Happy Birth Day

Today is not the day I was born. Today is the day I came alive.

It has been 365 days, one whole year, since I underwent Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Surgery. An entire year since I said goodbye to the "old me" and sprinted towards the possibility of a new me, a true me.

I get asked a lot of questions about my surgery.

Did it hurt? Yes.

Was it hard? Yep.

Would I do it again? Every single day, over and over again.

I struggled to wake up after surgery. After several hours, I was allowed to leave recovery and go to my hospital room but I still wasn't awake. I wasn't awake, but I was aware. I remember hearing my Mom say "Chelsey, we are all here". I remember my husband saying "Baby wake up". I remember my Mother-in-Law telling my husband to hold my hand and I remember feeling his touch. I so desperately wanted to open my eyes and tell them I was okay, but I just couldn't. Hours later, I remember hearing my nurse tell my husband "Go on home. When she wakes up, I promise I'll tell her you were here and I made you leave to get sleep. She'll be okay.". In the early morning hours, I finally opened my eyes for the first time, and there was my nurse. She said "I sent him home. He really loves you. You are okay."

And then, I started to cry.

Anesthesia always makes me cry. The blunt trauma my body had experienced that day made me cry. (Dang, it hurt!) Being on an oxygen mask and unable to breathe made me cry. But mostly, I cried because I wasn't dead - and I was so glad! I had been told if I didn't change my life and lose weight, I would die very young and sooner rather than later. As I was being wheeled into the OR, I wondered for the first time if my body would be able to survive such a major ordeal. I didn't say anything extraordinary to my family when I told them goodbye; I didn't want to die, but for the first time ever I will admit: I thought that I was going to.

So, I cried because I didn't. Instead of dying, I came alive in a way I had never expected.

It has been one year.

365 days.

I have lost 141.6 pounds.

I have lost pre-diabetes.

I have lost hypertension.

I have lost hypothyroid disease.

I have lost sleep apnea.

I have lost Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.

I have lost acne.

I have lost EIGHTY-THREE (83.0) inches total.

I have gained my life.

I am forever thankful.

Happy Birth Day to me.

Breaking Free

One year ago tonight, I sat in the darkness of my living room as the clock crept towards midnight and I began to write a lifetime's worth of truths. Every single thing I had ever thought about myself, I wrote.

After hitting the save button, that letter went unopened and unread until tonight. For the first time, I reread the words I had written 365 days ago.

My heart is broken.

"In my entire life, there hasn’t been a moment of peace or self-love in perhaps ever. I don’t know what it is like to look in the mirror and feel anything but negativity."

"I carry this weight like shackles .. I have created my own prison from which there is no escaping."

"I am the heaviest I have ever been. The rolls of fat on my back are heavy. My stomach hangs low. When I sleep on my back, I feel suffocated. My hair has fallen out, sleeping on a pillow is painful because of this acne and my body is infested with every symptom of PCOS. I wake up in the middle of the night and my arms & legs are numb. My ankles hurt. Taking a few steps leaves me winded. I am often the only one out of breath in a group setting. I have battled depression for so many years now, I've lost count. These are not easy things to admit, but they are important things because they make me who I am - and I never want to forget the way this feels."

Sweet girl, I am sorry. I am sorry that I tortured and abused you for so many years.  I am sorry that I allowed others to use you like a piece of property, not like the magnificent, strong creature God created you to be. I'm sorry I didn't take even just one chance on you. I didn't invest in you, I didn't defend you, I didn't love you. I'm sorry.

Tomorrow, I will write about everything that August 23rd means to me and the great victory it brings. But tonight? Tonight I'm honoring this girl.

This girl who poured everything into loving others, loving ideas, loving things .. but never once loved herself.

I love you now. I love you enough to say that I am sorry and that we're doing better. We didn't know one year ago that we could do it, but guess what?

We did it.

We broke free.

