Obstacles & Sacrifice

My motivators are my Mom and Dad and even though they're not with me today. Seeing what they both went through on their health issues. My motivation became my health. Weighing in at 390lbs 5'8 1/2 made me want to have better health and lifestyle. I decided to make a doctor’s appointment just for a checkup, wanting to know about

my health, being that I was overweight. The Doctor took one look at me and asks me'' how long have I been like this'' my eyes opened up so wide I couldn't believe she'd ask me something like this I couldn't do anything but cry. I then ask her '' can you help me" as if I was lost. She said "yes I can'' Believe it or not she helped me more ways than one. This weight thing is NO joke; it took forever and some days to see some results. There was a lot of confusion, frustrations and crying on my part. My weight was unbearable.

The Doctor begins telling me how much calories and sugar I should eat in a day and my cut off eating time. I started walking; eating right and most of all water became my best friend. I had some setbacks a relapse. I had to have a pizza... I'm crying, started going through with drawls. Brokedown and ate the pizza. After eating the pizza I felt guilty, that was the last day I ever had a relapse I was determined. It was all about me and my health. I was wearing 30/32 shirts, pants, and 26/28 underwear. Weeks later still not seeing any changes but I felt different. I wasn't giving out of breath or feeling tired so fast. I learned you lose water first, the inches and then the weight starts to come off. Month’s later people started seeing results even when I only lost 20lbs. I started seeing changes, seeing scars I haven’t seen since I was a teenager.

Wal-Mart, Kmart or the mall didn’t have my size. It was the big girl's store for me, I remember the first day I found a pair of jeans my size, and my eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. Taking pictures was out of the question the last picture I took, was in the 12th grade. After that my weight was getting out of control. After my mother was diagnosed with Lymphoma, with no insurance. I felt they could have done better and gave her other options; with no insurance, your options are very limited. At that time I didn't see where this was going but now I realize after losing my mother, that if I didn't take control of my life, my weight, my health, that I wouldn't be here long to enjoy life. I fought like hell trying to find a job with health insurance. I didn't want to go through what my Mom experienced.

After losing my mother and my grandmother less than a year my life was useless it was like I didn’t have anything to live for my best friend, my mother is gone. My heart was shattered I just couldn’t stop crying, asking myself what I’m I going to do now, she's gone, she left me. I know everyone goes through a great ordeal in life. When she was diagnosed with lymphoma I started going through something of my own that set me in depression, I gained 34lbs. of what I had lost. I went from 300 to 334 all less than a year. There's so much I wanted to ask my mother, I didn’t know how to ask questions about dying without her feeling bad enough, this Cancer is taking our loved ones and there nothing we can do about it.

In 1996 my Dad died from Hepatocellular Carcinoma (liver cancer) cancer showed up again 11 years later. This is what drove me to leave for overseas. I made up my mind to do something about my health, doing a lot of studies. I found a Doctor that does weight-loss surgeries. I decided to go abroad to Mexico and have a LAP-BAND. They explained that I would need a fill every six weeks. I didn’t know how I was going to make this work, we only get vacations every four months but I knew that I wanted this done. Trying to make a change not even two years later Lymphoma came back in the family but this time we won. My obstacles kept on coming.

When I left for Iraq the weight was not the issue until two years later. Coming back from a vacation stopped in Dubai as always and got wind that there are weight requirements now. They wanted everyone at a certain weight, they gave us a time limit to lose the weight if the requirement wasn’t met when they did a recheck you would be sent home. My heart pounding fast, I didn’t believe what I was hearing. Two weeks later I was weighed in at 272lbs, with the LAP-BAND I’d lost 62lbs, by the weight and height but wait a minute the height they gave me was not my height another obstacle there was no reason arguing about the situation they gave me a month to lose 30 pounds. I'd call my family being disappointed and depressed with what I was going through, I’d only lost 12lbs but I was at a weight loss plateau. I'd call home upset telling the kids I’m coming home I can’t do this my weight is not coming off.  Every time I'd call home my kids would say momma you're going to make it stop crying....we know you can do this.

Going to the gym and barely eating, the food there was made to accommodate the military that worked out 3 to 4 times a day. I met a guy in the gym that told me he was going on a citrus diet. I asked him what was it he replied and said it's just oranges and water all day. My days were narrowing down I decided to give it a try this time they sent me to another camp. At my new camp D5 Stryker, for those of you that don’t know, this Camp was where they kept Saddam Hussein. So now here I am at my new camp, doing my citrus diet once a week after I come off the citrus diet that Monday I would eat real food once that day. The next day for the whole week I would do a water diet at the end of that week on a Monday I would eat real food once that day and water the rest of the day. I wasn’t eating anything after 6pm after not eating I would lie in bed, I couldn’t do anything but sleep from being so hungry. At night time i would take a peppermint and suck on it all night until I fell asleep to make the hunger pain go away. From a whole month of not eating, I made it with a smile on my face this obstacle was complete. Life is what you make it. You know your limitation and I knew that I had my family back at home that depended on me. So I sacrificed and did what I had to do for the love of my family. I've lost 140lbs, 70 more to go.