weightlossjourney

43.

Posted on by thenjaesays

Today is the birthday of one of my long time friends. He turned 43 and in our text convo that started with my happy birthday message, he said 43 is the worst birthday, the most mundane and I should write one of my “blog things” about how awful it is. Dude, remember my dad died two weeks before I turned 43? Dumpster fire of a year.

He was just being snarky, but he’s right. 43 isn’t anything special. It’s the weird birthday between going “over the hill” and hitting 45 – which just seems cooler since there are so many cards and gifts for it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a “Happy 43rd birthday” or “Yay, you’re 43” which makes sense because of its bore factor. Mundane middle aged stuff. The cards, in order to be accurate would have to say “Woah, you made it!” Or “This card is good for one free chiropractic adjustment” even “Sorry about your divorce but hey you’re alive, happy 43rd” Please. No.

This isn’t to say that a persons 43rd year can’t be their best – I mean, mine hasn’t been, but if we did a survey I’m sure it’s a fair split of good and bad for people. Life is what you make it blah, blah, blah …

43 for me, rolled in while I was standing on a hot airplane, bent between my seat and the overhead compartment waiting for my chance to escape. I was puffy eyed and borderline disheveled having just spent a week with my family after my dads unexpected passing. After not enough sleep, my then boyfriend took me to a boozy brunch, that I made more booze than brunch and then for pastries on the way home, where I had to sit in the car with a buzz and a grief hangover while he picked some treats.

I feel like the rest of the year was spent in that hazy grieving buzz. I gained twenty-ish pounds, learned about said boyfriends sexting hobby, didn’t drink enough water, cried a lot, worked too much, ended up living alone in a newly leased apartment draining my savings to pay the high for two people, never mind for one person rent, ended up quitting my job because of some sketchy and unethical stuff… cried a lot …. I mean, it’s been a year. But take out those big hits – mostly a snore fest – minus the independent licensure and meeting my current boyfriend.

My own birthday is approaching soon and I don’t know that I have ever been happier to see a year go. Looking very forward to the day I can kick in the door and wave in the 4 4.

crying over pea soup

Posted on by thenjaesays

Every now and then I forget that I had weight loss surgery. I mean, I obviously don’t forget, but its been almost eight years now so it isn’t something that I talk about or even think about on a daily basis. What I have never forgotten is the support that I got from the few people who knew I was taking that leap. In fact, I vividly remember it.

Standing in the dusty elevator of my new primary doctors office, detailing the outcome of my first visit to my cousin via texts. Wearing my uniform of snug jeans, flats and a black blouse. Sharing with her, before anyone, that he had referred me to the Weight & Wellness program for a surgery consult. She followed up with kind words and heart emojis.

I remember driving home overwhelmed; Steve waiting at home to hear how things had gone since it was a new doctor and I went with a laundry list of things on top of struggling to lose weight. I remember feeling embarrassed that this seemingly shameful thing I might be embarking on also felt like such a relief. I can practically picture his face, from across the room, looking at me like an idiot about to squander an opportunity. In fact, part of his reaction after a chronological list of weight loss attempts and restrictions and diets that he had witnessed in the time we’d been together was “….you’d be stupid not to do it”

I have a memory of calling my parents and them maybe not fully being on board at first – but I can’t remember the details because before the end of the day, I was walking into the grocery store and my mom called back. We talked about all the ways our weights, or the perceptions we had or thought others had about our weights impacted so many small things in our lives and how exciting things might be on the other end. I remember driving in my dented and rusting car, home from work and talking about it with my dad. I will never not remember him saying “What? Why? You don’t need that, we just saw you, you look good” and me replying about how I felt and him saying “If that’s what you want to do” …. and then booking a flight for my mom to be there with me when it was scheduled. And then when it was postponed a few weeks before over some insurance timelines, he rebooked her flight and he came, too. He slept on an air mattress in our living room, the needles of the Christmas tree inches from his face. He treated me to my last “food funeral” – a meal of poutine and wings at the back corner table of Stones. He even came in the grocery store with me afterward to peruse the selection of Pepperidge Farm cakes in the freezer – and helped me eat one with nothing but forks back in the crowded living room. In the days following, when I could only have liquids, he offered to forgo some local eateries he and mom wanted to try – so I didn’t feel bad, or left out, or… hungry. He bought me an overpriced bowl of pea soup that I sipped.

