Post I found on my facebook

Thinking

by Rachel Perez on Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 1:21pm

So I'm considering writing again... not poetry not that I don't feel inspired or have a muse it's just not what I feel like writing right now... I've been thinking a lot of how far I have come and how far I haven't come.... I know that a lot of people say I have so much to be grateful for and this I do.

I had my surgery in Nov of 2007 after about 7 years of struggling to find a way to get medical coverage to do it. It took me moving to another state and going through much testing and 3 doctors and be in the hospital drowning in my own fluids for reality to hit the healthcare system that hey this woman needs help. I have always been overweight, then obese, then morbildy obese then super morbidly obese. I weighed 700+ lbs at one time. Yes my family was always on my back about my weight and that just made me want to not try. You know when someone constantly bugs you about something and it makes you not want to do it? yeah that was me...

So at 28 years old I was admitted to the hospital with congestive heart failure, pulmonary edema, and very severe sleep apnea so much as to I stopped breathing 59 times in 1 hour. No wonder I was waking up with massive lack of oxygen headaches. The day I had surgery I weighed in at 564 lbs. After the first 3 months I had lost 103 lbs.. I was ecstatic yes feeling better and more alive each day. After the first year I lost 176 lbs making it a total of 312 lbs lost.. I got as high as 420 lbs lost but I have since I was at my lowest of 285 lbs gained about 50 or so.. I keep gaining and losing the same 5 to 10 lbs due to water retention if I don't take my water pill.. Today I weighed in at 343 lbs.. yes I finally admitted it.. I am not perfect I am human.. I've been hiding in the shadows for a while now for the past few months due to the shame, feeling like a failure, but I know that there are so many in my same place in the same situation struggling.... I just get up again each day and try harder. I am going to physical therapy for pinched nerves and trying to work excercise into my life and hopefully that will help. Now that I got all this off my chest I feel a bit better and maybe this will keep me more on track and I will have more people to encourage me.. :) Thank you for whoever is reading this, thank you for listening...