Tuesday, January 5, 2010

I Was Worth the Risk.

One of the WLS blogs I follow, Diva Taunia's Backstage Pass, has a post from yesterday entitled, "Gastric Bypass - It's Not Always Good." Taunia's post links to this story about a 30-year-old UK woman who passed away on July 22, 2009 due to complications of gastric bypass.

Taunia's post and the story of this gastric bypass death make me think about my own pre-op mindset. On message boards, there are so many people who talk about their fear a few days before the surgery. Almost everyone says they had doubts and second thoughts. I suppose I was an anomaly: I had no doubts at any point prior to my surgery. The night before the big day, my mom asked, "Are you getting nervous?" I answered, truthfully, that I wasn't.

This may seem extreme, but I decided early in my process that improving my quality of life was worth risking my life. I'd briefly considered weight loss surgery before, back in the early 2000s. But at that point, I wasn't ready to confront the risk, however minimal, of death. I didn't have the requisite level of desperation. I hadn't come to the end of my rope, having tried all other options.

By Fall 2008, however, I was there. I'd lost 130+ pounds and gained 100 back. I was a few years older, and it's true that the body can handle more at 20 than it can at 27. I'd started to head down the path of obesity-related illness ("comorbidities") - just GERD and a slightly enlarged heart, but I'm sure more was on its way after 20+ years of obesity and years of yo-yo dieting. More importantly, my body and my life felt like one big blob that I was powerless to change. Oddly, I've always believed I could change the world, but for some reason, I didn't feel any power to change myself.

Learning more about gastric bypass, particularly through YouTube and the Weight Loss Surgery for Dummies book, changed that. For the first time in years, morbid obesity didn't feel like an inevitable condition. I had a burgeoning sense of hope. So I figured that even if I became one of those rare unlucky people who died because of the surgery, at least I would have gone out fighting for a better life. For me, it was better to take a gamble on RNY than to be alive without feeling alive.

I was determined, and I wasn't going to be persuaded otherwise.

Footnote: I admit that my decision was perhaps easier because I'm not married and I don't have children. Major responsibilities like those can complicate health decisions. (Of course, being MO can interfere with one's ability to be an active spouse or parent, so there's that to consider as well.)

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