Presurgery story

I've been overweight my whole life.  I started putting weight on when I was around 10 years old.  I broke my foot and found it was much easier to sit and watch tv than go out and play with friends.  When I graduated from high school, I weighed over 250 pounds.  When I met and married my husband, I weighted over 300 pounds.  I joined a gym and was determined to lose some weight, so I worked out every day for an hour; five days a week.  I kept up my routine for 2 months, at which point I stopped because I felt tired and sick constantly.  I had been living with my husband for over 2 years at this point and we had not been using any birth control, so pregnancy was not even a thought until the doctor said the test came back positive.  In February 2005, I had my beautiful daughter and at this time I weighed 360 pounds.  In 2006, I joined weight watchers because once again I was determined to lose weight.  I weighed in every week for 2 months, and stuck very strictly to the weight watcher diet.  I lost 20 pounds and was feeling great, but couldn't keep this up.  The holidays hit and I kept cheating on my diet.  I ended up gaining back every pound and more.  When I was 29 my daughter was in kindergarten and I just couldn't keep up with her.  I didn't have any energy to go do anything with her, not even to go to her school carnival.  My knees hurt, my back ached, my hips were sore, and it was all I could do to work a full 40 hour week job.  It was time to look into a weight loss surgery, and I went to several seminars.  I found out that my insurance would not cover any of the surgeries, so I attempted to get a loan to cover the cost.  There was not a bank that would take the risk, as my credit was poor.  I even tried to get my dad to cosign, and was able to get them to approve $5,000.  I had $5,000 to put down as a down payment, and this was not even enough for the lowest priced surgery, the Lap-Band surgery ($12,000).  I was devastated.  I took the $5000 I had saved up, purchased an elliptical machine and was determined to start exercising again.  I weighed 420 pounds, and getting on an elliptical machine was torture for me.  I started at one minute and worked my way up to 20 minutes a day.  I started having more health problems.  My blood pressure kept rising, even though no doctor was diagnosing me with hypertension.  I refused to get my blood sugar tested for fear of having diabetes.  I also started bleeding heavily with my menses cycle.  My OB/GYN told me that I could take out the lining of my uterus to stop the bleeding, but I wasn't ready to give up on more kids.  I had one doctor tell me that I was the healthiest overweight person he's ever met.  He then told me that in ten years, I would be the most unhealthy person due to my weight.  For about 6 months I did 20 minutes on my elliptical machine, and only showed 10 pounds worth of difference on the scale.