In Loving Memory: Food Funerals for Days

The weeks between finding out I was approved for weight loss surgery and my surgery date were a disastrous, beautiful mess. I affectionately refer to them as "the best days of my life" I'm sure that I alone stimulated the fast food & restaurant economy in Northeast Kansas during my "farewell tour". I panicked, sure that I would never eat food again, so I visited all my favorites and held funerals in their honor as I said goodbye to the delicious carbs and sugary beverages.

As I waited for surgery, my family threw an engagement party for my mister and me. All the pictures were taken. ALL. I had already gained back the weight I'd lost during my 6 month approval process with the nutritionist, PLUS some. I was the heaviest I'd ever been at our engagement party, but I embraced all the pictures because I knew they would be the last of the pictures in which I looked like that.

A month after our engagement party, my fella threw me a surprise birthday party for my 30th. My surgery was a month away. I'd never had a surprise party thrown in my honor before. I was on Cloud 9! I wouldn't describe it as "floating" though - I was the heaviest I've ever been on the day I turned 30. "Things are going to be different next year", I promised myself. Again - more pictures.

2 weeks before my surgery, we had engagement pictures taken. They were beautiful. I loved the love I saw in those baby blue eyes staring back at me. He loved me so completely, even at my worst. I bought a new outfit for our engagement pictures. My jeans were a size 24W. My shirt was a 4XL. "I will never again by clothes this big." Another promise. I am so glad we still had our engagement pictures done. Do I cringe when I see my body in them? Sometimes. But most of the time, I am thankful for the reminder of where I came from and the reminder that even then, even when I couldn't love myself, I was loved.

August 12, 2017: "Food Funeral Day". It was as fun as it sounds. It was the last day before my "Pre-Op Diet" began. I've never felt more full in my life! Here's a little insight to that day: Small Town Summer Festival, in which I enjoyed BBQ, Funnel Cakes, Watermelon Lemonade and Frozen Cheesecake on a Stick. On the way home, I stopped at Sonic and got a Route 44 Chocolate Coke. That night I enjoyed Henry's Hard Grape Soda and I ordered enough food from a Mexican joint for 4 people. {i know that, because that's how many silverware packets they put in my bag}. It .. was .. Heavenly. I may or may not have even listed to "Taps" as I wished I could bathe in that queso.

I went to bed that night crying, though about what I'm not quite sure. It may have been because I was so full I thought my stomach was going to legit explode. It may have been because the next day would begin a very strict diet for 10 days. Or possibly it was because I had just said goodbye to my best friend - food. The one that was always there for me, never hurt me and never abandoned me. I think it was at that moment that the depth of my addiction had caught up to me. 

No matter - I ate an entire row of Oreos, wiped my tears and fell asleep weighing the heaviest I would ever way for the rest of my life.

My official starting weight isn't known to many people. I've shared it on my {private} Instagram page, but never to "the real world". The number brought me shame. Deep, deep shame. But now? I own it. Every pound I carried with me because of choices I made. I plan to have this number tattooed someday, as a reminder of where I came from and where I'm never going back to. 

Day 1: 309 pounds.

How It Decided Me

3 weeks. That's how long I lasted before I called my surgeon's office to see if they'd heard back from my insurance company. As luck would have it, they had just gotten a response that afternoon.

"I'm so sorry. They said no."

What?? How?! I worked my butt off for this! I proved I was committed. How can they say no?

It turns out that an insurance company gets to say whether or not you're killing yourself too fast or too slow. It turns out, I was killing myself slowly enough to where it would take a while. You know, at least 10 years, before I died because of my weight and so weight loss surgery wasn't "an urgent priority" to them for me. The other problem (oh the irony) was in them forcing me to lose weight for 6 months, my qualifying co-morbidity of hypertension healed itself. So, I was "fine" now. Makes sense, right?

