211

Inactivity is catching up with me! Only three more days...I hope.

To Err is Fattening

Remember how I said in my food post a couple of days ago that I still make bad choices from time to time? Well, I made one last night.

After a long, emotional roller-coaster day, I asked Hubs if he wanted a treat. (That's code for "I'm going to send you out to get something bad for me.") He did, and so he went, and he returned with ice cream and a Slurpee for me. The Slurpee was tiny -- and it should have been enough. I dug into the ice cream anyway. Mmmm...cookie dough.

Within two bites, I was done. It was inexpensive ice cream, the kind that's a little gritty. It was a little too sweet. It wasn't what I wanted. But I kept eating. Bite after bite, a little more, a little faster, and before I knew it I was on the verge of speed-eating the entire pint. I wasn't even tasting it, wasn't even present, if that makes any sense. I was just consuming.

Something made me snap out of it; I don't know what it was. I looked down and saw that in about five minutes (maybe less), I'd inhaled almost two-thirds of the container. Two-thirds of an 800-calorie, 40g of fat container of lousy ice cream. My heart was in my throat; the spoon was still in my hand and I could feel it wanting to dig into what was left. "Go on, you've already eaten most of it. Just finish it off!"

I didn't.

I didn't finish the pint. For a single moment, the small part of me that's strong and steely and food-resistant jumped up and said NO. I clapped the lid on the carton as fast as I could, and ran downstairs to put it in the freezer. NO MORE.

I didn't want that damn ice cream. So why did I eat it? Because I had a sort of crappy day. Because I want to work out and I can't. Because being alone for almost two weeks has made me neurotic and paranoid and slightly depressed and I wanted something, anything, to make me feel happy. Guess what? After I ate that stupid ice cream, a wormhole didn't open up and erase my crappy day. I still couldn't work out. I was still feeling neurotic and paranoid and slightly depressed. That stupid, lousy, not-worth-it ice cream didn't fix anything.

It may seem like common sense -- how could food fix anything? Emotional eating has been my M.O. for so long that I hardly ever question it. I suppose in some ways it's like an addiction; there is a need, a huge, screaming, demanding need and I answer it. I give it what it wants because (used to be, anyway) for however short a time, filling that need with food makes everything else disappear. For those few fleeting moments, my brain checks out, my hands and mouth do the work, and everything goes away.

I don't want to check out anymore. I want to be here. I want to be present. I want to deal with things instead of hiding behind food, and fat, and funny.

GPOYW: Progress

Let's go back in time today. Back to just over a year ago. What did July of 2009 look like?

Oh yeah...fat.


I look happy, but I was so miserable. I felt awful in the outfit I had on, and I felt even worse when I saw the pictures that showed just how fat I looked. This was my wake-up call picture.

So what does July of 2010 look like? Well, it's a heck of a lot different, kiddos:


What a difference thirty pounds makes. Go me!

I Can Has Foodz?

My friend Michelle, who recently started her own blog, left a comment for me here asking about my diet. As promised, I'm dedicating a whole post to food today. Her question was (in case you're too lazy to go back a post and look at the comments), essentially, what do you eat?

That question would be much easier to answer if I was on a diet -- South Beach, Atkins, Zone, whatever -- but I'm not on a diet. Diets do not work. Well, I mean, they can work in the short-term. You can live on two bowls of Special K a day and drop weight, but it won't last. Why? Because you can't eat that way for the rest of your life. It seems like such a simple concept, but it's taken me a lot of years and a lot of failed attempts to really understand it. You have to change the way you eat, your lifestyle. Even two rounds of Weight Watchers didn't drive this home for me (more about that in another post).

I don't count calories, fat grams, fiber, or "points." Much to Smith's chagrin, I also don't keep a food journal anymore (I should probably start again, though). So, Michelle, there really isn't a magical menu I can type out for you. I try to eat mostly lean protein and vegetables, fresh fruit, lots of water. Here's a few essentials that I always try to have on hand:

Chicken breasts
Plain oatmeal
Salad (get the bagged stuff -- it's cheaper and already washed & cut up)
Greek yogurt (plain -- add fruit to sweeten it)
Whole wheat or multi-grain pasta
Pasta sauce
Frozen broccoli (cheaper than fresh & lasts longer)
Bananas (for smoothies)
Lara bars (or Clif bars, or PowerBars -- for snacks)
Avocados (for guacamole or to add to salads)
Tomatoes
Fresh fruit
Canned soup (low fat/low sodium type)

That's pretty much it. I don't buy a lot of processed or pre-packaged food. I do not buy junk food. If it's not in the house, I can't eat it. I've tried to set up my pantry and freezer so that I can throw a healthy meal together without a whole lot of thought or advanced planning.

