I’ve Lost An Olsen Twin!

October 31, 2008 at 2:03 pm (Health)
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Here’s what I was doing eleven months ago.  Drinking.  Not eating anything.  Just drinking.  For four long weeks I was allowed nothing but water and Slimfast protein shakes.

That’s not entirely true.  On Thanksgiving I was granted permission to eat three ounces of turkey.  (I also had three brussel sprouts, a spinach ball, and a small piece of flourless chocolate cake.  Never told my doc about that.)

I was at the end of the longest six months of my life…nearing the date for my bariatric lap-band surgery. 

Let me tell you a little about those six months.  Initially, after making the decision to go through with the process, I was ecstatic.  Just kept picturing what I would look like, after twenty years of being obese…and then morbidly obese.  I couldn’t wait to cross my legs again…to be able to paint my own toenails…to sleep on my stomach…to squat.  (I have no idea why I was anxious to squat.)

As time went by, I bounced back and forth between excitement and fear.  I repeatedly told myself that I could back out at any time.  But then I would get on the scales…or try to hike at Hocking Hills on a 92 degree day, and knew that I was actually going to do this.

In spite of the mandatory and interminable tests and meetings with doctors, nutritionists, psychologists, sleep specialists and parking lot attendants, the reality of just how much my life was about to change didn’t set in until I was approaching that last month and the liquid diet.

“I’ll never again eat a cheeseburger and fries.  A steak.  Ribs.  Pizza.  Pasta.  Baked potato.  Never again.”  I knew that I would come out of surgery with a stomach that could hold two tablespoons of food. 

I also knew that food was killing me.  I had always been sort of proud of the fact that I was fairly healthy “for a fat woman”.  But as I aged that was no longer true.  I had a mild case of sleep apnea, high cholesterol, and arthritis exacerbated by the weight on my joints.  I sat on my big butt almost all the time.  If I was asked to go somewhere with friends or family, I would have to make my decision based on how much walking was involved.

November 28th was a big day.  It was my son’s birthday, and it was a birthday of sorts for me as well.  I knew that I could die as a result of this surgery.  (Actually had an acquaintance who did die.)  But I had researched well…knew the percentages…and made an informed decision to go with the odds.

I woke up after two hours in the operating room weighing ten pounds more than when I arrived at the hospital.  Wait, what?  How was that possible?  Turns out it was all gas.  They blow you up like a Macy’s Parade balloon in order to get to the relevant organs.  And what was the most painful part of my recovery?  Getting rid of that gas!  I could have blown submarines out of the water with the force of those farts. 

And here I am, almost a year later, and eighty-five pounds thinner.  My son says I’ve lost an Olsen twin.  Yes there were hard times.  With a band it’s easy to get food caught in the tiny passageway into your stomach.  (That hole is now the size of the tip of my little finger.)  And that, my friends, hurts like you can’t believe.  I was going to say that I wouldn’t wish that pain on my worst enemy – but yeah, truthfully, I would.  She’s a horrible person.

But guess what?  I can cross my legs!!  And sit Indian style.  And squat.  And walk several miles.  I’ve lost five sizes and no longer have to buy my clothes from Omar the Tentmaker.  And…wonder of all wonders…I don’t miss all that food.  Seriously.

Here’s something you can try.  Go pick up a child that weighs about eighty-five pounds and carry her/him around for awhile.  That was my life a year ago.  Feels awful doesn’t it?

Today, when I hear that someone has decided to have bariatric surgery I get so excited I almost pee in my pants.  And I have a friend who has made that very decision.  She was the most skeptical of all my friends a year ago…but she’s going to do it, for her health and her future.  Wow!

I have to go change my pants.

Peace to all.

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Only at Funerals

October 27, 2008 at 1:06 pm (relationships)
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I come from an extremely broken family.  My father was married three times, had several children with each of his first two wives, and then married a woman thirty years his junior.  I was the only product of that last union.  As a result I grew up with my nieces and nephews who were my age-mates.

As adults, none of us remained closely connected.  We sort of existed in “pods”, would see each other only infrequently, (at funerals mostly), and would always say that we needed to get together. 

I tend to think that it’s hard for families like mine to develop those close emotional ties when there’s no strong matriarch to pull everyone together.  We have good intentions, but other priorities prevent us from ever acting on them.

I said all that to tell you about Don. 

Don was the son of my sister.  She and I were born on the same day…thirty-two years apart.  Don and I were the same age…and basically grew up together.  I lived with his family several times throughout my childhood.

I remember the scary time, (we were six then), when Don ran into a busy street and was hit by a car.  I can still see his body flying into the air and landing with a sickening thud twenty feet away.  He was in the hospital for several weeks.  When he came home I wouldn’t go near him…he looked horrible, and scared the bejesus out of me.

Ten or twelve years later, when I was again living with his family, I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone crying in the dark outside my room.  It was Don.  His girlfriend had just broken up with him.  He was devastated, and asked me, that night and several times over the next couple of weeks, to ride with him past her house, just because….

Don went on to marry his next high-school girlfriend…Patti.  They had two children, and a good life.  He worked in auto dealerships for years…as a service or sales manager.  His leisure time was spent racing cars, and later he rode horses for show.

In February of this year Don fell and hurt his back.  Upon examination, it was discovered that he had stage four lung cancer…that in fact one tumor had grown so large that it severed two vertebrae in his spine…and that it had spread to his brain and other major organs.

He died on October 21st. 

It had been years since I had seen him.  I didn’t know he was ill.  I got a phone call, two days after he died, from an old friend asking me if I was going to the calling hours that night. 

I stood in line for an hour at the viewing.  There was Patti, and, over there, the kids…Tom and Beth…and Beth’s five children.  And there was Don.  Oh, Donny!  He looked so horrible.  Patti said he suffered terribly at the end, but died peacefully…looking into her eyes. 

I loved him.  And if I could go back and change things…I would have made the time to stay connected with him and his family.

But as I said, in my family we tend to only see each other at funerals.

Good-bye Don.

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