Frankie82

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Hindsight is a frustrating thing. After reviewing my most recent posts, it really struck me just how poorly I've been doing and that I really needed to stop and pay more attention to me.

In mid-December, I had a mental health breakdown and my doctor pulled me off work. My workplace had been in the loop with the issues in my personal life, but I had no support from management. I kept having more duties assigned to me and my sales targets increased 500% from October 2014 to November 2015. To ensure I met my targets, my boss would have someone from the sales team stand behind me while I was working with a client to keep my numbers up. My doctor had been recommending a break for a few weeks before I took one, and when I approached my boss about it in hopes of some changes, her response was "it's not that I don't care about you as a person, but I have a multi-million dollar business to run."
I started being sloppy with my spending. By going to visit my sister more, my transportation costs went up and I just ate through my savings and racked up my credit cards again. Because I didn't have the funds, I stopped seeing my therapist. Yes, my work did reimburse me for some of my costs, but my cost per visit still worked out to a full day's pay and I just couldn't swing it anymore.

My DR has me on a whack of anti-anxiety meds, but has recommended anti-depressants as well. I have an appointment booked with her next week and I think I am going to start taking the anti-depressants. I am hesitant because there is a history of drug abuse and mental illness in my family, and getting those meds right is a lot of trial and error. I think I have to start them because I am spending a lot of time wondering what the point of me is.  I was able to go to some counselling through my EAP at work, but they only cover three visits and I've used them. I need more therapy, but I don't know where to find private, free therapy. I will ask my DR about this at my next visit too.

I have terrible issues with leaving the house. Sometimes I'll leave, but I can't bring myself to get out of the car. I haven't been going to the gym at all. I go days without sleeping and then days where that's all I do. I've started having anxiety and panic attacks. I've never had these before. I get so lonely but I can't make plans because I don't know if that's going to be a good day or a bad day. When I make plans and then have to bail on them, I get so frustrated at myself.

I have regained 10 lbs. I get so mad and frustrated at myself when I step on the scale. I get mad that I let myself gain the weight back and then so frustrated at myself that I can't get out of my damn car to go to the gym. In another week my pay goes down to 75% pay unless I can go back to work, which at this point, I really don't think I can. Excluding gas and groceries, at 75% pay I run a $140 shortfall on my budget with no financial safety net.

I’m going to try and make this post a bit more positive that the previous ones, but it’s going to be a bit of work.

I bought a mini-stepper (portable stair climber that is just the pedals) so I can keep up with working out at home over the winter. There was an open air gym that I was going to, but we’re in the rainy season here so that wasn’t happening, nor was I running for fear of slipping on the frozen sidewalks at night. I found a YouTube channel where someone uploaded a lot of professional workouts done on a mini-stepper so I put that on in the evenings and get a good little 20 minute burn in on weeknights.
Weight is still holding steady. I’m hoping that by getting back into an exercise routine that will help me shed a bit more before my 18 month checkup in February. Ideally I’d like to be down another 25, but at 1-2 lbs per week, 15 is a more rational goal.
Broke down and got my very own Bariatric Bob a few weeks ago. With the regrowth coming in, my hair was just a hot mess and the only solution was to chop off about 8”. My stylist has a growing out plan for my hair, but I do love the cut he did in the meantime.

Well, September wasn’t the best month for me. Food wise, I’ve noticed I’ve started to emotionally eat again so about mid-month I ran around the house with a garbage bag and threw out everything that could be a temptation. I haven’t really done any exercising in the last month either. I went for two runs, and that was it. My weight is holding the same and right now I’m okay with that. I do want to lose another 25 lbs, but my focus right now has been on my family rather than myself. If I can do that 25 between now and February (18 months since surgery) I’ll be ecstatic but that does require me carving back time for me.
My sister’s health is doing very poorly. She finished her first round of chemo, but picked up a terrible infection and has been in hospital for two weeks now. Because they are unable to control the infection and release her, she is unable to start her next round of chemo. I fear that her timeline will be much shorter than we all originally anticipated.
I have been spending as much time with her an my family as I can, but it’s hard to find the balance when I work full time, I am trying to take care of myself, I am trying to have personal relationships, and support my family emotionally and domestically when they live a 2 hour drive away. My niece and nephew are having a very hard time with this. It’s so hard with my niece because I was her age when I lost my mum and I still have “I miss my mum” moments 15 years later.
I have started to see a therapist (thank goodness for my awesome medical from work!) so I’m hoping that will help hold me together a bit better over the next while. I went to the mall tonight to pick up a couple things and nearly broke down crying because some stores have Christmas decorations in them and I might not have my sister for this one.

