Footprints on the Moon

On the left is the first picture I took of myself in an SBRG league t-shirt. On the right is the most recent picture of me in an SBRG t-shirt, my headshot. You can see clearly that I’ve lost weight. But the fact of the matter is, I’ve been pretty well stalled out for almost a year. I still get people telling me that I look great, asking how much weight I’m losing, so maybe I’m adding muscle and redistributing… I’m more inclined to believe that I’m simply wearing more figure flattering clothes these days. I am, in fact, at basically the same weight now that I was at the beginning of the year. I’ve lost momentum, and I don’t really know how to get it back. Beyond figuring out what suppresses appetite anyway.

Weight Watchers changed their program just after Thanksgiving last year which threw me for a loop. My weight loss had been coming at a very steady rate until that point. Then I lost a couple more pounds through the end of the year and stalled out. I was firmly on a plateau. After that, I was frustrated with not making any progress. There was a little bit of “Well, I’m not getting anywhere so I’m going to just eat what I want!” I also couldn’t justify paying $18/month for Weight Watchers anymore. I’ve been trying to use MyFitnessPal to count calories, but it’s not really working for me. Partially because I have had exactly no motivation and have spent a lot of time tracking just how “bad” I’m being. And partially because calorie counting just plain isn’t working well for me. It seems counter-intuitive because calorie counting should be easy. You have 1500 calories a day, you deduct this 356 calories from that total. Easy, right? Except I can’t seem to have a concept of how many calories is too much to spend on a meal or a snack. With WW points, I knew that if I had 32 points a day, 8 points was probably too much to spend on a snack. But I have no concept of 280 calories being too many calories to spend on that same snack.

I don’t know what the answer is… Calorie counting is “easier”, it’s faster, I don’t have to spend as much time looking up/doing the math on labels to get the information I need… but it’s not working. I don’t know if going back on Weight Watchers would help. I do know that it’s $18/month that I don’t have, especially now that I’m trying to pay off the surgery. And I do know that I’m not happy with maintaining where I’m at now, especially since I’m not so much maintaining anymore as creeping upward.

So yeah… that’s where I’m at now in this journey.

Source*

The astute among you will have figured out that I did indeed survive my gallbladder removal on Tuesday, based on the picture I posted here on Wednesday of me looking so pretty during surgery prep! That or you read my Facebook page.

At this point, 9 days after the surgery, being back at work for 4 of those days, I feel like I need a Retractable banner stand to set up next to my chair at work. It should read:

“I feel fine.”
“Yes, my incisions are still kind of sore.”
“No, I don’t need anything.”
“I don’t care about the surgery you had 15 years ago.”

Hehe. Everyone has their own war stories, right? Some of them just want to share them with you. Repeatedly. Every time they see you. Even if that is four times a day.

As far as my own surgery, it went very well. I never got as nervous as I thought I was going to… just a bit apprehensive. By far the worst part of the whole ordeal was waking up from surgery. I woke up sobbing and writhing in pain. Somebody LIED to me. At this point, I’m thinking it was the anesthesiologist, but it may have been the surgeon. Either way, one of the two, in the pre-op chat we had gave me the impression that I would have plenty of pain drugs in my system by the time I came around and would essentially feel no pain. LIES, all lies. Granted, they were administering pain meds shortly after I woke up so I wasn’t in pain for very long at all, but for a minute there, it was AWFUL.

I also wasn’t a fan of my recovery nurse. She seemed to favor efficiency over being friendly and soothing… She put a wad of kleenex in my left hand for coughing and nose blowing, and put my right hand on the blanket over my incisions and told me to apply pressure before I coughed. But then I kept “getting in trouble” for using my left arm when she wanted me to set it down so the machine could take my blood pressure. I don’t remember what else she kept asking me to do, but I remember telling her that I couldn’t do it, and her snipping that yes you can. She wasn’t really MEAN (or maybe she was, I was pretty out of it)… her bedside manner could use some help is all I’m saying.