I scrolled by this picture in my phone tonight. It was in the scads of photos I saved and took screen shots of the week he died. It’s always been a favorite photo of mine – his smile, knowing how happy he was to be there. It’s from the pea soup day, so maybe this memory and this support was part of why I’ve always loved this photo. And if it wasn’t, it certainly is now.

EMDRUSERIOUS?!

Posted on by thenjaesays

Earlier this year my therapist … Yes, I have a therapist and I have been seeing her since the start of this year. For a myriad of reasons, but mostly the culmination of stressors in life resulting in me losing my ever loving shit over a pork loin (I mean, it wasn’t over the pork loin) and screaming like a wild animal and then sobbing off and on for several hours before slapping myself in the face twice (one on each side, DBT emotion regulation, hush) and beginning a low dose med.

So anyway, my therapist asked me if I would like to try EMDR. I remember thinking that it was just a trendy intervention and my coworker at the time referred to it as “snake oil”. I hesitated but also was curious about the process from a professional standpoint as well as personal. Would it help me to reprocess things that were impacting my life or way of thinking years later? Would I want to offer this as a service to clients in my professional practice? I decided to go for it.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy method that is used to resolve unprocessed traumatic memories in the brain – basically allowing the brain to use it’s natural healing capabilities rather than to change the emotions, thoughts or behaviors that are the result of the distressing events.

I’m a little skeptical because it eventually involves a light bar and this whole thing is virtual because we are still in a covid-esque world. Is this gonna work? Is there anything that even needs reprocessing? Is it snake oil?

Fuck it, I’m in.

I’ll save you all the details, but we work on a timeline of things in life that were distressing. I’ve had a pretty good life so I was a little surprised at correlations I made between places I have lived, people I have known and all the food and body stuff. I remember when she suggested it, I said “Isn’t the for people with unresolved trauma?” and she said “Well your experience with obesity, and dieting and eating disorders has to have left a mark”

Damn… but, you’re right.

We explore different periods of life, highs and lows. We talk about diets (so many diets!), we talk about family culture and experiences and I call my mother at least 3x asking about different things I remember and making her feel bad or question instances herself. I jot down things that come up, I make connections between why I eat what / where / when and why I have done or not done certain things. Health clubs with my mom and grandmother as a kid, slim fasts and supplements and weight watchers in grammar school. A weird memory about a spotted pear on the front porch with my childhood best friend, rude comments people made, things I tried or did to alleviate the distress and emotional toll of living in a body I didn’t feel comfortable in. Some real deep dives on things that always seemed like surface level whatever, now felt like revelations. The more I talked, the more I heard what I was saying. The more sense things started making, even things like my lack of returning to places where I previously lived. Honestly, it’s wild.

Then comes the light bar and the reprocessing and installation.

One week she says, “okay, next on your timeline is the dinner dance dress”

I stare at her through the screen “What about it?”

She says “I don’t know, that’s all you said” and try as I might, I got nothing. I said “uhhhh I cannot remember what was distressing about that. If I had to guess it was being an almost 200 pound girl who couldn’t fit in the dinner dance dresses other girls my age were getting, but I don’t have any feelings about that”

aaaaaaaaand I was stunned.

I remember EVERYTHING, I can transport myself right back to almost any emotional experience in my life and I couldn’t do it. There was nothing. Logical explanation but nothing emotional. Nothing shameful. Nothing that felt like some distressing life altering experience.

“This is weird” I say.

She explains that when the brain reprocesses events, sometimes what happens is that later events are no longer distressing, because what was causing them to be that way has been reprocessed. Even as I am typing that I’m thinking how amazing the whole thing is. Then what usually happens when I take a drastic step or big leap, I wish I had done it sooner.

“I could have been unburdened years ago, EMDRuserious!?”

We laugh and she says, “so do you still think it’s bullshit?”

And I don’t, not even a little.

thankslosing

Posted on by thenjaesays

The only time in my life I have spent a holiday entirely alone was a Thanksgiving six years ago. It was the best and worst day. It wasn’t some sad story of being alone, but choosing to be by myself, for what could only be reflected on now as, the greater good.

