Fat Frog Diary

Okay, I have to say Angela Knight was right. (See her post, Half of Me.) Since my pal Karen and I started exercising on a regular basis, both of us are doing much better health-wise. Karen is ready for her surgery to reverse her temporary colostomy while she recovered from diverticulitis. For me, it's even better. I'm not dropping a lot of weight, but that's all to the good. A pound or two at a time is just fine by me. The big change is my endurance walking and the way my clothes fit. Sure, I'm sore as heck the next day, but I'm better about the *way* I walk. Before, I had started to develop that rolling walk badly overweight get, and I felt like I should be on the heaving deck of a pirate ship or something. Now I'm walking with my back straight and more confidently. I almost feel normal! This weekend, I went through Jo-Ann Fabrics like a woman on a mission without having to stop and rest. I got everything I needed and came home without needing a nap afterward....

Happy Day! After a week of exercising with my friend Karen, I've lost 5 pounds. That's not bad for one lousy week. Because both of us are poor as churchmice, we've chosen walking as our preferred method of exercise. Later, we might add bowling, since we might be able to persuade our husbands to join us for that. I also got a bit of bad news from the doc. Not terribly bad, since it might help me get on the operating table sooner. My cholesterol is even more elevated than last time. Well, duh! My pulmonary doc, the one that manages my DVT/Coumadin, ordered me not to eat one scrap of green vegetables without permission. No salad, no spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts, or any veggie I really love. Not even asparagus. How am I supposed to eat low-fat, low-carb without veggies?

I promised my friend Angela Knight that I'd start exercising now, even before my surgery was approved. So, I called upon my friend Karen and asked if she'd join me. She too is due for a different form of surgery this fall, so I figured we could both use the benefits of exercise. Karen is a very interesting person. She served in the military and married a man who'd eventually become that dreaded creature, a Navy Chief. Like me, she has a thousand crafts she can do, but her main focus is something I've never attempted until recently --quilting. She's a member of a Quilting Guild, and has been for 20 years. What she can do with fabric is amazing. Anyway, Karen and I decided that walking was our choice of exercise. It's cheap, can be done on our schedule, and it's private. The idea of hauling our fat butts into a gym and being told to "feel the burn" by a skinny teenybopper in spandex gave us the willies. So, we're starting slowly and just walking ...

Okay, this is just a rant. We have a family friend. A very dear family friend we owe a lot, including he’s the guy that introduced DH and I so long ago. That gets him lots of brownie points and privileges. But when do points and privileges exceed the bounds of friendship and even good taste? This friend would be horrified and deny it to the rooftops, but he’s a nag about my weight. Seriously, he can’t have one hour’s conversation with us without mentioning how much better I’d feel if I “just” lost about one hundred pounds or more. For example, yesterday he stopped by to borrow my husband for an hour for some heavy lifting. Before that hour was out, he said this: “When you were young and skinny, you were a hottie. Now I can say this because Randy knows I don’t mean anything by it, but you’d be a hottie again still if you’d just lose that extra hundred pounds or so.” Implication: I’m not young. (No shit, I’m approaching fifty.) but now I’m not a hottie because I’m over 100 pounds over we...

My DH, Randy, has done something wonderful. He's taking the day off from work to be with me the day of my blood test. Doesn't seem like much, does it? Depends on your point of view. First, Randy has to be there just to propel my unwilling lard-butt through the door tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 6:45 AM. I'll say it again. I'm needle phobic. Not just scared of needles. Phobic, as in you have to practically put a gun to my head to make me put up with it. Randy hates seeing me white-faced and terrified. He knows he's going to get pleading looks begging him to rescue me, and he's going to have to be unyielding. This has to be done, and he'll see to it the job gets done, no matter what. Then, because he knows after a fasting CBC, I'll be as miserable as it's possible to be, he'll take me to breakfast somewhere to recover. He'll spend the day being loving and distracting me with all the chatter his taciturn brain can come up with, and when that f...

When is the right time to tell folks what you're planning, and who do you tell? I don't want to shout to the rooftops my plans to have bariatric surgery. I know what some folks will say. "She's taking the easy way out." No, this is the last act of a desperate woman whose health is in severe danger because of the obesity she's suffered with since adolesence. I've warned my editor that I'm trying, but don't have a date yet. I've told my daughters and my mother. One or two don't understand how important this is to me. I'm so tired tonight. We worked in the garden until both my DH and I were sweating, sodden heaps. Maybe that's why I'm depressed and restless.

