Emotional Days Hit Hard

It was quite an emotional day for me yesterday. I think helping my friend whose injuries when abused as a child brought on all the nonsense of my early years back to me.
The night before her surgery several of us were sitting at a friend's home. She went on to retell us some of her story. It ain't pretty she would say a few times. Plus, I have only told you the tip of the iceberg.

We found out that we have the same surgeon. He doesn't recognize me each time that he sees me because I went from an obese woman to a slightly slender one.

For me, it is still in the distant future to get total knee replacement. I still am able to walk with cortisone masking the pain most of the time in my knees. I am fortunate in that I have learned to eat and not let my emotions get the better of me. I drank a protein RTD and had a Greek yogurt that I was able to eat while she was in pre-op. I was able to be with her before surgery and pray with her.

I called several hours later to find that she was in recovery and sleeping. Was it a long operation or was she just in need of sleep. When she did wake up she told me that she had trouble with nausea. I was able to get her personal effects to someone to bring them to her today. Now, her worry is that the rehab she wants is full. As she is on a tenuous thread emotionally for other reasons this can not be good. I pray that her situation improves before she is discharged into rehab. I was glad to hear that she was up and walking.

How did I cope with the strong emotions that I felt the last two days? One, I slept fitfully the night before I had to rise early and drive her to the hospital. Two, I became emotionally drained and went for a nap at 5 pm. Three, I slept until 11:15 pm. It was a good rest. Next, I learned from a person that I just recently got to know that her coworker had sexually attacked her. I knew that she was less than able and had recently had surgery for her shoulder. I had not advice except for stop him by informing on him. I was glad to hear that someone had intervened stopped the assault. Only to learn that the man had attempted again to abuse her. Closed "old boys" groups are offensive to let that kind of behavior go unpunished. I believe she is seeking justice today.

Pray for my friends. Pray for all that are going through sexual trauma of any kind.

Does sexual abuse lead to addictions? Does sexual abuse lead to seeing food as a way of protection against an abuser by gaining too much weight to be appealing? What are your thoughts on sexual abuse and excessive weight gain? How is it that some have a blind eye to sexual conduct of their peers that goes against the norm? How do you protect yourself? Do you feel guilty and do you think it is your fault? Has sexual abuse contributed to your obesity?

RNY 1/3/08 I have lost and I have gained.

This video has photos from quite a few years as well as some instructions given in the Surgical notebook, some of my weight loss postings and medical postings. If you pause the video at various spots you will be able to read the postings better. I know that this will take time. Enjoy.

Maintenance is Not Easy

I am writing this as I sit here on a summer afternoon. I had RNY surgery five and a half years ago. It was a cold and harsh winter while I recovered from surgery. I was glad that I did not have to go to work in the winter storms. There were more storms after I returned to work and there were emotional lows because of the change in postmasters as well as a very limited restrictive job offer. I left work May 2010.

I just posted a video where it shows that I had been at this weight that I am now in November 08. Yet, I have not been here at this weight as a steady as a rock maintenance RNYer. I have been up and I have been down. I was at my lowest when I returned from a five week trip in 2010. I am ten pounds higher than that weight. No, it is not a goal weight. I have not had a goal weight. I put that in a video once that I arrived at goal. It was just as an expression as in I hit the target or goal. I was happy. My clothes feel comfortable. I can pretty much buy what I want whether from second hand shops or brandnew clothing stores.

No, it is hard work. I think that I have those feelings that are never out of my head that I need to eat. Not that I can eat a whole lot. My stomach is so small. My nose runs when I eat. It is not a signal that I am full. It runs when I chew vitamins or swallow water. Yes, I think now that the nose runs that it should have kept me from eating all those excess amounts of food back in the day. But. no it did not start bothering me until a few months after surgery.

No, it is hard work because I am still a food addict. How can that be you may wonder?

