The Little Engine That Could

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Oh yeah. I ,um, ate a little too fast.

After a very long meeting, I took out my bumblebee salmon steak, cut open the package, nuked it for 30 mins and the ate about 1/3 of it. I was so excited, 2 meals for under 3 bucks and maybe I could stretch it out to 3 meals-- high protein which means less hair loss (I am so fucking vain).

Then trouble hit.

I knew I wasn't chewing enough, the salmon was very very dry and all I wanted was some water to drink with it. But then I took a last bite and knew that I was going to throw up. And 10 mins later, at my desk when I did, I felt gross, weird, and oddly better. Because I didn't puke like normal, I just puked the last two bites. A mouthful of foam.

So, learning points are:

1) try out new foods at home. Not at work.
2) Chew. Chew some more.
3) If it feels dry, it is. Please use some common sense, Kim, and don't eat that yet. You'll have the rest of your life to do that.
4) Puking isn't terrible. It doesn't hurt, actually alleviates the pain. It's the terrible "erp" sound that is weird-- and the foamies-- that's just disgusting.
5) Slow down. Work can wait.

I told my boss who is fascinated with this whole process, and she told me to go home. I slept on the couch for 3 hours when I got home, woke up and ate three turkey meatballs and crushed tomatoes. Not to overfull, but satisfied. Yeah for turkey meatballs.

I still think I have a broken bypass. However I am listening to everyone else about my success-- because I know the neighborhood between my left and right ear is a bad place to be.

Friday, August 24, 2007

The Scale's not Moving

And I am pissed. Convinced that this is the weight I'll be forever.

It's a little mind game I've got going..... I feel like I am eating too much (three bites of turkey meatloaf), drinking to fast (one sip, not a gulp, at a time), and that I can't .... well, poop.

So there it is. Scale hasn't moved. I'm the one with the broken gastric bypass. My doctor did it on purpose because he likes the lap-band better. In fact, maybe I have a lap-band and don't know it.....


Pity party for one...... pity party for one.......

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Taking myself for walks

Yesterday I got home from work and had dinner at a reasonable hour-- some smoked salmon (not like Lox or Nova, but real true smoked flaky salmon- yum) and a piece of cheese. Trying to get my protein in everywhere. I ate almost 3 oz of that, and still didn't feel full. But not to worry, I am doing what I am supposed to do, eat until satisfied, and the numbers on the scale are going down.

Then I took myself for a walk around my neighborhood. I live in the most amazing place. One block over from me is a Italian/Serbian club with tables outdoors and lots of hunky men smoking outside, then further down is a mafia owned Italian restaurant-- how do you know it's a mob place-- there are no windows to get shot through...... well, and the prices are incredibly high. Then around the corner from that is an international food market, then little Brazil with shop after shop of bikinis, short dresses and brasilian flags in the windows.

Then I walked a different way, and went through little Egypt-- people, we are talking about Hookahs, cafes, restaurants after restaurants, and it is all about 1 block from me. I've lived here for 10 years and never paid attention. It looks so cool-- again, hunky men, sitting outside smoking apple tobacco, old and young, looking at me like "Who is she" and me just smiling and thinking I need to take more walks.

My favorite was passing by a store that said "Islam Fashion" and displayed headscarves, tunics and sandals for women who cover themselves. I have (ignorantly) never thought of this as fashion, however, it very much is. The beading, the colors, the type of fabric-- it's all very fashionable. I felt proud to live in a place where this store isn't destroyed every night with graffiti or the neighborhood doesn't rise up against the anti-arab sentiment that seemingly has laid over the land we love. My neighborhood instead says "Welcome. Pay your taxes, enjoy what little we have."

I do live in a vibrant mix of a neighborhood and love it. Little communities pop up all the time.

I need to go on more walks, try out a hookah bar (and eat some amazing middle-eastern food) and then maybe make some friends with the hunky men.

Oh, I've decided, I am no longer interested in a boyfriend-- I just want a man to eat my leftovers....... :)

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Back to Work

The great part of my job is it's flexibility. There are times where I need to be at work by 7am, and then there are times where I don't come in until 11:30am. It's nice answering to one person.

