The Old Alexa

 I am Alexa. I am 20 years old, born on October 6th 1992. I was born in New Jersey but have spent most of my life in Phoenix, Arizona. I was always the biggest student, even in kindergarten. I was the fat kid who pretended it was all ok. I was bullied a lot as a kid and it continued throughout middle school and high school. I was able to express myself later in life through theater and choir. I found my true friends, and true calling in life thanks to theater in school.

I am a theater major at Scottsdale Community College currently, but took this last semester off for my medical problems. I am excited to go back for the spring semester. However, I was always type casted all the time. I was either the fat friend, the grandma, the mom, whatever overweight character was available. It was always frustrating, but I am excited for that part of my life to change.

Before surgery I weight 254 pounds. It is hard to admit my weight and talk about it, because I had such bad self image issues all my life. This is my first time really talking about my true self and the issues before my surgery.

It is hard to look at these pictures, and even to admit my faults, but I am very excited to change. I will be taking a monthly before and after picture as I go through my struggles and successes with post surgery experiences. It is going to be a difficult change in habit, but this is a life change I have taken seriously.

I will try to post as often as possible about my recovery, my first meals, the restrictions, the protocol, and more.

Day 1: You've Been Accepted

I was not expecting the call at 10 A.M. only a few days after I had gotten my tonsils removed. I could barely talk, but, I noticed the number was from Scottsdale, and I was curious. The first thing the lady said was "Congratulations, you have been accepted for your gastric sleeve surgery, would you like to set a date?"
There aren't many words to explain the feeling when you know your life is going to change. We set my date for November 20th of 2012, only 2 weeks away. There was a lot to plan and many appointments I'd have to go to, but all I could do was sit in my dining room and cry of happiness that it was finally happening.
I had waited a year to get that call. And suddenly it was all coming together. I made a few calls, set up some appointments, and made it happen.

I had to stop by the hospital to get an EKG, X-ray, MRI, and a bunch of other random letters I don't really understand. Once I past all of those, they had me go to a pre-op class full of other gastric patients. They told me what I would be expecting, what the process will further look like, what I will be eating, we even discussed emotions and how our body and mind may respond to all of this.
It was a lot to sink in. I still didn't believe it was real. I honestly didn't believe it was real until they got me in the operating room.

The few days before the surgery were long and difficult. Everyone was curious about it and it would be the only thing they wanted to talk about. It was frustrating because I didn't really know the answers to any questions. It just made me anxious and aggravated to get it going and finished.

When Tuesday morning came around, and I realized it was today, I cannot even explain the butterflies taking over my stomach that day. It didn't exactly help that when I got there, my 10 o'clock surgery was rescheduled for 2 o'clock due to complications with the first patient. That really made me feel better...
So I sat around the waiting room for 4 hours, until they finally took me into pre-op. I signed papers, they put my IV in, got me set up. I sat with my family for a little bit, met my surgeon and anesthesiologist, and was sent back.

I still get emotional over it. It has been exactly a week now since the surgery. It's hard to believe such a wild dream of mine came true. It all went so slow, but it happened so fast. I'm a brand new, more beautiful, Alexa.