Almost 2 months

The last month has been a struggle! December 4th will mark two months post op and MANY times over the past month I have regretted the surgery.
When I went to my one month check the surgeon had talked to me about my liver biopsy and said that my liver was really inflamed during surgery. It went on saying that there was no real damage to my liver that could not be repaired through diet and exercise and that I had basically had the surgery in time - it was heading in the wrong direction and it would have only been a matter of time before liver disease was imminent.
Through this whole process I have learned a lot about my body. I have learned a lot about food. I have learned a lot about the lies that manufacturers and restaurants tell consumers about food. It makes me sad that they don't educate us more as we are growing up in this respect. I've been so disgusted at how many "healthy" options are loaded with sugars, sugar alcohols and hidden ingredients that are toxic to our bodies. We are set to fail right out of the gate.
I've been sick a lot the last month or so. I was released to full foods at my one month check up and the discovery process has begun. I am trying foods and slowly trying to reintroduce them to my body. This is not a fun process. I thought I would be excited for this part, but I never considered that I would be spending so much time vomiting and feeling terrible. If my body doesn't like something, it expels it almost immediately. There is pressure, burping, pain... and ultimately it comes out.
I hear from a lot of people that this will go away and I will miss the alert system when my body doesn't want something... but I have little hope at this point. I forget to eat sometimes. It is a real struggle. I mean how many times you got to burn your hand before you know the stove is hot? Getting sick makes you want nothing. I get this nervous feeling in the pit of my tummy and a ton of anxiety just thinking about food. 
Don't get me wrong, there are so many things that sound good to eat. A few times now I have wanted something with bacon in the recipe. It looks good, it smells good, it tastes good. I throw it up. I think in my head, maybe it's too greasy... now every time I even think about bacon I feel sick to my stomach. For the love of God... bacon!
I cooked a huge thanksgiving day meal for my family. I adjusted recipes to make them healthy and everything turned out really good. I ate 4 bites. 4 teeny tiny bites and I felt like I was going to die. I had yogurt a few hours later and cried.
I am not taking enough in.
I'm exhausted.
I can get in some where between 1500 and 3000 steps a day before I am destroyed. I tank out. Within moments I am fast asleep and my body is revolting.
Am I losing weight? sure! I've lost 50+ pounds to date and I am not even a full two months out. I'm scared to death I am going to lose my teeth and my hair. My skin is overly dry and no lotions really seem to work.
My iron was low at my last visit and I need to eat more leafy greens and red meat... I only have a month before I have to go back and I need to have that level up so I don't get yet another pill to add to my collection.
I am so stressed out all of the time and I have no patience for anything.
I am grateful that the pain in my side is gone and that I am able to  sleep in my own bed. I just wish that I could fast forward a little bit and get on to where I eat things and I don't feel like the exorcist!
My cousin brought her baby over sick a few days ago - so on top of everything else I am dealing with a sinus infection and the antibiotics tear my stomach up. Yay! I hate people. They only think about themselves. 

Moving Down

Every time I step on the scale the number is going down. To many this alone would be a victory but I want to FEEL different. I want to feel stronger and slimmer and beautiful. Doesn't everyone?
I keep reminding myself that nothing happens over night and it's just going to take time to get to where I want to be. Being fit is not enough, I need to dump dead weight everywhere in my life and I am letting it be known that I am doing just that. I have already seemingly parted ways with friendships that have been unhealthy for years. People who freely took from me and gave little or nothing in return but sorrow and despair. I thought it would be heart-breaking but it's actually quite liberating every time.
I've been spending a lot of time cataloging and trying out new recipes that are healthier and tasty for the whole family, I'm trying to make a point to share them on my Facebook page and in the weight loss group that I am in. With any luck I will be able to put together a small cookbook before the year is out.
The weather is growing colder and I feel like I live under an electric blanket! My children complain that the house is hot, but I pay the bills and I am cold! The pumpkins have been carved, the trick or treating has ended and it's crazy but I am already thinking about Christmas. I will have to do so much rearranging to make room for my huge tree or I will have to break down and purchase a slimmer one. I feel like I have outgrown my space and I am ready for some new digs.
My oldest son has his first serious girlfriend. I can hardly believe where the time has gone. They've had a couple chaperoned fights and their first misunderstanding; so... dramatic! I forgot what turmoil and angst there is with being a teenager. His 14 year old girlfriend actually told me that I don't know what a heard life is! I was beside myself. I simply hung up the phone - it wouldn't be right to ruin her innocence by telling her the horror story that has been my life. Just because I look like I have it altogether doesn't mean that there isn't a tsunami raging beneath.
I think it's starting to sink in that time is getting away from me. I look at my children and it doesn't seem real that they have grown so much so quickly. Wasn't it just yesterday that I was cradling them in my arms and feeling drunk off their rhythmic breathing?
The winter months fill me with gloom. I have to work hard to stay distracted from all the death and cold outside until the rebirth of spring happens!

