And now .. the rest .. of the story.

Over the last 6 months I have been through a lot of tests and a lot of procedures.  Sleep studies, stress test, upper GI, EKG, breathing tests, blood tests, ultrasound, and there are probably more I cannot think of.  If you don't read my 'Fat blog', and not many do, you would not know why.  


This morning I am undergoing weight loss surgery.  It has been a 6-month journey to be approved by my insurance company, there have been many hoops to jump through and many criteria to be met.  But all of that is behind me now and today is my reset button.


Weight has been a problem for me for many years, off and on.  The decision to take this step was the result of many years of dieting and exercising, gaining and losing but mainly - always gaining it back.


When I got the diabetes diagnosis I got scared and lost some weight and was heading to a pretty good place.  But when my mom came to live with me - those good eating habits went out the window and I pretty much came off the rails.  Going to the nursing home straight from work every other day made a good meal schedule impossible and actually - I'm sure I was rewarding myself with food, you know - I've had a really long day, I deserve  to just whip through that drive thru.


Writing about this here is not something I wanted to do right away.  People have many ideas about weight loss surgery and the most common negative reaction is - it's the easy way out.  I have confronted that with people, one exercise trainer specifically got me really mad with that attitude when he suggested I just exercise and to heck with the surgery.  My response to him - after I told him he needed to get a different job - was that he had no idea what had brought me to this point.  He was assuming I had never tried the exercise route.  He was assuming I did not want to work for what I wanted.  He was making a judgment of me based on his own experiences and what has worked for him.


Many people react the same way he did, and it hurts.  Especially people who have never had a weight problem, like my old office roommate who could probably still wear her high school clothes, even though she is older than me and eats all.  day.  long.  When she found out I had a treadmill her response was "well then you have no excuse."  Hmm.  People frequently do not think before they speak so I held off writing about this.  I still needed to talk about it so I wrote on my other blog because I knew no one - or hardly anyone ever read it.  My journey is over there if you would like to read it.  And if you'd like one post that explains my feelings about it the best - try this one.


For now, please wish me well and wish me success in this endeavor.  There are many changes I need to make and I am hoping to have your support.  Know I am not going into this lightly, this has been a huge decision for me.  It is all part of getting control of my life and yes, starting over.
.

So what do you want first, the good news ...

... or the good news? That's right, good news or good news. You choose. I will wait while you think about it. (queue Jeopardy music) da da da da, da da da ..

Okay I can't wait.

We received word earlier in the week that there was a bed available on the first floor of the nursing home which is reserved for patients who pretty much still know they're on the planet. Thank God! Mom moved.

Mom's operation of her walker (the 4-wheeled one) was deemed safe so she achieved mobility. She was excited to learn that Thursdays are craft days, she had her hair done, and she ate in the dining hall.

Best yet - I have not heard one single "I fell down today" since she got there.
Switching to even MORE good news - can you stand it? Anyway. In the space of 4 days my daughter and her fiancé both landed jobs and were approved for an apartment. And the best part for me?? They will be 15 minutes away as opposed to 5 hours. Yep. They are moving up tomorrow. Woo. Freaking. Hoo.
*


*
Oh, and I bought an iPhone. Not sure if that qualifies as good news, but it's fun!

So this week has been pure bliss compared to a week and a half ago. Maybe better than chocolate.

Good information

I read this at Bev's Jewelry. I thought it was valuable enough to steal! Okay, I asked, but she said to pass it on!


Bev said:
"Yesterday, I received an email from a friend in Florida that basically summarizes the correct (and polite) way to forward emails. I thought I'd share it with you all. Feel free to send it on to others who could use the information."

You probably already know most of the following article, but you probably have some friends that do not.

HOW TO FORWARD E-MAIL APPROPRIATELY

A friend who is a computer expert received the following directly from a system administrator for a corporate system. It is an excellent message that ABSOLUTELY
applies to ALL of us who send e-mails.

Please read the short letter below, even if you're sure you already follow proper procedures.

Please share it with your email buddies!

Do you really know how to forward e-mails? Most of us DO NOT know how.

Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it?

Every time you forward an e-mail, there is information left over from the people who got the message before you -- namely their e-mail addresses & names.
As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his
or her computer can send that virus to every email address that has come across his computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them
or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over
a nickel!

How do you stop it? Well, there are several easy steps:

(1) When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right, DELETE them. Highlight
them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever you know how to. It only takes a second. You MUST click the 'Forward' button first and then
you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If you don't hit the forward button first you won't have full editing
functions . I particularly dislike having to scroll through 200 Email addresses before I get to the email.

(2) Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the 'To:' or 'Cc:' fields for adding e-mail addresses.. Always use the BCC: (blind carbon
copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This is the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address.

If you don't see your 'BCC:' option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's
that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say 'Undisclosed Recipients' in the 'TO:' field of the people who receive it.

That way you aren't sharing all those addresses with every Tom, Dick or Harry.

(3) Remove any 'FW:' in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.

This one is very important - please read and heed

(4) ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with
the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many e-mails just to see what you
sent. These are the ones that often end up having picked up a virus from somebody. This is really important!

(5) Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people
or your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses.

A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained
therein. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal
letter than a laundry list of names and email address on a petition. (Actually, if you think about it, who's supposed to send the petition in to whatever
cause it supports? And don't believe the ones that say that the email is being traced, it just isn't so!)

(6) One of the main ones I hate is the ones that say that something like, 'Send this email to 10 people and you'll see something great run across your screen.'
Or, sometimes they'll just tease you by saying something really cute will happen.

IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! (Trust me, I'm still seeing some of the same ones that I waited on 10 years ago!) I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either,
they get trashed. (Could this be why I haven't won the lottery??)

(7) Before you forward an Amber Alert, or a Virus Alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most
of them are junk mail that's been circling the net for Years!

Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out at "Snopes" or "Truth or Fiction". Just go to
www.snopes.com
or
www.truthorfiction.com

It's really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not, please don't pass it on.

So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses.

Finally, here's an idea!!! Let's send this to everyone we know (but strip my address off first, please).

This is something that SHOULD be forwarded.