A new chapter...

Sometimes in life you have to do what you're most scared of doing. Step out of your comfort zone...remember what you deserve and don't settle for anything less.  It's time to re-create myself and learn who I want to be/I am ... again.  Employee/peer/manager.... another cog/different cog in the wheel.

 Tomorrow is my last day!!!

I'm actually ready to move on RIGHT NOW. I spent ALL of today training my replacement and most of tomorrow will be the same.

I still have to pack the rest of the stuff at my desk and hubby is coming to pick it up and bring me my luggage as I go straight to Calgary from work on the bus starting at 430pm. Thursday/Friday I will be in Calgary doing management training with all the managers from Aviva Western Canada (eep... why am I so nervous!? I feel like a bit of a fraud actually going to this training!). While I'm gone to Calgary for training, the packers come Thursday, movers come Friday! Friday night 630pm I'm back on the bus back to Edmonton and Saturday morning we do the final inspection/hand over keys to our new (lease to own) tenant and we're off back to Calgary....

Itinerary:
Sat night Calgary, AB (3.5 hr drive)
Sunday Sicamous, BC (6 hr drive)
Monday Kelowna, BC (2 hr drive)
Tuesday Burnaby, BC ( 4.5 hrs to our new home!)


Next few days will be STRESS mixed with excitement! So much to do, so little time!

I'm feeling a little melancholy tonight

I'm planning our going away/goodbye party.  I'm watching people around me here experience exciting new challenges, my best friend's daughter growing up, my brothers, my sisters.... I think about all of them and how much I'm going to miss in their lives.  I know that we don't see each other here as much as we should/I'd like to... but now that I'm leaving this province it just feels so very final.    I know that this move is what's best for us (Hubby and I) and our lives and we're going to have a great life but every now and then nostalgia hits me and I'm drawn into a feeling of loss and sadness for what I will miss not living in the city I was born in.  That I grew up in. That everyone I know and love is in. And that I KNOW inside and out.

I'm nervous and scared and excited and sad and worried all at once.  What a range of emotions I'm experiencing as the date grows near.  A month... a mere month until we are literally on our own.  Just the 2 of us (and Bailie) .... in a city we have only visited a few times, in an office I've never been in, with people I don't know, in a position I'm scared the shit out of.

Tell me I can do this.  Even if I don't believe you.  Tell me I can because tonight, I'm FREAKING THE HECK OUT.

Much of it likely is because hubby is really being an ass tonight and its making me lonely for the life I'll be missing.  *sigh*

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

Body Image... and Plastics?

Why is it that when I was 100 lbs heavier I actually was LESS self conscious of my body? Is it some kind of body dysmorphia, was I actually more confident or was it all a facade to keep myself in a bubble of denial?

When I was heavier I had no problem prancing around nekkid in the house. I didn't even care if I passed in front of an open window. I felt comfortable in my skin (I thought so anyway) and I felt like a sexy beast.

Now I want to turn the lights off. I feel like I have little grandma boobages (I went from 38E to 34D) and the amount of wrinkly ass extra skin on my tummy makes me want to hide my body. All I can focus on was how badly I want to get plastics and how to best hold my body so I and my hubby can't see the yucky skin.

When I was bigger I remember saying to myself and others... he's is just happy you're naked, he's not judging your body, you are! And now, pot meet kettle. I can't even listen to my own damn advice.

Do any of my dear readers have these body image issues with yo yo dieting? How can you get past them? I get it .. love yourself, that's a no brainer. Is there anything else you can do though??

Im still really freaked out.

I have an appt tomorrow afternoon at 2pm. Not with my PCP because she's booked up but another doc in the same office.

I'm still really shaken up about it especially when hubby told me last night that my eyes were open the whole time, just rolling around, out of focus. I thought that my eyes had closed as suddenly he was in focus so I assumed it was because I opened my eyes. He told me that I'd never closed them at all. I had I couldn't find anything about fainting where the person's eyes stayed open for the episode. That's a seizure from what I can find which scares the crap out of me. I get healthy and THIS happens!?

