I was born six and a quarter pounds on 27th September 1963. Doctors first thought I was a diabetic because of the colour of my eyes at birth were black! I also had a blood disorder at the age of five, called Thrombocytopenia, which was a life threatening low platelet count disorder. I was put on steroids for a time and gained a vast amount of weight in a short period of time, which also left me with a huge appetite. This was the start of my life long weight gain battle and nightmare of increasing appetite and depression. For the next 5years, I was going back and forth to hospital for check-ups.
My parents tried me on various diets to no avail; Mum even took me to the doctors as she was so worried when I was about 7 or 8. I was also hardly ever allowed sweets which made me crave them constantly. I remember being 9stone at 9years old. From an early age food became my “friend” and “comforter”, eating in secret because I was constantly on a diet. Eating in secret has still been in my adult life although I have never had reason too, it was just a habit and intense pleasure momentarily, followed by guilt and self loathing. For all moods, I’ve always enjoyed eating and it’s rarely off my mind. Nowadays, it’s not always about me, but what to cook for the family or who will eat what. I often used to dread going into the kitchen, as I couldn’t trust myself. I was totally addicted to fat and sugar in all its forms, but especially sugar, which ruled my life, it’s effects are like a drug for me, I am constantly craving my next hit! The problem with sugar for me is it gives me energy slumps and makes me feel very sleepy most of the time. I have even been dreaming of food and then woken up and been really desperate for food and gone and eaten, no matter what time was.
I have dieted on and off most of my life, being overweight (or in my case, Super morbidly obese, as the hospital referred to me as) is a constant source of depression & feeling a total failure, along with self loathing and disgust at my complete lack of control around it.
When I started dating Paul, I’d travel up to London from my home in Suffolk every weekend, but we’d usually have a tea at his mum’s and then a take-away after a few drinks at the pub, which obviously helped my increasing weight and then we moved in together within 3months and I was so happy and in denial about my souring weight. We visited my family one weekend and my father was so shocked at how much weight I had gained he phoned me later that week in an attempt to get me to lose weight, but I couldn’t see how bad I looked. Paul and I were in love and had our love nest, which was the only thing that mattered to me. Before we married, I did go to a private doctor in London & pay £10 a week to get an injection in my bum and get given a week’s supply of Appetite Suppressants, which I did for a few weeks till the wedding. They have since been banned and taken off the market as they cause heart attacks!
After we were married in August 1987, I continued to gain weight and occasionally try a half-hearted attempt to lose weight, but always begrudged doing so. We moved back to Suffolk in March 1988 and I blissfully carried on eating anything and everything I wanted. My weight ballooned to 25st when I was pregnant with my twin sons in 1994, and had to have a caesarean as the boys were footling breach and transverse. I did however managed during my pregnancy with my daughter to get down to 20st 3lbs, but didn’t stay there, she had to be an emergency caesarean, as I couldn’t push her out, which was more than likely due to my vast weight.
Over the years I even went through a stage of purging and self-harming by using products to make me have diarrhoea and violently sick and force weight loss and which temporarily relieved the stress of being so fat and miserable, but it was also a type of punishment as I couldn’t cope with my food relationship.
I did successfully lose a little over 7stone in 2004, but could never keep in the mind set long enough to lose all the weight. If your head isn’t in the right place, there is no way you will succeed long term. I have even been referred to Luton and Bedford hospital in March 2003, for weight loss surgery at my request as I was so desperate to lose weight, but they said I needed to lose 10 stone before they would operate on me and that I would only be allowed a liquid diet, which scarred me, senseless. How could I lose 10stone for surgery when I couldn’t get through a day on a diet! At this point I weighed 32st 3lbs and needed to lose 330-337lbs!
In 2004 when I lost 101lbs on a low fat diet, but it seemed to all go wrong at the time when I lost my job and my world fell part and the weight went straight back on. I’ve tried all the diet pills, and my Doctor kindly told me I was his only failure-thanks doc, very helpful.
