Two months of whatever I want

My end of the school year craziness at work is over and now I'm on summer break for eight weeks.  Hooray!  It was pretty rough for me at the end, but no one really knows the extent of it because I just keep most of it inside.  It's difficult because I'm not one to just "dump" all of my complaints at work.  I mean, yes, I will complain about situations with kids or perhaps other staff to colleagues but generally not when it comes to the intricacies of my work.  The truth is that no one else is there to do it except me.  When I'm absent, no one picks up my work ... it just sits there waiting for me to come back.  We're all really busy anyway, I'm not unique.  I might have more responsibilities than some, but it's not as if we're just twiddling our thumbs.

Since this is my blog and I'm here to write about what's going on with me, I can talk about some things that I haven't necessarily shared with most people.  I am a part of the counseling department at the high school where I work.  I am not a counselor.  My title is Guidance Technician.  In some respects, I have a lot of crossover in duties with the counselors and there are many times when kids come in to see me instead of their counselor.  They have mentioned that they prefer to see me, even though they know I'm not their counselor.  When I can help them, I will but I will also send them to see their counselor when appropriate.  I do that because of liability issues and also, frankly, because I don't get paid what they are paid.  While it is not about the money, it is about a respect level.  I certainly don't want to be taken advantage of just because I know the answers.  I have struggled with my role a lot because while I am part of the department, I feel like a stepchild.  Some comments have been made recently that have made me feel this more than ever.  I am trying to choose my words carefully right now because I know some friends I work with read this blog regularly so I don't want to go into too many details.  We said goodbye to one of our counselors yesterday as she is headed off to a higher position elsewhere in our district and she has been a good friend.  I was incredibly emotional about this, even though I know we will still remain friends.  It's just hard saying goodbye.  While dealing with those issues, I have been in a world of tremendous physical pain.

At the end of the year, I am in charge of our senior awards ceremony and heavily involved in graduation activities.  Standing on my feet for long periods of time, especially when I'm not wearing sneakers, leaves my body in so much pain that I really can't adequately describe.  When you are 200 pounds overweight, your poor body can only take so much.  For me, the last few days have been about a lot of pain in my lower back, the chronic pain in my legs and on in my feet.  By the time graduation was over, I could only spend a few minutes at a graduation party because my legs and back were on fire.  Even now, a few days later, they still hurt.  Of course I would do it all over again because I love our kids and was so proud to see them graduate.  My body just goes through a lot that it really can't take on a day to day basis.  This year I was back down on the field with our graduates, dressed in my cap and gown with the hood on my back in my college colors.

As I was sitting down on the field, I got nervous in the chairs, sure I was about to break the one I was sitting in.  It's irrational thinking because the chairs are sturdy.  Truly, it's based on a fear of have of being in the stadium and I fall on the ground because I've broken my chair.  This irrational fear is the same one I have with heights and thinking that the bridge I may be standing on just can't support my weight so I'm going to fall.  As you can clearly see from my writing, I have a lot of issues around weight.  As I move forward, closer to the time when I will be going in for my bariatric surgery, there is a lot of hopefulness in me about it helping relieve pain.  This is why it has never been a vanity decision for me, not at all.  I frankly want to be in far less pain than I am in now.  It hurts so much being in this body.

Looking at the positives, since I'm off for two months, I can spend a lot of time working on my health leading up to the surgery.  I am not planning on going on any big trips or taking classes during the summer.  I do want to do some work on my house, but also spend time exercising and practicing habits I've learned in my Kaiser pre-op classes to help me be successful with the surgery.  I'm so grateful for having been through the classes because I just feel so much more prepared than the people I know who have not had the benefit of the classes.  I desperately want to be successful with the surgery and I know that if I keep talking about whatever is on my mind and I follow the rules given to me, I will be successful.  I just pray I continue to remember that along the way.

Staring fear in the face

I had an appointment with my therapist the other day.  We talked a lot about the good things I'm incorporating now into my life that will ultimately help me be successful after I have my surgery, such as writing down all of my food and exercising at least an hour (mostly) every day.  Then she asked me what fears I have around the surgery.  I don't know why she asked that ... perhaps she sensed something.

