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.
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Overwhelmed much?

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My Christmas tree is usually up the weekend after Thanksgiving. My Christmas shopping is usually completed by now. I'm not usually as stressed about work as I have been lately. And I'm not usually monitoring my blood glucose and freaking out about how high it actually is. Yes, I am overwhelmed.

Too much to do, but every time I test my blood my glucose is high. I have only had one reading that was even close to normal and I have yet to get a handle on what this whole thing is about. Spending more time researching diabetes and noticing the excessive thirst and overly dry mouth and other symptoms I did not pay attention to before. Or did not equate with illness, if you will. I am not getting anything done except becoming more aware of my anxiety.

This weekend I will get my Christmas shopping done.

At least.

I hope.
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Last day, I promise!

This is the last gratuitous shot of my arm, parts of it are well on their way to yellow now, so that won't be any fun. But did I mention my other arm is bruised too? Not anywhere near the scale of the right arm, but still. I'm not a bleeder people. Really. I've had more than my share of needle sticks and this time just turned out to be completely heinous.

It's been a wonderful day though. Ahem. I got my labwork back today. Let's see. My triglycerides are high, my glucose is high, my sed rate and my TSH are high as well. Oh let's not forget the alkaline phosphatase! Anything low? Nah, why would I go that direction when I can go higher and higher?! So I get to go to the doctor tomorrow and he can tell me I need to eat better and get off my butt and DO something. Yay me.

There were other lovely things that happened today that seemed to involve the slaughtering of small animals but really just involved my not being quite menopausal yet - and that's about as graphic as I'll get here.

What the hell?

Came home from work and went into the fridge to get something to drink and was greeted by this.


Nice.

I am used to my son stocking up on this.


And there is usually some of this in there.


But this? Seriously?


I mean really, why is this necessary? For anything?

It's here!

My daughter called me at work today - left a message in my voicemail saying "giant boxes of food have arrived!" Nutrisystem is here. We opened the boxes and started sorting. I don't think my daughter really needs to lose any weight, but this is pretty healthy and balanced so when she wanted to do it I thought it would be nice to do it together.

Oh my gosh - we pulled out dinners, lunches, breakfasts and desserts in all their cardboard and foil packet goodness! It appears that a lot of my lunches are cylindrical - and most of my breakfasts are flat. :) Interesting. I'm finding out that besides what is in all those packages, I can also have a few servings of fruit and vegetables and or salad a day, as well as dessert. Mmmm, yogu-u-u-r-r-t! Does cherry jell-o count as fruit?

So - this promises to be quite interesting. I keep looking at these portion sizes saying - have I gotten that far away from eating in a healthy way? One thing I can have is my tea, I have 2 mugs every morning. I said to Dani that I was going to have to fudge those a bit, yes I can use artificial sweetener but I NEED some real sugar as well. Dani proceeded to tell me that this is supposed to be about changing habits - starting new - and man - how come a 21 year old is right????

I guess we will be going through the fridge and cabinets and purging some things from the house. Andy will be happy because we drink all the pop he buys - that will have to stop. :( I think more than anything it will be the portion sizes that will be hard to get used to. I have been so used to just eating what I want - when I want lately - that sticking to these portion sizes may be hard. I'm not a big fruit eater, definitely not a big vegetable or salad eater, but since those are some things I am allowed and encouraged to eat every day - I need to make the effort. Heck - this is way too expensive to NOT follow it the way I'm supposed to.

A half a banana is one fruit portion, but then - so is TWO plums! I'm going for the plums! Oh - must go - Dani has started the grocery list and I need to contribute to that. Well - here we go! I will be taking my "before" pictures - but I'll be darned if I will post them here, at least - not until I don't look like that anymore!!! Vanity. It's terrible, isn't it? :)