 |
| Day of Surgery |
 |
| 17 months (and 131 lbs) later! |
Ringing in the new year was good times this year. New Year's Eve, I was at the Georgia World Congress Center with several thousand other volunteers for Passion 2013! The next few days were full of college kids, a heart of worship, awareness of the 27 million slaves in the world today, and watching the next generation rise up to stand in the gap and say enough is enough.
While volunteering at Passion, I met some awesome people, including a missionary serving in Ukraine, an amazing woman of God with a heart bigger than the size of Texas, and the founder of a really cool nonprofit that helps people adapt sports to their abilities. It was a crazy awesome week, with very little sleep, but so many rewards.
After Passion, I started feeling off again, nauseous and just not right. I was worried I had another stomach stricture, and this time I went to my doctor quickly. We butted heads over a few things. He's a great surgeon, and I am glad I chose him, but we had to get on the same page. I had this surgery to be healthy, not to be skinny. He looks at me and sees another 70 lbs that need to come off. I see me and look at the 131 lbs I've lost. I'm not to my goal yet, but my unhealthy obsession with the scale has never helped me in the past, so I am not sure how it would help me in my present. I am 40 lbs from my personal goal, and that doesn't take into account the excess skin I battle. I know I have work to do, but talking to my surgeon only lit a fire in me because he implied that I wasn't working hard enough. He offered to do another endoscopy with dilation if I thought it was what I needed, but, in his words, "other people would kill to have your restriction 'problem'." I was almost in tears I was so mad. I know my body. I've been living in it for almost 30 years. Something was definitely off, and it really made me mad he misread my intentions. He left the room, and I think he felt my glare on his back. He came back in 2 minutes later and had a different attitude. He said we could try a prescription that would act as an appetite suppressant (though I hadn't been hungry since surgery), with a side effect of increased energy. He offered a 2 week trial to see if it would make a difference. It did - I lost 9 lbs after hovering around the same number for a very long time.
On the downside, it made me super agitated, and I developed a random and weird rash on my hand that seems to be healing now I'm off the medicine.
I know this is a January update, but I have to say my first 11 days in February have been pretty interesting. 6 flights in 6 days for work. I was nervous about getting on the tiny commuter plane to Lafayette, LA - somehow my brain taunted me and said the smaller plane's seat belts would be too small for me, and I would be forced to request a seat belt extender. My brain needs to catch up! I sat down, my hips didn't even touch the sides of the chairs (exit row seat!), and I was able to get the seat belt on, and tighten it. When it was beverage service, I was even able to pull up the fold out tray and have room! I cannot tell you what that felt like. I tried not to cry; I failed. The lady next to me seemed to understand without words. She just smiled at me and patted my knee while continuing to read her magazine. Weirdest flight ever. We never exchanged a word. Ha! More about my travels in the next update.
Shout out time! BIG shout out to Kristi who drove me to my endoscopy procedure in December and has continued to check in on me to make sure I'm okay. Huge thank you to my team at work for putting up with me as I spoke 100 words per second while on that medicine! And of course big thanks to my family and my bff who listens to my nonsense babble and doubts in my head, the crazy that comes out, but still loves me and then lovingly tells me to stop whining, pull it together, and move forward. I couldn't do this without my army of cheerleaders. Thank you!!
