Xyliee,
Oh my word. I am so sorry to hear about your step-daughter. Before I started my weight loss journey I weighed 475.5 pounds. I was so big. My belly (or as the surgeon calls it: my pannus) is BIG. Right now it hits about mid thigh. I absolutely HATE it. The surgeon told me that once I get down to around my goal weight or around 200 or so, they will begin the process of me getting the abdominoplasty or a lower body lift. I am most embarrassed about my belly. The surgeon has said that as the weight begins to come off the belly will go south even more. Nothing I can do about that. There is no amount of exercise that will take that away because I was/am so very big.
This is something that I do not discuss with anyone but my mom and my therapist. It is a source of utter humiliation for me. Weighing myself is a real challenge outside of the hospital. A scale may say it goes to 440 pounds but because I am so wide (in all directions) it does not weigh me accurately and always results it it reading as error. The only scale that weighs me accurately is the one at the hospital. It goes to 1,000 pounds and is much wider than I am so I know that when that scale says 392.0 that is exactly what I weigh. I thank God daily for the surgeon and the nurses in the Bariatric Center because they jump up and down with me when I lose and shed tears with me when I have gained. I love them as if they were my family. They have been following me a long time and when I went in the day I went to SIoux Falls to have my surgery, they cried with me knowing I have exceeded my weight loss goal by 8 pounds and would then be able to have the surgery I had longed for for so many years. When I weigh in tomorrow it will be one more step that they will take with me. I love those people.
I worked so hard for so long to get this surgery because I knew without a doubt that if I did not have the weight loss surgery I would die from complications of obesity. I never EVER considered this surgery a quick fix. It has always been a tool that I will use to regain my life and to get healthy.
I am actually in the category of super morbidly obese and I am yearning for the day when I am just obese.
There are not many of us that are in this bad category that will openly discuss their challenges and victories. Most all of the people I have come across of this group and the other forums I am on are in the 200s or maybe the lower 300s. I have never "met" anyone online who is at my weight or above it. I seem to be the heaviest everywhere I go.
In my past I would have retreated from any sort of discussion like this because of my embarrassment but I have decided that shining a light on my situation and exposing the challenges, victories and all of that might help one person know that they are not alone and that they do not have to wait until they have to be cut out of their house to get help. There is support, help, concern and love for them where ever they are in their journey towards becoming healthy.
I hope writing this does not upset anyone. I just wanted to say that maybe there is someone lurking on here that may be in my category of poor health that needs a friend. Write me, call me, reach out to me. I am here to help and to encourage and to care.
Love to all.
Missy