After five doctors, I fired my health-care service (Kaiser) and switched to a diagnostician to find out why, no matter what I did, I gained weight and felt awful.

He said, "of course you do. Estrogen interacts with the thyroid and visa versa" and they "must be balanced". He then drew charts and graphs on the sheet and explained the chemical interaction.

Halleluyah - a doctor who knows what he is talking about!

He ordered blood tests. Took the medication down in stages. And changed the vitamins I was taking. I am iron-deficient. It's why I sleep. (I had previously suggested this to others doctors but they said no, I was not.)

What do I take? 1,000 E, 1,500 Calcium, Centrum Silver (calcium is partly in there plus add a few pills), 325mg iron tablets - the red ones - with orange juice (required for the right chemical reaction), and I add a Myadec multi to that when I can find them.

It has taken 6 months, my thyroid is now .125 and my estrogen is .925. I am not gaining. I am slowly going backwards. I still will crash on the couch when tired. But then. I work 9hrs and commute 3hrs in heavy traffic every day so I guess I can justify that.

I helped this out with $6,000 worth of liposuction - the whole back and thighs. It removed 2 gallons of fat - 6lbs (or, $1,000 per pound!) and I am still draining fluid out of the system - they pump in an equal amount of fluid. It will take a year to heal - but I can get into size 16 and soon size 14 jeans. I always wore 12s. If my waist were down, I could probably get into them now.

This plastic surgeon explained why, when I had the other hernia repair done, I had lost my waistline - seems they did not take the repair up high enough and the top part popped open. My stomach is hanging through the muscle wall. 16 years of indigestion explained in five minutes. I now need to be sewn up from the navel to the bra line - and this time they have to put webbing in to keep it from ever ripping open again. Of course, they will do liposuction at the waist when they do this. He did suggest I get the weight stable first - you can't gain or lose after you have this repair since the webbing is not elastic.

He also suggested that it would be better to get the breasts down too before having them put back where they belong. Less work and easier recovery. Which means that I still look like I can breast-feed twins. Estrogen causes breast tissue to grow.

Cute if you are too small. I had thought the babies had left me just right.

So now I have Dr. DeBakey's diet book - "The Living Heart - Brand Name Shopper's Guide" - from my new internist - have been told I can now eat 1400 calories a day and lose weight - and am trying to survive holiday cooking. We do turkey with salad. One pie. One or two batches of cookies. Avoid parties. Work in the yard. Walk for an hour at lunchtime.

There is only one drawback. My "libido" has returned. (Time to locate Fabio again!)

And my 16 year old son has been introduced to PMS!