/bypass

I am SO close to losing 80 pounds that I think that if I breathe out hard enough I shall in fact lose it.

I am having a hard time, folks, with these progression pictures. I feel all of a sudden really self conscious, like you guys won’t see the difference and I am almost ashamed or something.

My skin is hanging in weird places, but not so much that you can tell it’s really loose skin - but I can tell. It looks like deflated fat. The fat just hangs lower than it used to. It’s weird and it makes me sortof poopy. My sentences are short and choppy! CHOP! KAH! FRUG! Anyway, I am embarrassed and I need some encouragement.

I made some changes to the site to make it more user friendly. I categorized all my pre-op things with the category name “pre-op” (how creative of me) so that you can click on “pre-op” under the categories on the side menu and it will bring up only the posts that are pre-op. MOUTHFULL!

This weekend I enjoyed the company of very close friends in Crystal Beach. We laughed and talked and talked…and talked and Donny and I enjoyed some hot-tubbing. It’s my home away from home. Thank you Grant and Denise for a very needed weekend together.

Plans for the wedding are also going smoothly now that we have picked a date and I am comfortable with it being on a Sunday. For awhile I was sad because I always thought the perfect DAY to have a wedding would be on Saturday - but after realizing that having it on the Sunday will save us 2k, I became quite comfortable with the idea.

We are less stressed (aka a hell of a lot less stressed) since Donny got full time hours at his job. I didn’t get that job at the plus size store but I am still looking around and handing off resumes.

Do you guys know how fan-freakingtastic Donny is? Lemme tell you a bit about my Donny. He is thee most amazing person in the whole universe and I love him more as each day passes, if that’s at all possible. For the past four years plus, we have had an unbelievable time together and I have not heard of a couple that is happier than we are (of course, I am sortof bias). I have never been with anyone who I truly respect and cherish to the very core until now. For him, I have the most tremendous appreciation - for all that he does for me, for our relationship, and for being the creative, generous and loving man that he is. I just wanted to let you know this not because I haven’t said it before, and not because I’ve done something naughty and I am trying to apologize, but just because I love him and I will continue to love him in every way I can, including shamelessly shouting about it on this blog.

Now that I have melted your heart, I think I will go drink some 11:40pm tea and try to write a bit of my novel. Although, seeing as how this blog entry is terribly written I might want to not attempt to write my novel tonight as I will most likely be discouraged and gnash my teeth.

Should I get over my woes and just post progress pictures already? How can I do this? I am feeling like I have gained 20 pounds of loose skin.

You’d think, that working at a plus size store, you’d learn some discretion when it comes to guessing whether or not your customers are with child, or just with fat. As much I would like to be pregnant, over the option of being with fat, I am stuck with the larder.

When I was ten, I wasn’t that fat. I was chubby, and in the early 90’s this was probably just as bad as the morbidly obese two year olds that you see on Dr. Phil now-a-days. (don’t get me started on how sad that is). All of chubby ten year old me was in the bathroom at my old church, which was almost as shady as the lady who walked in while I was washing my hands. She asked, “how old are you?” and I replied “almost eleven” (because we all know that *ten* is a baby number) and she said, “well, Mary (as in the Hailed) was 14 when she was pregnant with Jesus” and I blinked at her because I didn’t really know what she was going the hell on about. Then she asked, “When are you due?” and I said “I’m TEN YEARS OLD and I am not pregnant.” Then she went into the stall to squeeze out her hail marys and I cried buckets of tears. FREAKING BUCKETS.

Today while shopping for a dress for a friend’s wedding in June, I felt pretty damn good about myself. I floated around the store in a purple get up, showing the employees my glorious new figure. Or so I thought. Upon trying to choose the right kind of pantyhose the retail associate said, “you might want to go for maternity” and I said, “hell yeah, more comfy, I hear ya!” trying to shake off the fact that she was being sorta lame. But no, her lameness went further. “Well,” said the impertinent retail associate, “you will be even bigger come June!” and I said “God, I hope not! That’s sortof the opposite of what I want to be.” I was still kinda not understanding what the hell she was talking about. I mean, COME ON! So she answered my confusion by saying, WHILST TOUCHING THE BIGGEST PART OF MY STOMACH, “Oh my, I thought you were pregnant.”

There are several things wrong with this situation.

A. It’s a plus size store, asslady. You don’t assume EVER. EVER-ER. never.

B. She touched my stomach AFTER she realized that I was not pregnant. What are you hoping to feel exactly? Fat doesn’t KICK, idiotface. Unless it’s my fat leg, kicking your ass.

