Setbacks and Obstacles?! Pfffft!I have to apologize for my absence, and not having blogged on my latest updates to my ongoing journey. However, I did have yet another eye surgery, and staring at a screen is not in the pecking order of things that help in recovery. It is also very difficult to do with dry eye disease, which is yet another inflammatory ailment. Both of these together have just made it difficult to have computer time. So, I hope to get things caught up today!
As for the surgery, it has been the same as the last 9 times. I got naked, and put on one of those backless robes, and the little socks with the tire tracks on the bottom. Then I was put into one of those extra big/tall beds in which I would later have the surgery. The doctor comes in and tells me her plan. She holds her hand up to heaven in anticipation of this being my last time having to do this! Then I am wheeled into the OR, and was wrapped up in a pappohuse, with my head taped to a bed. It sounds like a lead-in to a chapter of Shades of Grey, actually, but worse! Shortly thereafter, I heard a nurse anesthetist say, "I'm just giving you something to help you relax..." Yada Yada... And then I remember getting into the truck and coming home. Well, Cherie' was driving, of course. I just don't remember waking up, per se, just the getting into the truck part. Then there was a day of fog in my brain, pain meds that gave me constipation, and those depressing orders from my wonderful doctor which says she wants me to do ABSOLUTELY NO-THING, for TWO WEEKS!
Now, I've had ailments before that kept me down. There are a good many of my "normal days" where I have pain levels that make me work pretty damn hard for any fun that I'm going to have! And two weeks is a long time! Sure it's a relative thing, but I've done this 9 times! That's over a third of a year, doing "NO-THING"! It's getting really old! Moss is growing on this scenario, literally! To say that "I can't do it!" is really funny, when I stop to think about it! Still, it's gotten to where "doing nothing" actually takes effort! And that is doing something! Right?! My Fitbit, just doesn’t know how to calculate it!
Yeah, I know! Bitch, bitch, bitch! My “rationalizing” of it is irrational. Still, it won't resolve my dilemma! But that isn't even the half of it. Doing nothing isn't helping me lose weight! "But it's your eye,” you say. Yep! And you would be surprised how interconnected your eye muscles, and tendons, and skin are attached to everything else in your body! It really wouldn't take much lifting, or moving around for me to really mess up all that cutting, and sewing in what my doctor said was a procedure that she designed just for my surgery needs! So, somewhere in a medical journal, "The Smyly Procedure" needs to be published! Well, pending it's success! Learning this lesson of doing nothing following the discharge orders from personal experience is not fun either. When a surgeon tells you how much you can do, you had better do just that, and absolutely no more than that! Not only can it be painful, it can also negate all that work, and time, and effort, and money, etc.!
So, I have resolved to try to follow along as closely as I possibly can to the "DO NOTHING" rule for these two weeks, and then I want to know just how much I can do after that! Because by then, I'm afraid to do anything! This conditioning has now made me reluctant to get moving, because I cringe at the thought of having my eyes cut on again. I just...well. Let's not even go there, after nine eye surgeries. Let's just say, I've had enough negative mind conditioning for the rest of my life, and then some. I'm ready to move on to something "normal" for a change. By "normal", of course, I mean not related to surgery. Just let me have my usual problems! That’s been enough for some time now.
Well, that gets me through surgery to here! And “Here” is where I reflect upon how this has affected my “new normal” way of eating! At first, I was severely disappointed. I went to a meeting with Cherie’ on the following Saturday. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, and thought about missing it, but I knew I really needed to go.
So, we drove over to Madison, and went in to be weighed. I take off my shoes, empty my pockets, and strip off as much as they will allow me to do without getting arrested in this church where they hold the meetings, and get up on the scales to hear my verdict. I have gained 1.4 lbs. Now, at this point, I’m still down 21.3 lbs.! So, I’m still doing well, but I had been losing 4-5 lbs. per week! And I sat in the meeting sulking inside, (and probably outside) about what I visualized in my mind as “going backwards”. It was to be the tone I set for the rest of that day. I was miserable, grumpy, and perfectionist that I am, I felt like a failure.
Now, I’m telling about my teenage behavior, relative to this week following my surgery for a good reason. There are a bunch of people like me out there. People who are hard on themselves. People who can have a tendency to feel that every step backward is a failure, when that is not always true! In fact, this particular instance is proof that my “going backward” a whole 1.4 lbs. is not a failure at all! It is a normal body response when it faces trauma, and that includes surgical trauma.