Steve and I didn’t always have the chance to leave town for Thanks giving since one of us usually had to work Black Friday (please note this capitalized itself) Anyway, on this particular thanksgiving weekend, we were off and planning to head to his family for the weekend. A last hurrah of sorts since that Monday was my then top-secret weight loss surgery and my parents were coming into town for that. Emotional as I was about trying to see everyone and do everything and keep things normal, since I had no idea what was on the other side of Monday; we went through all the options. We batted around taking two cars, so I could come back early – or maybe my parents flying into a NY airport so we could all come back to Massachusetts together. We toyed with all the ideas until the nurse called a few days before to go over what to expect when I checked in. In that call she asked a very specific question about a cough, or cold or congestion and that if these symptoms were to arise they may have to postpone my surgery. Well, that sealed it, Steve was going, and I was not. It seemed too risky to subject myself to the coughs and sneezes or half sucked cookies from the mouths of children.

I’m fine staying home I say at least forty times; before finally believing it after fifty or so. We had a tearful goodbye (pretty sure the tears were all mine) with easily seven hugs on the way out where I insisted to help carry his stuff to the car. I was on the cusp of potentially changing my life (spoiler alert: totally did) and maybe a little resentful I had to sacrifice these last few days to do it. Which sent me into a resent spiral about all the choices I made or didn’t make and the influences I had (or didn’t have). After a brief pout/sob combo on the couch, I pulled up my (really) big girl panties and set out to get some groceries for one.

I wanted a normal thanksgiving dinner but scaled down to just me. I poked every fresh and frozen turkey in the store before settling on a turkey breast. I got a couple potatoes, some stuffing and of course, I got the food of the gods  – canned cranberry sauce complete with the lines. I got some wine. I watched bad tv and set the coffee table for my food funeral; my last gluttonous meal before I started liquids over the weekend.

The anticipation was thick and my mouth near watering…

The turkey was rubbery, the potatoes were weird and gluey as if I had never made them before – at least the stuffing was stove top, so you know it was great. I cried. Over food. By myself on the couch, at 278 pounds, I sobbed over the disappointment of this last supper. I cried while I scraped it into the trash. Tears flowed while I washed the dishes. Pretty sure I wiped my nose on my sleeve, drank more wine, and then plopped back on the couch and ate the innards of the pumpkin pie I made – because you’re not not going to make yourself a pumpkin pie on your last thanksgiving.

So dramatic. Last Thanksgiving.

I had no idea. I had no idea that the following year I would be able to eat the same delicious things I had always eaten on Thanksgiving, just less. I didn’t know that for all the years to follow there would be real turkey, brined by me and fluffy bowls of mashed potatoes and delicious stuffing (full disclosure: still stove top sometimes!) and wobbly canned cranberry. I didn’t know I would still be able to eat pie, and turkey-stuffing-cranberry sauce sandwiches on rye bread for days to follow. I wish I had known, to save myself the grief – I dubbed it Thankslosing: a small little pity party for all the things I thought I had to leave behind. Turns out everything I had to leave behind belonged there and helped me get closer to the life I have always wanted; self-awareness, a healthier body, which I don’t hate to look at; an improved relationship with food, a career path, a level of self-esteem I did not know I was missing and, of course, a heft of gratitude on days like this. Guess it was more like Thanksgaining.

(not) nice knowing ya.

Posted on by thenjaesays

In a recent conversation with someone new to my life I shared that I had a blog. I didn’t elaborate much just that it was about random life stories and weight loss journey and growth and well ya know, all that jazz. A week or so later she mentioned that she found my blog and read it, and commented on the lack of entries the last few months. I blamed graduating, my new job, the pandemic, but really that wasn’t it. I paused, one of those heavy sort of lingering pauses and then told her about the phone call.

Sometime in December of last year, I missed a call from a number that was not in my phone, but something about it was familiar. I listened to the voicemail and was instantly sick to my stomach. I knew the voice. I knew the name. Ugh. I hadn’t spoken to the caller in easily 8 or 9 years. I hated the way he said my name.

