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Well, for lunch today I had something very special. I had 1/4 of a chicken, pesto, tomato, panini, and 1/2 cup of chicken and wild rice soup.

IT

WAS

DELICIOUS!!!

Everything in the meal followed my ’soft foods’ plan. I was worried about the panini bread being too tough, but with the pesto sauce, it softened it up a good bit so it was fine to eat. I ate very slowly, picking it apart with my fingers and placing each little piece in my mouth.

Tonight is date night.. I’m excited. I can actually eat dinner with my hubby.

I went to the hospital this morning for the pre-op testing. I filled out some paperwork, asked some questions, and then they took about 2 quarts of blood from me. It was fun.

On the way home, I called my husband to update him on what happened there. I was expecting him to be silent with the same reluctance to talk about anything involving the surgery, but it was different this time. I made the joke about 2 quarts of blood and he chuckled about it. I think he likes it when I keep him updated on every single aspect of this. It’s still going to happen very very soon, and there isn’t enough time for him to get completely into it, but everything helps, and not arguing with him about how wrong he is to react the way he knows how to, is helping.

My in-laws think I am going to the hospital to have my gall bladder taken out. That’s true, but they don’t know that I’m going to come out of surgery and stay a night in the ICU with drainage bags coming out of my stomach. I won’t be eating anything for many weeks. The surgery is on a Wednesday so that morning I’ll drop the kids off there, as usual, and then Charlie and I will go to the hospital. The surgery is going to take about three hours. Afterwards I’m going to be in recovery for a while and then I’ll be spending the night in the ICU. It’s a standard precaution they take because of the type of surgery it is. If something bad happens, it usually happens very quickly and a quick response is what is needed.  Staying in the ICU would provide the quickest response time. Visitation will end at 8pm. If I’m allowed to get up and walk around, I’ll try to walk around and visit some others who will be having the same procedure that day. It will be New Years Eve and Charlie won’t be with me. I’m a little sad about that but there’s nothing I can do about that.  I’ll stay there all day on Thursday, walking around, and drinking an ounce of water every hour. I’ll be able to shower and all that stuff too.  I’ll be put in a private room for Friday so Charlie and the kids and his parents can come visit whenever they want to. I’ll spend Thursday night at the hospital and then, depending on how I feel, I can leave on Friday.

When I get home, I’ll have to be very careful about the kids jumping on me. They are both so playful. The only restriction that I will have is to take care of the incision wounds and no heavy lifting.  I’ll keep myself busy with cleaning the house and straightening up… as long as there is no heavy lifting.

I’m getting butterflies in my tummy.

Just wanted to post an update. Since I last wrote, I’ve been to see the Clinic for final appointments with the psychologist, the nutritionist, and Dr. Sonnanstine.  This was on December 19th. The psychologist wants me to provide her with my records from some follow up sessions I had with another therapist back a while ago. I put in the request to get the records sent to her, but I’m a little worried about it. She didn’t want to clear me unless she was sure that I came off some antidepression/mood altering meds with Dr. supervision. I didn’t. I took them for two to three months, then got tired of having to remember so I just stopped. I went to my next appointment and told the doctor that I had stopped taking them. He didn’t seem alarmed and didn’t tell me anything adverse about it, so after that visit, I just stopped going. Only god knows what he wrote in the chart. He was kindof an asshole anyway, which is mostly why I stopped going to him. All he did was stare at me while I figured out what to say to him. It was annoying. I’m hoping those charts will reach the clinic therapists office today, but I”ll be in the hospital today for my pre-surgery testing so I’ll just stop up there and make sure it gets done.

The nutritionist was impressed at how much knowledge I retained from the classes that i took those few months ago. I’m ready to go through whatever I need to go through food-wise during the recovery and afterwards. I’m committed to this change because I know it will make my life happier in at least one aspect. She gave me some samples of the UnJury protien supplement that I’ll be having an intimate relationship with once my surgery is over. 

