Damn the torpedoes, I did something remarkable!

Mar 31, 2010

As much as many think I am so strong for swimming in public - I really am a little chicken deep down in side.  Yes, I swim in a public pool -- in the VERY lane that has an underwater observation room (mind has gone THERE more than a few times - "What are they saying/thinking about fat, old me?!")  But, I truly hate the part where I have to shower & change with all those kids...

Today, I did something of real merit, and I don't have anyone to really share this with.  The Sweetie only swam a half hour, so he wasn't there to witness what I did (and I don't like rubbing his nose in that I have this much stamina).  I swam an hour and a half - drum roll - One HUNDRED Laps - horns toot!  I love to check the calculation sheet at my pool - but actually didn't this time (how far did I swim - measured in local town distances)  I know it was just over a mile and a half - 72 Laps is one mile.

Part of me did it to not have to deal with the little kids coming out of their swim classes -- if I swim an hour, they are getting out at the same time - so I get to deal with upwards of 20 small kids & mothers who are oblivious.  So, I thought to myself, "Why not go for 80 Laps?"  Then when I got there, "One Hundred is possible..."  DANG!  I did it ;)  Only bummer:  I left my water bottle in the locker room!  I was leisurely showering, then brushing out my mop hair, when the teenagers hit the locker room.  Talk about a big scaredy cat!  Wooo, three teens walk in, I fall to pieces!  Oh well, some days I have the courage, other days I just deal ;)

I have another (almost) month and a half before all the big appointments - labs, upper GI, nutritionist, social worker - it is almost brutal for me to stay positive & on target.  I haven't told any of my friends what I am doing. Funny, I know 15 people who have done Gastric Bypass, I even turned it down in the past, yet I just feel ambivalent.  Maybe until I KNOW the date is scheduled, I will continue being Miss "I can't tell them, what will they say?".  Part of me knows people who would be so damn excited to be on the path for surgery, another part worries how my friends will feel - am I going to become some weight loss jerk who judges my fat friends?  I am not doing it for any of them, and I did not back out before because of what friends thought.  It is me - I have worked all my life to accept the Fat Me.  Not to hide away, just because I am not Western Society's norm.  Hell, the best complement I ever got was from my mother:  "Brenda, you are the strongest person I know..." referring to my refusal to sit behind closed doors hiding my fat.

I miss being active.  I used to bicycle for days - literally.  Ridding 40 miles a day was not a big deal - I was still pretty fat, but I could do it.  I miss walking miles instead of sweating from the pain of doing my day to day chores.  I miss heading off to the beach & not giving a hoot what folks thought -- "Yeah I am FAT, so?!!!"  I gave myself my own description: CFC - Cute Fat Chick (I hate BBW - don't EVEN get me started on SSBBW...)  I was looking forward to learning how to water ski nine years ago - and I was still a truly fat chick (22/24).  Then the World crashed in.  I tore my Achilles tendon.  Crap.  Pain.  Nothing but, "Lose weight, we can't operate..."  Yeah, cool, HOW?  Seven years it has been.  Seven years of not being the same active girl I always had been.  Buying clothes so large, I could barely find things in Fat Girl Stores.  Catalog purchases aren't the same. 

What I told my present doctor just over a year ago when we first met, "I don't want to be that fat woman on the HoverRound, just puttering through the mall..."  So, after a year, I gave in.  I wasn't getting anywhere physically.  I was swimming - until I got sidelined a couple of months from a "car meets my truck - my truck won" accident, but still no real progress.  I was fitted for a CPAP (how humiliating), told in November 2009 I was borderline hypertensive.  I now had pernicious anemia.  Where would it end?  So off to the Surgical Seminar I went.  After telling my boyfriend my objective, he went the next month to the seminar.  Hey doc, how about a two for one?

Okay, so this is supposed to be positive.  I may be one of the only persons to read this, but at least I know how I am feeling.

To anyone who is actually reading this - worry not, I am made of some pretty strong stuff.  As my Great Aunt Maura said, "You come from healthy, peasant stock!"  The wonderful woman who was as wide as she was tall - a truly remarkable woman!  I plan to live a very long life - it is genetic - and I am as stubborn as I am fat!  I don't want to be like Great Grandma Hazel - who had to lasso her foot to get her undergarments on!  I cringe at that visual!  Being healthy is the goal ;)  So I hope to keep this running journal on a positive note.

B  : )~

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