Once I got home, everything went pretty well. I thought I was going to pass out before I got into the apartment, so even as lightheaded and slowly moving as I was, I practically sprinted up the stairs to my apartment to get in the air conditioning and a glass of water. My super awesome friend Amy, who took half a day off to take me to my surgery, got me settled at home and went to the grocery store to fill my painkiller prescription and pick up a few things I wanted (applesauce) or she thought I needed (gummy bears). I spent a good portion of the next couple days sleeping off the painkillers either in bed or on the couch. I also watched a lot of TV on Netflix. I got pretty restless and bored after awhile since I wasn’t allowed to drive until I was off painkillers for 24 hours, and was therefore necessarily at home, mostly by myself, for 5 days. (This? A very good decision by the way, if some of the Facebook comments I left some of my friends in a painkiller stupor in the middle of the night are any indication. As in, they made very little sense when viewed later… not a good sign for my decision making abilities at the time.)

My friends were lifesavers in that regard… but that is a story for another post, I think. This one is plenty long enough at this point and I doubt many of you are still with me! I also still need to post about the financial impact of the surgery… I’ll get that post up soon, with my financial update. Maybe even later today… no promises. I’ve been back to work since Monday… that day was rough, I assure you, but I survived and am doing much better now!

*I found this plushie through Bakerella, who posted about the kidney one that she received after her replacement. Pictured above is the gallbladder one, obviously. Now I just need to convince someone to buy it for me!

The spoiler is right up there in the title: I’m having surgery on Tuesday to have my gallbladder removed.

It all started two weekends ago… I had a quiet Saturday evening in after a friend’s afternoon wedding. I picked up a pizza, made a pina colada, and watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One in anticipation of taking myself to see Part Two the next morning. I went to bed around 11pm.

At about 12:50am, I woke up out of a sound sleep to a really bad pain in my chest. It was pretty much centered on my sternum and stretching across my chest right where my bra band would go. I’d never experienced anything like it before… so of course the first thing I did was call my mom. She must have been sleeping like a rock because she didn’t hear it. So naturally, the next thing I did was post on Facebook. What? Isn’t that the most logical thing to do next?

Anyway, to make a long story short, after about an hour of pacing, and trying to call my mom, and getting about halfway out the door to take myself to the ER and going back to throw up, my uncle saw my Facebook post and offered to take me. We got about halfway there and my mom saw the missed calls and finally called back. So she met me at the ER.

First I got accused of having heartburn, so I got to drink a nice numbing GI cocktail, which of course did nothing whatsoever. Due to the hole in my heart, they also did an EKG. They did some blood work and everything came up looking fine. Then the doctor came in and poked and prodded my abdomen and I about hit the ceiling. Verdict? Hmm… we think it might be your gallbladder. So they got the nice ultrasound technician out of bed in the middle of the night to come in and check out it out. Confirmation, gallstone.

I got a needle in my butt with a pretty decent painkiller and once the pain was down to a manageable level, I was sent home with the instructions to follow up with the surgeon. After that meeting, it was pretty much decided that the gallbladder had to go. With a family history and my own risk factors, pretty much it is going to continue to be a problem in the future. So we’re going to take it out before it can cause more problems.

I’m almost out of time to write at the moment, so I’ll have to address the financial implications in another post. Suffice it to say, I won’t be saving any money to buy rustic dining furniture or the dining room to put it in anytime soon. I’ll be making payments to the surgery center thanks to my craptastic medical “insurance.”

Yesterday marked week 52 of this weight loss journey. One year later, I’ve seen incredible changes… in my body and in my life! Here’s a picture of the physical changes. The top row is my Before pictures, taken April 10, 2010. The bottom row is the pictures I took last night, April 10, 2011. One year and 55lbs lighter.