Getting off the clearance rack

Last we talked I was waiting for my surgery day to come. People tell you that the day will sneak up on you, but the days drug for me and seemed so long. I obsessed about the possibility of death and what outcome that would hold for my children. It's terrible how the mind works on you like that. I mean with every surgery there is a risk or possibility of death. I went to great lengths to survey the area hospitals and choose one with a low mortality rate - some might think that's funny as much as I proclaim "kill me now!" or "i wish I was dead" or some other totally  extra statement of woe and despair. 
The surgery went smooth and oddly I woke up from anesthesia thinking that I had been in a car wreck and being worried about my children. The majority of the recovery (so far) has gone smooth too. I do have pain, but not near as much as I anticipated. All in all it is a learning process and I seem to be right on track.
That being said...
I feel like I am losing everyone around me. Maybe when I had the surgery they removed my ability to put up with people's shit - not that I believe I had a high tolerance to begin with, but I really just cannot contain myself. It lends me to the idea that perhaps I should just stay away from people altogether. I don't think that will be a problem. Most of my so-called "friends" have been avoiding me like the plague since I had the surgery. I am beside myself with grief for them. I feel slighted and I'm tired of being the person who needs to just understand or accept what pittance you push forward. Why do I have to work so hard to cater to you in our friendship when you cannot begin to claim you do the same. Fuck you!
I've come to the conclusion that my friends list needs a revision. Effective immediately they are on notice and under review and believe you me - heads are rolling.
I never understood people saying that the surgery is your new birth date... but it's beginning to make sense. I think it's just impossible to make such radical changes in your life and not apply them all across the board. I've let people step on my neck my whole life. I've let people hold me beneath their thumb and guilt me into setting my own self asunder so that that they can be the star. 
No More!
You can walk beside me, or you can get behind me- but I will not bow, follow or let you beat me down any more.
I really don't give a fuck if it means that everyone finds the exit out of my life. I'm tired of biting back my tears and hurt because you hold yourself above me and think yourself better than me. What kind of friend is that anyways? 
I sat there last night thinking that I really wanted to call someone - to expel all the hurt I was feeling and have them validate it for me - but why do I need validation? I know that it is not wrong to expect people to treat you with care and kindness when you do the very same for them. I know it is not wrong to tell people openly and honestly how I feel in regards to our dealings together. Lastly, I know I deserve to be treated better. I am a good friend. I am a good person.
I have often told people in my life to not let people put them on the discount rack, because only they can determine their own worth. FORGIVE ME, for finally taking my own advice.

6 days and a wake up...

That's right... officially one week until my surgery. The Optifast diet is driving me bonkers... so many weird things happen to your body while one this diet. Worse yet it really messes with your mind. It's weird how I felt so confident about this diet going into it and with one swift kick it humbled me wholly.
I have my pre-surgery testing tomorrow and I know there will be a weight check and more lab work. I'm assuming that my labs from last week went okay because I haven't heard anything to the contrary.

I ate and ice cream cone today.

no that is not part of the diet.

