I was foolish enough to think I could have the surgery and NOT have it cause a relapse or trigger my ED “voices,” as I think of them… I figured, I’m prepared. I know what I’m doing. I’ve got a great support system. I can handle this.

Fast forward a year and I’m still struggling to find the right words to describe how messed up my head is as a result… and of course, I am still fat. Not a little bit fat. Really fat.

Now, I personally always expected to still be really fat, and I laughed in the face of the surgeon who told me, at 514 lbs, that he thought he could get me down to 240 (as if he had anything to do with it after he cut out 80% of my stomach — I only ever saw him in passing in the hall the day after my surgery, and never again, even at my post-op follow-ups).

On the day of my surgery, he had amended that to 300 lbs and I still thought he was delusional.

Suffice it to say, after a year I am not even close to 300 lbs. I didn’t expect to be, and that part of it isn’t the issue. But I think of the people who go into it having been given that kind of “hope,” sold those delusions of grandeur. And my heart aches for them, especially knowing what I do now, having made that choice and having lived with the consequences.