Also yesterday, I discovered that I don’t have any summer clothes that fit! So while I won’t be buying any rocawear jeans, I will be “rewarding” myself by looking for some shorts/capris to wear now that the weather is getting nicer! I even have my eye on a really cute skirt, but that will have to wait until I have more money in my budget I think

Obviously, I still have quite a way to go, but I’ll get there eventually. The food plan could use some more focus, and I’ll probably be adding in some more exercise somewhere as (*whimper*) my body seems to have adjusted to the skating three times a week! I’ve been stuck on a plateau for a couple of months now, and it gets frustrating. But it’s hard to stay frustrated when I look at these pictures and see how far I’ve come in a year.

After losing more than forty pounds, I decided it was time to update my progress pictures and share them with you all! I posted bigger side by side versions on my Facebook profile, and created the one at the top of this page to post on Weight Watchers’ Fan Page. The top row of pictures was taken on April 10, 2010, which was one day before I started on the plan. The bottom row of pictures was taken October 13, 2010, which was 3 days after my 26 week weigh in. These pictures mark a 41.4 lb weight loss in 6 months. (Since this was a week ago, that total is at 43.2 lbs now. Woot!)

Don’t bother asking me which diet pills are the best, cause I’m not taking any. All my weight loss is a combination of Weight Watchers and Roller Derby. I’m so glad I thought to take before pictures when I started this journey. They are supremely motivating! I KNOW how much progress I’ve made and that I look different, but sometimes it’s hard to SEE it. I mean, I look at myself every single day. But when you take two sets of pictures and lay them out side by side, there’s no denying that accomplishment.

I completely forgot about my self portrait post yesterday until I was getting ready to climb into bed, and I couldn’t be bothered to mess with it then. So you get Self Portrait Monday instead!

I’m also due to give you this week’s progress report on Weight Watchers. Eh, it wasn’t good. I struggled to make good decisions all week, I didn’t eat much for fruits and veggies even though I had a fridge full of good options. I was busy, and I just failed to make good choices. I was technically still on plan, but not really. And that showed up in a .2 gain for the week. I’m doing my best not to let it get me discouraged. I went to the grocery store last night to pick up some new fruit and to get some stuff for dinners to have at home this week.

I’m learning that this is not a quick weight loss diet, but slow and steady wins the race. I don’t need to get it all off tomorrow, I just need to get it off. It threw me for a loop yesterday and I made poor choices through lunchtime out of frustration, but I got it back under control for dinner and have started today out on a better foot.

It’s definitely much easier to tell someone else that it’s okay than it is to take your own advice, that’s for sure!

Either way, I’m still 11.6 lbs lighter than I was when I started, and that’s a good thing.

Hopefully, anyway. In the middle of freaking out about my finances, and sharing embarrassing stories about myself, I forgot to share with you one of the newest developments in my life: I am trying to lose weight. I’m not using a top diet pill, joined Weight Watchers.

Actually, it wasn’t so much forgot as it was I thought I might not tell you right away. I thought I’d tell a few close friends that I needed for support and then tell everyone else when I actually made some progress. I should have known better. I’m not one to keep secrets. At least, not one to keep my OWN secrets. Yours I will take to the grave. But noone who keeps a personal blog is to keen on keeping their lives private. Hence why I share with you my exact financial position and the fact that there is generally a pile of tissues behind my bed. And now, I will share with you that I am, once again, attempting to lose weight.

I do have progress pictures and measurements. I do know my exact weight. I have not, however, decided whether or not to share those particular details, at least not yet. Knowing me, I will before too much longer.

In any case, it has now been one full week since I joined weight watchers and bought a new scale (the purchases tell you this was prior to my money freakout) and so I had my first weigh in this morning.

*drum roll please*

I am down…

4.8 pounds! Woohoo! I have 7.7 lbs to go to get to my first small goal, and well, a whole lot more to get to my ultimate goal. Weight watchers is designed to help you lose 1-2 pounds a week, so I know I’ll settle into that rhythm within a couple of weeks. This initial success is very motivating, however!