I thought about it for a moment and knew that it wasn't about the surgery itself.  The center that will be performing the surgery has a great reputation for excellence and the surgeons are tops in their field.  They are bariatric specialists, so I have every confidence in the world that they know what they're doing.  It is a major surgery, that's for sure, and I don't take that fact lightly.  They are going in and taking about 85% of my stomach out and there's a weirdness factor to that.  Yet, I'm okay with the surgery itself.

Where my fear comes up is about failing.  I really don't want to be one of those people that has surgery and then learns to eat around it, going back up in weight to where I was before, if not worse.  That seriously would break my heart.  Having weight loss surgery is a decision most people make because they have tried everything else, so it's a last resort in many ways.  I know that is the case for me.  I have tried many, many methods to lose the weight.  My doctor has seen me go up and down like a roller coaster year after year.  I fear failing because, let's face it, I've done that before many times.

I can say that something feels different this time.  There's an internal switch that has occurred in me that I have never had before, even when I was on Optifast and was so successful in losing weight there.  I have a level of accountability I haven't had in the past.  If you are my friend over at MyFitnessPal, then you know exactly what I have to eat every single day.  I put it all in there because it keeps me honest, more with myself than with anybody else.  Even when I had too much to eat during Easter, by God I logged it all.  I have purposely not chosen certain foods to eat because I knew the calories were high and it just wasn't worth it to me.  And my fabulous little Fitbit keeps my shrinking butt moving.  Except for maybe two or three times, I am exercising at least an hour a day.  My little gadget motivates me to reach my goals.  The competitor in me (a la Kickass Kathy) strikes when friends get ahead of me in steps.  If someone is 2,000 steps ahead of me for the day, then I'll keep going until I have 2,001 so that I can be ahead of them.  It's friendly competition, but I love it.

While I do have a fear of failing at the surgery, I can clearly see that I'm not just sitting on the sidelines worrying about it.  I'm taking action and doing things to help me be successful, even while there's a part of me that wonders how I will do.  I'm choosing to focus on being in a positive place.  That makes a huge difference in life.  I'm finding that the more positive I am, the less loud the voice is that tells me I will fail.  I like that.

Water Challenge Day 89:  Drank 144 of 178 ounces 

Outweighing the pain and fear

I find sources of inspiration surrounding me in the oddest, most unexpected places sometimes.  It was while watching tonight's episode of The Biggest Loser that I was really struck with such an incredible couple of phrases that just stopped me in my tracks.  They were so poignant that I saved them as notes in my iPhone, but I wanted to share them here with you.  They both were said during training sessions with Jillian.

The first one was, "It's got to be the desire to change is outweighing the pain and the fear.  You just have to dig deep and make a choice."

The second one was, "You have got to push through the terror of failing because it's worth it on the other side."

Now, to explain why those statements were so poignant to me, I need to back up a little and talk about the rest of my day leading up to watching the show first.  Today was the first day back to work.  I left the house earlier than normal because traffic just seems to be getting worse and it takes me 45 minutes to travel about 15 miles as it is, so easing myself into it was a good idea.  After I stopped taking the Optifast supplements, I went back on one of my medications that the clinic originally took me off of while I was fasting.  I have a little bit of swelling around my ankles.  Certainly not as bad as when I was heavier, but it's still there so I take 1 pill for that.  The only problem is that it's a diuretic and I swear it has me visiting the ladies room about 20 times a day minimum.   So going there was one of the first things I had to do after booting up the computer in my office.  There is a bathroom in the office with three stalls so if I'm carrying anything when I go in there, I set the items down on the little table next to the stalls.  Everyone does that.  Shoot, I've had times where I've put my purse on that table with my keys next to it and they still were there by the time I was done.  I never worried about anyone taking anything.  I work in a high school and that is a staff restroom.  It's relatively safe!  When I walked in this morning, I put two pieces of mail I had in my mailbox down on the table.  There was someone already in another stall, but she finished before I did.  Yet, when I came out, that person had taken my mail.  WTF?  Why would someone do that?  She didn't have anything on the table, so she'd have no reason to "accidentally" pick up my mail.  One was an envelope that looked like a Christmas card someone had given me that I had yet to open so I don't even know who it was from.  The other was folded up copies of my absence reports stapled together.  Each one of those pages had my social security number written on them.  So I started to panic.  That number was enough to open a fake credit card or loan account in my name.  I couldn't get my mind off it, so I did end up emailing everyone in our high school and at least the absence reports were returned to me anonymously.  It didn't look like they were tampered with, so that was some relief.  In the anxiousness I was feeling around that, I wanted something to eat to ease my racing mind.  If I would have had bad food around me, I think I would have gone for it.  Thankfully I didn't.