And I have the luxury of working from home if things go wonky. I can't imagine being a mom and having this kind of flexibility, I can only assume employers go "No No No" once you birth a child-- as if you are the child and need to be instructed. I've seen it done before, I know people and employers who do it.

So for now, single, flexible and losing weight. Oh the scale doesn't know I losing weight, but my pants do.

Going into work-- some people know about the surgery, some people don't. But I work with investigators, so eventually they will figure it all out.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Desperately Seeking.....

Something. I don't know what. When I find it, I'll let you know.

I hit an angry pocket last week and got back in touch with TK to do some energy work today. Hocus Pocus, but not looking for a cure. Looking to breathe deeper and open up my heart yet again to love and to emotions.

I am having a mellow day. Listening to "a way back to then" from [title of show] a new musical. If you were a drama geek, or an Annie fan, danced in the backyard, putting on shows or wanted to be an actress ever, this is your song. I pulled it off i-Tunes.

I dare you not to tear up. I dare you.

I have to go to my appointment with TK. Haven't seen him in a while. Don't want to have my old guard up, but my old guard does not understand what it is to be furloughed. I don't need walls around this man. He is not out to hurt me. He is good at his work, just trust.

Ackk.

Desperately Seeking Trust.

FUCK!

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Stepping on the Scale

It's such an interesting game I play with myself. Like no one else plays it. Holler "Aye" if you do this....

I only record weight when I have lost it, but not when I have gained it. So therefore no updates for a couple days. I must have stepped on that friggen thing about 15 times in the last three days, but it hasn't moved, and in fact goes up and down. By a couple of half pounds, but I am paranoid-- omigod the surgery doesn't work for me, I will never lose the weight, I have to exercise more (I can't under doctor's orders), I have to eat more (which I do), maybe I am stopped up and need to clean out my system, etc etc etc.

So here's the deal-- only on the scale once a week. I don't want to do what I have done in the past and give up or think that going to the bathroom will help, or weighing the first thing in the morning, or whatever other little game I can play with myself.

My first time on Weight Watchers, the night before my first weigh in (I was 15) my gramma asked me what I wanted my last meal to be. I didn't quite understand, but she schooled me in overeating to unbalance the scale-- that night I ate spaghetti-o's, mother's iced oatmeal cookies, frozen snicker's bars, etc. I went to WW the next afternoon with my father and weighed somewhere in the range of 280-250-- somewhere like that. 15 years old, people. 15. Yes, 5'9", and I am about 100 pounds from that weight, but fer chrissakes, 15.

I was too busy unbalancing the scale during my teenaged years to focus on anything but a gay boyfriend.

I learned most of my terrible food habits from the women in my life. My Aunt Patty apologized (herself being a WLS'er) for teaching me to eat frosting out of the can, Aunt Susie for getting stoned with me in college and eating out way through cakes and lasagnas, sausages and cookies. The lady down the street let me sneak cookies from the cabinet, my mother teaching me to have dinner but to leave the leftovers out, "just in case" you were hungry later.

When I was home during recovery-- the first night my folks had steak, as they always do on Saturday. I liked the smell, but was barely drinking back my protein shake. But then-- she left the leftovers out. I asked them to please put them away. I don;t mind the dinner and the smells, but leaving the leftovers out-- c'mon. Just give the bottle to the drunk, whydon'tcha.

What I would like to do is give my nieces and nephew, and hopefully children, the good habits. Eat when you are hungry, drink when you are thirsty, If you want the cookie, have ONE cookie-- not an apple in front of mom, and sneak the sleeve of cookies into my room for later. No hiding while eating. No fast eating. Sit at the friggen table, turn off the tv. If leftovers happen, but them away. No easy pickins.

And only step on the scale once a week.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Being Honest

Interesting, I have had a couple of phone calls about honesty today, when I did or did not happen to tell people about the surgery.....

