Kary Loredo-Welch's Blog

Well hello everyone… just checking in…

Sooo some of you may remember me… some of you may not… this is Kary Loredo
Welch checking in. Today is my 3rd year anniversary of my surgery and I have
been thinking of many of you!! So I thought I’d check in.

For those of you that don’t know me… I started my journey at 400 pounds
exactly and had my surgery 8 months later at 327 pounds. Over the first six
months I continued to lose weight rapidly and lost a total of 175 pounds my
lowest weight being 225 pounds. Then I started drinking alcohol, that not only
spun my life out of control with my behavior I allowed it to derail my food
program and I began putting weight back on.

As an update… yesterday was 2 years that I’ve been sober! I’ve been going to
AA and when I say my name I say “I am an alcoholic/addict” because I am clear my
first addiction in my life was food. My current weight is 265 pounds (literally
going to the scale to weigh and type this). I am sober and feeling healthy
physically.

My struggle has been since surgery and clearly before that mentally. My self
image, my self control, my self will. Day to day life is a struggle and each
challenge seems to create another one but I just continue to do my best and put
one foot in front of the other.

I’ve been lucky physically, once i quit drinking and paying attention again I
leveled off with my weight gain. I wish I could say I was the poster child for
taking my vitamins and what I eat but I’m not. I make better choices than I used
to and am fully aware of what I put into my body but sometimes those choices
aren’t good ones.

When I was 400 pounds I used to have to set my alarm 30 minutes before I needed
to get up so that I could take 4 Aleve, ONLY THEN could I get out of bed because
my knees and back hurt so badly. I don’t have that trouble today. Although I am
3 years older than when I had my surgery I do not have the aches and pains that
I did at 400 pounds and I am grateful.

Sooo for those of you that have gone before me, those of you going through
things now and to those of you thinking about future surgery… I say… as
different as each one of us are in our personalities so is this journey for us
individually. Base your choices and decisions from your heart and put one foot
in front of the other… every day, every minute… just don’t stop moving
forward.

To my old friends… I do miss you… life is difficult and it’s hard to look
some of you in the eye… I am working three jobs and volunteering also so my
schedule is filled with work, stuff and sleep… in that order. Keep keepin’ on
and thank you for your amazing voices that still are in my head on those
difficult days!

Hugs, Kary

Welcome to my blog! If you are new or you are someone that checks in often, I appreciate that you are here! I’d also like to say that for each person the experience of having bypass surgery is different. This is MY experience. Please always check with your own surgeon, nutritionist and listen to what they say is right for YOU.

I’ve said many times it is as simple as lining up 10 different people that have had the same surgery and ask them a simple question such as “Can you eat grapes?”  Because everyone is so completely different you get answers from “Heck no, i get sick right away” all the way to “Oh yeah, I freeze them and can eat them all day!” and every other answer in between.  So remember, if you are on the road to having this surgery your experience is going to be different than mine… take what you can use from my story and leave the rest that doesn’t work for you.

The new posts are at the top, please go to the bottom posting for the start of my journey and read your way up. Feel free to leave a comment or email me directly!  Thanks, Kary

It’s been two years since my surgery and I was just asked “Are you still glad you did it?” My answer… ABSOLUTELY!!! I can move easier, am in less pain, feel better and am more healthy. When I weighed in i was 232 pounds… that’s 168 pounds that I’ve kept off!!! I’ve been able to ride a roller coaster that I couldn’t fit in before. This past week I was able to go to the thrift store and buy a beautiful dress that I felt very sexy in!! I can fit in the chairs in the Theater enjoying my daughter sing on stage. There are soooo many things that I can do now that I couldn’t do at 400 pounds!

Now that is all the good stuff… let me share the bad stuff. I am bummed that I stopped around the 230 mark and didn’t keep going. I started to drink alcohol only 4 months after my surgery and have learned that I cannot do that! The skin bugs me and there is no possible way we can afford for me to get anything ‘fixed’. And I am NOT the poster child for taking my vitamins but I am working on it!!

