With the first step, a journey begins

In October of 2009, my journey began in the body of a 513 pound woman.  I had the swine flu at the beginning of the month and could've died and then the next week, they gave me a new drug and I went to work and almost passed out on my way out to the car.  My husband came to get me and rushed me over to Urgent Care.  I apparently had an allergic reaction to the drug and it sent my BP through the roof and completely out of control. I was rushed by ambulance from the little outpatient clinic at a different branch of our hospital to the big ER of the main campus of the hospital I work in. The typical thing that happens when obese people - especially morbidly obese people go to the doctor, they blame everything on your weight.  I was flash-judged by the ER physician who told me it was my weight (SHOCKER RIGHT?) and he actually said to me "Congratulations, you have high blood pressure". They pumped me full of diuretics and gave me a medication for the high blood pressure - which apparently I am also allergic to and the blood pressure medication actually caused a cellulitis effect to my legs. They sent me home anyway, not doing anything about the cellulitis and made me walk out of the ER from the very back.  I wasn't even walked out or wheeled out by a nurse.  I left there feeling short-changed, betrayed, and disappointment in the facility that they treated a fellow employee that way. To the ER doc though, I was just a morbidly obese person in denial who wouldn't help myself and that was very frustrating to me.

Under a lot of pressure from my co-workers and my 6 specialists/physicians, I saw a local bariatric surgeon. He was supposed to be the "it" guy that introduced bariatric surgery to the area.  I went excited and convinced that I was a great candidate for surgery and he could help me.  When I finally met him, he was arrogant, kurt, and showed no signs of compassion for me as a person, especially one of his patients coming to him in desperation for help. I left there madder than a mashed cat.  He told me I had to lose 115 lbs to prove that I "wanted it" bad enough and he said "well you should be able to do that in 3 months"... Really?  THREE months? 115 lbs?  The equivalent of a small person? I didn't even give myself time to digest it because the more I thought about it, the madder it made me.  The audacity that this man had to have those kind of absolutely unrealistic expectations was mind boggling to me.  I responded purposely with no thought and I said "If I could lose 115 lbs in 3 months, I wouldn't be here. Furthermore, if that were possible, hell I could be a size 2 in a year!"  At that point, I was so frustrated, disappointed, and disheartened that I stormed out of his office and never went back to him.  I just put the whole thing on the back burner.