CoffeeGrinDR

I'm going to lay out some thoughts I've been having. My intent is not to minimize the experience of anyone else, but simply to offer my own thoughts and beliefs. I know this journey is different for all of us, but I am always saddened when I see a post about how a pre-op person can't wait to "be skinny" or "look hot" or "feel good about myself again". Skinny does not equal happy. Skinny does not equal hot. Skinny does not equal feeling good about ourselves. There are just as many skinny people who are unhappy, unattractive, and down on themselves as fat people. Happiness, feeling attractive, and feeling good about oneself are characteristics generated from within, not without.
 
A few years ago, at a very low point in my life, happiness seemed to me like a foreign concept. I could not remember the last time I had felt genuinely joyous or happy about anything. Intellectually, I knew that there were many things in my life that were desirable. I had a good job, a comfortable house, a dependable car, some money in the bank, food in the fridge, etc. But despite these things, I was unhappy. Now, I had good reasons to be unhappy, or so I thought. My marriage was failing, I was coming to grips with the fact that I would never be a mother, I wanted desperately to change my life but felt completely stuck, and so on. I remember reading somewhere that happy is a verb...it's an action, not a passive condition. I began to wonder...if I truly felt that there was no spark of happiness or joy in my life, who's fault was that? Who was responsible for my happiness? The answer, of course, is me. I was failing myself. I was not loving myself, or being kind to myself.
 
I decided that if happy was an action, I was going to try and exercise my happy muscle. I was going to try and find one thing to feel happy about for a few minutes every day. My goal was 3-5 minutes a day of active happiness. I thought that would be super easy. After all, I had been able to identify good things in my life, so how hard could it be to think about them for a couple of minutes every day? Well, it was actually harder than I expected, but I stuck with it. I had to set a timer in the beginning, but I made myself do it every single day. Gradually, I noticed it got easier. Some days all I could come up with was something like the weather, or the fact that my bills were paid on time, but damn it...if that was all I had, then I was damn well going to focus on it & feel happy for 3 freakin' minutes.
 
I eventually began to notice that I felt happier overall. I'm not sure why, because by this time I was just divorced and trying to figure out dating at 270 lbs & maintaining my new house, etc, but regardless, I felt happier. After meeting the man who has become my 2nd husband, he said that one of the things that attracted him to me was that I always seemed happy. I'm not saying that this is somehow a magic bullet against bad stuff happening, but holding happiness in my mind for a few minutes every day helps me to deal with the inevitable downs of life. It seems to me that consciously taking time to feel happy each day has somehow made a state of happiness more accessible in my brain.
 
It's been almost 7 years since I began my happiness quest, and I can honestly say I feel happier today than I ever have in my life. To quote Charlotte in the Sex and The City movie, "I feel happy every day. Not all day every day, but every day I feel happy." In choosing to have the sleeve, I absolutely do not expect it to make me happy, because I'm already happy. I feel pretty good about myself today, this minute, at 300+ lbs. Yes, there are things I want to do, but I can't right now. Yes, I have pain every day & difficulty walking, but I still feel good about who I am and what I have to offer in my small corner of the world. I am aware that I am probably judged negatively by some people because of my weight, but I don't even really notice that. Today, I find it so much easier to find things in my life that make me genuinely happy. I am definitely looking forward to weighing less and seeing an improvement in my mobility, but I don't think it will make me somehow better or more acceptable or a more worthy person. I am enough, right now, just as I am. We all are, and we are all so very precious. Today, right now, at this very moment, we are beautiful, and we are valuable, and we are enough. I believe that with all my heart, and I hope you do, too.

Here is a breakdown of how I spent my 60 minutes today at the new gym we joined:
 
1 minute- deciding if I wanted to use the treadmill in the giant room with all of the exercise bunnies
2 minutes-picking out the treadmill and wondering where to put my sweatshirt I had taken off
1 minute- thinking I looked really new to this
1 minute- sneaking glances at the other people, noticing all the old people that were there and realizing
that I was the fattest person there
45 minutes- walking on the treadmill
 
While on the treadmill:
20 minutes- wondering how many people behind me were staring at my fat butt and
hoping my pants weren't riding up the crack of my a$$.
5 minutes- doing fat girl adjustments to my clothes to make sure my belly wasn't
hanging out
1 minute- trying to sneak glances to see how fast other people were walking
19 minutes- feeling good about my performance and listening to Pandora 80's Cardio
Channel to get my groove on
 
5 minutes- trying out an elliptical machine for the first time. thinking wtf? this does not feel natural.
5 minutes- waiting for my hubby to finish his stuff and checking out the group classes and deciding
we need to go to the beginning yoga class tonight.
 