I told my boss this morning that I was going to have to take tomorrow afternoon off and what happened and I almost started crying right then and there.

Friend Makin Monday 2012

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

FMM: Goals for 2012

*Focus on strength training and being able to do the simple things again ... like open a water bottle without needing to use my teeth!

*Not let stress overcome me, think logically and clearly. Let my head, not my emotions (or reactions) make my decisions for how I act.

*Allow people in. Let others care for me and let me allow them to. No shutting out/down.

Wahoooooo!

We got the phone call this morning! We have a year extension from the military for our final move!!! That takes a HUGE load of stress and time constraint off of us. We felt very pressured to make a decision and get the move going regardless of the issues with selling our houses, now we have some leeway. A whole years worth!!

The plan now is to move to Vancouver around the summer time or early fall. By then we will be able to LEISURELY sell both houses (although that's a WHOLE OTHER source of stress for me right now), have our house hunting trip and move at the nicest time of the year. It feels so much better knowing that we have that extension.

I'm looking forward to moving to Vancouver. Hubby thinks he's forcing me to move but honestly, I'm ready for the change. The adventure. The no snow. lol

Now we need to call Relocation Services to find out how early we should be looking for a summer/fall move there so we can use those dates to work backwards to selling the place we're in now, getting my transfer done at work... etc.

It's exciting and nerve wracking all at the same time. I am going back to the doc on Wednesday to find a new anti-depressant/anti-anxiety med though I think. There's been so much stress and I'm not dealing with it well. I constantly worry, over prepare and think catastrophically about everything. It's not good for me or my marriage.

I'm in a funk.

I feel really run down lately and as though life's stressors are weighing on me more than they have in a long time.  I'm not sure how much is my surgery (although I doubt any of it really is) but more how I'm handling stress.  Stress at work, at home, with my renters, with my marriage, my dog, my brother, my friends.  I feel as though I'm not coping well like I was able to in the past.

I'm not really sure what this means exactly other than perhaps I need to give my anti-depressants another shot.  I hate that I might need to take them forever but I constantly live in fear that perhaps this is the one bad/sad mood that I can't pull myself out of on my own and I'll be back into a deep depression once again.
I feel like I'm on the verge of tears all the time and I shouldn't be.  I feel alone and I know that I'm not.  I think I'm having difficulty with seeing the glass being half full.  I have much to be thankful for, my weight is completely manageable and almost within the healthy range, my skin is better, my asthma is better, my knees don't click anymore....

But instead I am focusing on the things going wrong and that are hard right now and I'm waking up every day exhausted, irritable, and scattered.

Something needs to be done. I just don't know what it is.

Frustration

Sometimes I need to stay away from the bulletin boards.  It frustrates me to see when people are posting about pain or some complication they might have asking for what they should do to a bunch of people online instead of calling their doctor.

I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.  Nor, does anyone else on these multitude of BB's out there!  I might piss some people off so I try to not respond to those threads because they get my blood up.  I'm not immune to questions of experiences of others going through the journey but come on, if you have PAIN -  CALL YOUR DOCTOR!!!! Don't wait for someone in a faceless land of the internetz determine your physical health!

argh. I think I need a time-out

Vanity sizing

I loves it.

I went clothes shopping today.  For the first time since I regained all this weight.  I lived in sweatpants at home in the middle of a very deep depression the entire time I regained it so I didn't need work clothes.... now as I lose it, I need some as my current clothes are starting to fall off and hang on me in a very unflattering way.

I just have to express my absolute love for vanity sizing.  I'm FULLY aware that my current size does NOT put me in a size 14 and a Large (not XL! yay) but to hell with it... it feels fantastic to see that size on the back of my pants.  I don't care if its unrealistic and I'm fooling myself.  Whatever works!  Hell, I've been stuffed into Size 6 Lu Lu Lemon pants for the last year so size 14 is actually closer to the truth!

Tomorrow is my 2 month surgiversary.  Time for more measurements!!!

Memory/concentration/focus

I haz none.

