So is Tara Really Having Surgery?

because she ain't said nothing about it in a long time.

Yes, I am still planning on having weight loss surgery. I have a follow up appointment from my endoscopy on the 17th. My paperwork has been submitted to insurance for approval. That could take anywhere from 2-6 weeks. I am guessing I will be approved from the start as I have all my paperwork done correctly and meet all the criteria. If I don't get approval, I will appeal, and then most likely get it.

Gooooood grief, this has taken over a year. The longest year of my life. Not just waiting on surgery. I lost my mom, I finally gave up on trying to conceive another child, my daughter started school, I constantly fight with depression. 38 has not been kind to me. But I have learned that I am strong, that I am loved, that I can do more good than I ever thought possible, and that I am a fighter. Painful lessons to learn, yet learned all the same.

Anyway, looking at probably March.

But what will I do if I'm denied? Probably stay fat forever, or maybe go on a diet. Which essentially means, staying fat forever, because I've been on a diet for 12 years now, and it hasn't done a whole lotta good.

Some people say weight loss surgery is the easy way out. That it's a free ride, and we (fat people) should do the work to lose the weight. I'd like to agree. I wish it were so simple. I wish that morbidly obese people had a better success rate than 2% of losing and maintaining significant weight loss without surgery. I wish that I had the will power to feel hungry all the time and not go nuts. Because you do know, that to lose 140lbs, I would have to be really hungry for a really long time. I'm no mathematician, but I am guessing that I'd have to maintain a diet of like five hundred calories per day for like a year. I wish that exercise actually yielded the results so many claim it does, but the truth is exercise is more about weight maintenance than it is about weight loss. I wish, I wish, I wish.

But I'm down for taking the easy way out right now. The other stuff hasn't worked, and yes I've tried. Maybe I haven't tried hard enough? Maybe, but I've tried as hard as I can.

I used to get so mad at my mom. She was a very brittle diabetic. For years she would have super high and super low blood sugar levels. I constantly berated her for not managing her blood sugar. So many times, I found her just in time. Just in time to force juice down her throat, just in time to catch her before she fell out of her wheelchair and broke a hip, just in time to call the ambulance to administer a glucose shot. This happened all the time. Not once, not twice, but hundreds of times. HUNDREDS. And each time I would tell her she HAD TO DO BETTER. She had to TRY HARDER. And she swore she would. And the next day, same thing. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. OH, and I was so ANGRY. I'd yell, "What are we going to do if you kill yourself??????" "What do I tell Mia?" "Don't you love us????" TRY HARDER DAMNITTTTTTTT!

And then I didn't get there in time.

I found her dead in her wheelchair, from what I am guessing and believe with all my heart, was low blood sugar.

And I want to tell her now, Mom, I'm sorry, I KNOW YOU DID THE BEST YOU COULD. YOU DID TRY HARD ENOUGH. Sometimes no matter how hard you try, you just can't get there. I forgive you. I'm not mad. I know! YOU TRIED.

WE have to realize and accept that someone's best is THEIR best, not our own. No need to judge their best. We need to respect that everyone is doing the best they can. We can offer help and encouragement, but we can't make them be any better, do any better, change.

So remember that for me please. When you see me in all my morbidly obese glory, or later, when I one day get surgery, I really am just doing the best I can. Just like my mom was, and just like you probably are too.

We all are. <3