Yesterday was the ONE YEAR anniversary of my Gastric BypassSurgery. An entire year has flown by, can you believe it?
Looking back at my pre-surgery self is like looking back at a stranger. I don’t even recognize the person in the pictures. I guess I just never really realized how BIG I actually was. Or maybe I was just in denial.
Here’s a one of many examples. The first picture was taken on April 7, 2010 and the second picture was taken, exactly one year later, on April 7, 2011.
Huge difference, right?
I’ve done some things this year that I never in a million years would have done a year ago. I posed for a picture in my bathing suit and it was posted on the INTERNET, because I’m confident, yo! And then I traveled to New York City and gallivanted around Times Square and various television studios in another swimsuit.
I started my journey at 306 pounds and yesterday I weighed in at 173.2.
In one year I’ve lost 132.8 pounds and my BMI (Body Mass Index) has dropped from 52.5 to 29.7. I’m no longer in the “obese” BMI range, now I’m just considered “overweight”. We’ll discuss the craziness of the BMI scale in another post.
I feel amazing. I’m happier, more confident and in such a better place now than I was last year. You don’t realize how un-happy you are until you’re happy and I’m definitely HAPPY. My journey is far from over, and I look forward to everything that lies ahead.
Thank you all for your continued love and support. I am forever grateful!
Looking back it still amazes me that I’m ONE week away from my ONE year post-op anniversary. The strides I’ve made to a better me, a healthier me, are beyond my own comprehension. I’m a happier person. The person that I know I’ve always been on the inside now radiates to the outside. People can see the “real” me. I’m more confident in myself and in my ability to succeed at things that I put my heart and soul in to. It’s as if a piece of me has been missing for the past 10 years and I’ve finally found it. I’ve found me.
With all the good in the past year there have still been some little bits and pieces of not so good. The parts that worry me most are the bits and pieces of the old me that I still see in the new me. These worrisome pieces of me are nowhere near the surface, they’re all still very deep down within, but they are there nonetheless. The fear still lies within me.
My biggest fear is failure. In between all the great moments I find myself thinking about the “what ifs”. What if I gain the weight back? What if I fail my surgery and myself? What if…what if….what if? The what ifs are still there, I’m sure they will always be there, but for now I’m focusing on the good.
I’ve worked hard to get to where I am today.
I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished and I’m looking forward to the many more milestones ahead.
Confession…I was an avid Casey Anthony murder trial viewer. I live streamed the trial, through my iPhone, so that I could listen while I was working. I watched the re-caps on the news while at home. I’ve been very invested in all the goings on for weeks. You don’t get to go inside a courtroom to experience a trial of this caliber very often and there’s just something about our legal system at work that really intrigues me.
Many of you know where I stand on the case, but for those of you that don’t, I believe that she (Casey) was responsible for the death of her daughter Caylee. For weeks I’ve told people that I wasn’t (and I’m still not) 100% sure that she killed her intentionally, but I do believe that she did it and then proceeded to hide the body while lying to her family for 31 days.
The jury returned a verdict, yesterday, after less than 11 hours of deliberations. They found Casey not guilty of murder, child abuse and manslaughter, while finding her guilty of 4 counts of lying to investigators.
After the verdict was announced Twitter and Facebook erupted with dismay. Everyone had their own thoughts on the case. Some people criticized the jury. Others criticized our legal system. Everyone is allowed their own thoughts and feelings and here are mine…
The jury may have found her (Casey Anthony) NOT GUILTY, but I believe that she is in no way innocent. Do I disagree with the verdict, yes, do I believe the jury did their job with the evidence presented, YES.
We (the United States of America) have a legal system in place for a reason. Everyone is entitled to a defense and a trial by a jury of their peers. The jury was instructed to reach a verdict with the evidence that was presented to them. This case was based on very circumstantial evidence.
For days I’ve told friends and family, when asked about the case, that the jury could go either way. Do I believe that with the evidence presented they could have convicted her on any of the charges? Yes, yes I do. But do I think they (the jury) failed because they did not? No!
For the record, I don’t believe that the prosecution failed either. I think that the state (Linda Drane Burdick and Jeff Ashton) presented their case well. I believe that they presented all of the evidence that they had available to them and that’s all that anyone can ask them to do.
There are no “winners” in this case. At the end of the day there is still a dead child and neither GUILTY or NOT GUILTY would have changed that. What saddens me is that the truth will likely never be known. I’m sad for the Anthony family. I’m sad that “closure” will be hard without real answers.
So, remember when I was diagnosed with a sinus infection after a night in the hospital? What, you missed that? Well, go catch up here and here, I’ll wait.
Are you all caught up now? Good.