There are no words to describe the complete and total devastation I felt that day. All hope I had felt over the last six months was gone, robbed from me. I could barely breathe. I sobbed in my boyfriend-at-the-time's arms and told him I wanted to die. I knew myself better than anybody on this planet knew me. I knew I would gain the weight back, plus some, if I didn't have the help of this tool. I wasn't capable of losing the weight on my own and without surgery, I knew I would die.

Naturally, I coped with food. I was right - I did gain the weight back. All of it. Plus some.

Thankfully, the story doesn't end there.

My surgeon had one last idea - an off-change, last ditch effort to get the insurance god's to change their minds. One qualifying co-morbidity was sleep apnea. I had absolutely no symptoms of sleep apnea - I didn't snore, I didn't have nasal issues, I breathe fine. There was practically a 0% chance of my having sleep apnea. Still, I made an appointment with the specialist, arranged for a sleep study (in the comfort of my own home - how cool is that?) and had one very interesting night of sleep looking like a robot.

A few days later, my surgeon submitted an appeal to the insurance company with a copy of the results of my sleep study: I had sleep apnea. We were all SHOCKED .. and thankful .. but mostly..just..shocked. It took my breath away .. HA. #BadJoke

So I waited again .. and I waited .. and I waited. I decided I wasn't calling to check for updates. If this was going to happen (and I highly doubted it would), I'd let it come to me. I was done chasing down dreams that ended in disappointment.

On Friday, June 23rd, I got the call: "We did it!" I was approved.

Despite all the odds, despite all the times I'd been told no, despite all the lies I fed myself for days and weeks and months - I thought I'd chosen this for myself, but really - it chose me.

How I Decided: Part 3

It took about 7 seconds worth of conversation with my surgeon before I knew I trusted her. She made constant eye contact with me, which was a rarity at 315 pounds. She made me feel comfortable and safe and brave. She made me feel like a human being - again, a rarity at that point of my life.

1 month into my supervised diet

We talked about my medical history. We talked about my weight loss attempts. We talked about the moment I realized food turned from fuel to a coping mechanism. We talked about everything I wanted for my life - to be able to run and play with my nephews, to experience pregnancy, to not die before I hit 40. 

We talked about the realities of weight loss surgery. In a nut shell, they were:

1. It's not brain surgery. Losing weight will still be hard, still require work and isn't guaranteed.
2. Weight loss surgery will physically alter the size of my stomach, which is the vessel that holds and digests food. It would not resolve my addiction; the emotions I associate with food would still be there.
3. There was a chance that I would take all the steps required of me before surgery and I still wouldn't "get" to have surgery - if that made me want to throw in the towel before it even began, then I wasn't a candidate for surgery.

I said "I'm in." She said "Lets do this."

"Lets". Her, me and a team of other people who all committed to helping me be the best version of myself; a version I hadn't even met once in 30 years.

2 months into my supervised diet

I'm asked often "how can I get insurance to pay for this?!" The sad truth is that a majority of health insurance companies do not cover bariatric treatment, including weight loss surgery. They penalize us us (and can even tell us no!) for not being healthy enough, but they prevent so many from being able to achieve a healthy lifestyle in this way. It's wrong and something I hope to see changed in my lifetime. 

In my story, my insurance company would cover weight loss surgery, if I met a variety of requirements. The most extensive requirement would be that I undergo a physician supervised diet for six months. I needed to prove to the insurance company that I was committed to losing weight and willing to put in the work. Enter Dr. G., a phenomenal nutritionist within my surgeon's office who kick-started this journey for me. I met with her in early October 2016. Everything about Dr. G. made me feel like I was exactly where I was meant to be. She had been a practicing OBGYN, focusing on patients with PCOS-induced infertility. (Oh hey, that's me!) As I told her my own personal story about infertility & loss, she cried.

At the end of my appointment she said "Lets get you healthy and then get you pregnant!"

There's that "lets" again. Team Chelsey added another member. I don't know if I'll ever get to experience pregnancy, but they helped get me healthy and that is something I'll never take for granted!