I do not get hungry. I learned when I traveled in 2010 with a friend who has a normal appetite and stomach that my need to eat shows up as exhaustion. It does not manifest itself as a hunger pain or a need to eat. Now, I could go all day until the afternoon doing things around my apartment or out in the community without feeling the need to eat. Good you many say. Not good and here is the reason why. I need to eat to maintain. I lose better if I eat. I gain and lose in a never ending roller coaster ride. I eat on a schedule when I travel and I lose weight then. I eat when it occurs to me at home and I gain.

I try to set a schedule and in fact recommend that to people who are telling friends on Facebook that they have not lost and fear they have had their surgery for nothing. I fail to take my own advice. Is that the case with you?

I know that I do not gain from excess food as there isn't much that goes in. I gain because I do not have the protein that I need for my body. Only thing that I feel comfortable eating in the morning is part of a Fage 0% yogurt. I made cottage cheese pancakes yesterday to have something for breakfast and did not want them today. The salad with steak that I made mostly went in the trash because this one piece of steak felt too squishy. Did I even get in two ounces of steak?

A feeling that I am self-sabotaging this weight loss comes when I want something that I should not have. I think that I have magical feelings that I have lost so much that even if I ate small bites of a forbidden fruit that I would be okay. It is really the food addict in me that has this magical thinking. Yes, I lost almost 200 pounds but it can come back on if I keep up the magical thinking.

How do you work your maintenance? What works and does not work?




#RNY #sabotage #forbidden #excess #plan #weight #loss #vitamins #surgery #gastric #bypass #supportive #community #weightlosscommunity #YouTube #exhaustion #advice
#maintenance

Hard Questions

You might not know that I am sixty six. You might not know that I had many children living with us or just in my day care. I was in my thirties when I broke my wrist and decided to work at home. I started taking care of children as infants. One woman asked me to watch her older boys and lead me to pursue becoming a foster parent with my husband.

Years ago, I found out that a child now grown had searched for us and talked with her on the phone. I had been in another room when I heard my husband say, "I would know your voice anywhere!" Odd thing was that this child had left our foster home when she was two. She was nineteen. We had a rather quick conversation as she must have called before someone was showing up where she lived to give her a ride.

 We did talk of her months living with us and she shared something that disturbed me. She had gone back to her mom and later was placed in foster care again and again. I knew it was a rocky situation at home because I had seen her mom interact with my foster daughter more than her own each time she visited. I had witnessed a scene at a Friendly's where her mom an aunt and cousin were stopped before going to the cinema. Whatever bothered her mom had her threatening that S. would have to wait in car while the others saw the movie.

 

It was one of those times that I held my breath and did not confront her mom. It was not my place to do it. As her former foster mother, I was bound to keep her situation confidential. Just seeing her and hearing her voice those years later and when she was grown was enough. I know that we cannot cure all ills. It was my place and time to care for her when she was two. She only lived with us from April until the end of June.

 

Now on to the hard question; a few years ago, I wondered how another one of my foster daughters was doing. Her situation was different in that her mom had placed her and her brothers in foster care when her life situation became tenuous. Later, it was determined that because she was homeless her children should not have been placed in foster care. Yet, back then the immediate solution was foster care.

 

 Her mom loved her dearly and L. stayed with us for just a short time from a July to late October. I know that she was well loved because she was so happy with the other children that were part of my daycare. Yet, one odd thing happened when I tried to read books to her. She cried. I deduced that reading brought the closeness to mom and her hurt because she did not know where mom was to the forefront for L.

 

When I looked for her on Facebook and sent her a message, I did not have hopes that this grown woman would respond. I knew that in our hearts everyone in the family and friends missed her. I thought of her if not daily often.

 

I hold the children that I cared for in my heart and pray for them. Yes all of them.

 

It was a struggle to get our third daughter adopted emotionally because it took several years and was never a sure thing. I would answer questions posed by friends at church about her adoption with no good answer. I would hear from other foster moms that we have to treat fostering as a business and not let our hearts be too heavily invested.

 

 How I would wonder could I ever do that. Knowing that some of my "kids" from the many years that I taught Sunday School from the day care and the foster care I provided are successful gives me joy. They are mine just as the two daughters that I gave birth to our mine.

