It's hard to believe but it has now been 2 years since my GBS and life will never be the same!  It is amazing to see the differences between year 1 and year 2. 

Year 0-1:
"Wow, you've lost so much weight!"
the rapidly changing body
the constantly changing wardrobe
everything focuses around your new way of eating
Self-control 101: walking away from foods that you can't eat yet
the boldness to share your experiences with others
reaching for the big goals (target weight, target BMI)

Year 1-2
"I'm sorry, do I know you?"
learning to appreciate and 'work' your new body ;)
trying to get the focus off of food (new and old habits) and feeling that it is now an automatic part of you 
Self control 401: walking away from foods you can now tolerate again but know you shouldn't eat
Fighting the old demons
the appreciation for conversations that don't focus around your weight loss
learning to appreciate the less dynamic but even more challenging goal of maintaining your target weight

Now is the time to make it real and truly start living your new life.  One of the toughest challenges for me is to live my life beyond the huge goals.  Before there was always a big goal... losing that first 5%, acutally having the surgery, losing the first 50, reaching the century mark, getting into that target size pair of pants, reaching the goal set by my doctor, etc.  Now that those goals are met my current goal is.... maintain?.  That doesn't sound very exciting and dynamic now does it?!  And, as boring as it sounds, maintaining is 10X more of a personal challenge than all the other goals combined.  Because now it's all about me... they say that in the beginning your success is 80% due to your new pouch and 20% your own doing, but once you get past 9 months or so it shifts and your success is 20% due to your pouch and 80% due to your own strength. 

It's tough!!! I've been bouncing 10 pounds back and forth for the last several months.  I understand it's normal as your body figures out it's perfect new balance.  But I don't like it.  I'm not freaking out at the nubmers, but I do get frustrated when I just can't seem to keep the number down there as easily as I did before. 

But, I know it wouldn't be easy and I know I will never go back again.  So now is the time to dig in and show myself that it truly is due to God's strength through me that I will keep healthy, keep the weight off and continue to make the perfect use of this amazing tool!!!

Fun new development: Steve and I have started to bike commute to work, so we have now entered the ranks of the neon and lycra clad yuppy riders!  There were so many reasons to ride and only one valid reason not to ride.... we ride because we can, we ride because we are sick and tired of paying for gas, we ride because we are happy to help by taking one more car off the roads, we ride becasue it is great exercise, and most of all we ride because we look sexy in lycra!  The only reason I had put it off until now is that 3 miles of our ride is on Hwy 34, which is a highly traveled stretch of highway that can be scary in a car, let alone on a bike.  However, after riding it now for a while, it really isn't too bad... the shoulder is pretty generous, and the drafting isn't too bad.  We've found that we just have to be very aware and defensive riders...even wearing neon, we can't assume everyone is paying attention to us. We've started using a 'shortcut' which avoids 1.5 miles of the highway by adding 3 miles of country roads.  The commute is 5.5 miles each way... so when you add up the commute mileage and random riding around town to run errands I have ridden 184 miles in June!!!! That's just crazy!! 
Not so fun new development: carbs are soooo evil and maintenance is 10 times harder than losing the weight.  I'm struggling with finding the right balance of carbs (need a bit more to keep up the energy for the bike riding) without getting into old habits.  I've gained a few pounds back (5-10)... nothing tragic, but just enought to give me a wake up call.  I think I'll go for a month of pure protein again to get back on track.  Meat and eggs, here I come!!!

The recovery from PS is proceeding fabulously.  I have been released for some exercise... I can do weight training on arms and upper body, but only stationery bike and walking for lower body.  There are still some deep stitches healing in the abdominal wall and I'm not allowed to do anything that would strain the abdominal muscles yet.  I have my 2month check up on 4/28 so I should be able to start doing ab/leg muscle work after that.  I am currently doing some scar massage and it is making a significant difference.  My left arm had a little more swelling than the right and the scar was a little more 'puckery'.  That has gone way down and all of the scars are beginning to lighten.  I think a lot of the inflammation is gone... though it's hard to tell because now I have NO muscle tone left in my legs/abs so things still seem softer than they will be once I can start doing weights again.
There are areas around the incisions that are still, and may continue to be, numb.  I shifted positions in bed the other night and my arm bumped into something on my hip.  I thought it was Steve's hand.  It was my own hip bone.  1-I couldn't feel the surface of the skin to know what was what and 2- I'm not used to being able to feel my hip bones!!!  It was the stupidest feeling.
We (Steve, Joseph, Joshua, Keziah and I) went hiking this last weekend at Silver Creek Falls.  There are 10 waterfalls connected by an 8 mile trail.  We weren't able to start our hike until mid afternoon so we didn't have time to do the whole trail, but we did do 5 miles and had a great time!  It feels so amazing to do something like that and not be in pain, not exhausted, not frustrated... just appropriately energized, exercised, and ready for a well earned rest.  Next time we'll get there early enough in the day to hike the whole loop!
I hope everyone is doing well and having a wonderful Spring.... now if only the weather would start behaving like spring, I would be much happier!

I am back at work. Yeah!  Once the drains were pulled on Wednesday last week it was smooth sailing.  And honestly, it's been smooth sailing all along, but getting the drains removed was a huge relief and step in the happy direction.   Hoenstly, having the drains pulled was the worst part of the whole thing.  I wasn't really painful... it was just freakishly sick and wrong to have 8" tubes yanked out from inside your belly... good times.  I am gradually losing the fluids/inflammation which is nice... getting rid of that overall tight feeling.  I have been amazed at how rapid the improvement is.... one minute I might be feeling like "wow, this sucks" and and hour later I realize it's not as uncomfortable now as it was an hour ago.  I still haven't gotten into a good sleep routine.  After several days of being doped up and then several nights of  being propped in less than optimal positions, my sleep patterns are out of  whack.  And on top of that, my usual sleeping position doesn't feel right anymore, now that my tummy is gone.  Weird.  I never would have thought about having to change my sleeping position.  And I can't lay flat on my tummy yet, so I'm trying to find the best position and am looking forward to a good night's sleep soon... it gets better each night.
I just can't believe it's done!!!  Dr Havard has been wonderful, Casey and the rest of his office staff are wonderful.... couldn't have asked for a better team of folks to work with.

So I thought I was going to be getting the drainss pulled today, but NO! 
Apparently the tubes are still gathering enough drainage that they need to stay a few days longer.  I'm bummed, but clearly would rather wait a few days than pull them prematurely and then have to go in and have the excess fluid removed by way of needle..... yikes.  So now the big day is planned for wednesday am at 9:30.  It's only a two day delay, but dang.... I was really looking forward to taking a shower... Oh well.

Other than that, I'm feelin great, hanging out, being lazy, feeling well enough to actually feel kind of guilty.... yeah, don't worry.... I've already gotten over the guilt.  It's just that I'm used to only being home when I am sicker than a dog and feeling like crud, so this is kind of nice.