Then, later on in the day, I had to juggle some doctor's appointments around because the worker's comp medical evaluator wants to see me this week to do nerve testing on me before he sends a report of his findings as to my medical condition to my attorney as well as to the insurance company's attorney.  I had nerve testing done on my right arm from the tip all the way up through my neck around April or May last year and, let me tell you, that is intensely painful.  In fact, when I had it done on me, the doctor performing the procedure told me most people don't make it all the way through the testing because of the extreme pain coupled with all the blood that comes as a result.  Yet, I did make it through.  To know I'm going to have to go through that again causes stress.  What do I want to do when I'm stressed?  You got it ... I want to eat.  Again, thankfully I didn't have anything inappropriate in my office.  I just had my morning snack, which was a peace and cheese stick. 

Further in the day, I had a conversation with one of my doctor's nurses to talk about how I've been doing with my blood sugar since I had those episodes of going to low (including one today, drat!).  She did tell me that although I did really good in taking care of myself when my blood sugar was so low, I made two very vital mistakes that I cannot make again:

1. If I have glucose, soda, orange juice or some other item to raise my blood sugar to a normal level, I must also have a serving of food to balance things out so that I don't "crash".  She said that happens if you have a spike in your blood sugar and do nothing to keep it there.  That explains why I couldn't sustain a higher level in my blood sugar even though I was having things to raise it.
2. This one is vitally more important than the other one ... if I ever have two days where my blood sugar is below 70, I must contact the doctor's office right away because I could be causing some serious damage and/or there could be something very wrong besides low blood sugar.  Just for the record, I had six days in a row where my blood sugar was below 70 and many other days not in a row where it was below 70.  Don't be a freakin hero, Kathy ... next time, call the doctor's office sooner.  You don't have to prove that you're strong and have everything under control.  Six days with blood sugar below 70 ... seriously??

I am scheduled to see the doctor on Tuesday morning next week, so I will be bringing in my record of everything that has been going on, including the amount of carbs I had to see how that counterbalanced the spikes and lows.  My doctor has ordered me to stop all diabetes medication if I haven't already done so (which I did).  All of that caused stress in me today and, again, I had that urge that I wanted food to make it feel better.  Thankfully I had packed a healthy lunch for myself today.  I am an emotional eater, that is the crux of my problem, and had I had different food choices on hand today, who's to say that I would have made good decisions for myself.

So, fast-forward to when I was watching The Biggest Loser later on in the evening.  I was challenged to think:  Is the desire to change outweighing the pain and the fear?  Further, am I pushing through the terror I am feeling of failure to get to the other side?  These were questions I really had to ask myself with all honesty.  There is a lot of fear in me and so much pain that I'm working through, not only physical pain, but emotional pain as well.  I don't know how to live in a world where I'm in a smaller body.  I'm a foreigner in a strange land and I don't understand the funny language everyone is speaking.  Sometimes I feel like I'm a fraud when I go to the gym to workout, like someone is going to "out" me for not belonging there since that's a place only reserved for healthy people (news flash, Kathy ... that's you!).  Being smaller causes me terror a lot.  It's just so unfamiliar to me.  But here's the difference for me now as compared to at other times when I tried to lose weight in my life:  I'm willing to fall flat on my face.  I'm willing to go to any lengths for my health today, even when it feels incredibly uncomfortable and painful.