I’ve been reflecting a lot on what exactly I expect this surgery to do for me. I have come up with a few things:

• Only someone who’s been fat can tell you how sad it can be to have random people, strangers, and even family, talk about you and treat you like you are sub-human. It gets old and some psychologists would say it is just as bad or even worse than being abused physically. Imagine if you are living with or in day to day contact with someone who just finds it amuzing to constantly insult and hurt your feelings about it.  Well, that’s what I dealt with in school, and I still deal with it now. Except now the words aren’t so loud. I hear people comment about my size all the time, but the things they are saying aren’t as hurtful as in school, they are just more factual. I was walking in the mall the other day and I overheard someone talking about how my shoes are worn down on the sides. It hurt to hear it, but it was a fact. I walk on the sides of my feet because I’m so big. I must look so huge from behind. I wouldn’t know cause I can’t see myself from that angle.
• Another thing I consider will be changing is the cost and overall space my clothing will take up. Smaller clothes means they can fit more in drawers. Less overflow when it comes to the clothes I have. I’ll also be more comfortable in wearing pantyhose and heels. Which I love to wear. Cause I’m a girly girl like that.
• Lower cost in groceries. I eat like a pig right now. I won’t be eating those large quantities afterwards. And I’ll be spending more time feeding my husband good things. Because I have to make/puree/grind up good and healthy foods to eat. So, I’ll make more to serve to him and the girls.
• Activity. I was laying in bed the other night and it just popped into my head that I used to play tennis, and I was really really good at it. I haven’t been able to play because of my weight. I can barely breathe going up the stairs, let alone running back and forth on a tennis court. Our plans to move back to Atlanta should be exciting because I’ll get to play some tennis with my mom again.

Charlie is still having a hard time about the surgery.  Because of the insurance and timing, it was scheduled on somewhat of a ‘fast track’ and he didn’t really get a chance to absorb it.  My surgery is next Wednesday and I think he would have liked to meet with the doctor or at least attend one of my group meetings.  What he fails to remember is that I asked him to do all these things with me back in February when I started pursuing it. He didn’t want to, or couldn’t because of work, so I just went to the meetings and asked all the questions without him. Now he’s mad stating that I never considered the ordeal that he would have to go through with this.  I understand that, but I’ve spent the last 8 months talking about this. There was a lapse of about three months in there where I didn’t really talk about it at all, but that was before UHC changed their policy and I was able to get approved.  I haven’t told his parents about it. I’m not sure if I should just wait until the surgery is all done before I do that. I’m not sure if that’s wrong or not. Charlie’s mom will be out of her mind thinking about it. I think if I just tell them after I’m out of recovery then that would be best. I hope that’s the right decision. They know I’m going in for surgery but they only know the first part, getting my gallbladder removed. I’m going in for surgery at 7:30am on Wednesday and they told me that I would be there until Friday, possibly Saturday, depending on how I feel. Actually, now that I think of it, I should tell them before I go to the hospital. They’ll worry, but they need to know before hand. It’s just the right thing to do.

I am realizing that I don’t really care too much about what other people think about me going through with this surgery. I don’t care if people are worried about me. The only thing I care about is me not being a burden on people and making sure that the kids are taken care of while I’m in the hospital. I want my husband to just see that and help me with that. I know it sounds selfish to want him to give so much without questioning me, but that’s what I want. I don’t want to by psyched out about this surgery. It’s a major surgery and I’m going to feel like shit. It’s all very valuable to me and I want it to happen.

I weigh 304 pounds as of this morning, December 9, 2008.

I have never weighed this much. I feel like the inside of my body is weighing me down. My back and chest are in constant pain from Gall Stones. I was supposed to have my gallbladder removed months ago but I never went back. I’m hoping they will be able to remove it when they perform the Gastric Bypass.

I wear a size 3X in pants and in shirts. My shirts I order from a catalog because I can’t find shirts long enough to cover my huge hanging stomach. My pants I get from Wal-Mart. They’ve apparently started designing pants that cater to people with huge hanging stomachs.  I have dark spots on the sides of my face where the fat has bulged out from my cheeks. I have a very large double chin. My face is swollen to the point of not looking like my face anymore.

The Pain. I am in constant pain and discomfort. The pain is a symptom of my gallbladder issues and the discomfort is from weighing over 300 pounds.  I can’t sit comfortably unless I am leaning backward or forward with my legs sprawled out. Needless to say I never wear my skirts anymore. I used to love wearing my long skirts. I felt so pretty. Not anymore though. I wear the same kind of pants and rotate among 6 different shirts. The same thing day after day.  I wear comfortable shoes, and they are rather nice looking, but of course I don’t wear heels because my back would buckle. Flats for me. Always.  My pants are pulled up above my waste because that’s the only place where they will actually stay up. Any lower and I have to constantly fight with keeping them up above my huge hanging belly fat. I see guys that wear their pants underneath their apron of huge hanging belly fat and I don’t understand why that seems more comfortable to them. I can’t sleep anymore. I toss and turn all night because I can’t breathe or because my back and stomach are killing me.  If I lie on my back, I feel pressure under my chest and also start snoaring unbelievably loud. I snore anyway though. It doens’t matter which position I sleep in.  I am a belly sleeper, but because my stomach is so big, it’s pushing my lower back into the air, causing my back to arch which gives me insanely painful muscle cramps in my sides and when I wake up I feel like someone has jabbed an ice-pick under my ribs.