 

How to answer the hard question as to why I keep L in my heart all these years. Just as I was falling asleep my cell phone buzzed with a Facebook message. I will answer this on the computer as I have a long answer. I was too exhausted to answer it with any clarity last night at 1:30.  Did I search for L.? Wait here is the question: I probably asked u once before but I'm gonna ask again. What made u want to look for me again or did u just tumble across myname on fb?

 

I looked for her. I searched for her. Anytime I was in the state where she was born and raised, I had hopes of seeing her. As I worked at a Christian camp, I was hoping that she might go there. I prayed for her well being. I hoped that school went well for her. I wanted to get to know her. My heart is still with her. I love when she posts photos of herself and family.

 

Hard question for you maybe but for me, I will never lose the love I had for this woman when she lived with us more than twenty years ago.

 

What keeps your heart ticking? Do you have family or friends that you hold dear? Is it a new connection on Facebook that brings those people into your present life? Is it a good thing that we have social media?

 

Well, off to answer that hard question.

 

 

 

Question Just How do I add Photos to My Blog

This is a quick blog post as I am still fairly new to blogging. I do quick starts and end up forgetting about it. Yes, I entered three posts in the last three days. I hope to be more active.

Sleep Often Eludes Me

I have two issues involving sleep. I tend to be an insomniac and I have sleep apnea.

 I use a c-pap machine when I sleep at night. I rarely take naps but if I did, I would use my machine. I was alerted to the fact that I had sleep apnea in 2004. Since then, I have taken my breathing machine along with me on every trip. It was my one and only carry on for years.

I discovered the sleep apnea while working. I found that I would start yawning within minutes of leaving the post office parking lot on my fifty mile trip/run to several post offices to deliver Express Mail. I would find that even in the winter with both windows wide open, I was still so very tired. It was beyond just being tired. I was exhausted. I would stop at times just five minutes away from the post office, close my eyes for my ten minute break. I would find that walking around at the first post office and interacting there made me feel awake again.

Trying to discover what was bothering me, I made sure that I had no carbs prior to driving. I also would find myself falling asleep after eating lunch while trying to read a book or the newspaper.
In discussing this with friends, some suggested that the book was not interesting me. No, I said, I have various tastes in books and I was just exhausted for some odd reason once I allowed myself to stop.
Since, I never knew whether I would need to add to the circuit and when the run would start, my lunch time varied by as much an hour and a half. I had to get the Express Mail to the outlying post offices in a timely manner and ate lunch following delivering the items to the post offices.

All this to say, that I was getting confused to my need to find a solution to sudden exhaustion while driving. After all, I needed to drive for work. I had been injured  4 years earlier and if I did not get out, I answered the phones or did odd jobs found by the supervisors. Quite frequently, the supervisors would want me to do something beyond my capabilites. It was a struggle emotionally as well as physically.



Sleeping patterns were often disrupted during the early morning hours where I would rehash something said by a supervisor or try to settle family issues in my head. I new that I had insomnia but took the approach that it was something to do with emotional upheavels. Typical family issues and teen angst lead to many sleepless nights.

I was finding that I was gaining weight during these years even with various diets that I tried and lost weight. I was not sleeping well. My two significant injures plus loss of cartilage in my knees kept me from fully walking and getting my swim on. I had years of physical therapy for the injuries that only brought me so far. I discovered cortisone shots for my knees late in 2007 after my spring and summer of travels. I do not walk with a limp any more. Yet, last weekend at the Mashpee Pow Wow while descending the bleacher seats, I felt the bad knee when I overstepped my range of motion for my left knee getting down.

 My husband was discovered to have sleep apnea before me because he would wake with a sudden start as his heart was bothered by it. He at first did not want to use it. It is a cumbersome attachment.
A football star died of sleep apnea and from then on he kept it on all night. It is now something he uses nightly. He was taking a lot of naps the last few years and we discovered that he has Type 2 diabetes. It helps that he has two c-pap machines one by the couch and one in the bedroom.

I had my tests because I said that I had these sudden onsets of exhaustion to my PCP. I was on a bi-pap machine for years. It would shift and I would wake up with the sound as loud as a vac in my ear. I had to make myself wear it. Often, I would tell the sleep technician my issues with the mask. It seemed that it was not tight enough or something would bother me during the night. I went through many variations of the sleep masks and nose pillows. Now, after almost 9 years, I just put it on and try to relax.

