The Ugly Me.

First of all I want to say that I am very grateful for all of the compliments, words of encouragement and support that I get from so many people.  I would also like to explain something to help people better understand me.  If you have ever complimented me, I hope I have accepted it humbly and graciousely.  If I have not, it is not because I do not appreciate the amazingly kind words, it is simply because I truly do not know how to accept so much praise.  I have never really seen myself as "beautiful" or even "pretty."   Growing up, I did not receive positive attention and sometimes find it hard to believe that people see me differently than I see myself.  I know I have self esteem issues, and I am trying to work on it, but it is very difficult.  When I look in the mirror, I see the person I have always seen.  The different reflections I have seen over the years all balled into one.  I see the scrawny, undernourished and neglected little girl that never had clean clothes or brushed hair.  I see the 12 year old girl  that had to work under the table at a clothing store for 4 hours each day after school to make enough money to buy dinner each night and wash the one pair of jeans I had at the laundry mat twice a week.  I see the molested 13 year old that fled to Arizona hoping for a better chance at life.  I see the same teenager eating incesantly because for once in her life there was food to be had and fear that it would disappear.  I see the 14, 15, 16...etc year old gaining and gaining, using food as a comforter to all her insecurities, always fearing rejection and judgement, knowing food will never leave me alone or stranded.  I see the 336 lb woman I became and I see a broken person.  I see all my flaws in my reflection, all the hurt and pain.  I feel amazing when someone compliments me, and want to believe with all of my heart that they truly mean it, but then I look in the mirror and I see me.  The difference is that now, food is no longer an option when I need a constant companion.  I have lost my best friend and have to try to compensate in other ways.  I try to be giving to people with all the love in my heart,  and try to spend as much time with the people I enjoy.  When doing this I feel the void inside gets a little smaller.  This is what is in my head and my heart.  It is going to be a long path of recovery and I know I will get there.  Thank you for being there for me.  Love to all who love me!

5 months and 6 days

It has been 5 months and 1 week since my life was able to truly begin.  It is amazing to me how different I feel.  When you are thin or at a somewhat healthy weight, there are so many things you take for granted.  Fat kids have to endure so many things that unless you ARE a fat kid, you truly could never understand.  Here are some examples of fat kid syndrome- (Thank you Mary for the BS {Before Surgery}  and AS {After Surgery} examples-here are a few of my own):

BS-Food was my ultimate best friend.  I had a good day, I had a bad day, Someone said something nice to me, someone pissed me off or simply because the sky is blue, food was my go to friend for it all.

AS-Food is for when I am hungry.  I have amazing PEOPLE in my life that I want to spend my life with, and now that food has lost it's control over me, I actually have a life to live.

BS-Sitting in a booth terrified me.  There is nothing fun or rewarding about going out to eat and having to sit with a table crammed into your belly.  I would always request a table with chairs instead, and would avoid places that primarily had booths.  Then as in the above statement, I would want to gorge even more to feel better about the whole booth thing.  A vey vicious cycle indeed.

AS-I can now comfortably sit anywhere I want!!!!

BS-I could barely find clothes that fit, and forget about shopping in a regular store, nope, fat people stores were where I could shop.  I don't call them fat people stores to offend, that is simply what I called them because as a fat kid, that was the only place I could shop.  The problem with these stores is that most of the clothes that I could buy were a bit old for the look I always wanted.  Not that anything I wore looked good.  Once you reach a certain size everything no matter how cute you may think it is, becomes tent like when you are over 300 pounds.  The prices were rediculous, too.  $45 for a T-Shirt, now I have overspent so lets go out to eat to feel better-And can I just say, why in the heck do they advertise their fat clothes on a size 3 model?  I never got that one....

AS-I have a pair of Baby Phat capris that I am totally comfortable in!  I can shop at a few more stores and find clothes that really fit and that actually look cute now!  No more tents for me!  I can only imagine what it will be like when I can shop at any store-watch out shoppers, I will be ruthless for a good sale!

BS-As soon as we decided as a family to go on a vacation, I would map out restaurants in the area that we just had to go to and look up their menu's to see what I wanted to eat-months before the trip.  Forget everything else, let's just spend our vacation eating!

AS-I map out places to go see and tourist attractions for my family to enjoy.  I can care less where to eat now.  I know I can eat anywhere because all restaurants have oatmeal-which I eat plain now, veggies, a vegetarian soup or some kind of fish. 

BS-Let's elaborate on the whole oatmeal thing.  I was so addicted to sugar.  I would eat at least 2 candy bars a day, drink 2-3 slushy's a day, drink soda as my primary beverage, snack on chips, fast food or whatever I was in the mood for on top of my 3 ginormous meals!  I could go to Subway and eat an entire foot long, chips, 2 cookies and a large soda no problem!  Now, I go to subway and can eat a scoop of their tuna.  Going back to sugar-if you had given me a bowl of oatmeal without sugar I would have thrown it back at you.  Now I find it quite delicious and it has become a breakfast of choice.