I told her about the person; someone I had a shared financial obligation with in the past and that was why he was calling. Honestly, that’s not the part that made me feel queasy. The obligation had morphed and changed and it wasn’t a big deal to me – I have done a lot of work around my previous financial shortcomings and don’t live there anymore. I don’t even want to visit. I ignored the call. I don’t know why I didn’t send a text acknowledging the message or confirming he had the right number. His message let me know that he wasn’t sure if it was still my number. I told my best friend and Steve about the call and went on with my day. I can’t remember if he called a second and third time, or just a second one; but a week later I got an email. It was a “new contact” email through this website. He ‘googled’ me. He couldn’t get me on the phone so he searched for me on the internet.

I went on to tell her how a few years ago I joked about wishing we could send updates to people from our past so they could see we were thriving or more successful, prettier, thinner, happier. Not this guy. I was happy to let him think I was a fat, sad waitress who needed his financial assistance at some point. I didn’t care what he thought about me as long as he stayed out of my life.

Let me be clear that this was someone I’d spent years in and out of the chase with. You’re probably thinking who cares about someone from your past showing up, this is your moment to shine – so shine. Well, I care. I told her what a shit he was. That he was abusive. Not in a push me around, physical way. Not even in a way I may have noticed in the moment. Lying, cheating, gaslighting. Offering morsels and expecting pounds. It was the voice, honestly. Hearing that voice. The same voice that once called to say he had an STD and confessed he had cheated on me. The voice that commented on my weight. The voice that judged my job, my education. The voice that lied. The voice that shouted when he punched the sunroof of my car in a fit of anger.

I told her that I think I stopped posting much because I didn’t want him to know anything about my now life. He could see this blog now, he could read years of stories he knew nothing about. My improvements, my growth. I thought that somehow him knowing the “new” me took something away from that. I didn’t want him to have any access to any pieces of me, he doesn’t deserve them. I laughed at the thought spiral, the weird trip down memory lane and realized he never deserved them.

The financial thing in question was a student loan for the final class of my first masters program. He helped me secure it because he “couldn’t marry someone who slings chicken wings.” Nice.

Anyway, saying it all out loud made me realize how lame that whole thing was. I stopped writing here as much maybe because of the pandemic, and maybe graduating and starting a new job, but it was the voice that made me stop before that. I’m so big and loud about who I am now, and how I got here and helping others get places and I am gonna be silenced by that voice? That google search? Nope.

I told her I wanted to write a post about it and get past it but that I felt bad, I didn’t want to make anyone look bad or make a thing of it and ya know what she said? “The stories you share belong to you, they are what happened to you and what you experienced and if anyone doesn’t like the way they are portrayed in them, they should have behaved better. ”

And you should have.

hi, it’s me again

Posted on by thenjaesays

Earlier this year I picked up a spiral bound hardcover notebook at Target because it was a pinky-blue brushstroke design with gold accents and a ‘there is always something to be grateful for’ etched on the cover. To be clear I did not need this notebook. I rarely need a notebook because whenever I see one I like, I buy it. I liked the sentiment though and decided I would start something like journaling again.

Three weeks later, my best pen in hand, I go hard and scribble out three to four pages about things. The next day I do it again and the next day for about a week. I start to forget, I come back here and there and when I pick it up again it’s the week after I had to cancel my flight to visit my family in Wisconsin. It’s a day after I panic bought canned food and Cinnamon Toast Crunch because they were talking about food shortages and government lockdowns. I never buy food out of a panic in a storm or a crisis, but the panic of others makes me think I am too calm so I follow suit. I once called Steve from the grocery store the night before a snowfall … “Everyone is buying bottled water!! Do we need bottled water?!” I don’t think I have ever purchased a case of bottled water in my life!

Anyway, I’m in my comfiest clothes, on my couch and I grab the journal and write a bit and then, you guessed it …. put it back on the shelf and now it’s practically August. I picked it up today, once again determined to get back in to and the last two pages I wrote on go like this:

3.24.20

Well. Never made it to WI like was planned. A virus – I feel like I’m writing about a movie – started spreading rapidly. 

4.7.20

I couldn’t even write any more last time because the whole thing seemed so surreal. It’s still going on. The virus. 

I went on to write a bit more in that last entry detailed our work and internship situations and things that were going on, but then it tapered off again. I think maybe for the same reasons things did for me with this blog. What was there to say? I was trying to finish my graduate program, find a full-time position, plan and then stop planning a graduation party, and trying to reschedule that flight to my family. Then more shitty things just kept happening in the world.