And so, began my six months. I met with Dr. G. once a month. I began a low carbohydrate/high protein diet. I tracked everything I ate. I began to exercise. Over those six months {which just happened to happen during Halloween, Thanksgiving & Christmas - how fair is THAT?!} I lost 35 pounds. It was the most consistent weight loss I'd experienced in several years.

{on the left} 5 months into my supervised diet

Remember the awesome Patient Coordinator from my last post? She was a busy bee during these 6 months. I had lots of blood work done. I was officially diagnosed with Pre-Diabetes for the first time in my life. My blood sugar was insanely high, my thyroid was out of wack, my blood pressure was stupid. I was very, very unhealthy.

Another insurance requirement was an EKG. That came back clear!

Insurance also required a psychological evaluation. That's right - I had to convince a stranger that I wasn't crazy. Ha! Really, the main objective of the evaluation is to determine why I was a food addict (check!) and make sure I didn't have any tendencies to transfer my addiction to other harmful substances, such as drugs or alcohol, once my current addiction (food) was taken away from me.

I guess I passed the test, because a week later, my surgeon submitted an official request to my insurance company for weight loss surgery.

The wait made me second guess the "not crazy" diagnosis I'd just received.

How I Decided: Part 2

So, they answered.

"I need help", I said. "I need to lose weight and I can't do it without help."

This would be the part of my story where I tell you that I have tried every..single..diet..EVER. South Beach. Atkins. Weight Watchers. HCG (aka starvation). If there was a book, a commercial or a free trial sample, I signed up. I tried it, I succeeded for a few weeks and then, I failed. What weight I'd lose over the course of a few weeks, I'd gain back in days. Over and over, the pattern repeated itself for 15 years.

When I was 19 years old, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. PCOS is a hormonal disorder that effects 1 out of 10 women. There is a lot of literature out there about it, but the gist is: Women with PCOS have a hormonal imbalance which causes a lot of not-fun-symptoms, including infertility. Women with PCOS often produce too much insulin, or the insulin produced doesn't function as it should, which means losing weight with PCOS is darn-near impossible.

"We can help you! You can do this."

The first step, I learned, was to attend a mandatory seminar at the hospital. They are held once a month, and wouldn't you know it - the next meeting was 2 days away. I took it as a sign and I enrolled.

I had a boyfriend, a boyfriend who thought I was smoking hot. We'd never once talked about my weight in the year and a half we'd been together. He never heard me call myself "fat". When he looked at me, he saw the woman he loved - and she was freaking beautiful.

{that's why i married the guy!}

I decided not to tell him my plans for that Saturday. In fact, I told nobody; not even my mom or my sisters or my closest friends. I quietly slipped into a cold auditorium on a Saturday morning anonymously and nobody knew I was there. I fully anticipated that I would chicken out and make a mad dash for the door, but as I found a seat in the very back of the room, I realized that I felt safe.

As I browsed through the packet of paperwork they gave me at the door, I wondered obsessively where I would go for lunch when the seminar was over. It was 8:45 in the morning.

"Good grief, Chelsey. This is EXACTLY why you're here."

I'm not sure if there's a secret code for Weight Loss Seminars where the information given is supposed to stay within those walls. If so, I'm about to spill the beans. Here's what happens:

• A surgeon gives a very dry PowerPoint presentation about various methods through their office to lose weight. There's some diagrams, a lot of abbreviations and statistics. You'll also hear the word "protein" more in 30 minutes than you've ever heard before in your life.
• You'll meet a person or two who has undergone weight loss surgery. In my seminar, they were two elderly patients who had great success after having weight loss surgery. They were very fond of water aerobics.
• If you're me, you'll wonder if going to Chick-Fil-A for a Chicken Sandwich AND a 8-Piece Nugget for lunch is excessive. 
• Then you'll start craving Orange Leaf, which is across the street from Chick-Fil-A. The people at Orange Leaf will never know you were just at Chick-Fil-A.
• Finally, someone with a bit of pep-in-her-step will appear at the podium & catch your attention. She's the Patient Coordinator and she will instantly feel like your best friend. She'll tell you you're brave for being there and to not get discouraged by the 4000 pages of paperwork that you'll have to complete.

