Today, I am 42 and a half years of age, but I am only eight days into my new life. Since my new life still includes all the memories of my old life, there are some things that are bound to be different. Today, I had a new experience. It may seem like a totally ordinary run of the mill experience for some people, but for me it was something totally new and unusual. For me it was a dream come true. For me it was something I never imagined that I would ever get the opportunity to have.

What was this wonderful, interesting, new experience? You must want to know by now?

OK! OK! Here it is: I ate lunch because I felt like I should.

Are you asking yourself, what in hell I mean? I will attempt to explain.

Remember how I told you about how my brain and my stomach have been confused? They have thought that I am starving myself to death. They have been telling me from dawn to bed time that I am HUNGRY. Not just a little ordinary hungry, but HUNGRY! Every day of my life has been filled with the thought of food. A constant, nagging, droning, disgusting, fretting, terrible never-ending food dialogue. I begin planning meals in the morning before I have had my coffee…. I worry if I have shopped enough… will things turn out well… will it go together… how will I get rid of the calories… why did I eat that… I have had my life stolen by food thought.

Today was different. I woke up and drank water, had a coffee and sat chatting with my poor-long-suffering-husband. I cooked pancakes for he and the children and had a few spoons of fruit puree but this did not sit to well. We went out with the kids, stopped at the grocery store and came home at about 2:00 this afternoon. Everyone was starved (except me)! So I made these little crescent sandwiches with baby parmesan, and Montreal smoked meat on them for my husband and the kids and thought as they were eating them “I should eat”. I had not eaten the crescents, the meat or the cheese as I made the sandwiches… I had not been into the groceries… I had not had a fresh pancake with real maple syrup. I felt obligated to eat for nutrition!

I think it is a new life after all!

Did you have any new experiences today?

It is probably a mean thing to say, and even to think; however, filters have never been my strong suit, so here goes. I look forward to Saturdays!

I know what you are thinking… which is: “well so does everyone else, so what is the big deal”; but, I am not loving Saturday for the reasons that most people do. The fact here is that we are foster parents and the kids leave here on Saturday mornings! I love the kids! I really, really love them! Nonetheless, having been without kids for very little of my life these rare days when I can sit on my butt and think “er??? now what am I doing to do today???” and to know that it is all about me and my poor-long-suffering-husband. It is really a treat to have the opportunity to sit in and have a cuddle, go for a walk on our gorgeous water front bay here in Spamilton, Thai food, anything really with my husband and me alone is just plain wonderful! Nearly a whole day to call our own! Brilliant!

Today though, Mommie called and she has the flu that the children has last week… and of course… I don’t mind… really… but… this means that this day which is normally ours from 12:30 – 9:00 has to shift. All about the kids now, just like every other day, except they are not in school, they don’t have soccer, garden club, Brownies, environmental club, book club or anything at all… so what to do? McDonald’s playland? The park and a pic-nic? Donkey Sanctuary? hmmm? The later I think would be great! I will look it up now!

What will you do with your Saturday?

Well, here we are finally at today! I am officially, all caught up once this is posted! I have added a header today, it is a segment of my post-op wound and was taken this morning, ceremoniously, to mark a week of my new life being over. It was a really slow start! The surgery was more serious than I had understood and therefore I needed more time in bed doing sudoko and reading than I had imagined. After a week, I am down now 16 pounds, which I understand, is way, way above what is expected and I imagine that my doctor is not going to be too impressed when he finds out. I am not sure what to tell him. I am following the liquid thing and even sneaking in the very occasional small piece of Cadbury’s milk chocolate (my favorite next to cheesecake). I guess that thy body recognizes the lack of cheesecake and is responding, drastically!

The later part of the week was simply much better. After my arm got treatment for the phlebitis I just felt a million times better! I am not quite up to snuff but weirdly I am still not thinking about food. I am thinking about blogging – about the kids moving out – about the dogs being cute – worrying about our little Klein who was recently diagnosed with epilepsy – but not, I repeat, thinking about food.

With the weight falling off me, as it is, this also worries me a bit. I am only supposed to be getting two pounds a week off, otherwise the loss is too fast and the skin suffers. Of course, I can’t help but be both worried as heck but also happy as a clam about it, so I am conflicted. 40 year old skin is not the best anyway, but add a bunch of loose stuff and I think I might look a little too sharpei for my own good! Of course I like them! I like all dogs! But if I start to look like one, it might be a little too much even for me! This, of course, will make my Critty thrilled, since she thinks I am dog gone already!

A week ago, emotionally prepared, and fully fasted, I set off to my new life which begins at the The Surgical Weight Loss Centre. When I arrived, I waited for about ten minutes (which felt like 13 years) before I was asked to come in, change, and sit under a warming blankie. I answered a few key questions and nodded my agreement and then jumped onto the operating table. Whoo hooo! Once up, and within seconds, the Anesthesiologist had me fast asleep. One hour and five minutes later, the new life started rather grumpily on my part, since I was (very reluctantly) awake and banded! I was rushed out of the recovery room – time is money after all – and my poor-long-suffering-husband brought me home, put me into bed and there I lay restless and sore for about three days, minus the few short little walk about moments where I forced myself up in order to keep my blood moving.