I was so sick and tired of weighing and measuring food and drink and paying a slimming club to eventually regain the weight lost and more besides. I was scared to sleep, thinking I would never wake up and die in my sleep. I had insomnia for a year and had to have counselling so that I could go to bed without falling asleep with the TV on all night. My husband told me that I used to stop breathing when I was asleep. My life was nearing its end if I didn’t lose weight. I had Hypnotherapy to help weight loss, but although it didn’t help me lose weight, it did help me deal with some of the stuff that was in my head and my therapist said to me that yes I would die soon if I didn’t lose the weight and that was a real wakeup call! Although I am scared of the surgery to remove my excess skin, I know it is a necessary part and I will deal with that when the time comes but I can’t dwell on it for now. My body will never look stunning, but it will be much healthier and better looking at the correct weight, than it would obese.
I have 3 lovely children, Callum and Oliver, twin’s boys of 17, and a daughter Niamh aged 15years. I have missed out on so many things with them, even just going to the cinema, because I was too fat to sit in the seats. Swimming, I have to go Ladies Night, because of the awful looks and comments from other people, and it should be a fun family outing, even riding bikes together. In fact, my weight and obsession with food has ruined my life, I was disabled and spent 2yrs sleeping in an armchair because it was too painful sleeping in a bed, and that is no way for a married couple to live. I’d cry myself to sleep most nights when Paul went upstairs to sleep. It was the loneliest time of my life. I was trapped by my own fat and greed.
My husband Paul, and I have been together 25years now and he has never known me slim, until I lost nearly twenty stone on the Cambridge diet. He has never judged me and has always told me he loves me, even though my weight has come between us, and we went two whole years without having sex and it was the worst time in my life, and it was all down to the fact that I was too fat to make love. Luckily that was a long time ago now, but I will never forget it.
I have experienced some awful behaviour by strangers on many occasions thinking they had the right to be horrible to me. I remember one summer’s day, driving through our village with the car windows open and two youths came running sideways towards the car and spitting at me and shouting obscenities just because I was fat! I’ve had strangers in town make rude and unnecessary comments to my face, unbelievable! You expect small or young children to say things but adults, no.
I have had and still have a problem with my hips and knees complaining and being very painful, which I have been told by my doctor is wear and tear, because of the weight. I have had many times when I couldn’t even walk all the way round a supermarket and would often get a trapped nerve in my right leg.
I even lost 19 and half stone living on Cambridge Diet meal replacements for 15mths. I was even crowned their Slimmer of the Year in front of 3,500 people, had photo’s taken, ticker tape filling the room and told I was off to Vietnam all expenses paid, then about 15mins later when they discovered they had told the wrong Tracey she was Slimmer of the Year! The PCT then refused many times to remove the excess skin that I was left with, and I fell apart and back came the depression and I couldn’t cope. My doctor said I was suffering from BDD-Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Within 6mths I had regained all the weight I had lost. Some of it was due to the fact that my last two jobs I was bullied by my bosses because of my size. The first boss bullied me because I became smaller than her when I lost all that weight and the second was because she didn’t like me being fat, even though she knew I was having weight loss surgery this year.
I then approached my doctor again, about Weight Loss Surgery and I was told the PCT had to approve funding before they could refer me to Luton & Dunstable. Surprise, surprise, they said no because I had lost weight on my own accord without any medical intervention and they did not consider I was a good enough candidate. I have to say I had a very supportive doctors surgery who continued to appeal on my behalf and on the fourth rejection they said that unless I had diabetes or Sleep Apnoea, there was no point in appealing again. This was a green light for me as I knew I had Sleep Apnoea for years but I just never wanted to admit to it as I didn’t want to wear a mask in bed and be hooked up to a machine every night. I already had other family members with it and I wasn’t ready for that before.
Finally got diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnoea in October 2009 and my doctor sent a letter off to the PCT who then finally agree for me to be referred for Weight Loss Surgery.