And there you have it. I'm more of a self-learner so when I reached my car in the parking garage, I began to read the brochures. Did you know there is more than one type of weight loss surgery? Based on my weight and my Body Mass Index (BMI), along with my health conditions (also called "co-morbidities" - which should terrify you, because it sounds like death. It sounds like death because if you don't treat them, you'll die), I was a good candidate for either Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass (RNY) or Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy (VSG). I was more familiar with RNY (hello, "My 600 Pound Life" on TLC!) and so I put a star next to it.

The paperwork I filled out was, in sorts, an "application". I had to provide my complete medical history, including a lifetime's record of weight, any diet I had tried, the results of that diet and how long I kept the weight off. Once I completed the paperwork, I'd mail it to the surgeon's office, they would review it and 2 weeks later call me if I appeared to be a good candidate for weight loss surgery. I mailed my life-packet on Monday.

On Friday, my phone rang. 

"We believe you would be an excellent candidate for our program! Is there a particular surgeon you would like to meet with?"

Umm ... *frantic google search while on the phone with Peppy-Patient-Coordinator*: ... I told her I didn't care.

I didn't know it then, but God was back at it, saving my life and all. My surgeon is a saint. I got the best.

You know when you have a horrible cold and you're pretty sure it's a sinus infection and you desperately need a Z-Pack or you're going to curl into a hole and die but your doctor can't get you in for like 47 more weeks so you prepare to search for your hole and at the last minute cave and pay $100 to go to the Urgent Care for medicine?

That's what I expected with my Specialty Surgeon. That's not what I got. 

A week later I was face to face with my surgeon. She walked into the examination room, sat down on her wheely-doctor-stool, my life-packet in hand, looked me in the eye and said:

"Is this your handwriting?!?"

{if you know me, you know - my handwriting has been compared to a computer font.}

This was the moment I knew that my surgeon was going to be one of the best things to ever happen to me. 

How I Decided: Part 1

Human beings are curious creatures. If there is something we aren't knowledgeable about, chances are, we want to be. I get asked a lot of questions and I'm happy to answer them! The number one question I get asked? "How did you decide to have weight loss surgery?" Before I can answer that question, however, I must first acknowledge how I got to the point of needing weight loss surgery at all.

Knowing you're morbidly obese is one thing. Seeing yourself that way, as it turns out, is completely different.

I grew up an active kid. I was a competitive athlete from kindergarten through high school graduation. I spent weeknights and summers outside, riding my bike, swimming, playing with the neighborhood kids. We lived in a house with a large driveway and I remember rollerblading around it for hours, imagining I was competing in the Winter Olympics. I proudly wore shorts as a kid, and dare I say it - two piece swimsuits. Life was golden.

I was 11 years old the first time I wondered if I was fat. I wondered it because someone called me it. My best friend and I were playing basketball at recess & I rolled my t-shirt sleeves up and tucked them under the straps of my sports bra. There I was, practicing for my WNBA try-out, and a classmate stopped what they were doing to call me fat. Okay, so they actually called me the "Pillsbury Doughgirl". I"m pretty sure it's the same thing.

{side note: kids these days have no clue who the Pillsbury Doughboy is. Does he have a Wikipedia page?}

{{update: yes, he does.}}

So, I stopped rolling up my sleeves & I prepared to conquer middle school. I had lots of friends, got good grades and I, the Pillsbury Doughgirl, even had the sweetest first boyfriend a gal could have. Life was golden - again.