AS-Sugar is a complete no-no.  It does things to me that are just down right mean.  Imagine feeling like you have been punched in the face, kicked in the stomach, have a head ache, your tongue feels swolen and you are light headed, all while feeling like you have the worst case of the flu of your life.  This is called dumping syndrome and it is pure hell.  The 45 minutes of this hell-which is about how long it lasts-is not worth the 1 or 2 bites of something bad for me.  Now I find fruit to be so much tastier.

These are just a few insights to what my life was and what it is now becoming.  I am in no way near to the end of this journey nor am even close to the healthy weight I am hoping to reach, but I am absolutely HEALTHIER!  Thank you to everyone who has been supportive to me in this life change thus far.  I am so fortunate to have real friends in my life that have proven that food -the way I chose to eat it, was not my best friend but my enemy.  I am a Foodie as everyone knows, but my relationship with food has drastically changed.  I can still enjoy it, but in very different ways. 

2 months, 1 week and 1 day post-op

Today is 2 months, 1 week and 1 day post-op.  I know I haven't posted in a while but with the fire chaos, changing jobs and well, everyday life, things have been a little hectic.  So what is new?  Well, I started working out at the gym again yesterday and it felt AMAZING!  I weighed myself this morning and I am down 63 lbs!  As a reward to hitting the 60 lb mark, I went to Show Low with a girlfriend of mine and bought myself a garnet and diamond accent bracelet, bought 2 new shirts and got a pedicure.  The bracelet was a treat because 2 months ago, I know it would never have fit my wrist!  The only major issues I have encountered are primarily my fault.  I tried to eat a little ice cream and it made me terribly sick.  It was less than 1/4 cup worth.  I felt like I had been punched in the stomach, my head hurt, I got cold sweats and I wanted to throw up all at once.  This lasted about 30 minutes and was absolutely NOT worth the 5 minutes I spent eating the ice cream!  I hope I never make that mistake again.  The other issues are primarily from either not chewing my food enough or eating something that my body has a hard time digesting, both resulting in food getting "stuck" and my immediate regurgitation.  I have found chicken to be one of the strongest repeat offenders, so now I pretty much try not to eat it.  I quit eating both pork and beef 6 months before the surgery which I am glad for now as I can only imagine the trouble they would give me.  All in all though, I feel great!  I am so glad for the chance to have gotten this surgery.  I am so lucky that it was covered 100%!  My life is changing so much and I love every bit of it!

The New Me!

Okay, so I am now 4 days post-op and down 4 lbs from my date of operation weight and 11 lbs from my 1 week pre op/pre liquid diet weight.  I am averaging about a 1 lb per day weight loss.  I have to admit, It has been a roller coaster ride thus far.  The first day absolutely was terrible.  Let me preface this by saying that it started out with a text message from Christina whom I will mention more later in this blog.  She texted me at about 6am to tell me she was thinking about me and to wish me luck.  "She's the best friend I ever had, and I love her...."  The surgery was postponed an hour as my Dr. had an impromptu meeting to attend ...?  The the surgery was underway by 8:30am.  Waking up from the surgery, I was in an immense amount of pain.  The only words I could even say at that point-and believe you me I said it over and again-was "It hurts."  Once I was connected to the morphine pump and got some of it built up in my system, it was much more bearable.  Chris came back to the hospital and stayed with me for about 2 hours then headed home.  My Grandpa arrived shortly after and stayed with me in my morphine stupor for about 2 1/2 hours.  I was so out of it, I would slip in and out of consciousness mid sentence without even realizing I had slipped under again.  He was so understanding.  It was nice to not be alone.  It was about an hour after he got there that the nausea set in.  Every time I would get out of bed to use the restroom, I was hit with an overwhelming wave of it.  It was as bad as morning sickness, only when my body tried to purge whatever was making me feel sick, nothing came out as I was completely empty.  It was followed each time with a case of the most painful hick-ups you could imagine. Now remember, I have 6 abdominal incisions and my insides have all just been surgically rearranged, so dry-heaving was no walk in the park.  They finally gave me some Zofran after about 5 episodes of this.  Day 2 was much better.  Still a lot of pain and some of the nausea, but not to the extent of the day before.  I had 3 visitors-my longtime best girlfriend, Christina arrived with a beautiful card and Tulip plant with 3 blooming pink tulips.  She is my "Idgie."  She provided some well needed comic relief as she always knows just what to say to make me feel better.  Then came my longest high school friend, and truly one of my soul mates, Mike.  He came in bearing the best hug I had gotten in a while, also well needed at the moment, and stayed for about 5 hours visiting with me.  The day ended with Justin-the boy I went to prom with, but have always been too good of friends with to ever be more than friends.    I was just getting the handle on the morphine pump when they d/c'd it and gave me liquid vicodin....bleh!  Each day since has proven to be easier than the last and I would not change getting this surgery for anything.  I am sticking to my decision-as if I had a choice now-but I am also happy with my decision.  More to come later.

This is it!

Well, the day has finally arrived.  It is 4:40am and we will be leaving the hotel in about 20 minutes to go to the hospital.  Today is the day my life changes.  Today is the day my new life begins!  See you all on the other side!