I've mentioned on here before that I had cancer.  Melanoma, to be specific.  Mine was not the kind that was a mere threat that I needed to keep an eye on ... mine was full-blown, worst kind of melanoma you can get.  The kind that, if not removed from your body, is one hundred percent fatal every single time.   It was on my back.  I had to have two incisions to ensure it didn't spread - one area going from the bottom of my shoulder blade almost down to my waist on the left side of my back and another one under my left arm to make sure it didn't spread to my lymph nodes.  The long incision required 30 staples and about six weeks of recovery time.  From the moment I was told I had melanoma, even though I was living in a lot of fear, I was willing to do whatever the doctors told me to do.  Surgery to save my life?  You bet!  Full body scans every three months to ensure the cancer hasn't returned?  Of course!  Recovering from being a super obese woman also takes the same amount of willingness, if not more.  Whatever pain and fear I may be feeling can still be something I experience.  I can even feel terror as I worry about failing.  But, in my book, the only way I can fail is if I don't ever try.  So here I am, every single day, doing everything I can not to fail. 

Letting go

Even though I still have quite a journey ahead of me as I continue on Optifast, a lot of feelings and emotions have been coming up for me lately.  I'm doing my absolute best to not push them away, but to honor them as where I am in the present moment.  First of all, I am the smallest I have ever been in my life probably since the age of 13.  Actually, probably younger than that.  Who knows when you purposely stop looking in the mirror and try to ignore the increasing number on the tags of your clothes.  That's not to say I'm quite in the category of "small" but for me, yes, I am there.  And yet, I'm not stopping.  My body continues to get smaller as I continue on Optifast and exercising.  So, naturally, now feelings of why the weight came on in the first place are really flooding my consciousness and I am having to deal with feelings of myself and my self-worth.

I definitely am not a child any longer and have really lived a life with lots of experiences, so my image of myself today is nowhere as low as it used to be.  I wouldn't even say I think "low" of myself, but I also have challenges that I have to be honest about and work through if I ever hope of keeping the weight off in the future.  As I have shared on this blog before, I was abused and raped when I was a kid.  Those are not easy things to survive, but you live through them and just try to forget somehow.  I tried my best, but I always felt tainted somehow and even, I have to admit, like I deserved it.  I know, I know ... you're shaking your head at how ridiculous a statement that is.  No one deserves any of that, but I was convinced I did.

I would always look in the mirror and just hate myself.  I always thought of myself as ugly, from my earliest memories.  I was always tall and I never felt like I fit in, having had a Filipino mother and Caucasian father.  I mean, what group could I really identify with?  My look, while some people classified it as "exotic," to me was just plain ugly.  My last boyfriend always told me how beautiful he thought I was and I just never believed him, couldn't believe him, didn't want to believe him.  He had to work overtime to convince me that I was wonderful, worthy and lovely... things I would never believe.  I wanted to, but I just couldn't.  As I was judging myself, I ate to cover up the feelings and always put on a jovial smile for the world to see, not only when I was in the relationship with him but, really, for my entire life.  So when I was teased for being fat, I wasn't surprised and fed into that, resigned to the fact that I would feel that way forever.  I felt people were embarrassed to be seen with me and, hey, I didn't blame them one iota.  The sadness that I felt about myself inside was also showing on the outside.  If you look at some of my "before" pictures on my Pics of Progress page, you can see that sadness on my face, even when I was smiling and trying to cover it up.

So, now that the food has been put down and I'm losing a truckload of weight, here I am, back with those dreaded feelings.  But they're different now.  I have people calling me beautiful all the time, which is a different dynamic for me. I'm not saying that because of vanity, but really it is because I am not fighting with them, trying to convince them that they're wrong about me, that they must have me mixed up with some other person.  As I look in the mirror now, I don't look away or even avoid looking in the mirror in the first place.  I don't regard my reflection with hidden shame.  I am facing the image that stares back at me, realizing that I am exuding something altogether different these days.  I am not punishing myself for being abused and raped.  Those are horrible things to live through, but I did live through them.  I am here, alive, thank you God for getting me through.  Time to let go of the past.  I don't need to repeat patterns that were self-destructive for me and my well-being.

