Next Stop Twoterville!

Jun 12, 2013

Got on the scale this morning and was thrilled to see a weight of 300.4. By tomorrow i'll be back in Twoterville.

I can't even believe how great I feel, and how full of hope, when just a few short months ago I was close to death and just wanted to give up.

I guess I should document my descent into hell, just so I can never forget, and never allow it to happen again.

At 340 or so pounds, my usual weight, Pat, my ex-husband, decided to return to me. Why continue to be apart? Life is too short. We love each other. Excitedly, I emptied drawers and closets and waited for my man to return.

My rhematologist diagnosed me with PMR which is only treatable with Prednisone. I said ok, and began the regimine, not even realizing that I was pigging out like a house afire. I put on 20 lbs, 30 lbs, oh no, this isn't good. My blood pressure was sky high and uncontrollable, my blood sugars were in the 400's. 

Pat returned on the last day of August, 2012, and we started the "rest of our lives" together. Sunset cruise to watch the dolphins, dinners out. I'm supporting us both on my disability, but we're waiting for his unemployment from Home Depot to kick in any day.

I went to an endocrinologist and started on insulin the beginning of October. what a pain in the butt. I got a CPAP machine, finally able to sleep well at night, no snoring, no up all night to pee, and no waking up breathless with my heart pounding. 

I'm getting up in the morning and looking in the mirror and i'm really starting to look like Jabba the Hut. I just keep thinking wow I'm gaining weight, I've got to diet. So breakfast a small bowl of fiber one cereal with some bluebies and low fat milk. Lunch a few sticks of low fat cheese, an apple and a couple of rice cakes. Dinner either a big salad with a hard boiled egg or 4 oz of fish or chicken and a small serving of veggies. Sweet tooth satisfied with sugar free popsicles and sugar free jello.

One night i start sliding off the bed and i wake up yelling Pat, Pat, i'm falling off the bed!! help me!! and he got up and put the light on and by the time he walked around the bed to my side, it was too late. my knees were on the floor and the rest of me went down. I tried my hardest to get up. I could not put all my weight on my knees. My legs were so huge and swollen that I could not bend them and boost myself up. Pat ran and got a chair for me to lean on, it didn't help. He couldn't lift me, I couldn't lift me. Exhausted after an hour of trying, i ended up at the foot of the bed with my legs splayed out like a child, my back up against the bed. I was begging him to call 911 but he didn't want to. I guess he was embarrassed. He finally gave in and the Fire Dept came, red lights and all. A bunch of sweet gorgeous firemen came in and made me feel so relieved and so safe and cared for. They rolled up a sheet and put it under my arms and three of them lifted me up. Back in bed finally by about 4 a.m.

Pat starts sleeping on the living room couch, he says he's more comfortable there, that i "move around too much". i'm hurt but i understand, i'm so huge and it's only a full sized bed, and i've got the CPAP on...

I call my PCP, Dr. Gittinger, in November and tell her something is wrong. I'm gaining weight and I've never been this huge in my life. I am a whopping 402 lbs at this point. She tells me it's the insulin. Oh My GOD i had no idea insulin makes you gain weight. That last 40 lbs jumped onto me in no more than a month. I can't fit into my underwear, so I'm just wearing my capris and going commando. There are only 2 shirts that I can fit into. I can no longer walk across the street to do the laundry, Pat has to do it. By now, he's got a part-time job at Publix, in the Deli Dept. So on a day that he works 4 or 5 hours, if i ask him to do the laundry, he screams at me that he just worked all day and he's tired. If i ask him to do the laundry on his day off, he screams at me that it's his day off, he doesn't want to do anything. Meanwhile, with the inability to fit into any underwear, and the fact that I can no longer reach my nether regions when I'm in the shower, i can only wear my capris one day before they need to be washed again. so sometimes i go for days in my nightgown since I have no clean clothes.

I stop the insulin and start weaning myself off prednisone and stick to that portion-control low carb thing I had been doing. I finally get up the guts to ask Pat to help me in the shower. Begrudgingly, he comes and washes my bottom and my privates, all the while complaining that he was trying to watch tv but has to stop to come in to help me bathe. 