C. AGAIN, like I was when I was ten years old, I DO NOT LOOK PREGNANT. I don’t get it. I mean, yeah when I was ten I cried buckets because I was hurt, but then several gazillion people assured me that crazy lady in the bathroom didn’t know what the hee haw hell she was talking about and that she must have been blind. Again, at 25 years old, having lost almost 80 pounds, I sortof look…almost normal. Yes, I have a lifesaver underneath my boobs, but how is that even close to what a pregnant person looks like in their blossoming state? DOES MY FAT GLOW FOR YA, BEOTCH? My stomach does not even come close to looking like a NORMAL pregnant belly.

It’s a dang shame that my body is WEIRD LOOKING right now. The only place that hasn’t shrunk is the much mentioned inner tube. I don’t  know why - I don’t really care to be honest, It’s no biggie (well it IS but i mean no problem) It’ll go when it’s ready.

In other news, I found a dress! And it’s beautiful! I look very non-fertilized in it, which is fortunate.

It is now that I am being truly tested, but I feel that I am managing well. I am unemployed and stressed to the max, avoiding (as much as I can) the fears that I have about the future and the uncertainty of my situations in life. I love my life, I really do. I love my Donny and I love my apartment and my new party body (a nick name that we have come up with to explain the weird sortof hip sway walk I do now). But I am stressed. SO FREAKING STRESSED and it’s taking its toll emotionally. Unemployment is GREAT and TERRIBLE. It’s great because I get to be with the person I love most in the world 24/7. We get to wake up, and have our morning (read: afternoon) coffees and apply for jobs and the cuddle and lounge around after we have applied for our jobs. I get to watch the strange things that my cats do inside grocery bags and with teddy bears. But it’s only a matter of time before I WILL BE EATING GUM OFF THE STREET. I have applied for over 70 jobs now and have received not one call back. It’s not only me. A number of people I know are struggling as well.

I don’t know what else to do but keep trying and make sure I don’t let my unemployment stress and anxiety turn into a full blown case of depression. So you can imagine that me keeping my head above the water right now in that area has taken away from my full focus on losing weight. I am still losing. The grand total being 77 pounds lost now, but I could be doing better. The truth is, is that I don’t want to try as hard as I can because if I do, and if I fail I don’t know if I could handle it. At least this way, I am succeeding, little by little, it’s enough to get by on. That sounds dumber written down than it did in my head, but it’s the honest to Zeus truth. So I am just kinda “going through the motions” or something as cliched and retarded as that. I am just waking up, taking my vitamins, checking my energy levels, working out if I can, and looking for jobs. I don’t know if I have the emotional strength to take the time that I have off while I am not working and spent it doing 2 hours in the gym every day. I could be, but I think I’d rather chop my legs off and eat them. (which brings up the grand dismay I have about my calves in their patriotic glory fluttering like flags for having the most loose skin of all the other calves in all the world).

Novel writing is going good. I have doubled the relaxation of the activity by creating a shelf that sits on the bath that I can use as a desk while I am taking a bath. If you have been reading this blog in its entirety, you know that baths are the best things in the whole frakking universe.The shelf is the bestest thing everer, but sometimes i forget about the world and realize too late that I am either freezing and blue or feverish and magenta.

Odd things about being 77 pounds lighter.

I can cross my legs under my desk, both in my office and the shelf that I made for the bath.

I wear a size 16 now and am in desperate need of pants!

I can run on the treadmill for a long period of time (although I shouldn’t because it hurts my ankle)

My knees hit each other while I am sleeping and it frakking hurts!!!! (gotta love that I am using the word Frak all of a sudden after being overloaded with Battlestar Galactica Episodes!)

Philip Glass is the best ever to work out to. (this isn’t related to 77 pounds down, but I think that you should know.)

Sometimes I feel like I wanna run around the apartment and dance and jump like a silly bean - other times I feel like I can’t get out of bed because I am a pile of mush. (like today for example)

I DO NOT CRAVE BREAD. I never thought I would say this, but I really don’t. It’s strange and I think that I have somehow become host to a wheat intolerant alien.

I think that’s it. Sorry for the randomness. I seem to be not so into writing in the blog because of the novel writing. Truth is, when I am in that world, it’s hard to come out of it.

Tomorrow night I am going to see Star Trek, and I am going to sit in the theatre with AMPLE room in between the arm rest and my bum. It’s always bothered me how tight of a fit it was before when I was over 300. It was so embarrassing, even though in the darkness of the theatre nobody notices, unless you are me, and are looking around to see if anyone else is suffering. Tomorrow night I will sit down, with my ample room and I will enjoy a film without being embarrassed. Take THAT!