I was bummed out on a lot of levels about a lot of things. I think I just needed a break to get my brain together and take the temperature of the whole thing … and this morning, months after that first scribble,  I filled some of those pages again and plan to be back filling these. I guess the notebook was right, there is always something to be grateful for.

ten

Posted on by thenjaesays

I was born at the start of the tenth month, and took my first breaths around ten thirty in the morning.

When I was about ten or so, my grandmother, in an effort to motivate me to learn my multiplications tables, promised me a “life sized” doll from the Woolworth’s on Main Street in Woodbridge when I could recite one through twelve.

I remember walking behind her one afternoon counting on my fingers for the ones I wasn’t sure of, and even though I’m sure she knew, that Walking Wendy-esque doll got buckled in next to me when we left.

I laugh a little thinking about how my grandmother also ended up being the person who picked me up from summer school after failing algebra my freshman year of high school.

Ten is also the number of years it’s been since she passed away. The morning of her funeral mass, as I limped, sobbing into the church held up by my father and someone else I can’t picture I made a pit stop in the vestibule bathroom. My aunt came in with me, and I choked out how this was the worst day of my life, she assured me it wasn’t, which was both comforting and frightening.

Ten is the number of months it has been since I have seen my parents; Ten is roughly the amount of years I spent living in Wisconsin with my family, (two thousand and) ten is the year I quite my job and weaved my way through ten-ish states to get to the apartment that I now live in and the person I have been with for ten years.

Ten has been a lot of little things that have contributed to a lot of big things for me.

Today, ten is heavy.

It’s sulking on the couch, taking forever to get out of the car, too much trouble to tie my sneakers heavy. It’s sports bra indentations hours after it comes off, dresses that won’t zip and shirts that ride up heavy.

Ten is the number of pounds I have gained in the last ten months, when I was still trying to lose ten more.

Ten pounds is nothing, I know, except it is the first weight I have gained in almost 5 years. I can make the argument, as others have for me, that my weight gain is related to medications and inability to exercise freely, or truthfully, even take the stairs more than one at a time … for months now. This doesn’t make it any less than ten and it doesn’t make it any lighter.

I just started a new medication that will hopefully lead to remission and I’ll be taking the stairs and walking around the park, hiking and yoga-ing and Zumba-ing my heart out again soon, but for now, I’m taking some solace in the fact that the first dose already has me feeling ten times better.

Hello 911? I have no pants on …

Posted on by thenjaesays

Every since I was a fat girl crying all over myself in the office of a primary doctor in 2014, I have seen all of the same doctors. Recently I have been feeling like I wanted to change them up, but it’s really hard to find new ones and I am pretty comfortable with this lot since they have seen me for years and witness my blood pressure and weight go down, biopsied a nodule on my thyroid, removed excess skin, swabbed throats and lady parts, ya know, witnessed my whole transformation into this person, and I don’t know if I want to do all that again. So I’m slowly exploring and as things frustrate or disappoint me with one, I look a little harder.

In the meantime, a few months ago it’s time for one of the yearly visits with my gynecologist. I schedule the appointment, and a few days before they call to say she has to cancel because she’ll be in the hospital with a patient. A baby takes priority over a swab, understandable. We find a day and time that she’s available that also fits in between my internship, school work and my part time gig  during the week.

All set.

The day before?

They call to cancel and we reschedule for the following week. Another bout of moving and squeezing in and we’re good.

Then, you guessed it, that gets cancelled too.

The woman who calls about the appointment says that my usual doctor is just too busy but I could see the nurse practitioner. The woman pushes “everyone likes the nurse practitioner, she’s really nice” – I say I’m sure she is but I am just a little attached to the set of cold hands that I normally see there and I don’t want to. I mean, I don’t care, but I see this doctor once a year I feel like I should be able to see her, so I decline and reschedule again.

I’ve had to ask for two prescription refills because this is over the course of a few months. I’m finally going to my appointment the next morning, and that evening, after hours I get a call from “Unknown” and it’s a voicemail about having to CANCEL MY APPOINTMENT the next morning. It was a good thing it was after hours because I was so infuriated I just called the next morning and said I would take the next appointment with the nurse practitioner, but please call in my refill because you guys keep cancelling and I take a chemotherapy drug and I cannot get pregnant.