There is so much wonderful healing that has happened.  Maybe that beauty is shining through because I finally get the fact that love includes loving ourselves just as much as loving other people.  I can think of hardly any other more loving act towards myself than that of taking care of my health ... physically as well as emotionally and spiritually.  There is power that comes from self-care.  I am not abusing my body in self-destructive ways any longer.  In the process, I am finding joy and happiness.  Those are things I do not need to fear, as if they are going to be taken away from me at any moment.  If I am smiling, maybe, just maybe it is because that is what I am feeling inside.  I do not need to revert to old defense mechanisms, which were standard things I did when I was treated less than I should be.

Those that claim losing weight through Optifast is taking the easy way out frankly just don't have a clue.  When you don't have the food to give you a sense of ease and comfort, it's as if you are left out in the cold, feeling naked and incredibly vulnerable.  I would submit that, actually, a weight loss program involving food is actually the easier route.  This is damn hard!  Yet, I know in my situation, I had gotten to a place that nothing other than some sort of drastic program was going to help me get healthier.  As I continue in my work of letting go, I also get to embrace the beauty of life and all the possibilities that are laid out before me.  Gone are the days where I convince myself I am unworthy of anything good.  I deserve so much better than that, we all do. 

Strength and courage

Last year at this time, I was diagnosed with melanoma, a very deadly form of skin cancer.  Almost nothing brings your world to a screeching hold as does the diagnosis of cancer.  I went through surgery, lots of recovery and was left with a scar from the bottom of my shoulder blade to almost my waist on my back as well as a small scar under my left arm when the doctor checked to ensure the cancer hadn't spread to my lymph nodes.  Thankfully they were able to successfully remove the cancer.  Every three months, I am required to see my dermatologist for follow-up appointments.  I had one such appointment today.

I was thrilled to share with him my Optifast journey and he was utterly amazed at the weight loss, especially with how fast it was.  It was nice to reflect on something so positive.  During these visits, he does a full body scan to see if I have any new spots or moles that are irregular in shape, the wrong kind of color, etc.  I pointed out a new mole I have on my chest that wasn't there during my last visit.  Since it was new and it was white in color, he was concerned the more he looked at it.  To be safe, he wanted to do a biopsy on it.

The word "biopsy" used to scare me to no end.  In my mind, that word was the doorway to cancer.  However, since last year, this is my fourth biopsy.  Yes, it told me I had cancer before but I've also had two other times where the news was benign.  Hopefully this time will also be the same result. Upon visual inspection of what he was removing, he said it looks like an innocent cyst but, of course, he would be sending it to the lab to have the necessary tests performed.  I laid there in silence as he did what he needed to do.  He did warn me that there would be a small scar on my chest.  There are certain times in your life where a scar is the last thing you want.  Then there are other times when you would happily take that scar, almost as a badge of courage. 

I have thought a lot today about fear and courage.  There is some fear that the cancer has returned.  You are never safely out of the woods once you have cancer in the first place and there are times when people have had melanoma return.  Yet, I know that there is a lot of courage in me because I didn't just wish this away.  I was the one that pointed out the spot to the doctor and ultimately the one to make the decision to have the biopsy done.  There is pain in my chest as I type this because of how deeply he had to cut to remove the spot, but I am being present and facing this fear.  God gives me that strength.  I pray for His healing touch and I know other people are praying as well. 

Strength and courage are both something that is not necessarily easy to come by.  I think that they are required in life more than just waiting for the results of a biopsy.  It takes tremendous strength and courage to love ourselves enough to want a better life, such as the journey we go on with Optifast.  There is such tremendous change out in the horizon and it takes an incredible amount of courage to be willing to unearth the rocks that have stood in our way and to break down the iron walls in front of us to a new life full of peace and love.  We find strength from within that will allow us to do things like move mountains if that was the task we are given.  Losing weight, especially when there is a significant amount to lose or excess weight has been with us for a long time, is incredibly difficult.  Emotions come up that sometimes are very unexpected and hard to deal with.  Yet, here we are, putting one foot in front of the other.  I feel like a very brave person in this moment, feeling fear but picking up my sword anyway.  Thank you, God, for that.