One of my main symptoms during the hospital visit was my blurred vision. It turns out blurry vision can occur because of a sinus infection, who knew? Obviously not me.
After a month of wonky vision and not knowing if I was losing my eye sight (I’m too young for that!) I decided that it was time to call a professional. I finally made an appointment to see a local ophthalmologist.
I explained my situation to the doctor over the phone and she suggested that I bring the hospital reports and the CT and MRI scans with me to my appointment for her reference. I acquired all of my reports/scans on Monday afternoon in preparation for my appointment yesterday. Such an easy process with the hospital and not too pricey either.
I went to my appointment yesterday and was very pleased with my doctor. She was very friendly and knowledgeable, she looked over all of the hospital reports and scans and did a few tests to be sure she didn’t miss anything.
One of the tests was dilating my eyes so that she could get a better look at the back. The doctor made a few comments about how amazingly my eyes dilated. Apparently my eyes dilate well. I can only hope that my nether regions do the same thing when/if I ever have a child. The dilation was very uncomfortable and my vision was blurrier for a good 2 hours after, but check out my pupils, aren’t they BIG?
The doctor’s final diagnosis is that my eyes are perfect. She’s a little concerned about the blood vessels trying to grow in to the cornea, most likely due to my long term contact lens use. She recommended that I try to keep my daily use down to 10 hours or less per day. She believes that the sinus infection caused the blurriness to begin and says that at times dilating the eyes will help correct the issue on its own.
If the problem persists she believes that it could be Computer Vision Syndrome and that my current prescription is not enough for computer viewing and reading. If this is the case she will refer me to an optometrist that can prescribe me “reading” glasses to use with my contacts while viewing a computer. Sexy, right?!?
I’m really hoping that the dilation helps correct the blurriness issue on its own, because I really hate glasses and having to wear contacts and reading glasses together would be nuts!!! I’ll keep you posted.
I’ve never been a runner. In fact, I’d even venture to say that I hate running. I’ve always hated running. And until recently (last week) I would have bet money on the fact that I would never enjoy running EVER!!
With my hate of running you’d be surprised to learn that last Thursday I started the Couch to 5K program (C25K). Yes, go ahead and soak that little tidbit of information in for a minute, I’ll wait.
Are you back? No worries, I’m just as surprised as you are.
For the past year or so I’ve heard friends on Twitter, Facebook and blogs praise the C25K program a LOT. With my hate of running I never in a million years even considered starting the program, because HELLO, it’s all about running. Well, on Thursday something changed. I decided that I needed to step up my workout routine and thought C25K might be just what I needed so I downloaded the C25K app on to my iPhone and decided I’d give it a go at the gym that evening.
I’m happy to report that I did Week 1 – Day 1 of the C25K program and LOVED it. I know, I know it was just day 1, but loving it after ONE day is pretty amazing in my book. I enjoyed it so much so that I have been looking forward to doing Day 2, but it was the weekend, and the busyness of it all took over and Day 2 has been put off until after work today. I can’t wait! (Did I just say I can’t wait to workout, really?!? Who am I?)
I’m hoping that my enthusiasm for running continues for a long time to come. Running is such a great cardio workout and I’m hoping that it will be the change in my routine that I’m looking for. I’ll be sure to report back in a few weeks and let you know how I’m doing.
When we last saw each other I’d already had a cat scan and blood work done and found out that I’d be staying in the hospital over night for precautionary reasons. Also, the nurse had just given me a shot of morphine for my HEADACHE.
The Morphine shot did immediately help the headache, but then the room started getting spinny. I figured it was an OK trade off for a not poundy head. I then proceeded to text and tweet friends, and then I took this gem of a picture and posted it to FACEBOOK, because WHY NOT?
My parents promptly returned 30 minutes later, and yes I was still in ER Room 11. Minutes after they arrived another nurse appeared with wheelchair in hand to wheel me to my own room for the night. I was wheeled upstairs to my own, VERY BIG, hospital room. The room was really big, the bed was really comfy and the bathroom was the size of a bedroom. I could totally live there, you know, minus the interruptions every few hours to check my stats.
Once I was settled my parents left for the night and I was alone with my iPhone and the hospital television. Lucky for me they had cable and the Astros game was on!
The technician came in to draw blood again around 5:00 a.m., because apparently it’s not OK to sleep in hospitals. Another tech entered my room about an hour later to check my vitals. Luckily I’m a pretty good sleeper, because I was able to doze off for a few more hours after that. I was up for good around 8:00 a.m.
