Had a pretty good day all things considered.  I slept late, lazed around a little bit and then went out and got some flowers and went to the cemetery. It was good, I feel very peaceful after spending some time there.  Afterwards I went and got a lottery ticket ... fingers crossed!!

Came home and spent some time doing computer stuff with my bro, tried on some new threads I picked up yesterday and then had a good workout with Bob and Biggest Loser on the Kinect.  Feeling good

Only minus to the day... I ate too fast and ended up worshipping the porcelain god.  Haven't done that in awhile.... my bad.

Mini fashion show below :)

A serious moment and remembrance

April 6, 1992  I lost my younger brother (middle child) to suicide.  He ended his life over the Easter long weekend and I was the one that found him the morning we were all going back to school.

I was 15 years old and he was 13.

It was the worst day of my life and I know that with certainty.  I honestly cannot imagine something worse than that day. I lost my mom only a few years later where I, as the eldest, had to make the decision to turn off machines and chose to be there when it happened... that wasn't a good choice, it was equally traumatizing and will remain in my memory almost as clearly as the day we lost my brother.

Today is Shawn Michael Massey's 20th year without his family that loved him deeply.  I decided to post this because I felt the strong need to remember him this year since I'll be leaving Alberta and will have little chance to visit his grave site after this anniversary.  Also I posted it to remember the pain I felt and have continued to feel in the 20 years since.  I've had nightmares of that day for the last 20 years and I wish I could let them go.  It's very hard not to remember things etched in your memory with dynamite.  Paint or wallpaper... or denial.... they're all easier to remove.

To my little brother that would be 33 years old today if he had still been here.  I love you.  I always will.  Take care of mom.

I don't normally post stuff quite so intimate, private or personal but this is important and I want it to be logged on the internet for all time because my family is my family for all time.  I still count my brother among my siblings even though he's no longer of this earth.  He is the only thing that makes me want to believe in a higher power.  And in that higher power, I pray hard... constantly... for leniency and forgiveness in this choice he made.

WLS musings

I'm having some difficulty on the boards of late.  I see these posts asking about making choices post op (early post op especially) for different foods they "think" they can have and if its ok. For some reason I think that if they get the "approval" from their anonymous online peers then it must be ok and then they have someone to blame other than themselves when it all goes wrong

All I have been able to reply is basically this:

Do you want to lose weight?
Do you want to keep it off?
Do you want to change your relationship with food?
Do you want to be posting about stalls (or worse complications!) because of your choices?
Do you want to be among the statistics of people that REGAIN their weight?

You only get one good shot at this post op.  Why make choices that you KNOW aren't good for you or not on your surgeons plan?  Do you think that the surgeon made the plan up purely to torture you?

Think about this.  Think about your choices post op.  And then after that, its up to you to make this choice.  You can eat the foods you're not cleared to because you think its ok... or you can eat the foods you're supposed to because you want to optimize your results for as long as you can!

I'm having less and less patience with this as I get further from my surgery.  Are people really thinking this or are they just trolling?  I'm having difficulty deciding if they REALLY wanted this healthy life or just chose surgery simply to get SKINNY.



signed (nearly) 1 year post op and lower than goal

Iron issues

I'm starting to wonder.  I go to a close-by medicentre to get my weekly injections and the doc there pulled my bloodwork info because he said I should have seen SOME changes in my bloodwork with all these injections.  He said that my ferritin level is fine at 17 (low is 12)  and so is my hemoglobin at 121 (low is 120).... so now I am really confused. I see my doc on the 11th so I plan to ask her what the heck she's seeing that he's not and if this is all really necessary at all.  It still doesn't explain my dizziness, fatigue and fainting but at least if I can stop with these darn weekly injections, its a plus... especially if they're unnecessary which it sounds like they are?!  A week ago I was freaking that I was a step away from a transfusion and today I'm wondering if the last 1.5 months of weekly injections were even ever required...

Figured out what my iron injection feels like that I get every week.

A charley horse in your ass muscle.  It HURTS!