My eating habits aren't perfect, and I don't know if they ever will be. All I can do is make the best choices possible at each meal. And if I make a bad choice (yes, it happens) I have to accept the consequences and move on. I still eat crap from time to time, but I eat it far less frequently and recently I'm enjoying it less every time. My body doesn't like junk anymore, and it is always sure to remind me of it whenever I eat something I shouldn't.

Frankenbelly

There's a four-inch incision in the middle of my lower belly. At present, it's held shut by a row of shiny metal staples. Kid pulls up my shirt to see it, a look of doctorly concern on his face. "That's Mommy's boo-boo!" I tell him. He nods, knowingly. Pulls my shirt back down, pats me gingerly. Then he points to his most recent bruise or bump or scrape. "Mama?" he says, little eyebrows pointed up in a question. "Yep, buddy, that's YOUR boo-boo." Solidarity.

Does he remember, I wonder, coming out of my belly? The quick yank that brought him out of the warm, aquatic world of my abdomen, and into the dry brightness of his life outside of me?

I remember it. Strapped to the table with my arms spread wide, barely able to see over the surgical drape. Pressure, voices, clinking of instruments, and then that little squall of him, tentative at first and then louder, louder, louder still. Startled by the separation, maybe? Or simply cold, or made grumpy by intruding, tugging hands.

Four times now I've been on the operating table. He was the first, and the scariest. Everything was new, unknown. How quickly it's become routine: bloodwork, IVs, nurses and doctors and gurneys with wheels that rattle and squeak as I'm taken from one room to another. Drugs that make me babble and cry and (sometimes) flail as I wake up, my own rude awakening, pulled from anesthesia into consciousness again.

My little man looks at me with his tiny doctor's face, furrowed brow, and I look back at him. We understand the journey. Solidarity.

210.4

I can't wait to start working out again. I feel like a little kid on Christmas morning, waiting for the okay from Mom and Dad to start tearing into presents.

I have ten more days of "rest" before I can do anything. My follow-up with Doc Hamburger is on the 19th, and only with his blessing can I start exercising again. He's already said that running is off the table for quite a while, which is infuriating because a big contributor to my belly issues is (duh) my weight, and running is the fastest (and now my faaaaaaaaaavorite) way to get weight off of me. BUT, I have to obey. Not just because he's a doctor, but because if I don't, my mom will likely come to my house and lay the smackdown on me. My mom acting as my doctor's enforcer is kind of hilarious, if only because she herself rarely used to listen to her doctors when they'd warn her about her intense running regime. One doc actually threatened to put her in a cast; she had stress-fractures in her tibias, I think, and kept running anyway, despite the pain. I understand her concerns about me, though, and I really do appreciate them. As usual, Mom is right. And I will obey, if for no other reason than that I really don't want to go through all of this again. Medical adventures make for great blog fodder, but I think three operations -- not including the C-section that started the whole mess -- in two years is enough for me. Besides, my belly is starting to look like a roadmap, what with all these scars.

Ten days seems like a long time, but I know the days will pass. Slowly or quickly, with boredom or excitement, they'll pass. Before I know it, I'll be writing about my workouts again, my milestones and roadblocks, my failures and my victories.

I'm so ready for some victories.

Disabling Cookies

At my request, Hubs brought home some Pepperidge Farm cookies on Tuesday night. My two favorite kinds: Milanos and Brussels (I've got a thing for Europe, what can I say?). After dinner, I put two of each cookie on a paper towel and nibbled them as I cleared the table and played with Kid. The strangest thing happened while I ate them:

I REALIZED THEY WEREN'T VERY GOOD.

This realization gets its own line, and capitalization why? Because I love cookies. ALL cookies. But especially Pepperidge Farm cookies. I used to wait until they were on sale and buy bag after bag of them, stashing them everywhere, eating an entire package at a time. I would go into a cookie trance: hand to bag, hand to mouth, hand back in bag. I even tried to hide how many of them I was eating by crumpling up the empty paper cup thingies and using them to prop up the last cookie in the bag. (My idea was that if somebody peeked in the bag, they'd see that cookie and think it was the last one in the first layer of cookies.) When I started getting in shape for the nine millionth time, I issued a self-imposed ban on these little buggers. No more! I said to myself. Not in this house! NO COOKIES!

