I'm sharing my journey here, if you'd like to join in feel free, if you'd like to judge move on please. My life is being reinvented at 65 this is the year I'm having Gastric Bypass Surgery. Such a leap, such a change, such a chance.

If you're looking for a crafty creative blog I have several of those and the links are in the sidebar below. I'd love your comments and your support but if you feel you need to humiliate or criticize me please just move on and leave me in peace to climb my mountains and battle my demons by myself.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

On the Way



Many of you have noticed my new Avatar, yep the new me, shorter hair and all.  This morning when I hopped on the scales it greeted me with a YaaaaaaaaaHoooo and 2 more pounds gone.  That makes a grand total of 77 pounds, wow oh wow.  But the benchmark I'd been looking for was seeing my BMI hit in the 30's and this morning this did it.  That's a long was from the low 50's BMI I started with in January.  It's no wonder that walking six houses down to get the mail  had me totally exhausted.  Or buying groceries required me to stop half way from the parking lot to the store and then latching onto a cart just to maintain an upright position.  I'm so lucky!  I'm so fortunate!  I respect this new tool and lease on life I've been given.

So friends I'm off to see my family this Saturday, I'm flying the big bird from Las Vegas to Portland for a three week stay.  This will be the first time in many many years that I won't have to ask for a seat belt extender.  That's so humiliating but would be even more so if I had to make a big fuss once in my seat because the darn thing wouldn't fit around me!  Thanks goodness for those NSVs (non-scale victories) and this one is a big one in my book!

I am noticing such a big difference at the gym.  Yesterday I walked 30 minutes on the treadmill at a 1/2 incline, raising up to 2 near the end at 3 mph.  Wow what a difference from a while back when I could barely get it to 2 1/2 mph without thinking I'd die.

I love the one bike they have there but my tailbone doesn't.  I think I bruised it on the bike when I first started trying to use it and it's so sore.  I think the 3 weeks away will do it good and help it heal.  I'm hoping anyway.

My blood tests came back A OK this week. The new potassium the doctor put me on last month is doing the trick because my levels are back in the normal range.  Next month, July, I see Dr. Speakman for my six month check up, how did that happen already?  Anyway he's doing a full blown blood panel to check among other things, my B levels because I know that's a big deal with Gastric Bypass as well.

I have one concern/problem/irritation. I've lost a lot of my taste since surgery and checking this out on Google confirms that I'm not a lone wolf this happens to lots of WLS patients.  Some gradually get it back, some it's just a way of life. 

Going home is exciting and daunting.  Paul and I haven't eaten out, we've bought stuff and brought it home but sit down, pick stuff off a menu we've avoided.  Not only for me but he's really watching the sugar, carbs and fat too.  Going home brings my sheltered life to a screeching halt.  I'll need to eat around others outside my pristine environment, learn how to pick my way through a menu and watch others eat things we've been avoiding.  It's not that I can't do this, of course I can, it's just another step in the 'normal' road to real life learning and eating.  It's all in the process of recovery from food addiction.

So I'll check in later and let you know how I did and I'll have family take some pictures of the new me that's emerging.  I'll tell you another NSV, I'm wearing size 20 as I  head home, I started out in a skin tight, lets lay on the bed and zip these up, size 26.  Life is good, life is good!