Deciding to have weight loss surgery is never an easy option, it's certainly not something that you just decide to do on a whim.  You don't just wake up one morning and decide that you are going to go through with it, it's a culmination of years of struggling and trying and failing, years of ridicule and isolation and the realization that if you don't do something soon, your life is going to slip before you.

I first began to get overweight in my early teenage years and it has continued until this day.  I am now twenty two, married to my wonderful husband, I guess my life should feel pretty much complete right about now.  But it doesn't.  My weight makes me the point of ridicule whenever we leave the house.  All I see when I'm out is the critical glare from the public, I hear the loudly whispered insults behind peoples hands and all I feel is despair.  I don't want my husband to have to go through this, I don't want him to hear these things, most of all I don't want to embarrass him.  I can hear him in my head right now telling me not to be silly, that he would never be embarrassed of me, but the truth is that it must get wearing for him.  There must be times where he longs for an outing to be a straightforward affair.  When we are out I slink from shadow to shadow in order to hide myself from the world, all I want to do is blend in with everyone else.  I have suffered from crippling depression for years, a good portion of it is due to the way people treat me.  A person can only take so much abuse before it starts to destroy the soul.

Three months ago I made the big decision to be referred by my GP to a bariatric surgeon with the hope of being able to have weight loss surgery.  Making that appointment with my GP was one of the most terrifying things I've ever done.  Thoughts swirled in my mind, was he going to laugh at me, was he going to insult me?  Several times in the days leading up to my appointment I thought about cancelling it, I couldn't imagine me being able to get the words out in front of him.  In the end I had absolutely nothing to be worried about.  I explained my situation to him, listed all of the methods I had tried to lose weight and explained how it affected my day to day life and myself emotionally.  He was truly caring and never once did I feel unwelcome.  As I left the doctor's office I felt a release of some kind, this was the beginning of everything.