Hello? Hello...Is this thing on? Testing 1, 2, 3

Well Hello There!! Amy and Christy talked me into this so don’t blame me if the randomness that is me makes your brain do strange things.

I just wanted to introduce myself to the world of lap band or to the few people who will follow me. It’s not much, but I will try not to bore you with my flights of fantasy, stories of the past and just over all cartoonish behavior. Just to let you know I’m a silly character. I can be funny sometimes and then other times (most times) people just scratch their heads. I try to act like I’m smart. In reality I think I’m the only one who thinks that. Well maybe my son and my mom, but hey they have to.

Ok let’s get serious just for a minute.

I haven’t always been fat, but I have always thought I was fat. I look back at pictures of myself and my siblings and wonder to myself, where did I go wrong. I looked like those kids on TV. You know the ones they show early on Sunday morning that are starving and the announcer says “if you will just give 35¢ a day you can feed a child for a week.” I think I needed that 35¢ back then because I look like I was starving. So where did I get the idea I was fat?…In middle school.

I was nicknamed “Budweiser” in the 8th grade. Why such a name for an impressionable teenager on the brink of womanhood? Because I had what some call a pouch, a pot belly, but what my gym coach called a beer belly. I was a 13 year old skinny kid with little legs, knock-knees, and breast, so you can guess that my body had become an issue. For the first semester of the 8th grade at Graceland Junior High, I was always called P.W., my initials. The second semester came and my nickname changed. The students had to dress in shorts and a tee shirt for gym class, the standard school uniform with the school name on the front. We were not allowed to wear our gym shirts outside of our shorts, but some of us girls tried to get away with it anyway. The coach ordered us to tuck our shirts in almost every day. We gossiped amongst ourselves that it was because he wanted to see our little developing butts. We were soon threatened with a paddling if we came out again not properly dressed. Now each student was given the opportunity to lead the class in the daily exercises and my day came. I walked up front slowly. Speaking in front of an audience always struck fear in my heart and that day was no exception. I positioned myself and attempted to call the first exercise when Coach J walked up front and called everyone’s attention to me. He stood behind me and said, “Oh look at P.W.’s little beer gut.” He proceeded to pat my little belly and announced that my new nickname was “Budweiser”. He continued to tell the class that it looked like I had been drinking beer, which was evident by my “beer gut”. Mortified, I stood stock-still. Now I must mention that in that class was a cheerleader or two and a couple of majorettes, girls whom I at that time considered to have the perfect bodies and perfect boyfriends. Also in that class was Bobby Ford. Bobby was probably the prettiest chocolate boy in the 8th grade. He played drums for the band and the majorettes (anyone that has attended an inner-city public school knows about the drummers and majorettes), and I was totally in love with him, although he never knew it. As I stood there in shock, I was snapped out of my reverie by the gym coach as he told me to proceed with the class exercises.

A couple of weeks passed and I soon forgot my embarrassment, but the scar of that day would stay with me. I didn’t have to worry about my classmates, but to Coach J, I was “Budweiser”. I took gym class from this same person in the ninth grade and yet my name remained “Budweiser”. I didn’t realize it then, but that set the stage for me to obsess over my body.

Lets skip to high school shall we.

I idolized Janet Jackson. I wanted to marry Michael and I wanted to be Janet. Weird now that I think about it. I have what I call “almost killed myself slowly” with diet after diet. Not to mention every exercise craze. Y’all remember the “20 minute workout” that used to come on TV? I would lose then gain and do it all over again. I have done almost every diet known to man from the Cabbage Diet and Fen-Phen. I have had my gallbladder removed, a full hysterectomy, and just recently beat breast cancer.

So now I’m here. After extensive research and being against WLS I realized that if I didn’t lose this weight the cancer that I formerly beat has a 50-70% chance of coming back possibly in my colon. If I lose the weight those statistics drop to 15-30%. I’ll take that for $200 Alex. Anyway, I’m here and I have been approved for the lap band by my insurance company. I’m excited and a little scared all at the same time. I’ve heard the war stories from those of you in battle right now….”getting stuck”, “bandster hell”, the dreaded “weight plateau”; all with anticipation. I hope you guys can help me along. I’ve done so much research and I know, I won’t know until I go through it, but any advice would be helpful.

Please and thank you.