Laura's story

I realized I was watching my family live instead of living with them. ~Laura

I have fought my weight for years and have been on most diets known to man. The program I previously used to lose weight after the birth of my son did not work after the birth of my daughter. I think I kind of gave up trying after that.

I had some friends who had entered the bypass program at Park Nicollet Bariatric Surgery Center, but I was not to the point where I could see myself having bypass surgery. Then, we went to a local amusement park.
It is a place I have loved to go, but haven’t been to for years.

From the very beginning of the day, I did not fit onto many of the rides without considerable contortion. Then, we went on a ride that had a large harness that comes down over your head to secure you in place. The attendant had to push her weight down on the harness to get it to lock in place. I avoided the rides the rest of the day, pretending to have an upset stomach. I sat on the outside of each ride and watched my family go on the rides. I watched the people walking by assessing each of them for their size and mentally picturing them on the rides where I had not fit.

I realized I was watching my family live instead of living with them. The very next day on the way home from work, I heard a radio ad for Park Nicollet Bariatric Surgery Center. They mentioned amusement parks in the ad. I got on my computer when I got home to review the information online. In tears I talked to my husband about what I wanted to do, and got his full support. The next day, I called to sign up for the next information session.

I entered the program back in November of 2007. By the time I had surgery in June of 2008, I had dropped 34 pounds. I have lost 36 pounds since having the surgery almost two months ago.

Last week after a long day at work, I told my husband to wait for me to finish changing so I could go on a bike ride with him. We used to go biking together quite a bit, but I had not been on my bike for years. We went for an hour-and-a-half ride. He was thrilled to have that time together again. He loves to bike and mentioned numerous times how glad he was that I had joined him. We got home, had dinner, and then I made him come with me to walk our dogs that night. Life is good!

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