An Update From My Physical

And some other stuff


The nurse at Dr. Awesome's office called late last week with the results of the blood work from my physical.  Lots of good news there.  My fasting blood sugar was 78, which pleased me greatly.  Over the past several years, while never severe, my fasting blood sugar had been gradually creeping up and that concerned me.  Being so overweight and having such a huge family history of diabetes on both sides did not bode too well for me staying on the non-diabetic side of the spectrum.  So I was relieved that my blood sugar this time was where it was.

My total cholesterol was 130, which also pleased me.  I had written in my last post that since I am eating so much more animal protein now, I was concerned that my cholesterol might be out of whack.  My ratio of good-to-bad cholesterol still needs work.  My LDL (the bad kind) was 88, and my HDL (the good kind) was 33.  They'd like my HDL to be above 50, so I'll be seeing what I can do to improve those ratios.  And my triglycerides were 61, which is great.

A couple of things showed up that I need to be rechecked for in a month.  A couple of my liver levels were, in the nurse's words, "a tad elevated", so I will get those rechecked in 4 weeks.  This may be related to the biliopancreatic portion of my surgery.  I am not experiencing any pain or symptoms that would make me suspect that my liver is sick, so I am hopeful that this is no big deal.

The urine test showed ketones, which is common after weight loss surgery, or any other kind of rapid weight loss.  The body, instead of burning carbohydrates for fuel, is burning fat, and that throws ketones into the urine.  Dr. Awesome also told me that there was bilirubin in the urine.  I am still doing research to find out what that means and to learn if it is related to the liver levels.  It could be awful or it could be no big deal.  I feel fine so I'm not going to get all twitchy about it just yet.

On to more pleasant things, I am looking forward to a vacation with The Hubs and the dog in a few months...and I need a new swimsuit.  I have been looking online at what is available and a disturbing trend I'm seeing is the return of the super-high-cut leg.  I will still be in the market for a suit with a skirt, thank you very much!  At least for this year, I will want a skirt.  There are wiggly-jiggly things in my abdomen, hip and thigh area that I don't think anyone needs to see.  I found one that I almost ordered, but then I remembered that it is too early for me to buy something because the size I guesstimate in February may not be right in May.

I have no idea what size I would need in a swimsuit now, much less in 3 months.  I may actually have to try on swimsuits in a store.  Horror of horrors!  No matter what size, shape or age we are, trying on swimsuits is a universally unpleasant experience for women.  Unflattering fluorescent lights plus dry, flaky pre-swimsuit-season skin equal a confidence-busting trip to the mall.  No matter what size, shape or age we are, we can all find something not to like about the way we look, especially in swimwear.  It's just part of being female.

One of the very best cards anyone ever sent me addressed this issue.  I've kept this card for nearly 25 years because of the letter my friend wrote on the inside, and because of the way it still makes me laugh after all these years.

On the front is a cartoon lady and the caption reads, "I tried on last year's swimsuit the other day."

Open the card and the punchline reads, "Perhaps you heard the explosion."

More Little Victories

Sometimes Little Is Much


I had a couple of appointments today.  Staying home and napping might have made me happier, but I needed to take care of some lady maintenance.  The first order of business was my annual physical with Dr. Awesome, our family physician.

I had lost several pounds since my visit there 3 weeks ago, and my blood pressure was 98/61.  Still running low, but I don't guess that is a problem.  Other parts of the physical included a urine test, chest x-ray, and EKG, all of which were pretty unremarkable.  The nurse drew several vials of blood, which will be checked for glucose levels, a lipid panel for cholesterol and triglycerides, a thyroid check and probably some other stuff I can't remember right now.  I never really had issues with cholesterol/triglycerides, although my good cholesterol was lower than I'd have liked.  Now that my eating habits are so different (much more animal protein than before surgery) I am curious what those readings will be.  It would really suck to go through all this and find out my cholesterol is all out of whack because I have to eat more animal protein now.  Maybe the malabsorption from the reworking of my intestinal tract will balance things out.  Lord willing and knock wood, all those levels will be OK.  I should hear from the doctor's office in about a week.  My Slam-O-Gram is 2 weeks from today, and if any hilarity ensues there, I'll be writing about it here.