But ya'll. Middle school is hard. Life is hard, and at the end of the 8th grade, my best friend died. The same best friend who told the classmate on the basketball court to "shut the hell up" when they called me fat. Nothing in my life had ever hurt so bad before. I distinctly remember discovering, just a few weeks after she died, the magical powers eating an entire Totino's Party Pizza had. It numbed the hurt, 370 calories at a time.

And then: high school happened.



This is me on the last day of the 9th grade. Yes, I said the last day. See all my friends in tank tops and sun dresses? I'm the one, front and center, in sweat pants & a hoodie. It was 100 degrees that day, but fat girls don't get to dress for the seasons.

I would spend the next 15 years of my life wishing I could be as "fat" as I thought I was in the 9th grade. I weighed 140 pounds.

Just like middle school, high school is hard - except harder. There are a lot of contributing factors to my weight gain in high school. Bad relationships, family problems, friend drama. Still, I tried my hardest to keep my chip up and be a good person, because it's what is on the inside that counts, right?



This picture was taken during my junior year. This dress was a size 14. I weighed 155 pounds. I cried for an hour straight because i felt so incredibly uncomfortable. All I could see in the mirror was the fat, single girl in a dress, surrounded by friends with dates.

I remember that night I thought, "If I ever hit 175 pounds, I'm going to kill myself."

And then, spring came.

The first day of spring is the very definition of "new", isn't it? Everything comes back to life. The grass turns green, trees grow their leaves, baby animals are born on the farm. It's a beautiful time of rebirth, right?

I began to die on April 17, 2004. If we've been friends for a while, you know my story. I was attacked, the victim of a horrific crime that forever changed me. My attacker confessed while in jail. They wrote a letter, confessing to the crime and begging for my forgiveness. While waiting for the trial to take place, I stuffed my face and my emotions with food. I couldn't fix feeling broken, but feeling full distracted me from it, and so, I ate. I would go to McDonald's and eat an entire meal on my way home from school, giving absolutely no regard to dinner time being an hour away. I would eat then too.

May 25, 2005 my attacker walked free. In the defense attorney's closing statement, they argued that I couldn't have been attacked because "she is fatter than my client". And so, despite a confession, despite an apology, despite the truth - they walked. I remember exiting the court room, as the District Attorney rushed my parents & I onto an elevator, my attacker made eye contact with me .. and winked.

The summer before I left for college would be spent hiding in my bedroom. My car was vandalized twice in one week. I no longer felt safe and I wasn't sure who I could trust anymore. But food? It never let me down.

There was no longer any question in my mind: I was fat. Being fat meant that the worst thing to ever happen to me was "allowed"; it was my fault. And if nobody could protect me, not even the law, because of my weight, then I would turn being fat into an armor. I ate and I ate and I ate.

When I left for college, I weighed 200 pounds and I remember thinking, "If I ever hit 225 pounds, I'll kill myself."

It's hard to talk about that part of my life, but I believe it's an important part of my story. As I'll talk about more in the days to come, part of the "journey" towards weight loss surgery is finding your "why" - why do I have an issue with food? How did I become a food addict? Was there a turning point in my life? This was my turning point. Pretending it didn't happen doesn't make my "why" go away. It makes my "why" worse. Like any addiction, acknowledging ownership is a huge step. My life spiraled out of control before it even got started, and I turned to food for comfort.

Look, a lot of life happened between then and now; a lot of hard times and a lot of good times. If I was sad, food made it better. If I was happy, I celebrated with food. Cooking food for others was how I showed I loved them. Cooking food for myself how was how I loved myself. Food = Happy.

Before I knew it, I was 10 months from turning 30 years old and I weighed 309 pounds. I hadn't killed myself yet .. but I was slowly working on it.

In September of 2016, I was studying in my car for a certification test. I had reached for my phone on the passenger side seat and took an accidental selfie that would change my life. I no longer recognized the face of the person the camera had captured & I instantly lost it. Sitting in my car, bawling, I googled "Weight Loss Surgery". The person who would soon become my surgeon was the first result and I hit "Call". It was 6:30 in the evening, but I'd hit my breaking point and planned to leave a voicemail, a desperate plea for help.

