Baby Steps,Giant Leaps and Taking Flight

Wednesday 3-28-12
Why growing up is a lifelong process


The last week has been INSANE.  I was out late every night due to rehearsals and concerts with my city's symphony orchestra.  A select group of female singers from the larger group I perform with had the opportunity to sing in the final movement of Gustav Holst's orchestral suite, "The Planets".  (Google it or listen on youtube.)  The music is ethereal and lovely in the final movement, called "Neptune---The Mystic".  It is a short but taxing little bit of music.  Its saving grace is that the composer uses the female choirs like instruments (no lyrics) and stipulated when he wrote the piece that the voices were to be heard and not seen.  So we sang from the wings, which meant no uncomfortable concert attire, no worrying about bad hair or if lipstick was on straight.  That part was great fun, as was the comeraderie among us ladies backstage.  Still, late nights and early mornings drained my energy a little.

Saturday night I had nothing extracurricular after work, so I was able to go home and get to bed reasonably early.  The extra sleep was much-needed because Sunday I was on call at the hospital for CPE and up pretty much all night.  That was followed by seminar, during which I presented my mid-unit review, and then music practice, so except for a couple of power naps at the hospital, I was up for 36 hours.  Home late Monday night and up early Tuesday morning to sing for the monthly in-service at the hospice where I volunteer and then a few more hours of patient visits at the hospital.

I got up yesterday morning feeling like I needed to go see my Dad and Bonus Mom.  I called to see if they'd be home when I got done at the hospital and asked what all was going on with them.  Bonus Mom told me that my northern uncle had passed away, Dad's only surviving brother.  I went and visited with them and stayed out way too late...but it was worth it in lots of ways.  We were able to talk about my uncle and share memories and laughs.  I also decided to go ahead and let them in on my surgery plans.  It went a lot better than I expected.  Dad was positive and he had some questions, and a couple of times he began to sound a little preachy.  I was able to divert that before it got uncomfortable by simply telling him that "my doctors and I have got that covered".  I know he is skeptical because he has seen my efforts at weight loss fail before.  And he clearly still views me as a child in some ways, not trusting me to make the changes that need to be made.  Some of his questions were:

"Has a doctor discussed basic lifestyle changes with you at all?" 

(Well, duh.) 

"Yes, and as a result I am off caffeine, off carbonation, down 25 pounds and getting lots of exercise when I am at the hospital."

"What exactly are they going to do to you?"

"The surgeon will laparoscopically go in and remove a big part of my stomach, including the part that releases the hunger hormone, then he will rework my intestines so that they won't absorb as many calories from the smaller amounts of food I'll be able to eat post-surgery, separating the limbs until the last 8-10 feet.  So I am having what's called a restrictive and malabsorptive procedure, which will help me to lose more weight faster and be more likely to keep it off."

"The Hubs going to go with you?"

Again, duh.  "Of course he is."

"Is there anything we can do to help you?"

"Sure!  Keep us both in your prayers as I continue to prepare, and then afterward while I recover."

Of course, there was more to the conversation, but he didn't have any questions that I was not prepared to answer.  Looking back to last summer when I went to speak to him about pursuing a unit of CPE and he wanted to give me another fat lecture and I was a wreck, I can see how far I've come both physically and emotionally.  The past week that I described earlier, the late nights, lack of sleep and all the physical activity being on call?  I don't know if I could have done it a year ago without crashing completely.

I've made progress.  I see the late nights and fatigue as baby steps.  Giant leaps have come in my adjustments to the physical and spiritual demands of being on call and juggling whatever comes in a given overnight shift. 

Learning about my uncle's death and then telling Dad about my surgery and not falling all to pieces?  THAT was like taking flight!  I have a long way to go and I know it.  I also know now that I am a lot stronger than I thought.  I can do this.

I can fly.

   

Small Bills, Please

Friday 3-9-12
Why surgery is not a cheap fix...


While The Hubs and I do a great deal of our banking online, I have also been paying many of my weight-loss related bills by check.  It is old school, requiring more effort and thought than simply clicking a mouse a few times.  It also makes the expenses more real in my mind than they might be otherwise.

Today, for example, I wrote checks to the hospital and a diagnostic lab for tests I had undergone as part of getting cleared for surgery.  I wrote three checks totaling nearly $425.  This is not small change in my world!  As I wrote in my last post, I used our entire tax refund and then some to pay my program fee for surgery and follow-up care in the year after surgery.  That was $3,000, and it is by no means all-inclusive. 

These are not small bills.

Thank God I am not a self-pay patient!  The total costs for weight-loss surgery can be staggering, ranging from $18,000 and up depending on the procedure needed, where it is done and the doctor who does it.  Insurance companies that cover weight-loss surgery cover it at different rates and have different criteria for a patient to qualify.  A friend of mine who works in law enforcement told me that their insurance requires them to pay a $5,000 program fee out-of-pocket.  Some insurance companies cover nearly everything, while others cover nothing at all. 

One might wonder why a person would go to such extremes and expenses "just to lose weight".  I used to be one of those who wondered about it.  I now understand that surgery is truly a last resort for those of us who have tried everything else without achieving permanent success.  I used to be able to lose pounds more readily, when I was younger, but I was never able to keep them off.  Now that I am not as young, it is even more difficult just to lose the pounds in the first place!

I have to make a lot of changes in the ways I think about food, my body, size and shape, and what it takes to get myself healthier.  Among other things, I have to realize and acknowledge that the expenses are worth it...
that I am worth it.  (L'Oreal has been saying it since I was a child, but they were only talking about the surface issues that could magically be addressed by purchasing their products.  How convenient.)

So today, as I slip a big chunk of money into the mail slot, my mantra will be:

I am worth it.  My health is worth it.  My self-esteem is worth it.  Easing the strain on my hips, knees and ankles is worth it.  Feeling better and enjoying my life are worth it.  I am worth it. 

I am worth it.