Appointment set, don’t worry they’ll put the refill in, see ya in a week.

Later that week I get a call from the office letting me know that my refill was called in but they won’t be able to do it again without an office visit, ‘SINCE YOU’VE CANCELED YOUR LAST FOUR APPOINTMENTS’ ………….. Woah, nope. I let her know the whole timeline of events and decide, now that I have been reprimanded (for a thing I didn’t even do) I’m going to let them call in the refill and once it’s in my hands I’m going to find a new office.

I forgot to.

The appointment was this morning so I decided to just go and get it over with, get my year of refills and get on with my life. Nurse practitioner, as expected, is very nice. She assured me there would be no more hiccups, and I almost might prefer her to my usual doctor. We chit chat a bit, she updates my history, does a little exam and then we’re gonna get the awkward part out of the way and I’ll see her in a year.

I’ll spare ya the details but just know she’s rubber glovin’ it and I’m half way into a backward roll when she says “scoot all the way down to me” and someone knocks on the door. I only hear a little of what is said and she comes back laughing and says “Uhhhh apparently someone smelled gas in the building so they called the fire department and they’re on their way”…

I laugh because she is and say okay and she continues “They said to evacuate…

…. immediately”

“Immediately?”

I look down at myself wearing only an ill fitting backward robe gown thing made of paper.

“Is there time to put on my pants?!”

“Yea, but really fast, because they’re on their way in”

ONLY ME.

I shimmy into my pants, adjusting them as I walk out with my shoes in my hand and my wallet in the other. After ten minutes of standing outside the building, half dressed in a crowd of people with two fire trucks, about seven firefighters come out and give us the all clear. Inside, I get myself  up on the table again and she says “All right, let me jump back in” … silence … laughter …I guess I’ll keep her.

can you hear me now?

Posted on by thenjaesays

For the last few months I have had a lot of pain in my hands and fingers and my feet and toes. It seemed to come out of nowhere and I assumed it was that I was sleeping funny, or driving more or not getting enough exercise. So, I got a mattress pad, changed my vitamins, doubled up on my iron supplement, drank more water, added turmeric to my diet, soaked my feet in epsom salt, googled all things rheumatic and arthritic, and at least a handful of other things.

I also went to my doctor who ordered blood work and x-rays and questioned my low iron (full disclosure that’s when i realized i had missed it way more doses than i thought!). My primary doctor is a wizard; he basically saved my life on two occasions, so when he calls me and says “Uh, this all looks good” I’m deflated.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want anything to be wrong, but something IS wrong, I’m not making it up, it’s obvious to the naked eye that there’s some swelling and redness, and sometimes the fingers and toes are tender as shit. Like bump a knuckle on the handle of the kettle and sob tender – wake up and wobble to the bathroom like a penguin tender. He refers me to a rheumatologist, who can see me this year but not for weeks.

I made the appointment and had a follow up with the wizard today. He started the visit like every one has stated in the last five years, “What do you want to talk about regarding your health today?” I start to tell him about my low iron probably being my fault, about my vitamin change and no longer taking gummy supplements. “Interesting” he stopped me, “Let me tell you my theory here”. He goes on about recent link in low iron and colon cancer “I don’t think you have colon cancer” (ok, good!) He says thee screening age has been lowered from 50 to 45 recently and “You’re pretty close to that” – I don’t think in the moment to say that I’m just as close to 35 as I am 45 – but he’s the wizard so I let him continue “let’s just get it off the table so we can focus on your other complaints”.

I’m not afraid of the endoscopy and colonoscopy that he wants to schedule – I get the itch for surgeries and procedures like other people do for tattoos (I’m aware this is weird). It’s that it’s not one of my complaints – hands and feet, let’s talk about my hands and feet! – when I googled (and you know I did) colon cancer and the risks, I don’t have a single solitary one of them except for this low iron bit. It’s also that it seems too thorough, even for him. He sent me for a head CT because I had several headaches in a short period, one of which lead to a fall – but it showed nothing. He also was very thorough about a lump in my neck that I thought was a swollen gland and ended up being a 3 cm nodule that needed an ultrasound and needle biospy (I’m fine) so his old school thorough approach isn’t silly. I agreed to go along with the tests, scheduled an appointment for April and left after what was only a 13 minute visit.

