The Turning Point (also known as How A Hysterectomy Changed My Life)

Tomorrow, January 2, will be my one year anniversary of joining Weight Watchers. David asked me last night when I decided to join Weight Watchers and honestly, I couldn't remember an exact date, but it was during the holidays of 2008 that I knew I had to do something more to become healthier.

(start of some gross stuff - might not want to read if squeamish)

In February of 2008, I had a complete hysterectomy at the age of 34 (complete meaning EVERYTHING). I had two grapefruit sized cysts on each ovary causing me excruciating amounts of pain. I was anemic. Horrible back pain if I stood for more than 5 minutes. I menstruated so heavily with such large clots (sorry to gross you out) that I couldn't go anywhere or do anything without fearing that I wouldn't be able to finish my shopping without ruining my clothes. I had to wear two pads, plus a super plus sized tampon and sometimes those would last me only 30 minutes maximum. It was ruining my life.

I had been to the emergency room many times with my cysts, but in February 2008, I had an attack of pain that felt 1000 times worse than any of the ones before. I knew something wasn't right. I went to the emergency room and I was weighed on a big scale (the first time I had been weighed in a long time) and I weighed 380 lbs. I couldn't believe I weighed that much.

The end result of that ER visit was a emergency hysterectomy.

During the prep for my surgery, I had countless people working with me and with each new person, I found myself more and more embarrassed. There was constant concern over my size. "Due to your size blah, blah, blah...", "We have concern over your size...". I had to lay on the bed on top of a blow up mattress so that after the surgery they would be able to slide me easily from one bed to another.

I was so scared before the surgery from all the concern over my size that I wrote love notes to my children and husband because I literally thought there was a good chance that I wasn't coming out of my anesthesia or there would be some other complication.

After the surgery, but still groggy from the anesthesia, I realized I was alive. And that I would see David and the kids again. And I was happy.

There is a lot more to my story I can share about my hysterectomy. Like how they say that one of my ovaries and fallopian tubes black and twisted up. I could share the emotions just before: wanting to rip out the IV and run out of the hospital. To the emotions after: not being a "real" woman and would I ever enjoy sex again. Maybe I'll share those stories at a later time, but let me just say: having that surgery was one of the very best things that ever happen to me. It was the start of giving me back my life.

After I recovered, I realized that just about all the pain and discomfort that I felt pre-op, was related to my cysts. So once they was gone, I started to feel so much better.

During 2008, I lost some weight. I went from 380 lbs to 357 lbs just by making some simple dietary changes in my life. During the year I thought often to how scared I was of dying on the operating table. That I didn't want my children to continue their lives without me. That I wanted to continue my hot love affair with my sexy husband :). So during the holidays, I decided enough was enough...and it was time to get serious about it. My decision was to join Weight Watchers and I did. I joined on January 2, 2009, and got started. Two weeks after, my husband started with me.

The last four months have brought some great challenges to our family and our weight loss has slowed. For the last two months, we have even stopped my daily weigh in's (the weights on the right are out-dated and we've lost more than that). But we are determined that 2010 will be the year we reach our goals and I KNOW we will.

I plan to keep blogging daily here about our weight loss. We need accountability and while we have it with each other, I believe that our friends online, on Twitter, and those we've met through blogs are a huge part of the success we've had so far.

So, here's to 2010 - a year of learning to live healthy! Tomorrow I will share our current weights (which haven't been done in a while).