Shut Your Piehole…

Greetings and Saluatations fellow bloggers, friends and family.  Happy Wednesday!  Despite the fact that today has some unsavory items on the menu of life, I remain relatively upbeat…for now. 

My six week check up with my surgeon is on Friday and it is weighing on my mind.  LOL.  I can’t believe it has been six weeks already!  Of course on the other hand, I can’t believe it’s only been six weeks…some wondrous things have happened in the last six weeks; some wondrous, exciting, exhilarating things.  I think now is as good a time as any to take a moment and reflect on some of those things.  I guess the first thing would really be just the sheer amount of weight I have lost so far, 361 (post surgery) to 319 (this morning).  I am wearing my favorite jeans from two years ago!!!  I literally haven’t worn them for almost two years and now they are getting loose…CRAZY!  The jeans I had worn to the hospital the day of surgery (which were snug then) have since gone the way of the samuri – gone baby gone, about three weeks ago.  It’s exciting, without buying a single stitch, my closet choices have expanded hugely.  Next on my list of awe is the ability to physically move, I am no longer looking for the closest parking spot.  I am not running out of breath climbing up the stairs.  How exciting to reach the top and not have to take a couple of minutes to catch my breath.  The next change is the most exciting and it has been a mental hurdle more than any of the others.  I am not hiding out anymore.  I had stopped going places, stopped visiting with friends, stopped joining them for fun outings out of fear and shame.  It is hard to explain on some level.  I gained the majority of this weight over a long period of time so in some ways I was kind of numb to it…I got to gradually get used to being the degree of fat and the shape of fat that I was so it never curtailed my social activities but I gained 50 lbs in the last year and a half and that was different.  First, the weight came on so fast.  Second, the weight gain coincided with the time that I left a longtime career and a group of women I had know for a long time.  I came up with all kinds of reasons to not see them after that because I knew they would be concerned and I couldn’t bear to see that look in their eyes. (By the way, I know this was unfair to both them and myself.  I had no right to judge them and what their reactions might or might not be and I cheated myself out of an invaluable support system.  I regret this decision but it is what it is.)  Third, I didn’t have any answers to give them as to why I was gaining weight so rapidly.  Fourth, I was flat out scared.  I finally went to a doctor and found out all kinds of things regarding what was happening.  That was the first step.  From there things really steam-rolled forward.  The point of that little story is to emphasize how big this change really is.  I feel good in my own skin.  I weigh a few pounds less than I did when the drastic weight gain began but I haven’t just dropped weight, I have dropped fear as well.  The fear, the sadness, the disillusionment, the shame…all of it gone.  For the first time in a long time I feel like nothing is holding me back.  Can you imagine what I will be like when I hit the 200’s?  The 100’s?  I’ll be insuffereable that’s what!  I will be rediculous!  Rediculous and happy! 

So I will go in on Friday for my six week check up.  I hope my labs are good, I hope my surgeon is proud but most of all I look forward to having another notch in my belt.  One more notch that says I am moving forward in my life.

So, “Happy Wednesday” people!  Happy Wednesday to us all! 

Much Love and general good well wishing…JustJil     

Before JustJil existed on WordPress she existed on MySpace…well technically she still exists on MySpace but barely   Anyway…that is where my first blogs were born, most of them were poems, some were essays and some were general musings.  There are a couple of them that I have decided to transfer here to Shut Your Piehole… because she is rather more who I am now than MySpace.  This one in particular was a poem I had written around Christmas time shortly before I made the decision to WLS it on up.  This was not a decision I made lightly, it was not covered by my insurance so I self paid and will be paying for it for pretty much forever…LOL.  I don’t regret it as you will see where I was then at the time.  I can tell you upon reading it today…my spirit truly has been renewed…

Such a long, long time

Gray just washing over me

Didn’t think I would ever see the sun again

When gray is all you see,

When gray is all you know,

Gray is all you feel.

Sometimes I could sense the struggle

Like something deep inside

Was fighting for a breath

Fighting for a chance

And before I could set it free

The gray washed right back over me

And I couldn’t remember what it felt like to care

And there’s so much shame inside you

That it numbs you to the pain

And you sit on the outside looking in

Like it’s someone else’s blood

Coursing through someone else’s veins

But somewhere in a memory

Tucked back behind the rustling leaves

Of 34 autumns come and gone

You know you once believed

That life was something precious

That you were something precious

You used to be somebody

But it all changed

In an unimportant moment

In an unimportant day

Something completely ordinary happened

Something small

Something insignificant

But in its’ tiny little way

It changed the course of things

And everyday got dimmer

And long held ideals began to slip away

And everything that had meant something

Just turned dark and gray

And all that was left was silence

So for the first time in my life

I gave up

Because if you don’t care

You can’t be scared…right?