I got my first letter from Luton & Dunstable hospital with an appointment for 29th January 2010. I then had to wait until the end of June for my second appointment which was total torture as I knew I couldn’t control my weight, and I had to wait months for the second appointment to come through. Then at that appointment I was put on the milk diet, which consisted of four pints of semi skimmed milk, sugar free crusha to flavour it if I wanted it, a sugar free jelly and two stock cubes a day. I was actually allowed five to six pints a day as it is worked out by your weight, but I was ok on four pints. I was then given an appointment for four weeks later and told I need to lose 5% of my weight to show commitment to surgery. So at my third appointment I managed to lose the 5% weight loss required, although I did cheat the night before and had some protein as I was desperate for meat. I was chastised for doing so but then the bariatric nurse put me on the refeed diet until further notice. I failed spectacularly on that and I regained all the 5% weight loss plus a whole lot more! To say the surgeon and dietician were unimpressed was an understatement! Mr Whitelaw, my surgeon gave me a target weight for surgery of 168kg and a date of 15th November for surgery but said that it would be cancelled if I did not get to that weight. I was in tears; I really hoped surgery would be in September when others I knew locally were getting their surgery. 15th November seemed a life time away. I also had to see the psychologist that same day, but passed that apart from she said I was stressed and depressed. No surprise there then.
The dietician then agreed for me to do the Atkins diet to lose weight as I had lost weight on it before. I was devastated that after 2 weeks on it, I managed to gain 4kg. I still could not get my head in the right frame of mind to lose weight and I was desperate. I retried following Slimming World but all I did was overeat. Now I was going out my mind with worry and stress, how the hell was I going to lose this weight and stick to a diet to do it? Mr Whitelaw said that due to my size, I would have to be on the liver shrinkage diet for a month prior to surgery, so maybe I could do it now? So I called the dietician and was told I could but I would need to have a 400kcal meal without carbohydrates, so I didn’t inflate my liver. This I tried but I found eating was just putting me back on the bingeing cycle, so I decided to leave out the meal and just concentrate on the milk and jelly. Approximately the last two weeks prior to surgery I was topping up with protein as I was constantly light headed and dizzy.
Ten days prior to surgery, I had my pre op assessment appointment where I was measured for my surgical stockings, had my height and weight measured and had to provide a wee sample and had routine bloods taken. The whole thing only took an hour and a half.
November 15th 9am I report to the arrivals lounge, no I am not at the airport but I am at Luton & Dunstable Hospital. Here Paul and I sit for what feels like hours listening to Christmas songs and attempting to snooze unsuccessfully. Eventually I get called through to see a nurse and I get my blood pressure taken and we go through a medical form together. She then leaves the room and says you can now pop on your medical stockings. Well Paul and I heaved, pushed and nearly wet ourselves laughing trying desperately to just get them on my feet and in the stockings and in the direction of my ankles. I don’t think we had laughed so hard in months. About 15minutes later the stockings were on and Paul and I ached from laughter. The nurse came back with a gown and I laughed and said I didn’t think that would cover my modesty. She said do you want to pop your dressing gown and slippers on, but I didn’t have any and was not going to purchase them for wearing once, so she said I could wait until surgery before changing in the departure lounge cubical, where they had bariatric gowns. The departure lounge is not the chapel of rest but the last place you wait to meet the surgeon and anaesthetist. My surgeon is Mr Whitelaw and he comes to see me, he weighs me and yes I am 2 and half kg’s under op target, yay! He then sits me down and says it might not be possible to do a bypass, as it has happened before but if that is the case did I want him to come out and do nothing or do a sleeve? My heart sank, there was no way I wanted to go through all this and come out with nothing, so I agreed to a sleeve but all I wanted was a bypass. Next the anaesthetist came and asked lots of questions and once he was happy he said ok, we’ll see you in half an hour.