One complication came up within the first few hours and this was that I had a late reaction to the anesthetic (no surprises there), but a new reaction for me, phlebitis! Ouch! My arm hurt much worse than my tummy! At four days then I was forced to go back up to Mississauga to have this looked at – anti inflammation meds were prescribed and worked nearly instantly! If I could have chewed off my arm, I might have done so; therefore I am glad that the meds worked fast!

The interesting thing to note is that it is four days after surgery, I have not eaten a thing but clear broth and water and I am NOT hungry! Imagine! At the doctor’s office I note that I am already down 9 pounds!

Wait! This deserves a lot more attention! I am NOT hungry? What’s that? My stomach has been telling me that I am starving to death for over 40 years now! I must be the recent recipient of God’s newest miracle! I’ll take it! Thank you God and Dr. Colbourn!

So I called and started the process of finding a surgeon.  I started this early in the year and spoke to a few places.  I decided that I would go with Dr. C Cobourn because he seemed so open and friendly and more importantly he did not suffer from the superiority virus that most of them catch in Medical school.  Also, a good reason for choosing them was that they are within an hour of my home by car, so this means when I have a problem, or need “a fill” I just get into the car and go.  Easy!

Since I paid for this myself, he was able to book me in in about three weeks; however, since I have some other medical risks, due to allergies and previous complications with anesthetics he thought that a six week window after booking would be appropriate, because this would give the clinic the time that would be needed to get my records.  

So, leading up to the surgery there was some stuff that came in the mail and I learned then that there was a lot I had to do.  Blood tests, an ECG, getting the records sent through, order this stuff which is called Optifast, banking and this sort of running around.  It made things busy and I was glad that I got the six weeks.  The whole Optifast thing was a TOTAL surprize!  Though I had read about this in the books and literature, somehow it was not clear to me that I was expected to take in a fully liquid diet for two weeks before the surgery.  This, my friends, was not fun at all.  After all, I sure did not get into this situation because I hate to eat!

I snuck food!  But still I did very good with keeping it minor.

Then, finally the day arrived.

OK! Here I am. Welcome to the world of blogging, right? What brought me here? First, my fantastic friend superkimbo who I know from my days at MIS was blogging a lot. I looked forward to her blogs but she has since had a big life change and has not had a lot of time to dedicate to her blog. So, my first reason for the blog is that I miss superkimbo’s. My second reason is part of that little term “life change” and this is more encompassing. You see, early this year I was diagnosed with a terminal illness – wrongly diagnosed – but still, for three months I spent a lot of time thinking about what I have not done. The great Canadian band, The Tragically Hip, said in one of it’s songs “no one cares about the things that you didn’t do”, and being a fan of this band because of the astute lyrics and good beats, I took it to heart.
So, what was it that I had not done in this life? Honestly, in most respects I have done better than I had ever really hoped to do. Still there were those things that niggled in the back of my brain as undone stuff and since of course I thought I was dying – I just figured I better get off of my more than ample behind and get them done! The first was a small thing. I, a woman of 42 years, most of them as an independent human being, educated, having climbed the life ladder, many years – in fact – as a business woman, yet, I did not drive a car. The solution?  Easy, I got my G1 and am taking driver’s ed. Number one crossed off my stuff to do.
The second, is that I am a writer. I made my living as such for a lot of years, but again since I am dying, right? I better get straight with myself! So, those novels that have been in my head rambling around are now officially outlined and one is in chapter 2. So I am working on number two being crossed off.
The next one, and the reason for my blog is that I have had an achilles heel since i was a young girl. It is personal, but somehow, it feels like I should share my experiences with people who are interested. I have always struggled with my body because of my constant hunger. I think about food all the time and this has gotten in the way of my being able to really live my life to it’s full potential. It sounds funny, I am sure, since those who know me know what I have done with my life, but still those who know me will also know about the constant fight I have had against food. So, my concern was how does one take control of this? I had not had any luck before. I tried Weight Watchers twice, exercise programs several times, Herbal Magic once, Queen’s University exercise and diet program once, The cabbage diet twice, The model diet dozen’s of times, Dr. Dean Ornish once, Atkin’s once and I am sure I forget a few too! The thing is that they all worked at least to a certain degree. I was able to take off varied amounts of weight, but the truth is I felt not only deprived but starved to death all the time. Then when my will power to ignore my feelings of starvation wore off, BAM the weight just packed on again in a very short period. So while it took me months, years even to take off about a hundred pounds, I could easily gain this back in a very short window because when I lost that control, I really lost control!
Then the research started. I decided to have gastric banding because though it is a surgery, it is not as invasive as other methods of medical interference. I had the band installed in Mississauga on May 23rd, 2008.