I went to the doctor waaaay back on January 15th for my annual physical. In addition to the giggles of the usual girlie exam, this always includes a trip over to the lab for bloodwork. The doctor’s office had no issue billing my insurance right away, and correctly. The lab, on the other hand, has been a battle for the last 6 months. First, they billed me instead of my insurance, so of course I wasn’t paying that bill. There’s no point in paying for affordable health insurance if you’re not going to use it, right? So I called the lab, and it turned out that they didn’t get my new insurance information off of the paperwork from the doctor. (Curious how they didn’t seem to have the OLD insurance either… wonder how many people just pay their bills without asking questions?) So I spent several minutes on the phone relaying all the information from my insurance card, and was promised it would get taken care of.

Except it wasn’t. I continued to receive bills from the lab, with increasingly dire threats on them. I continued to call with no results. I mailed a photocopy of my insurance card with the bill. Still, they threatened to take me to collections. Finally, I looked up the fax number for the administration for the lab, and contacted them directly. I sent them a copy of the bill, a copy of my insurance card, and a very nice *cough* letter about how it shouldn’t take 6 months and several phone calls to get this ironed out, and what do I need to do to get this taken care of? I’ll be happy to pay as soon as it’s been sent to my insurance company.

Lo and behold, a few weeks later, I finally got a postcard from my insurance company that a claim had been filed on my behalf. More than 6 months and a lot of aggravation after the fact. Of course, my insurance company is only paying like $6 out of the entire bill, but it’s the principle of the matter. Besides, if I’m going to have to pay (almost) the entire amount of the bill, it’s damn sure going to be applied to my deductible!

But it’s finally settled, thank goodness! I was tired of getting threatened by the lab when the problem was entirely theirs!

That sounds like the name of a bad child’s book about life insurance rates and scary surgeons. A couple of times yesterday, I made off hand comments about being up at the hospital, and later I realized that I never said anything about WHY I was up there. I know it made a couple of people worry, so I thought I’d come back and explain.

My stepmother Gloria went to the doctor for chest pains on the 10th. After some testing, they scheduled some further in-depth tests up in cardiology at the hospital for Tuesday the 14th. They let her go home after the tests, but we found out later that if the right person had seen the results before she left, she probably would have gone straight upstairs then. Instead, she went back for a consultation on Thursday, and then a procedure on Friday. They were going to get a better look at her heart, and try to put stints in, but that was a no-go, so they scheduled a bypass for first thing this morning, and she stayed in the hospital on a Nitro drip for the weekend. She had 3 blockages, one of them almost complete.

She’s out of surgery now, and ended up with a quadruple bypass. From what Dad told me, almost 2 hours ago now, everything went very well in surgery. They did move from an intended triple to a quadruple, but as soon as they were done, her heart rate returned to normal. That’s compared to about half that before they started. If I understood correctly, their only concern was how well she’ll come off the respirator due to the condition of her lungs from being a smoker. She’ll be in the ICU until she’s off the respirator, somewhere between 24-48 hours from now. Then they’ll move her back up to the Heart and Vascular unit while she continues to recover.

So it was kind of scary for awhile there, but everything sounds very promising right now!

Man! I need to go to the grocery store… or break out the best diet pills! Ever since I cleaned out my fridge, it’s been painfully obvious just how little food there is in my apartment. Which led me to order pizza for dinner tonight. (And breadsticks, of course!) Not good for my pocketbook or my waistline! And I may or may not have had salt and vinegar chips and leftover puppy chow for dinner on Saturday night. That’s not quite as bad as it sounds — I had a huge lunch that day. Needless to say, I need to get around to going to the grocery store… lots of fresh fruits and veggies on my list. Much healthier than potato chips!

Side Note: Pocketbook? I clearly have been reading too many historical romance novels lately.