I caved on Tuesday and asked Hubs to bring them home because I'm struggling with serious sugar cravings right now, mostly because I'm taking pain medication. As I've mentioned before, every time I go on heavy-duty pain meds (i.e. Percocet), I end up with insane, mind-bending sugar cravings that can only be eased by eating, well, SUGAR. My theory is that because the pain meds slow down my digestive system, my food is being digested/absorbed much slower than usual. And then I think my body kind of panics and says, "THERE'S NO FOOD IN HERE! SEND SOMETHING QUICK!" and makes me berserk for the easiest, quickest energy source (sugar). I've been keeping the Sugar Monster at bay by eating fruit and sucking on the occasional LifeSaver -- although quite frankly after the hospital I'm sick of those things -- but on Tuesday it was just out of control.

So there we are...another food obsession seems to have bitten the proverbial dust. I'm feeling a weird combination of relief, pride, and sadness. Relief, because really? Who wants to be a slave to a cookie? Pride because I can now see those cookies anywhere and know they're not the boss of me anymore. But why sadness?

I'm a little sad I suppose because who I am is changing (has changed). So much of my identity is based on me being the chubby, nerdy best friend, the funny fat girl, all of those stereotypes. But I don't want to be that anymore. I don't feel like I am that as much as I was even a year ago. And that leads me to the question, "Who am I NOW?" Or, more importantly, "Who do I want to be?" The answers to those questions aren't totally clear just yet. I know I have a lot of changing left to do, both internally and externally. I know that one's identity is never really set or fixed; it's always in flux, and that's okay.

Who do I want to be?

211.2

Since I wasn't able to weigh myself on Friday, I hopped on the scale this morning after Hubs and Kid left for the day. Not bad, not bad.

I drank a looooot of water in the hospital (I learned after my C-section that the more you pee, the more likely they are to send you home) and so far I've managed to keep it up at home. I'm averaging about two liters a day. Plus, thanks to my SUPER-FANTASTIC-AMAZING-THERE-ARE-NOT-ENOUGH-POSITIVE-ADJECTIVES-TO-DESCRIBE-HER mom, my fridge is full of salad, chicken, low-fat yogurt, fruit, and Lean Cuisines. As if that weren't enough, Hubs fulfilled my request for a big pile of pineapple and raspberries, so I've had that for breakfast. Mmmmm.

I'm having a little trouble with this whole inactivity thing, though. I mean, I'm not ready to go run the Boston Marathon, but sitting around all day with a book and/or my laptop, nodding off for a nap every few hours? Not as fun as it might sound. It might be easier if I were in pain, but (finally!) I'm not -- even without the painkillers. My incision is a little sore, mostly because it's healing around the staples, but I was in more pain on a daily basis before the operation than I am now. So my brain says, "Well, shit, you went to work and school and took care of the house and did all your usual things when we were in pain...now we have no pain and you're doing diddly squat! Get off your butt and clean something!"

It doesn't help that Smith is in full-on crazy fitness mode. He decided that he wanted to get back into "good shape" and thus has been working out like a madman, sneaking over here in the early morning to use our gym, using the gym at work, etc. Oh and apparently he's swimming, too? (There you go, ladies. Thought for the day: Smith in a Speedo.) I'm jealous! I want to swim! I want to run! I want to have biceps that don't fit through my shirtsleeves! Wait...what?

I'm trying to be patient. I keep telling myself to let my body heal, that my motivation will still be there when my body is finally ready. It's just a matter of time.

Poop: It IS That Simple!

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you already know it's been quite an interesting few days for me. As I wrote in my last post, on Wednesday I saw my surgeon and had a bunch of fluid drained from my Lump of Doom, and ended up in a lot of pain, more pain than I'd had before he drained the silly thing. Well, I woke up Thursday morning feeling okay, despite the fact that the Vicodin prescribed by Doc Basil's office hadn't done squat for the pain. But I figured, get up, shower, go to work (where I always have fun) and you'll feel better. If the pain didn't go away, I was going to call and see if I could get a different prescription (nothing like a little drug-seeking behavior, eh?).