In the past couple of weeks I've been really struggling to maintain my mental faculties.  I'm pretty new in my department and I have a very technical job, it scares me because I find my retention really poor lately.  It's as though my brain just stops before it even starts thinking.  It starts at " I know I need to think about this..." and that's as far as it goes. I can't even get to the stage where I can't remember.... hell I can't even START thinking about remembering!

I'm afraid I'm going to burn the house down.  Driving even makes me nervous as my attention span is really poor right now.  I'm sure that its related to my diet and that I must be deficient in some things.  I just wish I knew what it was and what I could do to change this.

Mindful eating x10000000000

Sometimes I miss being able to eat the way I used to.  Eating now has a whole new process and it requires full time attention or I risk getting physically ill.  It's unpretty.  Tonight a single strawberry was my undoing.  I only had the strawberry but apparently I didn't chew it well enough because it easily made a re-appearance.

bleh!

things and thoughts

My monthly visitor hasn't been too awful at all.  I actually forgot to change my Divacup this morning before work and managed a clean spill free change in the ladies room stall.  It seems that my flow is lighter.  Not sure if that's from the surgery or just lucky for me *this* month but I'll take it.  I'm definitely going to monitor it for next month and see if its the same.  Cramps haven't been too bad this month either. Hubby checked the scale for me yesterday because there's no way in hell I want to weigh myself when I feel like a manatee.... he compared it to the pre-period number and apparently I only gained 1 lb this month.  This is major.  I usually gain 5-8 lbs in bloat and feel super gross.  This month I honestly don't.

Weird how things change post-op.  I have a bag of chips (twists) and a dark chocolate (90%) bar in my desk.  I have zero interest in eating either of them. They've been there for a couple of weeks now. Pre-op, they wouldn't have made it INTO my desk at all.  They would have been scarfed pretty quickly right after I got them.

I've graduated back to coffee now post-op.  I can only get in about a 1/3 of a cup before I'm jittery.  I don't even fill my mug up half way.  People look at me strange and ask if the decanter is empty.... nope!  I just don't want that much coffee!  Pre-op, I was ADDICTED to the Sugar Free Rockstar Energy drinks.  I had 1 every single morning on my commute to work.  I haven't had one sincea few days before surgery.  I don't even crave it. 

I'd say the loss of food/sweets/etc craving is probably the biggest overall thing I've noticed.  I mean of course I know that I can only eat a few tablespoons of food now but really... its the cravings that have me surprised.  That there aren't any.  Even alcohol.  Pre-op, my liver was well exercised.  Now, while I'd *like* a glass of wine here and there, I have really no interest in bothering with the possible weight gain/dehydration/quick effects... so I don't.

Last night we went to a going away party for my personal trainer.  She's off to Alaska to run a gym up there.  She's been kicking my ass for 2 years and I'll miss her as we became friends even through those grueling 1 hour sessions 3x/wk.  They had all sorts of food, alcohol and the like at the party.  As I hadn't had dinner yet, I had 3 thinly sliced pieces of smoked salmon, 1/2 pc cheese, 1 multi grain cracker, 1/2 pickled string bean and about 6 nuts.  I was stuffed.  I was pleased with myself for my good food choices.  While I would have totally been all over the BBQ later that appeared, (hotdogs, bbq salmon and chicken) I honestly didn't want it because I was satisfied with my meal and feeling good.  Everyone else around me was eating and drinking it up and I was absolutely fine to sit there and just enjoy the company of the people instead of hovering over the food table grazing all night.  What a change!

Pictures

I don't have many of them of me as a fatty.  It's amazing how well I hid from the camera so it wouldn't be immortalized forever at how heavy I really was.  I was looking through pictures for a wedding I was at in Punta Cana at the beginning of April this year.... I think I was in a total of 4 pictures.  On purpose.  I hated how I looked.  And I hated more how I looked because all of the rest of the women were so slim and shapely.  I just wanted to hide in our room the whole trip because of my weight.  That makes me sad that I let my weight affect me having a good time with our friends and enjoying a wedding in a beautiful place.