My co-worker jinxed me two weeks ago. He said that I was mentally doing well as a WLS patient because the research he’s done has led him to believe that we all go nuts. This week, I proved him wrong.

A week and a half ago my sister told me she has been diagnosed with cancer. Although I do not know what stage she’s in, she has started doing end of life planning. I guess that news was just the straw that broke the camel’s back and all of the other things that have been getting to me, coupled with that, finally pushed me over the “I’m okay” edge. Long story short, the sexual harassment I’ve been experiencing, the self-consciousness about my loose skin, the general post WLS adjustment, and then my sister’s news finally got to me.

I was able to leave work early today so that I could make the emergency drop-in counselling clinic here in town. At first, the councillor’s suggestion that I was suffering from grief did not make sense to me. He then explained that I was experiencing both anticipatory grief and regular grief, and that make things click for me. With my sister, I was expecting how things will be changing during her illness and picturing what it will be like if she was to pass. The regular grief was basically me having not dealt with my mom’s passing 14 years ago. He then said that I was grieving for myself. I never thought of it like that before, but the old me is no longer here. My old habits, my old comforts, my old activities, my old me had died. It was really the light-bulb moment for me. Although it did not make me feel heaps better, now I can say to myself “you feel like this because you are mourning, and those feelings are okay” and that does bring me a bit of calm.

Now that my outside has changed, I find that I have been getting more attention from men. Most of it has been good, as in clients at work offering complements, but some of it has been uncomfortable. I guess when I was larger, my actions or comments were just part of my personality, but now being nice is now considered flirty.
It is unfortunate to say, but there is a certain amount of sexual harassment that I do have to put up with at work. Some of it is a generational thing like an older client calling me a pet name or something like that. I have had to have coworkers pull me out of situations recently where the clients are getting too touchy and I was unable to redirect them back to their banking. I thought I had a grasp on what to do when it happens, but I was really not prepared to have sexual harassment start in my personal life.

I had an incident with the building manager of my condo last week. I was leaving the parking garage and he stopped me to say that the post office had dropped off a package for me and he would go get it. But rather than calling me by my name, he said in a flirty/slimy voice “hey, pretty face!” He came back to my car with the package and passed it to me through my open window. After I took the package, he reached into my car and started stroking my face saying “you have such a pretty face.” I froze. I have had hours of training on how to deal with sexual harassment, but was so stunned by it happening in my personal life that I just froze.

I spoke with my sister that night about my options and really I didn’t have any for the situation. My strata requires that they have keys to our units, so the man who lives in my building, who is also an owner, and that sexually harassed me, has keys to my home. I contacted the company that manages our strata, but they have never dealt with a sexual harassment problem before. I told them that I had been in contact with the police and the strata asked that I contact them with what the police suggested. The police logged the complaint, but legally, there wasn’t much that he did wrong. I would have a very weak case for assault, but that was it. I am still faced with the man who sexually harassed me having keys to my place. I barely slept those first few nights afterwards and spent as many nights as possible at my friend’s house. I am now thinking of putting an alarm in my condo, but it makes me so sad that making some of my dreams come true (getting healthy, losing weight, buying a home) now has such a negative aspect to it.

I had my first flare-up with my back 3 weeks ago. I ended up missing 9 days of work and basically spent 12 days on strong pain killers and ice packs. The MRI showed that I now have a third degenerative disk in my back. The positive side though is that is my first incident in a year. Before losing weight, I was having a pain episode every few weeks, so this is the best stretch in years.

Being honest with ourselves in most situations is never a fun thing, and this is no exception. I am starting to fall off the wagon. It started with a “cheat day” and has now progressed to logging my food only 2-3 days a week and I think that is why my weight loss is slowing down so much.

