My Golden Egg

When does a child become a grown up in the mothers eyes... I don't think they ever do personally.

My banded son is my golden egg...everyone knows it. He has a special place in my hear that will never change. He is my rock, my fellow Gemini and I don't want him to grow up EVER, but damn it he keeps growing...and I mean that literally since he's 6'4" .

I have watched him gain weight throughout the years and have felt total guilt for it. With my own bad eating habits it was hard to change and I know he was also trying to get comfort. I understand it, as I have been there. Going through a divorce and moving to a different state when you are 5 years old was tough.... We ate our sorrow away together and it just is what it is at this point. We talked about it and we both get it but you still do it and we don't judge for it. It is who we are.

When my husband and I started the process of getting band approval I extended the offer to him. I knew this would be a hard decision for him being a teenager and not really knowing what to expect... At first he said no way and of course I tried to persuade him to do it. He decided to go for it... I think he was just going along with the other two of us and didn't really think about it. As we went through the motions and got approved he did all his stuff and we had our dates scheduled... His date happened to be first and exactly one week before me and my hubby.

Let me tell you how the guilt set in once everything was a done deal... I kept telling him if you don't want to do this I wouldn't blame you and to make sure at any moment if you change your mind to just tell me and we will put the brakes on the operations... He never changed his mind and started looking forward to his new life.

I totally felt like I pressured him into the operation, what if something happened on the operating table, what if there were complications afterwords...how was he going to be able to live a normal teenager life all the crap that went through my head was amazing... He was so young to be doing something so life changing and I knew he really didn't research it... Just went by the things I told him.

On the flip side of that coin...one week before surgery he was 390. So he already wasn't living a normal teenage life. He was already headed for complications in his health and having been overweight most of my life, I wish I could have had an opportunity like this when I was 19 and didn't waste so much time being overweight. When your weight gets that high, it is almost impossible at that point. It is so out of control and I knew it was going to only go higher...

Well surgery day came, he breezed through the operation...I do have to tell you this... It was almost 19 years to the date from his first surgery at three weeks old and this surgery. He was born with a little hernia down in his groin area that they had to fix.... Nothing major just a little fix it thing but when you hand your three week baby over to a surgery team, that is tough and it doesn't matter how simple it is... So here we are 19 years later and I am handing my baby over to a surgery team again... Still just has hard except this time I wasn't nursing and my shirt was not soaked with breast milk by the time he came to recovery! And his dad was on stand by via cell phone and not sitting next to me. That was weird how much I wanted his dad with me. That is another story and we are now is a good place but that has taken many many years to get there.

Now the next phase of guilt comes in... Your child is wheeled into his room, he is so out of it and in pain. I am looking at this kid and realizing this pain was elective and I did this to him... I cried the whole way home that night. That was June 11th

Fast forward to today... He has lost almost 50 pounds in 4 months and couldn't be happier that he did this. Thank goodness he has a great group of friends (only one of them knows about his surgery) so he did and does have a great life at his age... He is so stoked about losing his weight, he feels great about himself, we exercise together and we are so close... We always have been and going through this together has just sealed the deal with what we can talk about which has always been ANYTHING, but it is just different now.

I guess this is just another thing the two of us have gone through together. Again, which is why he is my golden egg! And it helps that he is always making me laugh!