People, let me explain something to you. This wasn't a community decision. It was my decision. You were not consulted because this had nothing at all to do with you. At all. Except maybe the teeniest tinest glimpse of Phhhhhhttttt for saying stupid unthoughtful comments really early on.

Years ago someone told me that I would be the last person who can keep a secret..... oh yeah-- up yours mother trucker. Up fuckin' yours.

So now that this has been cleared up..... Other bits of honesty.

Decisions to have surgery was really when I got honest with myself, and knew that no diet would help me lose weight. No amount of exercise. I needed help, and I was scared if I started yet another diet, I would gain another 20-30 pounds...... when I decided to "cheat a little". For me, being on a diet is like saying I go to Church.... I always want to say I am going to Church, because that's what I "should" be doing-- when in fact the last time I was in a Church for a service was well over a year ago for a funeral. So I would be fooling myself again about being "on a diet" when in fact I was "not on a diet at all, and eating whatever got stuck in my path".

Also, no amount of therapy would help me lose weight. Body work, energy work, talk therapy. ETC. Alone at night it's me and the fridge and the fridge does not ask me how I feel at all. It doesn't care. So diet and therapy didn't work.

I took long honest looks at myself, and was with every potential scenario, and this was the best fit. And I am proud of it, of my healing scars. Proud of making a decision without asking for fucking permission from anyone.

So do you hear that...... I have a good job, I get to travel the world, a good life, and good insurance that affords me to have this surgery and the follow up I need to continue a lifestyle that is already starting to shift what I look like. It may even shift all that personal responsibility I have felt over the years from me back to you...... so I lose both physical and emotional weight.

Omigoodness-- I think I just hit an angry spell. Hmmmm. No apologies for it. Just being angry and feeling it.

Corporal restructuring

Or Internal Re-organization.

I can't decide how I will tell some of my co-workers about surgery. What I want to say is "I've been on vacation", but that's a lie. I've been at home, choking down isopure and ricotta, and believe me, that's no vacation.

Or I want to tell them everything-- about the time when I was five my mom caught me with my hand in the cookie jar, and then when I was 10 and after getting an ice cream at McDonald's my mom made me go try out for volleyball-- which I loved, but I never finished the ice cream and it melted all over the dresser) and then when I was twelve and my brother said I'd never be popular if I was fat, and when i was 17 and my teacher said I was pretty and then when I was 22 and gaining weight because my boyfriend was gay and on and on to not feel not think, and dive into the comfort of food. And how this surgery was the last straw in a long battle with weight, and I hate needles and talk about me all you want behind my back, but dammit I am not going back to fat.

Or I can say this:

I had an internal re-org, a kind of corporal restructuring. One division was over-performing and eating up profits at not much of a loss, so that division has been reduced and sidelined--effectively been cut out and furloughed, but I don't see any chance of it coming back into action. One of the divisions on the lower part of the ladder has reduced forces, and are re-worked into the receivership of the now smaller, once over performing division, cutting out the middle man. These two smaller divisions streamline the process, retracing the habits of the older division, but without enduring servitude for the head of the company.

I like that one better. Don't you?

Friday, August 10, 2007

Fun things to do

Today I woke up later than the 6:30am wake up of earlier in the week. I slept all the way through the night with no pain meds. In fact, I haven't had any pain pills for three days.

I jumped out of bed, re-did some of the lovely flowers both work and friends sent me for recovery, making four boquets where there were just two, and toss the rotting stuff. All before breakfast-- and I was just so active.....

Then breakfast-- I tried the Myoplex lite powered shake. Chocolate. Not for me. Not with milk, for sure, but really, not for me at all. Anyone want some free packets of this stuff? I'd just so much rather with the pure protein in a can. So much better, so much easier.

Cleaned up a little, watched Babel, then did some powerpoint rescue for a friend. Then dinner. Baby food veg and chicken-- yum yum. Tolerated well.

THEN I GOT ON MY TENNIS SHOES AND WALKED AROUND THE BLOCK.