Really, it was great. I've been walking on my treadmill at home so I'm not totally out of shape. I must say that the presence of other people does motivate me to do better. I walked for 45 minutes at 3.0 to 3.4 mph. I felt good about my work out.
 
Mostly I was happy that my husband and I went to the gym together. I have dreamed of this moment for years. That someday, he would become interested in something other than the television and we could do it together.
 
I'm happy.

Today is my 6th day on my pre-op diet, and it has been the easiest so far. While I still find the shakes and vegetable concoctions in my recipe book nauseating, mentally I am finding it easier to get through it. I have no more sugar cravings or cravings for any junk food, which to me is a miracle. I never thought I could stop eating sweets so quickly. I am craving food, but mostly protein, like chicken and hard boiled eggs, and I would kill for some chicken broth!
 
I'm not saying it's easy now. I'm still counting the hours until my surgery. Today I feel the best mentally that I have in months. My head feels clear. I'm not in a fog. I wonder if it also has something to do with cutting out the diet soda. I am using sugar free syrups in my shakes, but that's nowhere near the amount of artificial sweetener I consumed drinking 3 or 4 cans of diet soda every day.
 
I know why I'm doing this. I have my goals in the forefront of my mind. Eight more days of revolting shakes and nothing else...I can do it!

Well, surgery is tomorrow at 1:30pm; check-in at 11:30am. I had my physical & pre-op appointments today. Everything seemed to go well. I lost 3 pounds being on liquids the last 3 days. Wonder how much I'll lose after being on liquids next week... My husband made some deeelicious homemade chicken soup. He strained some out for me so I could eat a nice healthy meal & put some in containers for the following week. Homemade broth is always better than from an envelope or cube.
 
I've got my bag packed: pj's, robe, slippers, under-garments, comfy change of clothes for the ride home (Friday, I hope), magazine's, toothbrush, toothpaste, hair brush, chap stick, pillow,.... I think that's about it ....
 
Hoping I can sleep tonight. Nurse told me I could take trazadone (sleeping pill) if I needed it & my liquid vicodin if needed as well. No water after midnight tonight. That's going to be tough because I always have water (with a few squirts of Crystal Lite Strawberry Lemonade). I can swish water in my mouth so I might do that to get me through the morning.
 
I may bring my laptop tomorrow to blog right after surgery, but I'm not sure how groggy I will feel. I guess we'll see how that goes.
 
Wish me luck!

The first successful gastrectomy was performed by Theodor Billroth in 1881 for cancer of the stomach.

Do I have concerns about cutting out approximately 85% of my stomach? Yes. But I am more concerned about my life would be like if I didn't. The pain I have dealt with for 30+ years, the psychological suffering, the social loneliness, this can be nothing compared with some physical pain and the forebearance required by a 2oz stomach. I will take this path because there is something in the wiring of my brain that doesn't stop when it comes to sugar, there is no "stop" sign on hunger in my body. I don't need a genetic test to know that. I just need a fighting chance.

That's what this is. There's nothing easy about weight loss surgery. Nobody thinks, "oh, sure" I can just take the easy way out. This is not easy. It is not easy to accept that you have an addiction. It is not easy waking up every day and feeling self loathing. It is not easy changing your emotional and psychological crutches. 

This is about living. And that is the hardest thing. 

So instead of buying a gun and putting it in my mouth I bought myself a vacation to Mexico. I'm not telling anyone, I'm telling you, whomever you are that if you're reading this I know how you have felt. I have cried after eating myself sick. I have looked in the mirror with disgust. I have thought of my life as an empty shell, a lifelong ticket for the sidelines. 

I want to play in the game, not just watch from the sides.

I want to dance, not just wallflower.

I want to live.

And I'm willing to fight. 

But I need this fast forward, I need some jolt into success. I'm not asking for the easy way. I will fight. I will fight through the anesthesia, and the pain, and the stitches, and the burning stomach acid, and the gagging nausea, and the inability to swallow down meats that aren't pulverized, and the foregoing of old comfort foods, and no more big floppy pieces of pizza.

Why?

So I can sit on a plane and not feel mortified, so I can walk into a store and buy something off the rack (for the first time in my life), so I can ask someone out and not have to convince them I'm super smart and funny first, so I can go skiing in Breck, so I can go dancing and not have to drink my humiliation away, so I can play golf and tennis with friends, so I can hike, so I can kayak, so I can complete the triathlon I've signed up for three times, so I can sit on the ground and get up without an ordeal, so I can camp and not be exhausted or worried, so I can not be terrified of hurting my leg (again) because of ice, so I can not be ashamed to see family each year, so I can love myself, so I can be free, so I can go snowmobiling, so I can stop being scared of life, so i'm not screaming hateful words at myself everytime I meet someone new, so my life can be about living in the moment and not being worried about the weight. 