Well… that’s a quick update for now… I am working on celebrating the good times… dealing with the bad times and staying in the moment! Sometimes is one moment at a time but most of the time it’s one hour or even one day at a time… cause that’s what life is all about!!

It’s been awhile since I’ve checked in… i do a lot of searching on the internet and THAT drives me nuts… that someone will start a blog, be all detailed then just abandons it with no updates. So here I am. Today I vow to set an alarm on my iPhone and be sure to update at least monthly!

What’s new… We had Amelia’s Quincenera in April! She turned 15 and we had a wonderful party for her! She looked like a princess and acted like a princess! She even sang… you can find her song on YouTube and there are more details on her page here.

Hmmm then we were busy with her play. She is in the Drama program at Newark Memorial High School and they did the production of Les Miserables… it was INCREDIBLE! And not just because she was in it… she was in the ensemble and although she went to all the rehersals and worked very hard and I am a very proud mom… the main singers did a wonderful job! I went to every single performance and the last two nights were standing room only!

Now we are ramping up for the Relay For Life in Hayward. We have a team “Croppin Out Cancer” and we are raising money for the American Cancer Society. It’s been a rough year with that terrible disease in my family. We lost my Uncle Jim in November quickly to it, then in January my step-father, Bill was diagnosed with lung cancer and has been going through treatments. Then recently another family member was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer and we were optimistic until last week when we found out it is also in her liver. I HATE this crappy disease and will continue to fight any possible way I can to help raise money to find a cure. Please go to my “Relay For Life” page to learn more about this year’s event.

Weight Loss… hmmmm I’ve leveled off around 225-230 and have stuck at that. I am feeling GREAT! My hips hurt a bit but that is it, my knee pain is gone and I barely take Tylenol as needed.  Since November I’ve been volunteering once a week at the Fremont Kaiser visiting patients that are having bariatric surgery… that has been very helpful!

Alrighty that’s it for now… i just transfered to this new format for my website and need to learn more about it… check back in later this week to see the progress I’ve made on it!

Thanks, Kary

Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were all panicking that our computers were going to shut down because it was the last day of 1999 and NOTHING was going to work at midnight!? Oh how time flies!!

When we look back I hope that most of us see the good things like weddings, babies, new jobs, new opportunities, new friendships, good health and so many more things that make us happy and joyous. But there are also the hard things like death, job loss, breakups, sickness and more. It is the joy that we have each and every day in our life that keeps us going through those hard times. And when we need it we can call on the strength of our friends and family to help carry us through. In time I have learned that there are things that there are some things we have control over that happen to us but most of the things that happen are not controlled but us, the only thing we have control over is how we go through the situation.

For those of you old enough to remember those old movies that we used to watch in school… you know the ones with actual FILM… the wheel in the front and the wheel in the back… a projector… yeah those… hehe. Remember how now and then those would get stuck and there would be that disturbance in the classroom, the loud clicking, the rush to the projector, the lights going on and the groan from the kids! Well imagine each moment as a frame in that film, we are going along in life good moment to good moment to good moment, then all of a sudden we have BAD moment and things get completely “stuck” and out of control! If we can just calmly stop, take a deep breath, rethread the film, reset things and turn the projector back on… then life will return to normal again and go on to enjoy the rest of the movie.

I do hope that this new year brings wonderful things into your life but I also hope that when things that aren’t so wonderful happen you get through them with the help of the people in your life taking you to the next wonderful frame in your movie and so your movie ends with the wonderful line… “and they lived happily ever after”.

Kary

This is a posting that I did on our YahooGroup Fremont Gastric By-pass Support Group Site. The support groups are amazing. There is one bi-monthly for everyone including pre-ops, post-ops and support members, everyone is welcome. They are held the second and fourth Friday of each month in Fremont. Most meeting have no less that 50 people in them, many times there are more people. The Fremont Bariatrics Department does 12 gastric by-pass surgeries a WEEK. They have an incredible team of doctors and support staff. We meet regularly to help answer questions for those going into surgery, and for those that have had the surgery to stay encouraged. There is a second group that meets the first Thursday of the month and it’s for post-ops only that are 6 months or more out. We’ve found that there are things post-ops deal with down that road that they need to talk about amoungst themselves. It’s been a wonderful group and as you can read below VERY HELPFUL. If you’d like more information about the groups please contact me and I’d be happy to tell you more about them.

