toward health, and I can't help but feel I'm moving in the right direction for the first time. 

If you want to congratulate and encourage Genie, please comment! 


Next week you will read my interview with Genie about her progress and diets, why yes?