I have had it real good, folks. I have heard all the horror stories under the sun about people who are terrorized by their obsessions with food, or people who cannot function. And then of course there are those who develop hernias and gall bladder attacks and broken ankles (whoops, how’d that get in there) and major complications.

I am doing great, but there are things that have put me into some sort of blueness, and I want to document these so that I can compare, analyze, regroup and heal. So if you think I am complaining, I am, but I am doing it so that I can try to pick my complaints apart — so that I can self improve –

• The taste of my multi-vitamin makes me gag, and my eyes water from the instant the rotten pineapple concoction hits my tongue and for hours afterwards. I hate it so much - so so very much. I would like to try another one
• My ankle is healing well! That is not a complaint, but the prolonged time that I was off my ankle and making it all better, has thrown my back off and I am now suffering mad pains back there.
• A long time ago, in one of my many attempts to lose weight, I developed a code for myself that whenever i wanted comfort I would never run to food, but instead have a bath. This has worked splendidly for me for many years, which is why I don’t really feel the need to have food when I need comfort. Instead, I am faced with the suffering of not being able to take a bath (doctors orders until christmas) because of the glue that they used to seal my wounds. The pain is intensified as we just received a BEAUTIFUL new renovation on our bathroom and a brand spank’n new bath tub. I want a bath. I want a bath so bad. I don’t mind the cream soups and the broth and the protein shakes, but I want a freaking bath and it’s making me really sad.
• The last complaint is that I feel out of sorts. A lot of this has to do with my previous (and comforting) routine being obliterated. I used to wake up either for school, or kinda around 11:00am ish. I now wake up whenever I feel like it…which sometimes I can be 2:00-3:00pm. This is usually due to the fact that I am in pain in the middle of the night. Switching positions takes a little effort and I can’t lie on my left side or my stomach yet. Donny feels the effects of my labourious switches the most I think. When I finally wake up, things feel weird cause I am done school. Not anything to do with the surgery, I know, but still feels weird. I hobble over to the couch, and fix myself half a cup of coffee. I used to drink about a litre of coffee in the morning…and no, I am not joking. I can now only stomach 1/2 cup, which is fine…but it just adds to the whole weird out of sorts thing. If I were 100% better, the house would be clean, but it’s not….and things are everywhere. It makes me very uneasy, but I have NO energy right now it seems to dent the mess. Then there is the whole not making dinner for Donny thing. That was my thing. I made dinner for us. I made dinner the other day, it was a wonderful feeling to do that for Donny, my amazing other half — but exhausting. I have no appetite it seems and then a vicious one at all the wrong times. I donno, it’s all very unstable. I’ve always been the type of person who needs order and routine to feel comfortable. I feel right now that everything is up in the air and it’s freaky and depressing. I am embracing this change - really, i am trying, I promise…but i want a bath!!!!!! I want my house to be tidy!!! I want to be able to make dinner again without feeling totally wasted afterwards. I want these things but I can’t have them so it makes me feel sorta hopeless.

Okay so now that I have detailed my complaints I need to counter them with rationality. So here is a letter to myself from my rationality…

Dear Janie poopoohead,

I love you and I made this decision because I love you. Of course things are going to be hard, silly dumbface! You have just made the hugest change of your life, probably. What can we do to make you feel better. What’s something that you used to do back when you had a routine. I know! Let’s read a book. What’s a good book that you wanna read…besides! We have no stupid crap-school! Congratulations on finishing your last exam today by the way. You are amazing, have I ever said that? Seriously Janie, you had this major surgery, changed your life, smashed your ankle all up and then got the highest mark on your vagina dentata essay in the whole class! Remember when you were all stressing about that, probably in your bath, and I kept saying how there was no point in stressing because it’s just grades and so what if you lose some sometimes. Yah, see? Listen to me more often, kid. So what can we do with you? Baths will come eventually. Talk to your doctor on Thursday and ask him if you can take a bath a bit early. In fact, don’t shower at all until then and rub dirty socks all over yourself and then ask him. Tell him you have no shower and that you must take a bath for the good of mankind. And your back will heal, babe. One thing at a time. Take the heating pad to bed and just rest on that for a bit. Speak to your body. Tell it to cooperate. Oh, and get a new multi-vitamin. Ew.