I bought a personal care item, like a grabber thingie for bathroom use. You put the toilet paper in it and squeeze it shut so that you can wipe yourself. What a joy to be able to clean myself after using the bathroom. The same item was supposed to be able to be used in the shower, but it didn't grip hard enough to hold a scrungie or a washcloth. 

I had another fall out of bed, I had dropped the remote and I was trying to get it but  no luck and I hit the floor. Again we needed 911. Not the same guys, so I told them what to do with the sheet, and they got me up quickly. Embarrassing to be so huge that I need help of 3 men to get off the floor. 

Meanwhile it is so hard to walk that once I get into bed and I need something it is a nightmare to take a few steps to get it. I'm drinking water like crazy at night, and keep running out. So I call for Pat to bring me more water. I wake him up. He's not happy, but he gets me the water usually. I take 2 bottles to bed with me, but I end up needing more. One night I was about to have my 4th bottle and he yelled at me that I had had enough water. Why? Why can't i have more water? i'm thirsty! and I paid for the water! so who says i can't have any more? He shuts up and brings me the water, but it's the last time. After that, even if i call and call and then call him on his cell phone, he won't answer. he's too busy sending dick pics to his old girlfriend Janet in Brooklyn.

Every time I shower I can feel my shower chair sink a little bit more. The weight limit on the chair is 300 lbs, and now i'm up to 402. i can't afford the $30 for a new chair because Pat is buying himself cases of beer every week, and clothes, and shoes, and Christmas gifts for his kids. Haircuts and all kinds of things that I am depriving myself of because "we" can't afford it. Finally, one night in the shower, it gave way. Oh, this is not good. Not good at all. So my butt is on the floor of the shower, but the chair is wedged under my butt and my thighs and my knees. My feet are dangling because my knees are up high, what a bad position. I can't move AT ALL. I call for Pat, and call and call and start to scream and scream and finally screaming bloody murder and he yells "WHAT??" "HELP!!" I yell and he finally comes in. he pulls back the shower curtain, peeps in, says oh my God and closes the curtain again. I tell him to shut off the water, and he does. I tell him to give me a towel to cover myself with, i must have looked repulsive laying there in that position like humpty dumpty or something. He wants me to try to get up. We go thru this routine a few times, I show him that I cannot get up, he needs to call 911. I ask him to get me a nightgown and he brings me one that I don't fit into anymore. I ask for another one, he gives it to me and leaves me alone. I guess he had to rush back onto the phone with his girlfriend. When did this happen to us? The firemen come, they get the sheet at my direction and get me out of there. I am badly shaken and they get me my walker to get back into bed. 

So Pat comes down here to be reunited with his sexy voluptuous woman and finds a hugely fat troll with grey hair (i can't afford to have it done) who can barely take 2 steps with a walker. I am completely homebound since I cannot fit in the car anymore. Am I really shocked that he started a relationship again with his old girlfriend?

I can't dress myself, I can't put on shoes, I can't put on pants. I put my feet in the pants on the floor while I sit on the bed, and he has to come lift them for me. I can't fit into the desk chair anymore because it has arms. I can't sit on the couch anymore because i can't get up without help, and sitting there, all that weight on the piping that goes around the cushions digs into the backs of my thighs and is excruciating. I ake Pat  to bring my wheelchair in from the car trunk and set it up in the living room so I can sit there to watch tv with him. (meanwhile,for 11 years, i sat on the end of the couch, and he sat in the middle so we could be right next to each other, always touching, holding hands, hands on thighs...but at some point he moved to the other end of the couch and said it was because of the cat. She liked to be near me. I'd reach out and try to touch him or hold his hand; he'd let it last for  a few minutes then reposition himself out of my reach. Stupid me, it made me sad but i didn't realize he didn't love me anymore. blind, deaf and dumb i was.)