But the ball of fear inside me got tighter and tighter

And I prayed harder and harder and louder and louder

I prayed so loud that I couldn’t hear the answer

And day by day

A little more of me was lost

And day by day

Hope began to wash away

Until the ‘me’ I once was

Had all but faded

The prayers got shorter

And quieter

Until only a whisper was left

And the whisper said:

I am so tired dear Lord,

So tired and afraid

I tried for so long Lord,

Please forgive me

Forgive me

For asking for an answer

Then ignoring it when it came

For promising my faith in You

Then trying to fix it myself

I am ready now Father

I am letting it go

And giving it to You

Please bless me Lord

And love me

When I can’t find it in my heart

To love myself

And the Lord in His mercy

Answered my prayer

And this time

Amidst the silence

I was able to hear His answer

And His peace washed over me

And my spirit was renewed

Lowly and humbled servant

Forgiven once again

 

Lately I have found myself spiraling out of control and I have made the decision to try to fix things.  I have formed an unhealthy relationship with…the scale.  I weigh myself 20 times a day.  Some days the scale moves graciously down, down, down never with an upward spike, some days the scale doesn’t move at all and then worst of all some days the scale creeps up and I beat myself up even though I know I did not do anything to warrant it.

 

When I went in to see my surgeon for my two week follow up appointment a week and a half ago, I mentioned my “Scaleous Addictiones Maximus”, Scale Addiction in layman’s terms, and his reply was, “Get Rid of It”!  My response was, “Are You Insane?  I could not possibly, not know what I weigh daily.  I have to Know.   HAVE TO KNOW!   HAVE TO KNOW!”  That was the point when the little alien came out of my stomach and did a little dance.  I was practically frothing at the mouth.  What was he thinking?  Does he not deal with fat people everyday?  Does he not understand the investment we have made by having this surgery?  The daily sacrifices?  The mental beatings?  Not be able to weigh myself!  BLASPHEMY!  Blasphemy I say.  I smiled at him politely and my mouth said “Thank You for the Advice” and my eyes said “Jackass”.  He smiled knowingly at me and his mouth said, “You are a smart girl you will figure it out” and his eyes said, “You are a smart girl you will figure it out”.  Hmmm…I think one of us had a little more faith in the other one, than the other one did.

 

So a week passed.  More progress and more beatings followed.  His treacherous words began to sneak past my defenses and started making some sort of stupid sense.  I began to see the value in his reasoning.  I am not saying that I have bought into his evil propaganda wholly; I like to think I am made of stiffer stuff than that.  In saying that, I am beginning to suspect that I am really just filled with marshmallow fluff.  Ughhh…If I find out after all these years of thinking that I was pretty tough stuff that I am really just a meringue…I’ll just die. )

 

Anyway…as a quasi solution to my unhealthy relationship with the scale I have asked my younger brother to put it in his truck (He lives with me) on Sunday night and to keep it there until Saturday Morning each week.  So I can only weigh myself 20 times a day on the weekends. J  There will be fewer beatings that way… I can’t just get rid of it, yet.  Maybe somewhere down the road but not yet.  Baby steps…definitely baby steps.  I can honestly say as of today I don’t know what I weigh.  I don’t know what I weighed yesterday either.  It doesn’t feel as bad as I thought it would and I am definitely looking forward to Saturday.  The anticipation helps.

 

Love ya all out there in the WLS cosmos, Prayers for Kim…Just Jil   

Yo!

Yes, I am yet among the living.  I know many of you had begun to believe I might have perished.  Recovery was painful but fine and as I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I had a bad patch and ended up in the hospital for an unrelated illness.  It was painful and complicated things a bit.  I am feeling much better today and am hopeful that I will continue to feel better and better as time goes on.

I have sat down to write many times since the surgery and everything I wanted to say seemed somehow inadequate.  Several times I even wrote an entire post and was so disgusted by what I ended up with; I just logged off instead of publishing.  Part of it is that I will want to say something and end up saying something completely different.  I think during the surgery half of my brain leaked out. :o)

It is rather late and so I am not going to attempt an in depth post tonite.  I thought instead I would keep it short and light; giving myself at least half a chance at success.

As an update:

• I started out this Journey at 373 lbs.
• I came home from the hospital weighing 361.
• I weigh 331 today…WaHoooooooo!
• It has been 24 days since my surgery.
• As of yesterday, I can no longer wear my favorite jeans…WaHoooooooo!

For the Prayers and the Love…Love ya all so much…justjil