I am having difficulty reconciling with myself that I'm not supposed to be on a "diet" anymore and I think that its that mentality that has me beating myself up about this gain. I still have a long way to go apparently to learning how to eat mindfully while still allowing small indulgences so I don't feel like I'm on a diet and deprived anymore.

3 wks post op

I don't really have much to say.  Scale is being a cow and hasn't moved in 2 days.  I suspect it will before the weekend.  Or, I could be up for the dreaded 3rd week stall.  Time will tell.  I'm still happy at how much I've lost thus far :)

Something I've observed about this journey is that I actually think about food MORE now than I did before.  In a different way though.  I think about what I'm going to be able to eat at each phase, if I'll be able to get down more than a couple spoonfuls this next time.  I think about being mindful of not drinking while eating.  And I think about drinking my water, ALL THE TIME.  I feel like I should have a camelback attached to me at work so I can get all the liquid in me that I need to each day.  I am wary to move onto full solids although as of today I can.  I've had a few things that I've chewed the crap out of and had it sit in my sleeve like a rock.  It's very painful and unfun.  I know that there's still swelling going down and it will improve over time, but of course, I'm impatient.

I tried the Chike brand of meal replacement today.  Meh.  It was ok. It is very flavourful, maybe TOO flavourful actually.  I had the orange cream one and it tasted kind of fake.  Took me all morning of sipping on it to get the whole thing down.

The easy way out??

I've heard others talk about how people in their lives have commented that this surgery is the "easy way out" because they didn't have to diet/exercise to lose the weight post-op.

That makes me mad. There's nothing easy about this surgery,  Since when is having most of a major organ completely removed from your body, irreversible surgery, easy?  This decision to take this step is a forever one.  There's no going back.  They can't put your stomach back.  Having surgery you have to deal with the mental part of what this does to you.  You have to deal with the anger at yourself, the disgust that you couldn't do it the "normal" way, that you've had to resort to these lengths just to lose weight and keep it off.  You have to deal with head hunger, negotiating using your new sleeve, pre-op and post-op liquid diets, being on baby food for weeks on end, having to take multi-vitamins, B12, for the rest of your life because your diet will no longer supply what your body needs due to the restriction. You have to deal with portion sizes for the rest of your life... only being able to eat a few spoonfuls of food for a month or longer.  Having a stomach that's only (as much as) 6oz for the rest of your life and learning how to eat all over again.

Then there's the surgery itself.  The pain from the gas they put in your belly to allow them to see while they work.  The tests.  The IV fluids and nothing by mouth for a day.  Having to negotiate a shower with 5 incisions in your stomach and a drain hanging out of you. The pain from the drain hanging there.  The awful disgusting vile liquid they make you drink when you have your leak test.The bloating for days. The exhaustion for weeks.  The pain when you try and take the tiniest sip of water and realize you have to get 64oz in every day.  The fear over the choice you've made and wondering if you made a bad decision.

Lastly, you have to deal with other people's opinions of your own weight loss efforts.  It amazes me how people seem to feel they have the right to have any involvement in what your diet should consist of or what you should be eating.  Even now, 3 weeks post op, I have people at work shaking their head at me asking if that's all I'm going to eat... (they don't know I had this surgery and they're not going to).  Some people admire the lengths you've chosen to be healthy, others simply say they couldn't do it, yet others have an opinion that you shouldn't have done it and then pull "facts" out of their ass about a person they know that had gastric bypass and had this or that happen.  Firstly, I didn't have gastric bypass... completely different surgery.  Secondly, my body. My choice.  Keep your opinions to yourself thankyouverymuch.

ok I think my rant is over ... for now :)

Tomorrow tomorrow

We leave here at 645am on our way to San Diego.  To say I'm feeling the jitters would be an understatement.  I'm not rethinking this decision.  I'm just nervous.  We're currently packing and trying to figure out how to only use 1 checked bag for the 2 of us.  Hubby likes to overpack.  I'm a little concerned we're going to be screwing around with last minute luggage changes at 5 in the morning....