I felt like a failure, but it didn't stop me from finishing it.
I kept rationalizing to myself that I might never even be able to eat dairy after the surgery. I made a lot of excuses. In all, the hard reality was that I was the fat girl behind Dairy Queen eating an ice cream cone and crying. How did I become this girl? The Optifast diet.
It breaks you.
No one truly prepares you for the way it breaks you.
People spit all this drivle about how they faithfully stuck to it and they added their little flavorings and they suffered through because they want the surgery so bad - and maybe they did - but I don't believe it. From where I stand it is highly improbable and I ration to myself that they just don't want to admit it.
I'll be the first.
I'm a fuck up. I make mistakes and I'm not perfect, but I am still here and I am still trying. No lie I took a dose of Magnesia and guzzled some water - and I am hoping to shit my brains out and make weight in the morning at testing. How did I get here?.... Optifast.
I've had opportunity to talk to others that went through other hospitals and were allowed other foods and such and only did clear liquids and a bowel prep the day before surgery. Me? I got three weeks of Optifast.
What's the messed up thing? The damn ice cream cone wasn't as good as I remembered.
Oh well, what's done is done. I came home and finished out my shake regime for the remainder of the night and ate my little two cups of lettuce. Yet, the feeling of defeat stays and it is coupled with worry. The surgical team is so focused on scaring you into doing what and a less intelligent person might not see through it - but after the first time you admit fucking up and they tell you "that's okay, we have it set up so that if you make mistakes you can still be successful"... UGH!!!!! give it to me straight! I hate when people like or manipulate.
I went to my preoperative testing this morning, alone. It's not that I am not capable of going alone; but who likes not feeling supported? This is a big thing and it doesn't seem to sit with people how huge this is. Eating has damaged my body. Obesity is the biggest form of self mutilation that everyone ignores and minimizes.
There was construction at the surgical center. I parked at the Emergency room parking lot because it was a closer option, and still I parked about a quarter mile away (it felt like I walked for a day). I complained in my head the whole time about all the people that are in my life and how their absence was affecting me now. Mumble mumble...they will want to come to my funeral though... mumble mumble... always wanting me to do something for them... (you get the point) Did I forget how to mention how extra I am sometimes?
I entered the surgical center and was greeted by a...get this...
Valet. 
The blinding pain ripping through my lower back prevented me from responding to the following statement he uttered.
 "You know, Valet parking is free for patients at the surgical center."
I couldn't even open my mouth because I knew it wasn't his fault but I would want to take it out on this man. I am sitting there wondering why no one would bother to tell people that prior to them walking in the door. 
The appointment was fine, even though I waited over an hour to be seen. I had completed all of my labs and only needed to be weighed and go over all of my info. (I was down 4 pounds) This is the last time until the day of my surgery that I will be weighed.

Life Has A Way of Getting You In The Weigh...

People eat. For one reason or another people eat. There's only one reason that you should; to fuel your body... but despite that, there is mass consumerism of food.

I was raised in a house where you cleaned your plate. I'm not blaming anyone, but I can count countless things that I have digested simply to prevent waste.

I remember years ago looking at obese women and thinking to myself how could they let themselves get that way. Maybe my life now is God's lesson in humility for those thoughts. It was a gradual thing, for me for the longest time. Five pounds more this year than last and so on. I don't think it really got out of hand until after I had my hysterectomy, and completely altered my body chemistry altogether. The surgery its self led to a lot of depression for me and I'm pretty sure I gained twenty pounds that year. I was just under two hundred pounds at the time and I thought I was fat then.

I'm not sure it was ever a clear thought to remove the scales and the mirrors from my home. I realized about a year ago, like an epiphany, that I haven't seen myself in a full length mirror or been weighed on a scale for years. It was the day after I had caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window and  all I could do was cry. Hell I cried for nearly a week, just laying there feeling sorry for myself. My mind raced over my life searching for the last time that I could recall seeing myself and it had been a long time.

The biggest crime you can commit is beating yourself up or letting others define you. That being said you need to be realistic too. We have grown into this society where we lie to ourselves and others as not to offend. When I made the decision to enter a bariatric program (physician monitored diet and exercise & potential surgery), I heard a lot of comments that were negative... but I think the one that hurt the most is being told "you are beautiful the way you are". First, I never said I was ugly. Second, how can you think me eating my way to death's doorstep is beautiful? Just respect my decision and be supportive!

You really learn a lot about yourself when you join the bariatric program. It was so hard for me to go to that first appointment. I cried most of the way during the drive there. My heart was heavy when I walked through the door. Coming here was admitting to myself what I had become and it was hitting me like a ton of bricks. I'm sure it was written all over my face, I checked in and waited in the reception room. My eyes surveyed the people in the room and I was trying to find someone that I identified with. Shockingly, most of the people in the room seemed to be a fair bit older than me, I argued with myself that I wasn't as bad off as them and then I was called into the back.

Nothing could prepare me to walk in that room and see that huge cattle scale. I'm sure that's not what it is, but I also argue that you could easily fit a full size dairy cow upon it. She asked me to remove my shoes and then took my height and it yielded a result that I expected. I stepped upon the scale and it was digital, it settled on a number fast, it was instantly apparent to me that I had more than doubled the weight on my drivers license, (why do they let us get away with that? haha), I almost fainted. I instantly begin to cry and the nurse reassures me - yet it is no comfort at all. Next, they take a full length photo of me from the front and from the side. She began to ask if I would like to see the photo, but I think somehow she just knew that there was no way that I would look at it.