Just in case you didn't hear me....... I got out and walked. Around the block. I haven't done that but four times in the 11 years I have lived here. And three of those times were because my car was around the corner.

I had a little gas pain so I thought, get out and walk-- so I did. Like a normal human being. I went for a walk after dinner, not a long one, not an arduous one, not a sweat breaking one, but just to move around.

I like this new Kim. She's cool. She doesn't stop to think, she just does........

Watch me now.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Turn and face the strange......

I switched it up. It's easier for me to read. I look so cute in glasses, but that's only for show. Those little letters were killing me, and although blank space aids in the digestion of reading, I needed less blank, more words on a page.

Home Home

I got home Tuesday night from my folks. And I feel good. I love sleeping in my bed, except that I can't sleep like I like to-- I am a side/stomach sleeper, and that just feels weird right now.

When my mom was in for her surgery back in January, I got her a froggie that is big that she could hang onto if the pain got so bad. Last night, with inherited froggie-- I just cried. Cried that my mom didn't have her folks with her to go through the surgery with her.... that she might have been scared too, but she'd never let it show.... that she didn't have anyone to guide her and love her.... and froggie let me know he hugged her as tight as he was hugging me. (well, not really, but kind of).

Sometimes mom can be an unthinking asshole about the details, but in the overall, she just wants to make it okay for me to live my life and have success. I cried about that too. Cried that I will miss her when she's not there anymore, and hope that someday when I have babies she can hold them and love them and sing to them and love them. And they will love her.

Okay, enough crying.

Yesterday I cooked. And cooked. And it felt great. I wanted to do something nice for my friend who is opening a show later in the week and has no time to even think, much less cook for herself-- I had time and the interest so I made a chicken enchilada casserole. Actually it was just hamburger helper with other stuff thrown in, but all that other stuff made my tummy go sour on the thought of it-- salsa, corn, chicken, etc. If felt so good to cook and not be tempted or obsessed, just interested. Maybe now I am allowed to love food, and really be a foodie.... when I lose these 200+ pounds.

Can you imagine-- she gets surgery and then becomes a foodie..... how funny would that be.
Although I don't think I can be a foodie with hamburger helper in my kitchen.

Okay, off to the DR.'s for the checkup and appt making, then home for nap time, then movie watching, intermingled with scrambled egg and cheese. But just a little.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Home

But not really my home. My folks home, in CT, and living in the sad little room I lived in for about 6 months when I was unemployed ten years ago. Now it feels different. Not so sad.

I feel good-- all systems are go-- everything that is supposed to happen did--and I didn't cry except when the gas guy tried to get me in the other hand with a needle.

SO this is what the whole thing looked like......

Mom and pop picked me up.
I was nervous, but not too bad.
We sat around for almost 4 hours.
Then met with the surgeon.
Weighed, measured, blood pressured.
Sit in the waiting room. Try to read people magazine. Instead talk to mom about the chili dog I am craving. She understands.
Nurse comes and gets me.
Blood pressure again.
Wait.
hospital gown on, everything else off. Omigod-- this is it.
Gas guy (cute cute cute) tries to stick iv in the left hand, not the right-- vein rolls, I pass out. Smelling salts from some other woman.
"I'm really thirsty"-- gas guy (again, so cute) says this will help.
Does IV in other hand. It hurts not so much.
Bye mom and pop.
Go into surgery room, get on small table and goodnight.

Wake up with people talking to me
my mom rubbing my face (that was annoying because there were a lot of people there)
my dad hanging onto my foot.
"My tummy hurts"
press the button-- I love my folks, tears, and goodnight.

Sometime at 2 am they tell me I will be here all night because there are no rooms so in recovery I stay. It wasn't bad. Anna my nurse was awesome, the ladies talking at the end of my bed I kicked out because I couldn't sleep. Some ice chips, swab water.
4am woman presses on my stomach-- I'm hear to wash you-- I scream at her-- I just had bariatric surgery you bitch, get off me. I cry a lot, put the button and sleep.
I can hear Anna telling her to go away. I love Anna.