You wouldn't think making appointments would be stressful, would you? Sometimes they aren't. Sometimes they are. For instance --if you put aside my deserved needle phobia-- the recommended bloodwork lab I have used before has a website where you can schedule your appointment in advance. This is really helpful when you're going to get a fasting blood test at 6:45 AM with no coffee allowed. I don't have the brains God gave badly retarded rocks at that hour without caffeine. However, I'm happy to say I got an appointment at that ungodly hour for that reason, and on a day I'd have to be in that part of town anyway at a later and more decent hour. There will be plenty of time to fuel up on caffeine at a coffee shop before I shoot over to the next destination. Best of all, I got the appointment on a day my DH usually has off. He'll be able to come with me, because I will have to be forcibly propelled through the door of the lab. Can't be helped. I don't fi...

Well, the good doctor has once again proven to me why I like her so much. She’s on my side and promises to make me jump through as few hoops as possible. I took the fussing out she gave me meekly. I deserved it because I’d not gotten a test she felt very important to my continued good health – a liver function test. It’s a sonogram, so I have no good excuse why I didn’t go. Probably forgot about it, to be honest. No matter. I’ll go with good spirits now to the (dreaded) blood test, mammogram (it’s that time of year, so may as well get it done, and the digital one is almost comfortable) and liver function test. I’ll get the blood test over as quickly as possible, just to ease my stress. The other two, I’ll try to schedule simultaneously since they’re done at the same location. Doc C however is adamant about one thing. She insists on the lap-band surgery. She is most emphatic that lap-band is safer, heals faster, and is reversible in the event of emergency. Would I prefer the more perman...

So, tomorrow I take the first step toward bariatric surgery. I've got the appointment with my General Practitioner, and I'm ready for a fight. I don't know anyone who just walked in, asked for and got the surgery without having to jump through a bunch of nonsensical hoops. Seems like you have to prove you're desperate by being turned into a pin cushion, baring your soul to a therapist, and submitting to the diet imposed by a dietician (which was for me in direct conflict with the orders of my doctor not to eat green veggies). No, I'm not kidding on that last. You see, I have to take Coumadin, a blood thinner, for the rest of my life. The vitamin K present in many green veggies counterracts the Coumadin. Therefore, no salads, spinach, brussells sprouts, or broccoli for me. Last time I tried to sneak a cup of brussells sprouts, I had a low Coumadin count for two weeks, which meant four weeks of running to the doc every few days until my Coumadin count settled back in ...

This is a typical good news and bad news situation. The good news: My pulmonary doc says there is an alternative to coumadin available so they can't deny me the surgery because I once had DVT. The bad news: The alternative to coumadin for both during and after surgery is a (shiver) subcutaneous injection in the belly twice daily. DH would have to give me the shots even after I get home. He can do it, no problem, but the first shot would have to be before 6 AM when he leaves for work. Before coffee. Oh, the cruelty! Talk about a rude awakening. I had nightmares last night about all those needles. The nurses told me the needles are "teeny tiny" and "won't be like getting an IV or a regular shot." My mind's eye sees the glint of silver and folds up, wailing like a small child before the boogey man. Sometimes my courage fails me. Did you know it's impossible to breath using a CPAP machine when you awaken sobbing in terror at 4 AM?

Well, I've done it. I called the doc and made the appointment to discuss bariatric surgery. After years of yo-yo dieting, GERD, sleep apnea, blood sugar issues, gall bladder surgery, varicose veins, I'm still with a BMI of greater than 40+. Sad isn't it? Well, I've finally given up. I'm tired of doing without the seemingly normal foods, drinking herb tea instead of a cola, searching in the back of the grocery store for the sugar-free creamer for my coffee, and trying to content myself with a sliver of birthday cake (with all the frosting removed)on my own damn birthday. I even tried bulimea. Before anyone yells at me or sends me frantic emails, I stopped. It's just not in me to manage to sneak off and throw up when I overindulge. DH got upset when he caught me. Not worth the trouble. Anyway, I'm tired of being fat, and I'm tired of spending more money than I make buying useless diet foods. For me alone, Nutrisystem or Jenny Craig would cost more than $30...