My other appointment was for hair maintenance.  It was time for another perm.  Some women can wear their hair really short, or really straight, but those looks are not for me.  For myself,  I am fond of big hair.  I have a big personality and big... curves, so big hair just completes the picture.  It has become something of a trademark for me.  I had my last haircut shortly before Christmas, so it had been a little while since my stylist had seen me.  She's been another great source of support along the way. The first little victory at the salon was when I put on one of the smocks that never used to fit around my body.  Today the smock fit me with room to spare.  It doesn't seem like much to most people, but for me, it was a big deal.  Fitting into something I couldn't fit into before felt wonderful.

The second little victory at the salon came when the male stylist a couple of chairs down paid me a compliment.  He was between clients and while I was in my chair under a huge cape with my hair all rolled up in perm rods  (a very fetching look for most ladies!) and my glasses off, he said, "I've just been looking at you without your glasses and your face is really pretty."   And the inference was not "your-face-is-pretty-but-you're-too-fat",  it was "without-your-glasses-I-can-see-your-pretty-face" and no reference to my size at all.  I thanked him as graciously as I could, started cracking jokes and probably blushed a little.  But it was nice to hear.

Elsewhere, I was able to replace a favorite t-shirt with one in a smaller size.  As a singer and musician, I enjoy finding music-themed items, and a few years ago I bought a t-shirt with a cartoon drawing of a little girl dressed as Brunnhilde (the one most people think of when they envision an opera singer) from Richard Wagner's opera Die Valkyrie, with a caption that reads "Don't make me use my Opera Voice!"  My old one is way too big to wear anymore except to sleep in.  Last week I found a smaller, long-sleeved version of my t-shirt, on sale.  Epic win!  So I ordered it and it was delivered yesterday.  It hugs me a little bit but not in a bad way, and I look forward to wearing it.  Just the fact that an article of clothing can hug me a little and me not hate it, is a major victory.





 

Admitting That I Need Help

Sometimes you just have to suck it up and get humble for a minute...


The Hubs and I went to visit with some family this afternoon.  The last time we saw them was at Christmas and I have lost a bit more weight since then.  When we arrived, my sister-in-law answered the door and greeted us with a hug, and commented on my shrinkage.  She has been very open in her support of my journey and genuinely pleased with my progress along the way.  She said that she knows it's been hard, and I agreed, parts of it have been difficult.  But the hardest part, I think, was making the decision to do it.

I am a bit of a control freak, and it was so hard to admit that I needed help with something.  It was hard to admit there was something I couldn't conquer without assistance.  It was hard to suck it up and get humble for a minute.

This whole journey has been about humility, and sometimes even about humiliation.  My very first visit with the surgeon was a very humble moment indeed, realizing just how far I had let myself go...so far that I needed help to get back.  At that point, The Hubs and I had been married for over 25 years, and never in all that time had he known my weight.  I don't know what I thought I was trying to hide, he'd been seeing me naked for over 2 decades and knew my size.  But still...

That morning, when I was weighed in for the first time at the office, I let him know what my numerals were on the scale.  He asked if I was sure about that, and I said, "Yes, I am sure.  I'm committed to this and I'm all in, so you might as well know what I'll be dealing with."  I'm still not sharing those numerals with the world, but sharing them with The Hubs was a huge step for me.  A very humble moment.

Immediately after surgery when I was hooked up to an IV pole, I needed help just to go to the bathroom.  That was difficult.  The nurses were measuring my output and had me urinating into a hat.  Once, the hat was not properly situated on the toilet and I peed what seemed like 5 gallons, all over the bathroom floor, and I was not able to clean up after myself.  I felt horrible about that.  I can sometimes be high-maintenance, but I at least like to pick and choose when those times are!  Requiring help is quite a different thing, and not a feeling I am fond of or comfortable with.

Toward the end of the all-liquid diet phase, I became frustrated and depressed at times, wondering if I would ever be able to eat food again.  I was very limited in what I could consume and I got very bored and sick of it all by the time it was over.  I said I was never, ever so excited to be able to eat mashed beans and fish in my life!  I remember once crying because I knew I needed to "eat" something, but I had no appetite and the thought of another cup of clear bouillon almost made me sick.  I felt about as low then as I can remember feeling in a long time.

There were moments of physical and emotional pain that I prayed to get through.  Praying helps.  A lot.  I was talking to my Dad the other night and told him how very faithful and gracious God has been to me along the way, and how thankful I am.  I have leaned more on Him in the last year and a half than I have in ages, and I know He has taken care of me.  Times when bowel movements have been so painful that I sweated and cried, or when a period was so heavy that I had to sit down near the end of a concert I was singing in because I was about to pass out, or when I ate too fast and made myself sick...moments like those are not the "glamorous" side of weight loss surgery and recovery.  They are not what people hear about, and not what people want to hear about.  I have felt very helpless, and I don't like that feeling.  And I'm sure there are more helpless moments to come.  What I am learning all over again, though, is that God helps and comforts, every time, if I am just willing to ask for His help.

Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and get humble for a minute.

Eight Months Since Surgery

And some random reflections about clothes...again


Tomorrow is my 8-month surgi-versary, and so far I am down a total of 110 pounds.  The doctor would like to see another 40-50 pounds gone before I'm done, which means that most of the clothes I am in now will be too big eventually.  I'll need to "down-size" yet again.

I've been thinking lately about clothes and my relationship with my wardrobe.  I've already written about some of the clothes that I'll never get rid of because of their history and how much I love them in the post titled, "FrankenPants, Kissy Shirts and Argyle Sweaters".  I am not a conservative dresser.  I live and work in a casual world, so grey business suits are not really part of my lifestyle.  I wear jeans most of the time, and I love sweaters in bright colors and the occasional pastel.

Conservative, I am not.  But modest, I am, most of the time.  I just think there are times and places for things, and most of the time I don't think ladies need to be showing all their business to the world.  I guess that's old-fashioned.  Is there a time and place for a little cleavage?  Sure, there is.  For example, church ain't the time or the place.  Just my opinion.

As a lifelong fat girl, I always followed 2 basic rules of dressing with regards to clothes and my body:

Rule 1.  If it's not pretty, cover it up.
Rule 2.  If it sticks out too far, cover it up.

Seems simple enough to me.  Now, as I emerge from my former largeness, things about my body are looking better and sticking out less, but I don't expect to change my dressing habits in any major way.  At my largest size, my biggest concern was just finding clothes large enough to fit...to cover it up.  And the baggier, the better.  I realize that putting a big, loose garment on my big body didn't do anything to flatter that body.  But it gave me a place to hide.  Now, I am actually starting to care about how things fit, not just if they fit.  And I am starting to remember that it can actually be fun to put an outfit together.

I'm still not going to be wearing cleavage to work or to church.  Cleavage is for special occasions like date nights with The Hubs.  I'm not going to be showing my legs in short skirts, or my fanny in clingy pants.  That's just not who I am.  But it does make me happy to look better in the jeans and sweaters I enjoy wearing, and especially to feel more comfortable in them.  I still believe in covering it up, most of the time.        

My WoMan-I-Festo: Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones...

...but words can break my spirit


I've been thinking a lot lately about words and language, how we use them and the effects they can have on other people.  We use words to express ourselves in good situations and bad ones, to share feelings of love and affirmation, to vent anger.  And, unfortunately, sometimes we use our words to hurt people, either intentionally or not.

I have been noticing the words people are using to describe the changes in my appearance since my shrinkage started to become really noticeable.  Affirming, positive and sometimes humorous words and phrases are coming at me from all kinds of people.

"I can't get over the transformation."

"You look like a different person."

"You're wasting away to nothing!"

"You're becoming a skinny-minnie."

Even my father, The Fatophobe, jokingly called me a "bag of bones" at Christmas, and that was 10 pounds ago!

All of these are wonderful affirmations of my progress, and I am grateful for them.  I'm grateful to have had the chance to pursue the weight loss surgery that is already improving the quality of my life even before I've reached my goal weight.  I'm grateful that God uses doctors and technology to improve people's health and that He has used them to improve mine.

But I can't help thinking about the other times when words have been hurtful and insensitive, simply because of what I looked like.  Every fat girl has heard the lament from some well-meaning friend or relative, "You have such a pretty face...", the implication being that the rest of us is somehow unacceptable because of our size.  Every fat girl has experienced the embarrassment of ridicule from peers and classmates who make jokes at her expense.  Every fat girl has gotten the message loud and clear, at one time or another, that she is unpresentable, unworthy, unacceptable because of her fatness.

Our culture is relentless in the way it hammers away at women's self-esteem, chiseling and chipping off pieces of our confidence by bombarding us with images of pencil-thin, anemic-looking supermodels and portraying their protruding bones and angular bodies as the ideal of feminine loveliness.  In a world where countless millions of people are starving to death through no fault of their own because they have no food, droves of American women are choosing either to starve themselves, or to eat and then force themselves to vomit after every meal, in hopes of achieving some unrealistic picture of what female beauty is supposed to be.  Even in the plus-size catalogs I receive, the models displaying the clothing have very few curves to their bodies.  Can anyone besides me appreciate the absurdity of all this?

A friend and I spoke last week and she said something about me getting skinny.  I responded that I'll never be skinny.  I have way too many boobs and hips to ever be skinny!  Becoming less large has been a blessing, and I am so thankful for the journey.  And yes, if I am being honest, in most ways I do think I look better (although as I shrink, some lines, wrinkles and crinkles are showing up that aren't making me happy).  The changes in appearance are secondary to the fact that I feel better and I am becoming a healthier person.  But I will not apologize for the way I used to be, or rather, used to look.  It is all a part of what makes me me, my history and the journey of becoming who I am ultimately going to be.  I view my life as a work in progress;  I am in a constant state of becoming.

This is my WoMan-I-Festo.  I will be who I am  becoming, whatever size and shape that happens to be, and I will not be ashamed.  I will affirm other women and encourage them in whatever state they find themselves.  I will be an advocate for the broadening of our definitions of physical beauty, as well as an increased emphasis on the importance of non-physical beauty.  I will focus on wholeness and health in my body, mind and spirit, as I strive to nurture the bodies, minds and spirits of the people around me.    



   

The Four Horsemen Of The A-Puke-O-Lypse

The Vomit Brigade brought in reinforcements this time...


Today started like any other day with the exception of a 6-month checkup with my family physician, affectionately known as Dr. Awesome.  It was no big deal, just time to renew a couple of maintenance prescriptions.  My blood pressure today was low, even for me.  I have to reiterate that, even at my heaviest weight and largest size, my blood pressure was never a problem, always running in the low-to-normal range. One of the fat-lady bullets I managed to dodge, to the surprise of lots of people.  I will admit, somebody at the size I was usually would have hypertension, but I never did.  Today's reading was a personal record, though, at 107/54.  I texted The Hubs with my numbers and told him, "I think I might be dead!"  The only time I can remember a lower reading for myself was 90/60 following an outpatient surgery to remove a cyst on my back over a decade ago.  (The nurse was scared to let me go home with a reading that low, fearing I'd konk out on the way to the car!)

I had not seen Dr. Awesome since just a few weeks after my weight loss surgery and he seemed impressed with the amount of shrinkage that has happened so far.  He had a medical student with him today as well, and after telling me that I was "wasting away to nothing!", he told the student doctor, "This lady is a product of bariatric surgery."  We went over the typical question-and-answer portion of the checkup and he renewed my prescriptions, after which I scheduled my appointment for the annual physical (all except for the lady-parts stuff, that is the domain of Dr. FancyPants).

After my doctor's appointment my cousin Judy and I were planning to spend some time together, so I went to her house to pick her up, and we left for a nice, lengthy ladies lunch together.  We went to a place she goes to frequently and where I had never been before.  We were seated in a nice booth near the lovely fireplace in the restaurant, which was especially pleasant today because the temperature here never got above freezing.  Remember this mention of the cold, it will be important later.

We ordered our lunch, and we ate and talked and laughed...and I started to feel a little uncomfortable in my belly, like when I've eaten a bite too much, or eaten too fast.  I prayed silently that this would not be another clumping episode, stopped eating and got a to-go box for my leftovers.  I didn't really eat any more than I usually would, and what I ate was tasty.  But something, somehow went horribly wrong.

I excused myself and went to the ladies room because I felt queasy, but nothing much happened in there of the sick variety, and I started to feel a little better.  So we left to go pick up her daughter Katherine from school.  We went a little ways and waves of nausea started, along with sweating, and just as I finished asking, "Is there a place around here to pull over..."

The Four Horsemen of the A-Puke-O-Lypse came galloping forth.  This was not a small episode of clumping-related illness.  I puked like a rock star.  Like a drunken frat boy on a Sunday morning.  Like a champ.  Like I have not puked in years, maybe even decades.  I puked up way more than I had eaten at lunch.  All over me, all over the car, all over.

God bless Judy, she pointed out a place as quickly as possible where we could pull over.  And thank God, there was a change of clothes in the car.  But imagine, if you can, a 48-year-old grown woman changing clothes on the side of a busy roadway in sub-freezing temperatures, shielded only by a car door in the back and my cousin holding up my jacket like a curtain in the front!

No, this is not a pretty episode, and Yes, it is funny, so it's OK to laugh.  Even I can laugh about it.  Misfortunes like this are the stuff sitcom episodes are made of.  In all seriousness, though, I think I may have eaten something last night that didn't agree with me.  When I went to bed last night my stomach was very noisy and a little crampy, and I noticed that my back hurt, a common symptom in the past when I have had stomach flu or food poisoning.  So I am attributing this unfortunate episode either to a little virus or a little bite of something that might have been past its prime.

And this, my little friends, is why it is always good to keep trash bags, a change of clothes and baby wipes in the car at all times.  One never knows when The Four Horsemen of the A-Puke-O-Lypse may ride forth.

The Foods I Miss And Why I Miss Them

Probably not the reasons you would expect


A Facebook thread among my family just minutes ago got me thinking about the foods I miss, and the people who made them, who I miss even more than I miss the foods themselves.  I wrote about some of my bread memories and stories here in one of my earliest posts right after I started the blog and the weight loss journey prior to surgery.  I come from a family of wonderful Southern cooks on both sides, and I married into a family of other wonderful Southern cooks.  So to say that food has been an important part of my life would be more than fair!

What surprises me these days is that, while I do miss certain foods, I don't miss them as much, or for the reasons, I might expect.  What I really miss is the people who made them, and the warm memories I have of the times I enjoyed both the foods and the people.  My eating habits are so radically different now that a lot of the foods I am thinking of would probably bother my stomach or make me feel queasy.  It's not the food...it's the cooks and the memories that I miss the most.

Mama was a wonderful cook.  She didn't cook fancy, gourmet food, just tasty Southern fare.  Every Friday of my childhood I remember her making a cake for the weekend, and her warnings not to slam the door or make a lot of noise for fear of making the cake fall.  I think that might have been a ploy to get a few minutes of quiet more than any real fear of a collapsing cake!  She had a couple of mainstay things she would make to take to "Family Night" at church, a covered-dish affair in the fellowship hall where the entire church would show up, food in hand to share with everyone else.  Mama's usual dishes were either a brown rice casserole (which didn't contain brown rice at all) or her famous baked beans with bacon on top.  I was the "official taster" for the beans, and they were always delicious.  Mama also made banana pudding, from scratch, in a double boiler, with the most gorgeous meringue on the top.  And I miss her fried chicken in the electric skillet, her Swiss steak in the CrockPot, her chili in the Revere Ware Dutch oven and her rump roast with potatoes, carrots and onions in that old beat-up aluminum roasting pan...the stuff of my dreams to this day.  But if I had to name just one thing that Mama was known for making, it would be her cornbread.  It was legendary.