Anyhoo, I got to work and pretty much knew after an hour or so that something wasn't right. The pain was still there, I felt barfy and sweaty and just...wrong. I spent the next 45 minutes trying to get help from my doctor's office, to no avail. I got transferred between two offices and about four different people before one of the nurses/assistants told me, "If you're in that much pain you should just go to the ER," and HUNG UP ON ME. I called Hubs in tears and asked him to come get me; the pain was so bad I knew I couldn't drive. My awesome-sauce boss, who is like a combination super-mom and big sister and more all rolled into one, told me to get the hell out of there and take care of myself.

Hubs loaded me into the Jeep and I got back on the phone, finally reaching the office manager at Doc Basil's practice. Unlike pretty much everyone else I talked to, she actually sounded like she gave a crap. She conferred with another doctor and told me they thought I might be having an allergic reaction to the Vicodin, and that I could either come to the doctor's office the next day or go to the ER immediately. By the time she said that, we had already reached the hospital, so the decision was already made. I was in so much pain at that point, I really didn't care.

And oh, that pain. I like to think that I'm pretty tough, after a C-section and two abdominal surgeries, but this pain brought me to tears. It felt like someone was trying to push open the left side of my ribcage from the inside out, and someone else was stabbing me in the belly at the same time. I described it to Hubs as labor pains plus a gall bladder attack, just without the baby and the gall bladder.

We walked into the (nearly empty) ER and I explained to the receptionist what I thought was going on. The triage nurse checked me over and I was taken back almost immediately. Out of my work clothes and into the old familiar green hospital gown. Here we go again, I thought. Hubs was trying to keep my spirits up by making me laugh -- "Hey, hopefully they admit you so we don't have to pay the ER copay!" but by the time the ER doc came back to examine me, I was sobbing. I had started throwing up (and managed to pee all over myself in the process, lovely!) and I was just, for lack of a better or more descriptive term, DONE.

They started an IV (thank you, Paramedic Student, for being quick and managing to put the line in my hand without hurting me!) and gave me pain meds -- Dilaudid, otherwise known as HOLY SHIT THIS STUFF IS STRONG -- and had me sipping on a big bucket of ginger ale laced with CT contrast solution (not bad, it tasted like a Seven & Seven). My mom showed up so Hubs could go get Kid from school, and not long after he left they wheeled me off for a CT scan.

Within an hour I had my diagnosis: ANOTHER HERNIA, plus a bowel obstruction. Seems my intestines decided to bust through my abdominal wall yet again, and this time they wanted to play Twister. The bowel obstruction had caused a whole bunch of loveliness to back up into my stomach, making me nauseated and beyond uncomfortable.

(I have to pause here for a second to say that this speed of service is EXACTLY why people go to the ER instead of seeing a regular doctor. In a few hours, the ER had treated my pain, given me all the necessary tests, and identified the problem. So why does the same process take WEEKS when you see a regular doctor?! Our healthcare system is effed, people. EFFED. But that's another post for another day.)

Of course I still had my iPhone with me, so I texted Hubs and Smith to tell them the news. Smith, remembering our last conversation, was pretty triumphant:


Poopy system, indeed!

Hubs, on the other hand, was angry. Why was this happening again?! My mom was angry, too -- I was terrified for Doc Basil. I think if he had showed up at that point, my mom would have either punched him in the face or clawed his eyes out. Me? I just wanted it fixed. I didn't really care why it was happening, I just wanted it to stop.

Before Hubs could even make it back to the hospital, they were prepping me for surgery. At my mom's request, a different surgeon (we'll call him Doc Hamburger) was doing the procedure. He explained that, because my intestines had twisted, there was a chance that he might have to do a bowel resection -- meaning, if the intestinal tissue was damaged or dead, he'd have to cut it out. He wouldn't know until he got in there.

They started the now-familiar routine of pre-op procedures: blood draws, questions about religious preferences, discussion of anesthesia. The anesthesiologist told me that because I'd thrown up earlier, they'd have to put in an NG (naso-gastric) tube just in case. They planned to do it while I was knocked out, but it would have to stay in after the surgery. High out of my mind on Dilaudid, I really didn't think about it.

The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital room (unlike my previous surgeries, I don't remember the recovery room AT ALL) with a tube in my nose. The NG tube. The horrible, uncomfortable, disgusting, NG tube. It was like a plastic loogie in the back of my throat, a loogie that gurgled and hissed and pumped the contents of my stomach out before my eyes. Every time the nurses asked me what I needed or wanted, I pointed at my nose and tried to look pitiful. Every time, they explained, as sweetly as possible, that it had to stay. I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink. I could suck on ice chips, and that was it.