I was given a folder filled with information that we went over that day. A restrictive diet and exercise program, and a host of obligations for me to meet with specialists to rule out any other medical issues. It seemed overwhelming.... man it was overwhelming.
Over the next several months I met with the weight management doctor and did a host of other clearances. Cardiac, Pulmonary, Psychological, blood work, xrays, ultrasound of my gall bladder, sleep study. I remember thinking to myself that there was no way that all of this was necessary. THIS IS MAJOR SURGERY - hello.... they are cutting up your insides! I continued to meet with the weight management doctor up and to about a month ago... I have about 19 days until my actual surgery.
I have to do three weeks of liquid diet. 7 Optifast shakes, 64 oz of caffeine free, sugar free, calorie free drinks... every day for 21 days. I won't eat food again until probably December... and it will be so little that it probably won't matter much. No one tells you how hard it is going to weigh on you emotionally. I am truly humbled. 
The first day of Optifast broke me mentally. I cried most of the day and was a royal crotch. I yelled at my family for filling the house with food smells and not being supportive. I made it through the first day and then two hours after I drake the last shake for the day, I did something that I have never done in my life.
I binge ate.
I cried the whole time and almost vomited... WTF is wrong with me?!
I ended up crying and talking to one of my best friends and they reminded me how hard I worked up an to now and encouraged me to not beat myself up and just get up and try better tomorrow.
Day two I stuck to the shakes completely.
Today is day three and I am feeling a little more confident about things. It's been a life saver to be a part of the bariatric facebook community that is local to my area - I am feeling a little less crazy and realizing that I am not alone in the journey.

Black Boxes Burning Blue in the Nothingness

It was strange to realize that I spend so much time telling PEOPLE my problems. How foolish of me to expect their guidance, their approval.. and I don't want or need it. We are groomed and taught from a young age to have this standard of respect and communication with others. There are layers of respect forced upon us. Respect for parents, friends, family, authority figures, school teachers... you get the idea. I recall hearing something once about loneliness being the human condition; it surely lends to the idea that we were not designed to be alone... it's in our very composition to need another. How tragic. I'm good at being alone, and yet I feel the urge to complain about it, if for nothing more than to contribute to this illusion that I am like everyone else. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the years I have systematically cut people off from my life. It started shortly after the death of my Mother in the summer of 2011. Up until then I had been lulled into this thinking that life was long and all about experiences and adventure. The minute that I left the nest I spread my wings and was determined to take in whatever life could offer me. Wobbly and unsure in the unknown, I made many mistakes and filled my memory stores to the brim with life. My Mother would always say that I lived the life of a person three or four times my age and caution me to slow down. The world wound to a slow whir after the birth of my children and I fell into a routine life. I could have been a better Mother, not that I was ever a bad Mother... just looking back now I can think of a million or more things that I would have liked to had another chance at or add to. It's so taxing to love someone as much as you love your child...and yet the most amazing thing that I could never have even imagined. Back to my Mother... The world came to a crashing halt the day that she died. I somehow expected the whole world to pause and notice my grief. I felt like someone forced the very breath from my body and I couldn't remember how to inhale. The world was crashing upon me and burying me beneath; it all seemed so surreal. It's been 6 years since that happened and it never seems longer than last week. For whatever reason I cannot distance myself from it... I just bite it back and force myself to get through the day. Each miserable, agonizing day. I wish that I was strong enough to set it aside and not carry it with me; I almost forget what it was like to be carefree and truly happy. It was as if I had been filleted open and they ripped her from me, only to throw me a needle and thread and say "sew that shit up". Hallow. Empty. Aching. Alone. Living with grief isn't really living. It's like a parasite inside of you that is devouring and rapidly replicating itself until nothing is left of the you that once was. What is left is something else entirely. It's the weirdest thing because it didn't seem to happen as fast as it actually did. It began with the simple things, changing my hair, my look, my location. I cut away people systematically... I excused them for every reason; did they hurt me?, make me feel awkward or nervous?, were they unkind?, uncouth?...an embarrassment? Did they chain me with burden to the past and the me that fell away when the life left my mother? It really didn't matter, I could have lay down beside her on that table if they would have left me to it, but "they" did not. It's for the best really. I would have regretted leaving my children. If not for them I would have lost it a million times before this moment. They will me to live. I force my agony into tiny black boxes and bury them within the darkest crevices of my soul. I feel like I am standing on the shore of a black ocean in the pale moonlight watching them burst into blue flames as the drift over the horizon into the nothingness that I feel. Morbid perhaps.. but I feel peace there, surrounded by my grief... it reminds me that I didn't dream her. She was really here and she was unique and magical and horrible all at once. She was human and holy and the only God I knew for a lifetime. Did she leave or simply leave particles of herself in me that furiously and fervently manipulate my being into the me that she dreamed or beckoned from the belly of a star. I wonder if I will ever make it through all of the boxes of my grief. If I will ever truly mend and feel whole. For today, I am doing the best that I can and if it's not good enough, don't mind my absence from your judgement.