Moved about noon the next day into a room with a hip fracture woman. She wasn't so nice.
Move out of room to my own room.
DO laps around nursing station.
Shots to my tummy (oww, oww, oww)
Then broth, tea, water, fitness water and press the button sleep.
Mom and Pop and Christine come and hang out for a bit.
New room is much nicer.
Mom and pop leave, Christine and I chat.
She leaves, I watch the thunderstorms over downtown. And sleep.

Middle of the night.
Gas pains,
Can I get a chair to sit in.
Read magazines, poor lindsay.
Read Potter, poor weasleys.
Walk walk walk,
and sleep.

6am-- going home today.
Pass gas then go home.
PASSED GAS!!!! Yeah me.
who knew a fart would mean so much?

Call mom and pop-- by 10am, gotta get outta here.
At 5 to 10, mom shows up.
Wheeled out.
get in the car-- ow, ow ow-- feel googly inside.
Every bump is a curse.

Home with tears.
Up to the house
in the chair and sleepy time.

I've been on sleepy time for a while. I like it.

Home home will be tuesday or Wednesday. Then the real fun begins.

Peace!

Kim

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Blech

I just got off the phone with my sil.
"This is going to be a great journey for you, I wished you had shared it with us sooner."

I didn't share it sooner because I didn't want to. Because my brother and I don't speak to one another, because he gets angry and I cry, because sil is perfect, and you have cut family members out of your lives in your perfect cookie cutter way. And to be honest, it kills me every day not to be a part of my family, to see my nieces and nephew. I love these people, I really do, I just don't want to feel like I have to constantly protect myself around her.

I told mom she could tell brother, I wasn't hiding it from him, if he or wifey had happened to call I would have let them know, but they didn't so what's the point. Mom made it a big deal 'she didn't want to tell you because blah blah blah....".

Hopefully my mom will be able to manage her anger. She wasn't so great to me today.
I told her I was going to get a massage and a scrub, and her response
"Well, do you think that will help?"
"Help... help what? Me lose weight? (silence)"
"I mean is it worth all that money?"
"Yeah mom it is. It is worth the $150 I will spend to be rubbed, scrubbed and relaxed prior to the most important decision day of my life. I want to be as calm as possible without taking a pill."
"I was fine. It's no big deal" (we'll revisit this topic later on and with more fury)
"I know mom, you are perfect that way." I didn't say this outloud.

I know she loves me. How I want to be loved is her to reach through the phone and hug me, rock me to sleep and say you are my baby and I am here to protect you. I want her arms to hold me, and her to say I love love love you just as you are, and just as you aren't. In her heart, I know she does. She just doesn't know how to do it out loud.

And then poor A heard something and started coaching me on it, but really I am in no mood to gear up for a coaching battle. I trod into this with my hat in my hand, humbly saying I've done my best, now take care of me.

And this energetic person awaits on the other side-- this half-frozen being is waking up, and she will heal and move and dance and laugh and love and she will not have to put up walls to protect herself-- she will express hurt and frustration.

Okay, maybe that's a little much.

I was thinking about all the things I want to do.
1) I want to go swimming (thanks pin-up)
2) I want to learn to partner dance, and do the tango.
3) I want to learn to run.
4) I want to get my massage license. I want to help others get as relaxed before their surgery as I was today. What a cool gift would that be to give to others-- the gift of loving touch before their surgery.

Okay, I am weepy. My admitting time is noon-- mom and pop are picking me up at 10:30 and I wished I smoked and am seriously craving a chili cheese dog from Der Wienerschnitzle. Thank god I live on the east coast and can get none of that.

Goodnight. Godbless. Prayers, energy and thoughts for me. Lots of them.

To my Sassy Gals-- I could not have done this without your support. I mean it. Every comment is like a little hug, a little push, and people who are saying "I know, and it's going to get better". Thank you for having me in this community. I have read some of your blogs for over a year and it has had me choose surgery, this surgery, and this date. I feel prepared, forewarned, loved and supported.

Here's to a new life.

Kim