Reflection of 9 Year Anniversary

Nov 13, 2009

Can't believe it's been 9 years last Sept 18.  In Oct my family celebrated our parents 60th wedding anniversary & their 80th birthdays.  What an accomplishment.  Our gift to them was a scrapbook of 60+ years of memories of their lives together.  They were high school sweethearts.  As I flip back thru the pages of what my mother looked liked in 1949, I am shocked as I see a stunning reflection of myself and resemblence in our body frame, our size, & our smiles.  OMG, I have that body now at 57 yrs old! How cool is that?   LOL  well, you know, plus a few gray hairs here & there & some wrinkles. Okay  some saggy skin too here & there but I'm sure grateful for the nips & tucks I've had As I leaf through all these pages I also see my pre-op years, as I continued to put on more & more weight.  I wasn't just putting on more weight.  My life was spinning out of control.  My health was spinning out of control.  I kept spinning on that merry-go-round until I decided to get off of it when I was 47 years old.
Novemeber 1,  I celebrated my 57th birthday.  Ten years ago I would have never dared to dream that I would be maintaining a healthy weight and be over 200# lighter!  I would never have believed that  I would have conquered so many internal battles from my past. I'm not finished but thank God I ain't where I used to be!

What keeps me going?  History!  As they say, "An elephant never forgets!"  I looked like an elephant, felt like an elephant, and ate like an elephant! 9 years later I haven't  forgotten one single day of that! Feeling helpless, hopeless, invisible, & having no hope for tomorrow. Living in one doctor's office after another.  I had to sit down to take a shower in a convalescent chair at 46 yrs. old.  It was a full time job to take care of hygiene for a 350# woman.  Heat rashes were a nightmare, stooping over for anything; forget it.  I was a frequent visitor to all the local restaurants with my cane-alone. I drove myself there   They knew me by name.  Isn't it funny the things we "can" do for ourselves but we decide what we "can't (won't) do that is "good" for us?   I took the word "can't" out of my vocabulary.  I stayed out of restaurants until 2 years post-op.  Then I went & took before pictures with me.  They seated me and, of course, didn't recognize me from Eve.  I pulled out my pre-op picture & it was hilarious to see the look on their faces.  It was really cool to see their reaction of how picky I am about ordering my food, the quanitity I eat,& take home with me. 

Maintenance is hard work but never as hard as the hard life I had before WLS surgery.  This is a choice I'm grateful I made regardless of the setbacks I may have.  I'm not an elephant anymore.  I'm a Sassy Kat who is capable of fighting back

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