My First Post!!

Hey Guys,

Welcome to my blog!! On July 24, 2012, I am undergoing Roux-en Y (a.k.a. gastric bypass) and this is the place I will be documenting that journey!  I am so glad that you are here! This is my first of what will be many post in my RYN journey!! Through my blog, I hope that you become informed on the mysterious world of WLS (weight loss surgery). I hope that you find courage to pursue whatever option might be right for you, if you have been thinking about starting your own journey. I pray that you are blessed through my journey and that any prejudices or misconceptions you might have against this type of treatment or the persons who pursue this, fades away.

If you do not know me personally, here's some random facts that might help you to understand why I am pursuing this option:

1. I do not remember a time in my life that I have not been the "fat kid", "fat friend", or "fat adult" of the group. To complicate this even further, I had a major accident in 2006, which left me in a wheelchair off and on (mostly on) since then and have had six surgeries from that accident. Through that process, I gained even more weight from not being able to be as active. As of two weeks ago, I am at the biggest I have been in my life ( a women's 30/32, weight of 413, and a BMI of 62).

2. Both of my parents passed away at the age of 52. One was partly from obesity related issues. With a genetic make up that puts me at a higher risk for not only obesity, but early death, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart issues, and cancer (among other things), I want to do all that I can to live longer than what my parents did. I turned 31 the last week of June, and frankly, I have a lot more that I want to do and 21 years is not enough time to accomplish all of these things!

3. A huge part of that second thing is that I have an amazing husband that I love very much! We met a little later than most. I dream of the day that I am able to walk beside my husband and hold his hand, instead of being in a wheelchair, usually with him pushing. I want to spend a LONG and HEALTHY life with him and hopefully, our own children one day.

4. That brings me to fertility. Yes, I am one of the millions of women that has dealt with infertility issues, more specifically, polycystic ovarian syndrome. One of the "bonuses" of PCOS is weight gain (do you see a cycle here?). Now for something that not a lot of folks know and some might consider taboo, but we're friends right? In our quest to have a child of our own, we have pursued and failed with fertility treatments (six cycles to be exact). Now, there's no guarantee that we will be able to conceive after I start loosing weight and we may still need fertility treatments afterwards, but one thing is for certain, the more weight I loose, the greater chance we have of having a healthy pregnancy for baby and me. I also want to live to see our children and grandchildren grow up, which is something that my parents never got to see.

So that's a few of the major reasons that my doctors, my husband, and I have decided that RYN is the best option for me. I hope that you will learn from this experience as much as I am and that you have a different perspective of overweight people, their struggles, their fears, and most importantly, I hope that you learn, that  the numbers on the scale have nothing to do with your self worth or anyone else's self worth. I hope that you celebrate the small victories with me and encourage the journey. This is "Dreams My Weigh!"

I invite you to follow me through email, Blogger, or Facebook.

Until next time,

Cass