I am lazy. I am always tired and therefore don’t do anything around the house. I used to keep a clean house. I used to not have clutter everywhere and I used to like to keep the bathrooms and floors clean. I used to not get out of breath running the vacuum cleaner and I used to pick things up off the floor if I stepped on or tripped over something.  My children are learning horrible habits from me right now.

My marriage is in shambles. We aren’t intimate. We aren’t active. We look at each other with sadness. He looks at me and I feel like he’s given up. I look at him and I feel like we could be so much happier. It’s so simple to make him happy, but something inside me is sad and depressed. I have made him sad and depressed in some ways.  I am hurt though. And I feel like I will be hurt again. I’ve gone through a lot of in my relationship with my husband. I feel like I stood by him through a lot of painful and hurtful times. I feel like I’ve lost myself. I feel like we could be so much happier if I didn’t feel so horrible about myself. I can see how it’s not so fair for me to neglect him just because I feel that way.

Work. I’m good at what I do. I’m smart. I’m clever. And I’m a leader. But people don’t see that in me. They see a smart, clever clown who is good to make people laugh and bring up an interesting point now and then. My size is distracting and unprofessional. Many underestimate the strengths of fat people. I do, and I’m fat.

Self Image. I feel like I would be beautiful if I didn’t have so much weight hiding me.  I am pretty and funny and attractive and popular. I am not able to be the person I know I am.

These are facts that I have lived with for a very long time. These things depress me, but they don’t make me hate myself. I love myself. I love myself enough to know that my appearance is going to change and that the people around me are going to change the way they look at me. I am so looking forward to when that happens. But when it does, I’m also going to remember that I’m just me. I’m the same me that was here before and I’ll be the same me that was here afterwards. I have habits that need to change, and this surgery isn’t going to change them for me. I have a mind that needs to be trained, and this surgery is going to help me with that. As I shrink, I will become more and more motivated to take advantage of my lost size. Working out, playing with my children, being active and intimate with my husband. All these things are important to me. All of these things are the reason I’m about to go through this adventure with my body. Through the good times and bad, I will remain focused on the new things that I am able to do, and let go of the things that no longer support a healthier me.

I want to call the doctor so badly right now.  I think they’d yell at me though.

When I had my own house, I always kept it looking clean and tidy. My husband doesn’t understand why I can’t keep the house organized and cleaned up. Well, I have a history of being a complete mess in life and in my organizational persuits, so the presence of clutter and dissaray isn’t all that strange to me. For him on the other hand, he sees it as proof that someone doesn’t care for their posessions or care about themselves or others enough to aleviate the stress that comes with allowing such a messy house.

Problem is that this house was a wreck when I moved in. All his ex-wife’s crap was piled in here and didn’t dissappear until a year after they were divorced. I moved all my stuff in here and had no place to put any of it. It’s not like we had a clean slate to get organized and settled into. We’ve had to force comfort into this house and it’s failed more times than not. What I don’t get is that a lot of the blame is put on my shoulders, by both of us, but the fact that this place is a constant construction zone is never brought up. Maybe it should be.

Hmm. I guess I could be considered someone who is following the herd (no punn intended) when it comes to deciding to have weight loss surgery. I didn’t really know until recently how many people are actually doing this surgery. The numbers are staggering, but for each and every person who decides to do this surgery, there are a million individual and personal reasons to do so. Some of them may be similar, some of them may be the exact same thing, but they are still personal and considerably important.

No one knows about this blog and no one except my husband knows that I’ve begun this process. There are many people who love and care about me, but this journey is about me from beginning to end. I just don’t know how people will respond and having to deal with their worry, criticism, or even praise, is not what I want to do right now. I’m confident I’ll come out of the surgery fine. I’m confident I’ll be successful with the effort and progress that follows. A few days before I’ll let some people know. I’m going to need help and those people are going to ask why I need the help. Once I start needing things from other people, it’s not right for me to continue to hide the truth. But, for right now, this is my own story.