“We had an incredible meeting for the post-ops on Thursday night and I wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who was there and to Juliette for getting us a place to meet.

We have been talking about the emotional side of eating and we really noticed how much some of us had in common. One of the big ones was the need to be in “control”. This has always been a HUGE issue for me and I am working hard to get a handle on it.

I am 16 months out from my surgery and this has been a huge EMOTIONAL journey for me. I’ve transferred my eating addiction to other addictions and it has hurt me physically as well as mentally since my surgery. It’s exciting to be a part of such an amazing group of people that can share openly their own struggles which helps hold a mirror up for me.

I am an addict and in working on controlling my addictions a couple weeks ago I thought of myself standing on a ‘balance board’, like a board placed on top of a ball. The board could tip at any time, any way and I could turn to food, shopping, alcohol, drugs, etc. There was something missing from my visualization though because I was feeling like a failure for not being good enough to hold my balance, until Thursday night! During the meeting we began talking about co-dependency and someone said “I’ve learned that I don’t have to catch every ball coming at me, that I can let a ball touch the ground once in a while.”.  OH BOY!!!  Now I picture myself standing on my board and trying to catch balls being thrown at me, even reach for some balls that are being thrown to someone else near me. No wonder I’ve lost my balance so many times!!!!

Now, I was soooo pumped from this realization that I came home and told my loving, non addictive husband and his response was… “Why are you standing on a board on a ball, why don’t you just get off the board?” He didn’t get the point and I felt bad about that until I remembered I AM THE ADDICT and being an addict I will always be on the board on the ball. HOWEVER with that help I realized that there are things that I could do to help me keep my balance.

I could stop catching balls that come at me until I am balanced enough and certain that it won’t throw me me off balance. I could get help by putting little supports under my board by going to support groups, reaching out to others for help and finding other things to help my board from tipping. I could strengthen my core by working on myself emotionally, recognizing the things that could set me off balance earlier so that I can correct myself BEFORE going off balance.

This is an amazing incite for myself… almost as good and “I am a Tigger inside an Eeyore suit” and that one helped me decide to have the surgery… so we’ll see where this one takes me. I thought I’d share.

If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading this long drawn out story of mine, have a blessed day and see you at the next meeting!

Kary”

8/25/09 – 230.5 (108.5 lost since surgery / 169.5 total lost)

I had my one year appointment last week. I weighed in at 230.5 down 108.5 pounds since surgery and 169.5 pounds since orientation.

The pain in my knees is gone. I used to have to wake up 30 mins before i wanted to get up to take 2-3 Aleve in order to be able to get up, now there are days I barely take a Tylenol.

When we used to go to the movies we always had to sit in the chairs that the arms went up because I didn’t fit in the cool rocking chairs, now I can sit in those chairs and my daughter can rock all movie!

The skin is not too bad, not as bad as I thought it might be. I do use what I call my “cheaty pants” (girdle) with some outfits to minimize the giggle… but before i couldn’t even get it on.

I save money by doing my own pedicure now because i can reach my toes. When i do get a professional pedicure it’s because i want to, not because i have to.

For the first time in my life, I am not the largest sister of 4 girls. I was the baby and on my first diet at 8 years old. I couldn’t borrow their clothes because I would stretch them out. And growing up I got bigger and bigger and even when my sister started putting on weight, i was always larger. I am flying to Florida (first time in a plane since surgery) and can’t wait to see her.

These are some of the good things. I wanted to share that with everyone… no matter what… i am VERY THANKFUL that I made the decision to have this surgery… i cannot imagine where i would be now with my weight if i hadn’t had this… probably 450 pounds and a heck of a lot more depressed… so i am grateful for each and every day that I am feeling physically good.

Kary