Take it easy, crazyhead. A new routine will come. The old routine wasn’t that good. Your old routine made you fat and lame. Look forward to making any routine you want as soon as you are better. Relax. Enjoy the time you have off. Shave your fricking legs!

I love you and I am always here to set you straight,

Love, your rationality

So I don’t have time to write you a nice big blog letter to tell you everything but I will tell you the main events of what happened after the surgery.

We got into a huge car accident on our way home from the hospital! It was so freaking scary! I have to tell you exactly what happened though because it is so very dramatic (so very Janie). We had a killer snow storm and we thought it was subsiding so we weren’t too too worried. I mean, I was uncomfortable because of all the bumps but it was not that bad so we were okay. All of a sudden the van went out of control, went over three lanes into oncoming traffic and smashed into the guard rail on the opposite side. After the hit we ended up in the middle lane facing the on coming traffic but nobody could see us because it was snowing so badly that you could barely see two feet in front of you. That was the scariest thing because donny and I after saying “are you okay i love you i love you” a million times were then facing these cars that look like we are going to be smashed ten times over again. I realized then that something was wrong with my foot and also that my knees were up against the dash and I couldn’t get out of the van because my side was all smashed in. My glasses were also all smashed up so I couldn’t see anything in any sort of detail so that was all very disconcerting.

Then a lady came to my door and pried it loose and told me she was a nurse and she saw the whole thing. I said “OMG LOOK AT MY INCISIONS TELL ME IF I AM SCREWED!” and she did and said they looked fine. (i was wearing my seatbelt so where there would be lots of bruising at least they were forced against the belt and not torn across the dash or something). Get this though, her HUSBAND was driving behind us (she was in front of us) and happened to be an city of sarnia emergency traffic dude who was able to barricade the road off from oncoming traffic with his lights and reflector thingys. So that was an insane relief! OMG! So because I was crying at this point because I knew everything was going to be okay and my emotions starting kicking in, the nice nurse lady took me into her van and wrapped me up in blanket to wait for the ambulance. I knew as soon as I stepped on my foot that it was sprained. She took another look at my incisions in the light and said that one of them might be seeping but it was okay still.

We went to the hospital and called my parents and Donny’s parents to let them know what was going on. The damage of the car is probably a write off. We won’t know for sure until we get the assessment back. Donny’s dad said he was going to pick us up. We were still 2 hours away from home at this point, so that was a huge wonderful marvelous thing that he did for us to relieve that stress of not being home. So I got checked out at the hospital…and we grabbed the most important things from the van before we left it at the impound lot.

That was last night and we got in at about 11:30pm. I went straight to bed. The “being off my feet for 48 hours” really conflicts with the “walking a mile a day to prevent blood clots” from the surgery so I am sorta frustrated about that.

DONNY IS AMAZING. He has done everything and more for me. He is the best. Right now he has me propped up on pillows and surrounded me by things that I need like kleenex and lotion and computer and broth.

I will update you more about the day to day living with gastric bypass week one sorta thing in a bit - but right now we are going to watch some Heroes from last week and all that jazz.

Everyone is fine. We are fine. We love each other very much and we were SO LUCKY. Unbelievably lucky.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. We both really feel that you were with us all the way. xoxoxoxo

Oh my gosh I am freaking OUT. The hospital just called and told me that I CANNOT have my surgery on the 17th and that I MUST have it on December THIRD if I want to get it done while I am not in school. AGHH! This of course is all pending on a blood test that I must get done THIS WEEK in Michigan (wednesday) because my results in canada will not come back in time. If this blood test is positive (meaning that I have bacteria in my stomach) I CANNOT get the surgery until that is cured with anti-biodics.

The things that are running through my head are these:

NEXT FRIGGIN WEEK!!!?????

Also, will Donny be able to come with me? Will I have to go alone? How will I get home if I have to go alone? I am annoyed about having to make a trip on Wednesday because it puts other people out. I can drive by myself but that means donny is without a car on wednesday for the whole day.

What if the blood results come back as positive? That would suck. A lot.

I have an essay due next Monday and a take home test that is assigned on monday that is due on the 11th. Should I ask for an extension.

I need to start my liquid diet on Wednesday just in case the blood tests come back NEGATIVE and the surgery goes on as planned on the THIRD. OMG.

I need to get that binder back from mom and actually read it.

I don’t get to have my early birthday party or the dinner party at Joan’s house

Donny probably won’t be able to have friends come with him on the 3rd…because everyone is supposed to be in school still.

What if the blood tests come back as positive, what if the blood tests come back as positive?????