How I got here

When I was a kid, my mother called me her Biafra child. I was short and reed thin. My mother always said she was afraid a strong wind would lift me up and carry me away. That all changed after puberty. At 11 years old I shot up 5 inches to my current height of 5 feet 7 inches and filled out in all the ways that girls do, just much earlier. I was the tallest in my class, taller even than the boys, and the only girl with boobs. I continued to grow not up but out. I thought that I was fat since I wasn't stick thin like all the other girls my age. Looking back at pictures now I wish I could have seen myself as I was, healthy from running around, and not fat at all.
Now that I'm 35 I think of myself as a little overweight, but when I look in the mirror, that little turns into a lot. I'm still 5'7", but now instead of weighing 125, I weight 190. I weighed myself today and actually was happy that it was at 190 and not still hovering at 193. For the past year and a half I've been horizontal 90 % of the time. And not in a good way. I herniated a disc last February and have been trying to climb off the couch ever since. It was a bad enough herniation that I couldn't walk, couldn't pee, and couldn't sit. After 5 days in the hospital for pain management I was released. I went the conservative route and tried physical therapy along with steroid epidurals for pain management but after 5 months the pain was still so severe that I was referred to a back surgeon, Dr. James Farmer at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. Hands down the best hospital I've ever been to. And my Doc rocked. I have a celtic knot on my lower back and they had to cut into it. When they were done, they put it back together perfectly. I had a laminectomy, which is when the remove part of a vertebra to get at the offending disc and then a micro-discectomy of L-4 , L-5. After more rehab, at then end of the year, I was physically able to enjoy my Wedding to the greatest guy in the world. Not a bad ending to a crap-ass year. We went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. About 15 days away from my one year anniversary of the original herniation, I re-herniated...on my honeymoon. Now here I am six months later after epidural's and PT, I've decided not to have surgery again. First, the herniation is much smaller a tenth of the size of the original wopper, and second, I don't want to have surgery unless absolutely necessary.
I started acupuncture about a month ago and those little needles have been really helping keep the pain at bay. So much so that I'm getting up off the couch and starting to work on getting stronger and losing weight. My goal, to lose 50 lbs. This blog will be my diary of how I do. Day by day.