The Neurologist, who was not McDreamy, came in around 8:30 a.m. She checked my chart, looked in my eyes and nose and then asked some very vital questions. She concluded that I most likely had a SINUS INFECTION, but that they wanted me to undergo an MRI, just to be “safe”. She said that if the results came back as she expected them to that I’d be discharged and sent on my merry way.
I was rolled down to the MRI room where the very HOT MRI Tech went over what the MRI would in-tale. Basically, I’d be laying on a table with my head stabilized and then inserted into a tube so that only my legs were on the outside. The entire procedure would take 30 – 45 minutes. He let me know that 1/2 way through he would insert a contrast liquid (dye) into my IV, that would then enter my blood stream and they’d be able to see the blood flow in my brain. He said that I could wear headphones during the entire procedure and asked what music I’d like to listen to. I promptly said Justin Timberlake, because DUH!
The MRI wasn’t bad at all. It was a little tight in the tube and not super comfortable, but the time went quickly with Justin singing to me.
After the MRI I was rolled back to my room where I took a tiny nap and then lunch was delivered. I hadn’t had too much to eat up until this point so I was really looking forward to something in my belly. I know I shouldn’t have had high hopes, but I kinda did.
I took the cover off of my plate of food and revealed this…
Not too bad, right? I was excited to see chicken and a potato. It was food I could definitely eat and I was ready to dig in. I cut off a piece of chicken and took a bite. To my dismay it was NOT chicken. It was fish. When you take a bite of food expecting it to be something else, it’s definitely not pleasant. I’m not a fish fan, so my good lunch then turned to a potato with a little bit of butter, a roll and pears. Lucky for me I get full pretty quickly.
About an hour after lunch the nurse returned and very sternly told me to not eat or drink anything else. I was informed that another CT Scan had been ordered and that they’d be taking me down shortly.
10 minutes later I was being rolled down to the Cat Scan room, again. When I arrived the CT Scan Tech informed me that for this scan they would be inserting a contrast liquid (dye) to get a closer look at my brain area. She warned me that when the liquid was administered my chest would feel very warm and that I would likely feel like I was peeing on myself. The CT scan was quick and the feeling in my chest after the contrast liquid was administered was super crazy and warm, and YES I did totally think I had peed on myself.
After the CT scan I was returned to my room where I sat and waited for more news. While I waited I watched live coverage of the Casey Anthony trial and tweeted. I was bored and really wanted to nap, but by this point I was a little nervous and hoping the nurse or doctor would come back and tell me what was going on.
Finally, an hour or two later the nurse returned and let me know that I was being discharged. She went on to let me know that the reason the second CT Scan was ordered was because there had been some questionable areas at the front of my head on the MRI. I had been complaining of a headache in the same area so they wanted a closer look. Everything came back fine and my final diagnosis was indeed a SINUS INFECTION. I left the hospital with a prescription for Singulair and Nasonex.
I was out of the hospital by 3:30 p.m. and home by 4, for those of you keeping track that was 23 hours in the hospital. FUN TIMES!
I’m happy to report that I am definitely feeling better, even though my vision is still in and out of blurriness. It’s weird, but it doesn’t really effect my day to day so I’m dealing with it. Also, this may have been the most EXPENSIVE sinus infection in the history of sinus infections. My insurance was billed $23,275.20 for my little ER/Hospital adventure. Yes, thank goodness for insurance, but OMG that’s a crazy expensive amount.
I have now met my deductible and am $23 away from my out of pocket maximum for the year. I will be taking advantage of that for sure.
Last Thursday I woke up feeling off. I wasn’t sick, but I knew something wasn’t quite right. It started with blurry vision. I could still see, but I just couldn’t get my eyes to focus. I chalked it up to the early morning and thought nothing more of it.
As the day went on my vision seemed to progressively get worse. I was at work and was having a hard time reading my computer screen or papers that were in front of me. Again, I could see, it was just blurry. I still couldn’t get my eyes to focus.
By late afternoon I was feeling light headed and a faint headache had started. So, I did what any normal person would do, I turned to my Curvy Girls on Skype and asked them to diagnose me. Within minutes a few of myfriends had responded with “CALL.YOUR.DOCTOR.NOOOOOW!” So I listened and promptly called my doctors office. I left a message for the nurse. About 20 minutes later the nurse called back and basically told me “I should go directly to the emergency room. I should not pass go and I should not collect $200, OMG!” I questioned her orders, OH YES I DID, and when she said that my symptoms were not to be taken lightly, in her authoritative nurse voice, I agreed to head to my local ER.
I arrived at the hospital at 4:30 p.m. and by 6:00 p.m. I had obtained my own ER room. It was nothing like the television show, I was kind of bummed. I changed in to my very attractive hospital gown and got nice and comfy on the very uncomfortable hospital bed. Within minutes an EMT entered to get my IV line started, WTF?, and to draw blood.