Friday morning, Doc Basil showed up to do rounds. Again, I pointed to my nose. He explained that it had to stay; they were trying to "rest my bowels" by preventing anything from my stomach from having to go through them. I was not happy about this. By this time I was starving, my throat hurt, and I was sick of seeing my own stomach contents pass through a tube in front of my face.


Not a happy camper. Not at all. And why, yes, that IS my bile running through that tube! DELICIOUS!

Doc Basil explained that later in the day, they'd hook my NG tube to a "gravity bag" (basically a drain bag without a pump) and if less than a certain amount of stuff came out of my stomach within a four hour period, the tube could come out. I was ecstatic. He also told me that I could have Chloraseptic (for the raging sore throat I'd developed) and LifeSavers (I guess just to be nice). I was still really grumpy, hungry, and tired; it'd been nearly impossible to sleep the night before, between the NG tube, medication and IV changes, and constant checks of my vitals. I couldn't even get out of bed to pee. All I could do was lay there and try to rest. The morphine shots helped, but only knocked me out for about thirty minutes at a time. Oh, and do you want to hear something funny? Morphine makes me nod out like a junky. My head lolls over and I start drooling. I can only imagine what I looked like, drool pooling in the little well behind my clavicle.

So eventually they hooked up my gravity bag, and I was staring at the clock, waiting for that magical four-hour mark. My mom and Hubs took turns staying with me, comforting me, trying to calm me down (I had threatened to yank the tube out myself, I was so sick of it). Several of my friends offered to visit and I turned them down -- I didn't want anybody to see me like this!

As the magical hour of tube-removal approached, a nurse came back to my room and told me I had visitors. My mood had improved considerably by that point (yay drugs!) so I told the nurse to send them in. It was one of my best friends and her husband, and I was so happy to see them. They brought flowers, and a book, and Sudoku, and lip balm, and most importantly, smiles. Their visit got me through the last stretch, that never-ending hour before the NG tube was removed.

So the tube came out, and the relief I felt was beyond amazing. My throat was still hurting like crazy, but that awful, nagging loogie was gone! I could turn my head without pain! I would (hopefully) be able to sleep! And -- dare I say it -- I might be able to have BROTH in the morning! My spirits were lifted and I felt a million times better.

Saturday and Sunday passed like most of my other days in the hospital: rounds in the morning, reading through the day, hospital food, friends coming to visit, more reading, finally peeing alone (adios, catheter!), morphine injections, IV fluids, Heparin injections in my belly, ridiculous bedhead from plastic pillows...



They worked me up to solid foods by Saturday at dinner time. My mom and Hubs were there with me through all of it, bribing the nurses with coffee and hot chocolate from Starbucks, brownies from the Farmer's Market, sandwiches from Tropical Smoothie. More friends visited -- Smith's wife brought me tea on Saturday night, Smith came to hang out on Sunday -- more flowers came. I finished the first three books of Stephen King's Dark Tower series (how lucky was it that I had picked up a ton of books at Book Exchange on Wednesday?). I watched no TV. I did laps around the ward with my IV in tow. We agreed on Monday for my discharge date. The usual stuff.

Mom brought me home yesterday, after a quick pit-stop at Starbucks and a trip to the Target pharmacy. She made me lunch and stocked my fridge with groceries. She made sure I took a shower, and before she left told me that if I didn't stay upstairs, in bed, that I'd be in serious trouble. I took my pain meds and curled up for a nap. Being in my own bed was HEAVEN.

Last night was pretty normal. Hubs made tacos and I managed to get downstairs for dinner. Kid, who'd been with his grandma pretty much all weekend, was his usual sassy, chatty self. I missed him so much!

So that brings us to today...a fairly normal Tuesday, save for the fact that I'm in bed blogging instead of working. I'm on orders to rest and do as little as possible for the next two weeks. I'm thinking there will be a lot of writing, a lot of reading, and that's about it. Call, text, or come by -- I'm not going anywhere for a while.

Thanks to everyone who expressed their love, concern, and support. I received a ton of emails, Tweets, Facebook messages, and phonecalls over the weekend, and every single one of them helped me feel better. I love and appreciate all of you -- both my "IRL" friends and those I know only online. You guys are awesome!