I got in the car half mad, half sad. I furiously texted Steve a novel about the appointment, I then texted a lot of the same info to a girlfriend. Why was this bothering me so much – why did I feel so frustrated when I left there. I drove to the grocery store and sat in the car trying to process the whole thing. Both Steve and my friend say better safe then sorry, humor him blah blah blah. And yea, of course they’re right. But, then what’s the problem ….

I ruminated …

One of my favorite things about my doctor, the wizard, is that when I first met him five years ago he was the first doctor in all of my then thirty-five years of living that truly listened to me. He didn’t dismiss my concerns or reduce my experiences or feelings down to my weight or high blood pressure like so many others had, he heard me, and he helped me. Today I felt like he was only listening to what I was saying so he could respond, it felt very much like an ‘Okay, but I’m the expert here’ moment – especially when referencing my tight weekday schedule and him saying ‘it’s one day out of your life, your health is the most important thing’ – when I’ve spent years making my health the most important thing. (It was reminiscent of the lady who tried to shame me into paying a shit ton of money for personal training by saying I didn’t want to invest in myself when there were still visible scars on my body from having more than half my stomach removed)

I got home still feeling UGH about the whole thing, I could feel it starting to seep its way into my mood and potentially my whole day. I just felt like some fat lump who couldn’t possibly know what was best for myself so I should just nod and agree and do what I was told. Maybe I should consider finding a younger doctor, or a doctor who sees more younger patients, or maybe, it’s not lost on me, that I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Either way, I still have plenty of hours left to enjoy the day, so I am going to.

‘surgiversary’ is a made up word, but here we are

Posted on by thenjaesays

To be honest, I didn’t even think much about the anniversary of my vertical sleeve gastrectomy yesterday. Previous years have been loaded with comparison photos, follow up appointments and little celebrations treating myself to smaller size things or bites of foods I don’t indulge in often.

I woke up on December 1, 2014 and headed to the hospital with my boyfriend and parents. I remember weighing myself one final time before heading out (two seventy something) and being nervous we would hit traffic or something would derail my scheduled procedure. I can’t tell you much else. I remember waking up very tired, there was an incident where my catheter betrayed me and I wet the bed a bit, I barfed some black colored shit after my swallow test and I could barely stay awake any time Steve or my parents were visiting. I don’t remember any pain, and I left on the third day, but not until I could drink some sugar free carnation instant breakfast with a room temperature skim milk. I remember it was vanilla (yuck) and I waited until I could ask someone to track down any other flavor. Oh, and the drains were removed – weird (like, really weird) but not painful.

On this particular December first in 2018, I can’t tell you how much I weighed, I haven’t stepped on the scale in at least a week but my weight has been the same, give or take five pounds for the last few years. I had coffee and some bacon and a cheesy scrambled egg covered in everything but the bagel seasoning with a blob of ketchup. I did some homework, stayed in my sweats until late afternoon and then headed into the same area of the city for a comedy show. I had a cider, most of a slice of pizza from some joint on the corner of the steeet where we parked and then ate a piece (okay, two) of peppermint bark when I was back in my sweats. We stopped to look at Christmas trees because our prelit one ( also 4 years old!) moved to the dumpster after a few hours of tinkering with the lights. I didn’t really do anything special, and to be frank, that’s the very best thing about the whole process.

The one intentional thing I did was decide to revamp my Instagram account. For the last four plus years it has been riddled with comparison photos, nonscale victories, and all the weight loss surgery things. How many photos do I need to hold on to comparing a me that doesn’t look like me now, to another me that doesn’t look like me now? Or wondering if I would have lost the last twenty or so pounds I’d like to, if I kept doing Zumba like that post, or yoga poses in the other post. I can’t discount the role it (and all the people!) played in my journey and the success I’ve had but it just can’t be all I talk about anymore.

I was never trying to “get skinny”.  I wanted to be thinner, healthier, feel better, have more energy and be more active but I was so tired of obsessing over it for what equaled most of my life. I am all those things now, without having to drive myself mad and I still got to eat pizza. That’s something to celebrate.