Almost there!

Ok, well, 24 hours from now I will be in pre-op prep.  I am scheduled to check in at 5:30am and the surgery is set to begin at 7:30am.  It should take 60-90 minutes.  Once done, I will be in recovery for 4-6 hours and then if everything is good, they will put me in my room.  They will let me sleep for 4 hours in order to let the anesthesia work its way clear of my body and then they make me walk.  The nurses get you up every hour, on the hour for basically the next 2 days.  I will also be using a spirometer 10 times an hour, every waking hour.  The walking is to help from getting any clots and the spirometer is to help to keep from getting pneumonia.  I am set to be in the hospital for 2-3 days, depending on my recovery.  The day of surgery, my 1st meal post op will be a medicine cup of broth and a medicine cup of jello.  This will be a full meal for me, and I am totally ok with that.  For the 3 weeks to follow, I will be on a full liquid diet, which includes Cream of Wheat, of all things...lol.  For the 3 weeks following that I will be on a soft food diet.  If I can mash it with a fork, I can have it, but again, only about 2 tablespoons full will do.  At 6 weeks post op, I will be able to introduce regular foods back in.  I have been told it will be hit or miss for a while, as both my tastes and tollerance will change.  Foods that I could eat before may make me super sick after,  I also have to take all bites I eat to be no larger than a fingernail, and then must chew it a minimum of 20 times, even jello.  I am never to drink from a straw again, no cabonated beverages, which is ok as I quit soda over a year ago, basically nothing with white sugar and a minimal amount of fresh fruits due to sugar content.  No white starches.  There a lot of other restrictions, but it will be well worth it.  So today is 1 day pre-op.  Today will be interesting to say the least,  At 7am, I will begin my cleansing.  I will take 4 tablets of opti-cleanse with 8 oz of water every 15 minutes for the 1st 20 pills, basically for 1 hour and 15 minutes or 5 times.  Then I wait for it to work.  Once it has done its job and my tummy settles a bit, hopefully around 1pm, we will drive to Phoenix and check into our hotel.  7 pm begins round 2.  I will repeat the 7am routine, but only 4 times this round.  Then once my insides are completely empty, I will have to take a shower and wash with special cleansing soap, to be repeated tomorrow morning before going to the hospital.  And that my friends is it.  I am ready.  I am excited.  I appreciate everyones happy thoughts, well wishes and prayers through these past couple of months and simply ask that you continue sending them my way over the next few days.  Love to all!

Drinking Soda-Very Interesting!

Let me preface this by saying that I quit drinking Soda in January, 2010.  I remember drinking some sort of soda-usually Coke, since I can remember.  As a young child it was a staple in my house-sadly my parents made sure we had Coca Cola on hand pretty much all of the time, but Milk on the other hand, we could go without....  As a teenager, I would happily enjoy a bottomless cup -usually a "suicide," for those of you unfamiliar with this, it is where you put equal parts of each soda into your cup until it is full.  This bottomless delight was available for a mere $0.55 cents during both breakfast and lunch mind you-and yes I took advantage of that, every day, 5 days a week, for 4 years).  We used it in our pubescence to stay up all night during slumber parties(Mountain Dew runs to Circle K at 2 am were a blast)!  Yes, I have very fond memories of this sugary elixir.  Now fast forward to my present non soda drinking status.  About 2 weeks ago, Chris went to Sonic and bought me an iced tea and a coke for himself.  I was happily Facebooking away, enjoying my tea.  Well, Chris had set his coke next to my tea on the desk, anticipating his turn at the keyboard.  I-not paying attention as I was so engrossed in my own little Facebook world, reached over and grabbed what I thought was my drink and took a big swig-Blech!  I literally gagged!  It was so sweet and pungeant and it actually took me a few seconds to register what this vile stuff was that I was choking down!  I absolutely cannot believe I ever like this stuff and believe you me, it did not taste anything like the memory.  So all of that being said, the following is an article I found on "Eat This, Not That."  Happy Drinking my friends.......

Drinking Soda

Researchers say you can measure a person’s risk of obesity by measuring his or her soda intake. Versus people who don’t drink sweetened sodas, here’s what your daily intake means:

½ can = 26 percent increased risk of being overweight or obese

½ to 1 can = 30.4 percent increased risk

1 to 2 cans = 32.8 percent increased risk

More than 2 cans = 47.2 percent increased risk

That’s a pretty remarkable set of stats. You don’t have to guzzle Double Gulps from 7-Eleven to put yourself at risk—you just need to indulge in one or two cans a day. Wow. And because high-fructose corn syrup is so cheap, food marketers keep making serving sizes bigger (even the “small” at most movie theaters is enough to drown a raccoon). That means we’re drinking more than ever and don’t even realize it: In the 1950s, the average person drank 11 gallons of soda a year. By the mid-2000s, we were drinking 46 gallons a year. A Center for Science in the Public Interest report contained this shocking sentence: “Carbonated soft drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the American diet.”