After my blood was drawn, and I peed in a cup, the doctor came in to give me the once over. He let me know that a CT Scan was being ordered, because of the blurry vision and headache, and that they would run the mandatory tests.
I was then wheeled away to the CAT SCAN room, by a very nice nurse, where I laid on another very uncomfortable, and very hard, CAT SCAN bed. The CT Scan was run, I was sure to stay very STILL, and about 10 minutes later back to my ER room (Room 11, if you must know) I went.
It was about 7:00 p.m. at this point. I checked my text messages and found out that my parents were on their way. They just couldn’t stand to have their daughter in the ER and not be there. I tried to talk them out of it, it didn’t work, parents are so stubborn!
Around 8 p.m. the doctor returned and said that all the tests that were run came back fine, but they were still worried about my symptoms and that they would need to keep me OVERNIGHT for precautionary reasons. It seemed as if I was not going to DIE, but they still wanted me to see the Neurologist first thing in the morning. I was really hoping McDreamy would be my Neuro doc, I even tweeted my wish. I would have to wait until the morning to find out.
I sent my parents away at this point, because it was late and they were hungry, to go get some REAL food for dinner. They really didn’t want to leave, but I assured them that their GROWN UP daughter would be fine for a little while alone and that I would text them if/when I was moved to my own room.
While the parentals were away the ER night nurse that was assigned to me came to check on me. She asked if I needed anything. I told her I was fine, but that something for my headache (which at this point was pounding) would be awesome. She then let me know that the doctor had given the OK for Morphine and if that would work. Well, yeah, I’m sure it would work, but I’m sure Tylenol or Aspirin would have been fine too. She gave me a funny look when I questioned the Morphine. Apparently not many patients turn down the chance at Morphine. So who was I to be a downer…BRING ON THE MORPHINE!!
This is getting way too long, I’m breaking it up in to 2 parts. Stay tuned, I’ll be back Monday with more hospital shennanigans, pictures, tests & the crazy amount of money that it costs to be admitted to the hospital for a night.
I met Cindy, @poobou if you’re nasty, while in Chicago for Blogher 2009. We hit it off from the get go and hung out for the better part of the weekend. I am honored, and so lucky, to call her a friend. I just wish we didn’t live 1200 miles apart, because seriously we NEED to see each other more often!!
Cindy,
Today is the day you’ve been counting down to FOREVER, or you know, it just feels like it’s been forever. It’s baby eviction day!! By now you should be checked in to your hospital room, throwing back Pitocin cocktails and thinking soothing thoughts about your uterus/cervix as you prepare to push a human out of your vagina. It’s a BIG task and I know that you are up for the challenge. The part I’m really looking forward to, other than baby pictures, is the drugged up text messages, so please don’t let me down, NO PRESSURE!!
I was so excited to hear about your impending baby, back in September, when you shared the news with me. Y’all had been trying to get pregnant for a while and I was so happy to hear that it had finally happened. I want nothing more in the world than to see my friends happy, so to see you want something so much made me want it for you just as badly.
I’ve lived vicariously through you the past 100 9 months, because a vicarious pregnancy is so much less painful than a real one and involves ZERO weight gain. I loved hearing about your morning sickness, seeing the ultrasound pictures and checking up on you the past few weeks as your due date approached. I know the past 2 weeks have been torture for you, but for me they were enlightening. I’ve learned so much about pregnancy and what not to do when you really want to induce labor naturally. I’m happy to know that Castor Oil really isn’t that bad, that some husbands are afraid of sex when you’re this far along (OMG the babies head is RIGHT THERE!!!) and that babies hate exercise just as much as we do. All of these things, and then some, will definitely come in as handy knowledge if/when I ever have a kid. Don’t think I won’t be calling you for advice, you’ve been warned!!
I can 100% without a doubt say that I’ve thought more about your cervix/uterus/vagina the past week than I’ve ever thought about my own. Yes, it’s a little creepy and possibly really weird, but what can I say, I’m a good friend like that! You’re welcome and I’m sorry that it didn’t help. I was really hoping it would!
Baby Girl No Name will be here before you know it and I am so excited for you, Dave & Big Sister Catie!! What a great family to be born in to!
You are an amazing mom and Baby 2.0 will be lucky to have you. I can not wait to see her and meet her and give her squishy hugs and kisses. No worries, I’ll be sure to save some of those hugs and kisses for you too! Thank you for being such an amazing friend. I am so very lucky as well!!
CONGRATS, my friend!! I love you lots and am sending happy, healthy and quick labor vibes your way!