Except they answered. At night. And I cried some more, because already, God was saving my life.

That was the moment I stopped killing myself.

Dive On In

There is a list I store on my phone that one of my best pals Amy & I created in the weeks leading up to my surgery date: "Why I Wanna Lose Weight". Many of those things now have a green check mark beside them (wear shorts in the summer, not have anxiety about fitting in a seat on a plane, cross my legs) but one of the reasons why, perhaps one of my biggest reasons, finally earned it's green check mark this past weekend:

Be the best Aunt I can be.

My family surprised my Grandparents with a party this weekend at the lake. You see, they both turn 75 years old this summer (and are my heroes!). For the first time in my life, I walked around in a 2-piece swim suit (without a cover-up) like I didn't care, because I didn't! That in itself was a miracle. But then, from a large, inflatable ducky came the sweetest little voice:

"Pleaseeeeee, Aunt Chelsey?! Please, please, pleaseeeeeee?!"

Cayden, my 5 year old nephew, wanted his Aunt Chelsey to jump off the incredibly-high, incredibly-terrifying high-dive. "No way, Cayden. Absolutely not!"

"Nooooo! PLEASE!!!!"

This time it was JaColby, my 6 year old nephew, begging me to get my butt out of the water and plummet to my death; errr, gracefully dive into the unknown depths of Lake Wabaunsee from what I was certain to be approximately 100,000 feet up in the air.

Somehow, I was able to tune out their begging for a moment of self-talk: "This is why you lost this weight, Chelsey. No more sidelines. Conquer your fears. Jump off the stupid board. What's the worst that could happen?" {answer: i could die. HA!}

That pep talk continued as I pulled myself out of the lake, made the walk to the high-dive, climbed up the stairs, prayed to Jesus and tried to talk myself out of it. There's only one thing that terrifies me more than heights, and that is drowning. But it was too late - chants of "Chelsey! Chelsey!" echoed throughout the cove and below, were two wide-eyed little boys who were so excited that their Aunt Chelsey was about to do a trick.

And so, I closed my eyes. I said out loud "This is why."

And I jumped.

When I resurfaced, I had tears in my eyes. I was those little dude's hero. They were so proud of their Aunt Chelsey! At breakfast the next morning, Cayden said to me "Remember when you jumped real high into the lake? That was the BEST part!!" 

A year ago, even 15 years ago, you would have found me on the sidelines. I wasn't taking risks. I wasn't making memories. I was barely living.

I will remember Saturday's Jump for the rest of my life. I left the old me on that diving board, and resurfaced as not the "new" me, but the REAL me.

Check, check - complete.

Let's Try This Again

I first began to blog as a senior in high school, before all the cool kids. I mean that literally, as I remember "the cool kids" bullying me one day in Computer Technology when they caught me writing on my blog. They said I didn't have any "real life friends" so I had to make fake friends on the Internet. Jokes on them - nearly 15 years later and blogging is a paid gig for the lucky ones.

They were wrong, anyway; I just liked to write. {the online friendships were an unexpected bonus.}

I've always been an open book & so my blogging continued through much of my twenties. I didn't have many secrets. In 2015, I began to crave secrecy. So, the blogging stopped & I slowly became present in my own life for the first time. 

The life I live now is so very different from any of the lives I've lived before. For several years, my friends have encouraged me to write again; it wasn't until recently that I felt like I had something to say.

It has been almost one year since I underwent Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Surgery. Naturally, curiosity follows me everywhere I go. The ones who know their questions, ask them. More often than not, I meet people who don't know what to ask, but they just want to listen. 

I don't know what shape this blog will take. I know so many are curious as to how I decided to have weight loss surgery, but the truth is, I have an entire lifetime of moments, decisions and actions that led me to August 23, 2017. 

So, if you're willing to go along for the ride, let's figure it out together!