Surgery…

I haven’t thought about this in a LONG time and now I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I didn’t want to write this blog, and for the last few weeks I have been putting it off. I didn’t want to talk about a subject that would potentially make people pissed off at me or upset people and cause them to loose their way.

When I was desperate and well over 400+lbs, I wanted to get out of my life cycle of being heavy and unable to live the life I wanted to live. Knowing people who had the gastric bypass surgery and seeing all the adds around town made this a VERY appealing option for me. After all, I just wanted out! I wanted to do something that would cure me, heal me, and quickly!

Periodically the hospitals have information seminars on these surgeries, so Allison and I attended one to get the low down. The opinions for the different surgical operations were great. They seemed like easy in and out things to get done.

Then… then they started going through the problems that could occur as a part of the surgery, both short term and long term. It was absolutely, the scariest stuff I could think of choosing to do to my body. Things would NEVER be the same. I was making a choice to change my body in an elective way that would impact the rest of my life.

Was I confident enough with my abilities to honestly believe that I wouldn’t screw it up?

Do the positives outweigh the negatives?

Truth be known… the whole thing scared the crap out of me!

Looking back on this point in my life, I was desperate and knew that I needed help. I didn’t know what kind of help. I wanted something quick. I wanted immediate change. I wanted “easy” change. I wanted a new life… a better life.

The thing I realize now is that a better life doesn’t necessarily mean choosing the fastest and easiest path. The surgery option didn’t seem easy, but it was faster and faster definitely seemed easier.

Instead, this journey has been slow. It’s taken me years and will continue past age 40. With each victory I find another emotional attachment to food. The things from my past that creep up and need to be processed through to seek healing from. It’s been years of work and will continue to be years of work. The journey is about a change that has to happen inside and thankfully the outside tends to change within the process.

My body is changing for the better… it’s healing. I didn’t choose surgery and I’m thankful. My natural body is healing itself, not from something I would have elected to do, but from my past. It’s amazing what a body can do if we give it time and attention. The victories mean so much to me.

Someone asked me about doing pull ups after The Murph. They asked, How many pull ups can you do at a time. I looked at them funny and said: One. This made them give me a funny look and they asked how long I had being doing pull ups, and I said that I got my first one around the beginning of the year… for the first Time IN MY LIFE!

People on the outside don’t understand that victory, but it’s a huge one for me. All those years of The Presidential Fitness challenge embarrassment. All the times standing there watching people make fun of me because I couldn’t pull up. All those years of wishing and begging God for help. All those times someone would do a pull up while staring at me for spite. Now I can do a pull up and I would bet that most of those kids now would be the one’s staring and wishing.

I’m glad I didn’t choose to have weightless surgery because it has forced me to work even harder on me. Plus, I would have screwed that thing up so badly!

Let me be clear again… this is me and my opinion. If you choose differently, then great. It’s just not the choice I made. I hope you are equally as happy with your choice as I am with mine.