Winter finally arrives and ...

Jan 12, 2012

 I'm ready for it!  We are finally expecting some flurries here in eastern PA, and I, for one, am glad.  One thing I like about living here is that we have snow in winter, heat in summer, and a lovely spring and fall.  When I lived in North Carolina the fall and spring were great and lasted a long time, but the long summers were so hot that I hated to venture outside.  

Fast forward to today, we have two bags of salt ready to sprinkle in the driveway and two boys who know how to shovel snow; we're set!  All we need now is the white stuff, and there is a forecast of "flurries"!  Of course we had snow in October, an unusual 8 inches before the leaves even fell, but now is the time for the serious snow to start falling.

This week has been a total contrast from the last.  I have been tired, dragging my feet and doing as little as possible each day.  I have zero energy and I hurt all over.  My knees have been especially painful, perhaps due to the storm front currently moving through?  I am  hoping that maybe my good mood, high spirits and higher energy level will return this weekend.  My boys are going on a Boy Scout camp-out this weekend, sleeping Friday and Saturday nights at a Boy Scout Cabin on Staten Island, and spending the day Saturday in Manhattan.  They are both excited, and I am too, because it will be good for me and for Bob to have the house to ourselves for a weekend. 

I received two packages today, from Unjury and Chike.  Each contained single servings of various flavors of protein meal replacements.  I must say the Unjury "shaker bottle" was not what I expected, just a Rubbermaid 6 oz plastic bottle with a top, no magical "whisk ball" to do the job properly.  Still, I think I'll start tomorrow with my plan to have a protein shake each morning for breakfast.  I'm going to make note of which shakes are yummy, yukky, etc, and then when I've found one I like I can order enough for my pre-surgical "protein shake only" diet.  

I was really surprised a while back to see a post on OH in which someone was making disparaging remarks about people who had a particular type of WLS.  The gist, from what I could discern, was that this person felt that the Duodenal Switch (DS) was the "smart" choice and that people who get the band are idiots and people who get gastric bypass are self punishing weenies.  ( I paraphrase) This really surprised me, as most of the folks on the forum and generally supportive and positive.  It got me to thinking about the whole judging and classifying thing again.  Must we really judge others and then put them down, because they are different than we are?  Must we really say that they are stupid just because they don't do as we do?  

My feeling is that anyone who is considering WLS or has had it is a person who is willing to work and change to have a better life and a healthier body.  We are not taking the easy way out, we have chosen to take charge of our lives and try to take better care of our bodies.  We aren't lazy or stupid or slothful or gluttonous (OK I'm gluttonous, but I know not all of us are) and we are all trying to live the best lives we can.

When I was in my 30's and just at 200 pounds, I was morbidly obese.  During that decade I had two children and breast fed each for about a year.  I played indoors and out with them. I walked my dogs and pushed my boys in their stroller around my neighborhood.  I rode my bike, hiked in the WV mountains, and worked on my garden all year round.  I shoveled and wheeled tons of mulch.  I wasn't happy with my fat self, but my size did not define me.  I lived a good life and I was happy and, other than my weight, healthy.

Now, in my forties, I have too many physical problems to list here, am on more prescription meds that I can remember, can barely walk up stairs, and can only walk about 100 feet before back pain stops me in my tracks.  This is why I have opted for WLS.  I don't care if I ever look good in size 5 jeans again, like I did in high school.  I don't need to be able to run eleven miles and then go home and do chores, like I did at age 15.  What I do need is to be a mom who can walk up the stairs at my sons' school on parent night, or walk from my car to a football field to watch my son march with the band at halftime.  This year, I didn't do either of those things because I could not bear the idea of all the pain from walking the stairs, hallways and streets.  I have made up my mind that I will do this, I will get healthy, I will be a mom who can go on hikes with the Boy Scouts on the Appalachian Trail.  I will be able to swim laps, I may even learn to do a flip turn!  I will definitely become more thoughtful about what I put in my body, and why.

My options are very limited vis a vis WLS, because my guts are already messed up.  I am one of the "normal" people who experiences early dumping, without benefit of WLS.  My pylorus doesn't really do its job, since I also have bile reflux.  The dumping is caused by the pylorus allowing food to enter the intestine before the stomach has had a chance to deal with the sugars and carbs, thus creating massive gas, discomfort and diahrrea.  The bile reflux is also caused by the crummy pylorus allowing bile to move back up into the stomach from the upper small intestine, where the gall bladder dumps it.   Since my pylorus is an idiot my only viable choice is gastric bypass.  A sleeve would make the bile reflux even worse, as would a DS.  Since I have a hiatal hernia, a band is out of the question.  Luckily for me, the RNY gastric bypass should allow me to lose a great deal of weight and become the active healthy human that I want to be.  So, for all you judgers and haters out there, go ahead, let 'er rip!  Your opinion of me is a non-issue, as are your feelings about my surgical choice, and your prejudice against fat people in general.  

Condemn me if you wish, call me lazy, call me a cheater, but I am taking my body back by any means necessary, and I refuse to see the shame in it.

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