I started getting heavy when I was in the second grade. I’m not sure why it happened, but I have a few theories:

1. Anesthesia - In second grade, I had surgery and went under anesthesia to have something done to cure chronic UTDs. I’ve read in more than one place that anesthesia can cause a person to start having weight problems. Of course nothing is documented because we all know that obesity isn’t a disease, it’s a choice, right. I’m hoping that this information might ring true for someone else. If so, high-five.

2. Crappy childhood - The fan was in full swing ever since I was four years old and for many many years later crap was slung everywhere. I have a Dad who is in constant need of external affirmation yet refuses to do what it takes to provide his own. This was true back when I was very very young and I believe that his need for validation was put on me. He wasnt’ in the house to provide guidance and love, so every time he saw me, I was suffocated with it. Everything was a big deal, neither parent was able to care about teaching any family values or the importance of family ties. School sucked too. Since I was in 3rd grade I was the wierd looking fat kid. It always seemed that my mom wanted to dress me in the dumbest looking clothes and give me the dumbest looking hair styles. You know, stuff that just accentuated how fat and awkward I was. I was a joke at school. Then, I would come home and have to put up with the biggest asshole of a brother anyone ever imagined. I just wanted us to get along, but he wouldn’t have it. I think he liked to start stuff because at school he was picked on just as much as I was. So, he would come home and dump it all on me, his little sister. In time I learned that he was never going to be nice to me so I chose to act accordingly. To my disgust, even to this day, my actions are blamed as the cause of us not getting along. So, my childhood consisted of constant impatience (mom), meanness and bullying (school and brother), constant pressure of validating another person’s existence (dad), and a complete lack of selfawareness. Boy, talk about feeling like shit all the time. I ate because it felt good. It was the only thing that did.
I liked gymnastics after seeing Mary Lou Retton kick Olympic butt. My mom let me try it. I could never pass the first level because I was too fat. It was the first of many things that failed for me because being fat got in the way. She put in me into cheerleading, which was okay. I liked the outfit and stuff but it was like a big clique; there were three girls who owned it and the rest of everyone was trying to step on whoever they could to prove that they belonged in it. Eh, it is what it is; a county cheerleading team. Yippee….. if I would have known any better I would have asked her to put me in soccer or softball. I had interest AND physical ability in those things. But I was a little kid, I wasn’t the one who was supposed to know any better.

Moving on… high school was fun, I had my friends, but every day brought about new and exciting insults and embarrassments, some brought on by my own actions, and others brought on by other kids who just felt like being assholes. The lowest I weighed in high school was 170 pounds and that was in 9th grade after doing the Presidental Physical Fitness thing. We had to run a lot. I lost 10 pounds. Even with that I got insulted by some of the ‘uglies’ in the class. I guess I would rather lose ten pounds, than be an ugly skinny girl in a state of mind where I would be jealous enough to hurt someone else’s feelings because they lost 10 pounds and I couldn’t. Wow…. that felt really good saying that… I didn’t know/care about my weight as much as she did hers. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now. Poor thing. I wonder if she’s still ugly.

Anyway.. moving to adult hood.. I’ve used food as a celebration and a consolation, a reward and a punishment. Emotional eating is the only way I know to eat. Well, there were the times in school when I was told to go eat, but when it came to knowing how or when to do it on my own, I had no clue. And it just dawned on me that there really isn’t any point in a child’s life when someone makes an effort to teach that. I mean, we’re taught table manners and stuff, but when are we really taught about what bad eating habits and good and bad foods can do to us? Does anyone teach kids about diabetes or high cholesterol? I really don’t think so. I wasn’t taught anything. I was approached with pseudo-education after I was already fat.

So now I sit here… 278 pounds, the heaviest I’ve ever been except during pregnancy, which all came off fortunately. I have two kids now and I don’t have the energy to play with them. My two year old is getting in trouble all the time because she’s bored and energetic, with nothing to do to ease any of it. I want to live. I want to look pretty, which I know I do. I know I’m hot. I know I’m going to be beautiful without all this weight. I know I’m beautiful now, but the weight makes me feel ugly and deformed. I have a husband who is strong and hot and surprisingly hasn’t told me to get lost for being so lazy, unorganized, and un-motivated. I try to change, and I feel like I do, but I think it’s all related. All of it. My weight, my self-esteem, my motivation, and my willingness to just be a forthright, honest, and dedicated person, to myself and my family.