So my ex can see me and eat her heart out.

...With the Band!
 
If I had to write a letter to my soon to be "ex" I'd have to say,"Baby, it's been a long and expensive three years and while the 34 pounds I lost since the day we got together is progress to a better, healthier me, the price has been a bit steep.
 
Each of those pounds cost about $2200 - thank God for insurance or you'd have bankrupted me!
 
The vomiting, the socially inappropriate talking stomach yelling, "Nnnow...ow.ow..." in meetings, the hair loss and breaking nails, the three bites and bolt for the bathroom aerobics, making sure not to bend over least lunch leap out of my mouth, the double band aka my bra, the conveniently locate port-o-pain just so situated so as to be like the toe you just keep stubbing...on the door to the dryer, the edge of the cart at the grocery store and don't even mention how it appears to be a magnet for the small child or pet climbing into your lap.
 
Ah yes - thanks for the memories, but I've got to end this relationship as it's cramping what little style I have left!
 
Lunch interview for a job - forget it! Ditto for lunch with the girls or a family dinner. What with everyone watching to see if my trip to the bathroon is to pee or to puke?! It's become the only thing some family members talk about. How can Jill still be so big - she doesn't eat anything!
 
I will give you this - you have definitely changed my relationship with food. Having puked up so many different foods, there are things that just the smell of now makes me nauseous. Last night's two bites of tuna noodle casserole crossed another off the lengthy list.
 
Sure - I'm afraid I'm going to pack it all back on, but perhaps the memory of this bad relationship will help keep me focused.
 
I got the big song & dance from your pal, the weight loss surgeon, who told me how great you were and all you could do for me. Now even he's telling me you're bad news. Of course that's not stopping him from trying to hook me up with either of his other friends - Mr. Roux-N-Y or Mr. G. Sleeve.
 
For now though, I think I'm going to hanging with a plain jane kind of pal - Ms. W. Watchers and see how things go!

The first successful gastrectomy was performed by Theodor Billroth in 1881 for cancer of the stomach.

Do I have concerns about cutting out approximately 85% of my stomach? Yes. But I am more concerned about my life would be like if I didn't. The pain I have dealt with for 30+ years, the psychological suffering, the social loneliness, this can be nothing compared with some physical pain and the forebearance required by a 2oz stomach. I will take this path because there is something in the wiring of my brain that doesn't stop when it comes to sugar, there is no "stop" sign on hunger in my body. I don't need a genetic test to know that. I just need a fighting chance.

That's what this is. There's nothing easy about weight loss surgery. Nobody thinks, "oh, sure" I can just take the easy way out. This is not easy. It is not easy to accept that you have an addiction. It is not easy waking up every day and feeling self loathing. It is not easy changing your emotional and psychological crutches. 

This is about living. And that is the hardest thing. 

So instead of buying a gun and putting it in my mouth I bought myself a vacation to Mexico. I'm not telling anyone, I'm telling you, whomever you are that if you're reading this I know how you have felt. I have cried after eating myself sick. I have looked in the mirror with disgust. I have thought of my life as an empty shell, a lifelong ticket for the sidelines. 

I want to play in the game, not just watch from the sides.

I want to dance, not just wallflower.

I want to live.

And I'm willing to fight. 

But I need this fast forward, I need some jolt into success. I'm not asking for the easy way. I will fight. I will fight through the anesthesia, and the pain, and the stitches, and the burning stomach acid, and the gagging nausea, and the inability to swallow down meats that aren't pulverized, and the foregoing of old comfort foods, and no more big floppy pieces of pizza.

Why?

So I can sit on a plane and not feel mortified, so I can walk into a store and buy something off the rack (for the first time in my life), so I can ask someone out and not have to convince them I'm super smart and funny first, so I can go skiing in Breck, so I can go dancing and not have to drink my humiliation away, so I can play golf and tennis with friends, so I can hike, so I can kayak, so I can complete the triathlon I've signed up for three times, so I can sit on the ground and get up without an ordeal, so I can camp and not be exhausted or worried, so I can not be terrified of hurting my leg (again) because of ice, so I can not be ashamed to see family each year, so I can love myself, so I can be free, so I can go snowmobiling, so I can stop being scared of life, so i'm not screaming hateful words at myself everytime I meet someone new, so my life can be about living in the moment and not being worried about the weight. 

So my ex can see me and eat her heart out.

Today marks one year since I had my gastric sleeve surgery. It's amazing to see how far I've come, and I know that the journey is just beginning. I updated my video blog, so there's a link here:

 
And here's a link to the video blog that I created a year ago today, the morning of my surgery: