I hate the term surgiversary... Eight years post op part 1.
Apr 05, 2012
I hate the term surgiversary... Eight years post op part 1.
...with an undying passion.
And you know what? Today is my eight year "surgiversary." And, yes... I'm waiting for my party. *sits quietly in wait* I'll be here when you're ready. I'd like the same as every other celebration: Josh Turner, someone to drive me around and Dark Chocolate Truffles. KTHANXBAI.
I am not about to write a fluff post about my "Years Of Success," or how "You Too Can Be Like Me!" fitting into size eight size twelve jeans and being super fabulous, still.
I have not taken any courses on Being A Life Coach, Nutrition Coach or even as a Support Group Leader. I haven't become a pro post op even if I'm working on year nine or ten of just that.
I still do not know what I want to be when I grow up, sorry. If I have proven anything -- it's that I am who I am -- love me or hate me -- I'm still here. Sure, I have eight years of quasi-success under my pannus, but I am not there yet. (Eww, BETH....?!)
I told you this LAST YEAR, (or the year before, or before... or...) at my seven year anniversary, in a post that is missing in action someplace. You will note the angsty tone of last Spring's postings, perhaps this is why they are missing. I don't know. I *will, however, write about The Year That Should Have Failed Me in a separate post.
It's just that I woke up -- considered the day -- and started thinking about the word -- SURGIVERSARY.
If you've been following my blog or 4209548 Facebook pages (BTW - if you ARE NOT on Facebook, you are missing out on MOST OF WHAT I WRITE MOST OF THE TIME, I am seriously socially media sarcastic) for any length of time you would know that I loathe that word -- among other things.
There are certain words and phrases that make their rounds out there in the weight loss surgery land that make my (and some of your...) skin crawl. In fact, some of these phrases are so overused they no longer hold power and unfortunately end up having a negative feeling or many of us --
- #1 - TOOL. (Makes me take an ice pick to the eye.)
- #2 - Surgiversary.
I asked some of my BBGC friends this morning what grinds their nerves -- of the words and phrases we use in this community. I got 200+ comments in an hour.
We are, if not anything else, prolific.
Keep in mind that many of the BBG are long-term post ops and opinions are like interchangeable assholes, okay? I did not say WE are assholes, I said that opinions are like... well, you get it. What you feel today -- may very well change later on. It may feel REALLY AWESOME TO YOU to say "____ pounds gone forever!!" but for many of us who are years and years post op? It's like nails on a chalkboard. Your pounds are not gone forever.
I guess that is to say, you have to live it to understand, nothing in life is forever and it's not Debbie Downer time over here, it's just realistic.
Some of the 200+ comments from this morning --
- I know I cringe whenever I read "xx pounds forever lost" as if it weren't hard life time work. Losing half a person is commendable, but remaining estranged is a day-to-day battle.
- there are no serious side effects if you follow your dr's plan
- "Pounds lost for-ever!"
- I hate the term "loser's bench". I can only imagine how big that damned bench has to be to hold all the folks on it that have had WLS.
- journey
- "Believe!"
- FIVE DAY ------- TEST......freaking wls crash diet
- "Onederland!"
- "Can you eat that?"
- "You're getting too thin..."
- "Never" My nutritionists used that word all the time. Not realistic.
- Any cutsie name/nickname for pouch
- Any sentence that starts out with I will NEVER break any rules, drink with a straw, eat bread, miss a vitamin, eat sugar, touch white carbs or whatever. Surgery didn't take the human out of us!
- I don't even call mine a "pouch". It a stomach. It may be a different size than an unaltered one but I don't call my intestines anything different just because they are rerouted.
- "Nothing tastes/feels as good as Skinny feels"
- And about 150 more... because WOW WE COULD FILL A BOOK WITH THESE THINGS.
We latch on to these words and phrases and ideas in the early stages of learning bout weight loss surgery and in our early recovery stages and think they hold magical powers.
Did you use some of those terms? Do you still? Do some of them make your teeth itch? Do others that haven't been mentioned? (I know there are ... heck the name of my business is a teeth-itching word to some of you. LOL.)
I know I used the term "gone forever" to describe my early weight loss to my lowest weight, because At The Time, I was SO DAMNED SURE that I'd "NEVER AGAIN" (there's another one!) "LET MYSELF GO" (and another...)
Myself? I was SO sure that weight loss surgery was a "tool" to "cure" my obesity "forever."
So. sure. Cocky, even. Let's zoom back to 2003 and discuss this all over again. I was an asshole. I was NEVER going to regain an ounce. I would be the most successful of successes.
I was wrong. (Yes, I've been successful in the face of some cruddy situations, go me, where's my party? However. )
Weight loss surgery is only a temporary opportunity providing the time and physical limits on your GUT in order to lose the excess weight. It does NOTHING to help where it truly matters in the long term -- inside your brain.
This is where I am now -- at eight years post op to the day -- living, learning, watching, reading and understanding this community, just now really realizing that long-term success is about your brain, not your gut, and has NOTHING to do with "tools, rules, never agains, pouch-tests, diets, or surgiversaries."
So there. A very merry unbirthday, times eight. Off we go.
Related articles- From the archives -- "I love you, you're perfect, now change." (meltingmama.net)
- From the archives - Hoarding, Hoarders and Inside-Outness (meltingmama.net)
- Today - Should teens have weight loss surgery? (meltingmama.net)