My insomnia seemed to be abated with the load of work and walking while vacationing with friends or family. I still find myself going through long periods of time where I sleep maybe 4.5 hours per night. I just spent 11 days with family both down in DC for a week and the rest of the time at my daughter's home with my grandchildren. I went to bed and slept fairly well all those nights with an active lifestyle all day.

I ask about my insomnia with the sleep doctor. She told me to read a book on insomnia. My sister has insomnia and gets medicine, her throat was operated on and she wears a full mask encompassing her mouth with about 4.5 hours of sleep.

I know that mom had sleep issues because she would often be on my friends list when I logged on late at night. I believe her grandmother has sleep issues. My aunt had sleep issues as well.

Months after having RNY surgery January 2008, I started burping continually when I put on my sleep mask. It was irritating my husband. I said, I did not want to burp. Other issues as well, TMI! I began to think that I better call for a new sleep study. I was told that I should have a new sleep study for every 50 pounds weight loss. I went from a bi-pap with 17/11 pounds pressure to a c-pap of 11 pounds pressure. I am now only on 6 pounds pressure. It is so silent compared to the original machine! A bi-pap puts a positive air pressure in and a positive air pressure out. I just thought you might be wondering what the significance of these two types of  machines.

Since surgery, I do not frequently wake at night to eliminate urine. I drink a lot of water at night upwards of forty ounces most nights. It saves me from making bad food choices during the hours when I am alone.

What are your sleep habits like? Do you get enough sleep? Are you tired during the day for any amount of time? Do you find yourself nodding off when you get a chance to sit down?

My sleep apnea manifested itself with exhaustion about 10 am. It was not something that I would expect to happen at that early hour. That is the reason that I first looked to what I had for breakfast.

Do get tested for sleep apnea if you suspect that your sleep is abnormal. It saves lives. I know the weight loss community has a lot of people with sleep apnea related to excess weight. Yet, I saw many thin people in the clinic waiting for their appointments.

May you have a great night's sleep.


#insomnia #insomniac #sleep #hours #exhaustion #apnea #RNY #gastric #bypass #diabetes #frequent #waking #medicine #cpap #bipap #positive #air #pressure

I Will Post More Often

Yesterday, I posted about RNY and my alcohol use when traveling. Today, I am just going to randomly post what comes to mind. I am 66 so often many things come to mind. I was home cleaning house checking emails and Facebook today. I did not see news. I was shocked when my husband asked me what did I think about "that carrier" and I told him I did not know. He started saying that the Letter Carrier was texting his wife. My first thoughts were that he was injured because he was inatentive. No, the Letter Carrier died Saturday. It seems his inner core temperature was 102 degrees. I am so saddened to hear this news. I think of my friends every day. I remember telling one close friend to stay cool today on facebook. Little did I know that a man just about 30 minutes away from the town where I delivered mail died. My husband went on to say that our postmaster gave a Stand Up talk that let the carriers know that they needed to take care of themselves. It is scary because this is an after the fact talk. Really, what about all those years that they were punished for taking a few extra minutes. One supervisor asked me why I had come in from the route so late. I said there was an active thunderstorm and I stopped to let it pass. It was just fifteen minutes. I am emotionally connected to this job that I am retired from for over three years. I would be actively working had the "team" not come in to say that my work hours were reduced to one hour a day five days a week. BTW, doing work that I was unable to perform without getting hurt. I loved working and caring for my customers. I had a great rapport with the people from all around the world who moved into Framingham. I loved my job. Oh yes, I did. RNY related; I ate two poached eggs today for lunch. My supper was an ounce of steak, two pieces of roasted potato three cherries and a half cup of salad. Morning drink was a Premier Protein Shake. I think I am going to love that drink. It is not thick and it has 30 grams of protein.


#blogging #RNY #weight #loss #surgery #supportive #community #protein #shake #Letter #Carrier #emotions #retired #disability