Sitting in the wheelchair was horribly painful because i no longer fit in it. i had to squeeze myself in and the bars were so tight on my thighs that i couldn't stand it. I ended up having nerve damage on my left leg, the outside of which has no feeling, the skin is totally dead to the touch, but underneath is horrible aching pain or crazy itching. Just lovely. So i had nowhere to sit. Not comfortable in bed, I finally reached a point where i could not move in bed. I was like a dinosaur in the La Brea tarpits. I had to call Pat to help me get up out of bed in the morning.

I start losing weight, and 20 lbs comes off quickly after stopping the insulin and prednisone. Pat goes to work and i manage to make us both dinner every night. i prepare a little, then go sit on the dining room chair; then fix a little more and go sit down again. 

Finally I discover the text messages between him and Janet. he is telling her that i am so lazy and i order him around and he can't wait to get back to NY, back to the "woman I REALLY love".  I tell him he has to leave. We go immediately to the bank to split up our joint account. I give him $20 to open his own acct and tell him he needs to give me $100/week for his share of the bills.  He says he has no place to go. I tell him i want him to stay, is he willing to stay and work it out? he says yes. he's lying. he just needs someplace to stay until he saves up enough money and makes plans to leave. 

I start putting on makeup and jewelry every day, and managing to dress myself and make the bed, straighten the house. I no longer ask for his assistance in the shower. I try to be loving and supportive, and think of things we can do together since I can now fit in the car again, after losing about 30 lbs.

Then one night he comes in from work (although he didn't go to work that day, I found out later. I have no idea where he was, with my car) and says we have to talk. i'm leaving.  He had made arrangements with some guy from Clearwater who needs a driving companion up North. I didn't even cry. I was angry, hurt, scared for myself, but I wasn't heartbroken like I was every other time he left. I called Lifeline to get one of those "I've fallen and I can't get up" thingies. He leaves the next day. 

 

About a week later I ended up in the hospital with chest pain. Funny, but every time he's left, I end up in CCU. After a few days, I'm discharged with orders for Home Health Care, a nurse to monitor my new coumadin regime. Oh, great, more meds.

Meanwhile I've got an open wound on the sole of my foot for months now that is so intensely painful I can't put weight on it, i'm screaming in pain. So the nurse, wonderful John James, gets orders for wound care, and after suffering for 2 months, the wound is healed in a few days. I also start PT since, at the hospital, they noticed that I couldn't walk! Wonderful Jodie Baker, my PT, came 3x/week to work on my standing and walking. Wonderful Connie, my OT, gave me equipment to use to allow me to bathe easily, put lotion on my dry feet, dress myself, get my shoes on without difficulty. Jodi even showed me a trick to get in and out of the car so that i never again fall doing that (that was one of my first bad falls,half in and half out of the car in the rain). we started walking down the street, she'd follow me with my wheelchair so i could sit if i needed to. The last thing we worked on before she discharged me was I got on the floor and got up by myself. TWICE. so i finally got rid of the Lifeline.

Kept on that diet, and the pounds dropped off. All the way to 71 lbs. I thought maybe I don't need surgery, I can do this myself. Then I started to pig just a little bit. And a little bit more. I put on 12 lbs but it sure felt like more. So when I got the call from Kelly @ Doctor Rehnke's, telling me that insurance had approved my surgery, I jumped at the chance. Yes, yes, yes. A complete way out of the mess my life had become.

So that was the start of my journey, phase 2. I picked up the Optifast and with it, i've lost 45 lbs, (since i had gained 12), i'm now at a grand total of 102 lbs lost since November. I can't believe it. I look and feel so much better. I'm wearing clothes I had forgotten i owned. I am walking so much better. everything is wonderful. 

I'm taking a class to be a Certified Guardian ad Litem. I've even started sending out resumes, and hope to return to work after 3 years on disability. I've got 2 interviews scheduled. I've changed my "Plenty of Fish" profile from "i'm not interested in dating right now" and updated it, hope to put new pics up soon. My latest pic on there is from 2009. So i'd even like to start dating again, which is something i never thought would happen.

I feel like i can conquer the world. I am looking forward to a trip North next year to visit friends and family. Nothing to hide anymore. In a few months, just a few months, i will no longer be the Fattest Girl in the Room.
 

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