Aunt Ruby made biscuits every morning for over 4 decades, and they were the biscuits I judged every other biscuit by my whole life.  I remember lots of times spending Friday night at her house and she would often make us pancakes on Saturday morning.  Simple, but such a treat!  And always the best breakfast I could ask for.  The Hubs has always said that Aunt Ruby's potato salad was his favorite of any potato salad he ever ate.  I never liked potato salad, so I'll have to take his word for it.  I'm glad he has that wonderful memory of her, since she doesn't cook anymore.

Aunt Martha was a great cook too, and she loved her sweets.  Aside from Mamaw, Aunt Martha was the only person who made apple stack cake.  One year my brother went and spent the day with her to learn how she made it, and he has made a few of them.  Oh, to be a fly on the wall during that baking session!  She also made a Fresh Apple Cake with homemade caramel icing that I have the recipe for.  But I could never hope to make it as good as hers was.    She gave me lots of recipes for gooey desserts, one of which was Banana Split Pie.  Aunt Ruby also shared this recipe with me.  For years I made one for Thanksgiving at Aunt Ruby's.  It's a no-bake dessert that needs to be refrigerated, rich and very sweet, and a little dab will do you!  For several years at Christmas, she would make little individual loaves of banana bread for everyone to take home.  I will never forget working one Christmas night at a television station, all alone in the building, warming her banana bread in the microwave, smearing it with butter and crying with gratitude for something from home when I was stuck at work on Christmas.

"Mamaw" Allred was my next-door neighbor until I was nearly 17 years old (when we moved because a construction project razed our neighborhood), and very much a part of our family.  She and Mama and ladies from her church used to make hot tamales in the fall every year to sell by the dozen as fundraisers.  Lots of churches and groups still sell hot tamales.  Oh, my word, how those tamales warmed my body and soul on many a cold night!  Boil them, enjoy the smell and fidget waiting for them to be done, then smother them with chili and prepare to hibernate like a big old bear!  "Mamaw" Allred also made what she called hot tamale pie, which was similar to chili with hot tamales.  And she made peanut butter potato rolled candy which was ridiculously sweet and good.  But my favorite thing of hers was Baptist Pound Cake, a rich, dense, almond-flavored scratch cake.  It has to be started in a cold oven, and it develops a crusty layer on the top that is about as addictive as anything I've ever eaten in my life.  She gave me the recipe and, after a few attempts, I became good at making it myself.  She loved that and congratulated me for being able to make it because it was a recipe that Mama never mastered!  It's been many years since I made one, but maybe next year at Christmas I'll whip out the bundt pan and bake some cake to give away.  The world needs love, and it needs Baptist Pound Cake.

As much as I loved eating these foods, it's less about the foods themselves and more about the people who made them and the memories of times I spent with them.  Everyone I've written about here is gone now except Aunt Ruby, and Aunt Ruby doesn't cook anymore.  I miss the tastes and aromas of these foods, to be sure...but what I really miss are the conversations shared while the stove warmed the kitchen, the laughter as the flour flew through the air, the loving way the recipes were written down and the advice never to cook when I was angry because the dish would turn out bad.

Proverbs 17:1 reads:
Better is a dry morsel with quietness,
Than a house full of feasting^[a] with strife.

So, it's not really about the food so much.  It's about the love.  Yes, our bodies are nourished by food, but our souls are, too.  I am grateful for the cooks in my life and my family who have nourished me, both body and soul.