I spend weekends at a friend’s house and it started with that little lie that we tell ourselves that goes something like this: “I was so good all week that this _____ won’t be so bad, and I’ll go back to my proper eating tomorrow.” Well, then I started to fall off with my journaling and then I started to increase my snacking. I’m still losing weight at about 1-1.5 lbs a week but I am not treating my pouch with respect.

I brought some snacks to my friend’s house and he has set me up with a cupboard in his place. Now, when I want a snack, I have hummus and carrots, yogurt, sugar-free jello cups and the 100 calorie packs of Sun Chips there. When I get munchy, I have safe foods there. I need to stop bringing in trigger foods into my home. I have started saying a mantra when I go to the grocery store (the same one I used when I was saving up for my condo) when I pick up trigger foods; Does this get me closer to my goal? Hopefully not having bad snack available will curb the snacking. Next on the to-do list is to journal better. I start off great and log my breakfast and lunch, but forget in the evening. I may have to do what another member suggested and input all my food for the day in the morning and not stray from that list.

I snapped at a person who asked about my weight loss today, which is exceptionally bad as it was a customer while I was at work. I realize there may be a cultural difference (he’s an international student from Nigeria) but I was so upset the “work filter” on what I say didn’t turn on. Normally, I just say “thank-you for noticing” or something witty about it, but today his comments caught me off guard completely.

He frequently comes to my wicket and has commented on my weight loss each time he comes in. Today, he walked up to me and said “what pills are you taking to lose the weight?” I was appalled! I do tell people I’ve had WLS but I do not bring it up to every person I interact with. Rudely, I replied with “I do not want to talk about my personal medical history with a stranger at work. Do you want to do some banking?” This was a terrible thing to say as our audit team was in and one of the factors that determine my raise are the results of random telephone surveys of my clients. Here’s hoping he doesn’t get called :(

Well here I am 5 months out. I think I have finally rounded the corner and have fully healed and I am moving on to the positives that come from this surgery/weight loss.

Admittedly, for the first while, there was a lot of “what have I done?” running through my head. My healing went far slower than I could have imagined and even now my side still gives me discomfort. I was not expecting 4 months off work (thankfully I have awesome medical) nor being on pain killers for as long as I was. The hair loss has stopped, but I was reminded the other day how bad it was. I’ve lost about 60% of my hair (which on the bright side makes doing my hair much easier for work) and I had little tumbleweeds of hair follow me for 3 months. My vacuum was making a funny noise on Sunday and, when I flipped it over, I was able to cut out as much hair from the beater brush as is currently attached to my head.

I had seven incisions done for the surgery. When I came home, I changed the dressing and had an allergic reaction to the bandages I used for the first few days, which caused some additional scaring. As of now, most of the bandage marks have faded, as have two of the smaller incisions. The ones on my right side are looking better than the rest. The one my drain was routed though is still the most noticeable, but really is only as long as my pinky fingernail is wide.

As for the positives so far, I haven’t had to take my migraine or back medication in 5 months. My energy level is through the roof! I come home from work, fit in a work out, and find myself restless and looking for things to do in the evening. My sister even commented over Christmas that I had tapped into some never-ending source of energy. Skinny clothes are so much cheaper! Rather than buying online from a plus-size store and paying $ 50 to $ 80 for a pair of work pants, I walked into Suzy Sheer and bought a pair for $ 15 ! Hell, even underwear is cheaper!

This next part may be psychosomatic, but I swear people are nicer to me. It could simply be that I am putting more effort and energy into things and others are reflecting it. I went to a friend’s house for New Year’s Eve and two of his friends, who I had met a couple of years ago, started to chat me up. Very different behaviour from when I first met them.

Because I fit in the bathtub!

I bought my first place, a condo, last January and have never had a bath in my tub. It’s condo-sized and I never even tried because I knew I wouldn’t fit. I received a very nice Lush gift basket from a Secret Santa and decided to try it out. I actually cried when I could not only fit in, but comfortably have my arms at my sides and room for the water to move about! It was so peaceful to not hear the overflow drain sucking the water out because I displaced so much of it during my bath and to get out with the same amount of water that I started with :)