You see, the body has its own responses to healing, and trauma. Not even counting that, I have been given powerful sedatives, and a twilight type of anesthesia. These are much milder than general anesthesia, but they still alter your mental state for a day or so following the procedure. They, also, affect your digestive tract as well! Welcome to constipation shut down! It’s like a cement truck full of cement that just quits turning! That was me!
Now, I’m not saying that I was carrying around 4-6 lbs. of crap in my pocket, but that could have very well been the case at the weigh-in. I’m just saying that my being “regular” was no more. Here at nearly two weeks out from surgery, I’m still trying to get regulated on my bowel movements. Trying to walk more, with a exercise restriction has been tough, as I have to be very careful. I certainly do not want to be the reason that sutures come loose early, because my body is already pushing them out! It’s messing up enough on it’s own, apparently! Welcome to inflammatory autoimmune diseases.
So, as I approach this 4 week barrier, I am trying to get back to a more “normal” me, which isn’t very “normal” at all to most. However, it is what I know, and within my “normal”, I can resume my regular progress. More importantly though, I have learned something valuable. This journey isn’t all “winning” every battle! It is the tenacity, and “stick-to-itivness” of a person to make this pattern of eating a life change, and not a diet! We will have ups, and downs! We will have small setbacks. Hell! Some of us my throw care to the wind now and then, just to enjoy special times! But that should not cause us to carry guilt!
Guilt is destructive! You know? In my last blog, I talked about how anger, and negative emotions have an impact on us physically. This is equally applicable to guilt! You’ve heard it said that “guilt” will “eat you alive”, and it will! It is tantamount to throwing the proverbial wrench into the gear house! There are few things that set us upon a long, negative, dark cloud trail, more so than guilt. So, I work hard to make my choices, “my choices”. Doing so means I have no reason to cary guilt for me. I own it, before I do it. I may even write it out, or say it out loud before I do it, just to see how it fits. Eating. More importantly, how I eat, is something that I have rehearsed in my mind. I’m learning a new way of doing what I have done since the day I was born instinctively. I’m taking control again, and not being carried off by emotional eating, or depression eating, or justified eating. I will PLAN how I eat, whenever I eat, unless I find myself starving some time in the future. Slime chance at that for my fat ass, but none of us know the future. So, rats aren’t ever completely off the table for any of us! That isn’t part of my plan, though.
First of November, 2018
As I looked through the “Connect” portion of the WW app, I found stories about the long term success of people who are years into the program, and are now lifetime members. (A “Lifetime Member”, I’ve found are those who have achieved their goal weight, and kept their weight there for either 3, or 6 months. They are no longer required to pay for their WW plan, as long as they remain below their goal weight!) They reported on changes that have given them longterm balance in all sorts of health issues! It was uplifting to hear, and see the posts by people who had been through ups and downs, and are now holding to their goal weight and keeping themselves in a healthier mindset than ever.
Then, a few weeks ago, I had an appointment with a new doctor, whom I have had to find, because my doctor of 20 years has retired! I went in to get the bloodwork drawn and even after only 7 weeks on the WW program, my A1C blood glucose level for a 3 month average was down 1.9 points! It was a 6 now! That is out of diabetic range, and it wasn’t a fasting test either. That is a longterm benefit, because that means that I had a month of eating poorly. And when I eat “poorly”, I mean REALLY GOOD/BAD STUFF! Very little healthy, and it’s all washed down with sweet tea! So, my A1C score was jaw dropping for me! That 1.4 lb. gain the week of surgery didn’t matter so much now in light of the bigger picture!
That is how it should be. Giving myself time to see how this changes not only my waistline, and the size of my Santa Clause gut, but there is more! It’s more comfortable in that airplane seat, and I don’t need an extender. I can sit in a booth at the restaurant, and not have to ask for a table, because I don’t fit between the table and the chair! And my blood work, and medical issues can improve. My blood pressure has been much lower as well! It was 110/80, at the doctor’s office this week! It was lower than that, the first of the month, at my neurologist office, and I had missed taking one of my blood pressure meds for over a month before!
So, thank goodness, I have realized that it isn’t just about the small wins! Adding up those small wins over the small losses, and even some big losses, has an outcome! If I am tenacious, determined, and yes optimistic, I will be a better me overall. So, I’m winning, even when I fall down for a while, as long as I dust off, and get back up, and I can live better with that!
~Smyly
A GOOD ARTICLE on what you might hear from a doctor about diet, if you have IBD.
https://lowcarbrn.wordpress.com/category/diabetes/
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