I can’t believe how calm I am at this point and all morning and the previous evening. For the last two weeks I have done nothing but cry and have various mood swings. I can remember a lovely lady on the UK gastric band and bypass site called Mary telling me she too had a sense of calm come over her, and thinking that’ll never happen to me, but it did and I was so pleased it did. I was laughing and joking with the Anaesthetist in the operating room, it didn’t resemble a theatre like I had been in before, just an ordinary room with an operating table and lots of staff milling around.
The funniest thing that happened was that I asked the anaesthetist to numb my hand first before putting the canular in my hand as I hated needles in me and that I was a real wooss. So the next thing his assistant does is inject me with a numbing serum. Normally they use a cream! I also told him before going into surgery that my right hand had better veins and he says no, I only use the left hand. So he tries three times and then says I think we should use the right hand! The next thing is the head anaesthetist Mr Foldi, telling me he is going to send me on a lovely holiday and where would I like to go. I answer New Zealand or Australia and off I go a minute or so later.
I don’t remember much of the rest of that day, and a good part to Tuesday either. The Surgeon cames round and tells me that it all went smoothly and with no complications. Paul tells me that when I was woken up after surgery on the Monday in HDU, I asked if anyone had done any washing yet, meaning the kids washing their clothes, (laugh out loud). I also kept asking various other questions as I didn’t believe the answers Paul was giving me, but I don’t remember any of that. I do remember being concerned that I didn’t have the bypass I kept asking that I did get it.
The first day and a half post surgery I wasn’t allowed anything to drink, only foam lollypops dunked in water to wet your mouth. On the afternoon of the second day I was allowed small sips of water. From the third day, I did suffer with very painful sinus headache which would not shift for several days as I wasn’t allowed iburophen to help the paracetamol which I would usually take. The registrar did order me a nose spray from pharmacy in the morning but it didn’t arrive until after 8pm in the evening. In the afternoon of the third day, I was allowed free fluids, which meant I was allowed to drink as much as I could. I was also told that I needed to get out of bed and sit in a chair as I was going to be moved to the ward later that day. So in the afternoon they got me a small settee type chair and I very gradually fell forward onto the chair as I was too short to touch the floor from the lowest bed height setting. It didn’t hurt but it was uncomfortable doing it. I wasn’t feeling too great but nothing to worry about, but about 15mins later I felt something was wrong and I told the nurse I didn’t feel well. The next thing was I was aware of being put back into bed and not waking up for several hours. I had fainted and apparently my blood sugar level was so low it was unrecordable. When I woke up I was told I had to stay in HDU, but to be honest I was getting such exceptional care I didn’t really want to leave there anyway. The surgeon or a member of his team visited me every day and I couldn’t have asked for more from anyone. On the fourth day, I felt so well I wanted to come home but was told I had to go on the ward before being discharged. Luckily they didn’t have a bed for me and I managed to convince my surgeon eventually that I was fit and well enough to come home.
We had to wait several hours for pharmacy to dispense my medication to come home with but eventually mid afternoon it was issued and we were allowed home, and Mr Whitelaw finally agreed that I could have some junior Nurofen to shift the headache, as we are no longer allowed to have ibuprofen in our new pouches as it is dangerous and can cause ulcers. The porter wheeled me to the car in a huge bariatric wheelchair which I was chuffed to bits about as there was tons of room either side of me and I wasn’t bursting out of it, for once!
Before I started dieting, this time round, I was wearing clothes size 36/38, but I am now wearing size 24 tops and 28 bottoms. I hope to eventually weigh around nine to nine and half stone and stabilise there.
Since June I have lost 28.64kgs or four and half stone, 6.2kg of which are post surgery. My heaviest weight in the last eighteen months was 205kgs. I have decided I am not going to be dictated by the scales, so I will weigh myself as and when I feel like it.
I will continue to blog with my progress, good and bad. No doubt I will have many learning curves along the way but that’s life as they say.
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