In May of 2006, I found out I was pregnant with Catie.
I took this picture of myself in the bathroom mirror and captioned it, “Goodbye, waistline. It’s been fun.”
Almost exactly 7 years later, that red shirt finally fits again.
30 pounds down. I’m honestly not sure what my target weight is at this point, because all of my weight is distributed differently after having kids than it was before. (Oh, hello, widened child birthin’ hips!)
At one point, my goal was to get back in my size 10 jeans. But those jeans are over 7 years old and aren’t even in style anymore. And because I’m shaped differently, they give me flat Mom Ass. And nobody wants Mom Ass. So I’m going to have to figure out some other sort of defining metric as a goal.
So, even though I don’t know the end point, I’m really happy with how it’s going so far.
I feel like I need to try to sum up Christmas somehow, before the year is over. Only I’m not sure where to start. Be warned that I’m writing this under the influence of MANY over-the-counter cold medications. So. Just saying.
Dave’s been here for the past couple of weeks, and we had a pretty well planned-out agreement of how we’d divide up Christmas. I’d take the girls on Christmas Eve because that’s when we do most of the big stuff in my family (we go to church, have a big meal, etc.). And then after the Santa chaos died down on Christmas morning, I’d hand them off to Dave and they’d have a second Santa thing at his place and spend Christmas Day and night with him. Easy enough, right?
(cue foreboding…)
Last Friday (the 21st), while the kids were with Dave and I was happily in my PJs catching up on movies on my DVR, I started to notice that I felt a little weird. My throat felt scratchy. I shrugged it off as me being paranoid since one of the movies I had just watched was Contagion. Power of suggestion, whatever. I went to bed.
I woke up on Saturday and realized that no, I was really sick. Things got progressively worse.
Sunday, I ended up at a walk-in after-hours clinic.
Them: “Did you get a flu shot this year?” Me: “Umm… I forgot. But I remembered get both of my kids theirs, so that kinda counts as me being a responsible adult, right?” Them: “Yeah, not really. You have the flu. Go home and go to bed. Here, take this inhaler to help you breathe.”
The girls were with me on Sunday night, and I knew I was in over my head. My family stepped up and kept them at my parents’ house (since my brother and sister were also there to help). I quarantined myself to my house and tried to sleep it off.
Monday was Christmas Eve, and I spent most of the day sick and miserable. My family missed church services because of me, and my mom and sister made Christmas dinner (which is normally my thing). I also realized that our house was in no condition for any visits from Santa Claus. It was a mess, and there was no way I could get it ready in my current state. I told Catie (since Lucy doesn’t understand the Santa thing yet) that I had texted Santa and that he was going to bring her presents to her Mimi & Pop-Pop’s house instead of ours. I got them to bed at my parents’ house for the 2nd night in a row, barely managed to stay conscious long enough to set up the Santa layout at my parents’ house, then drove home and collapsed.
Christmas morning, I dragged myself out of bed before sunrise and got to my parents’ house at 6 a.m. so I’d be there when the girls woke up. They had a great time, and there are pictures of their beautiful happy faces, but they’re on my mom’s camera. I’ll get them someday. I basically lay on the couch having fever sweats while they opened their presents.
I barely managed to hand them off to Dave later on Christmas morning, then I immediately went to bed. Later that day, my fever spiked up to nearly 104, and I was… out of it. Somehow I called my mom, and she and my brother found me on the kitchen floor with my face pressed up against the refrigerator. Which in my head made sense, because my skin felt like it was on fire, and the fridge was cool. My brother picked me up and they got me to the car and off to the ER we went.
Oh, right, here’s the one picture I posted on Christmas Day. How unbelievably joyous, am I right?
Chest X-ray and bloodwork showed… yep. Really, really bad case of the flu. They loaded me up with fluids (because I was dehydrated) and pain meds (which I was incredibly grateful for, until the rebound headache kicked in), and then they sent me home.
Btw, if you can avoid going to the ER on Christmas Day? I highly recommend that you do so. It’s not a happy place to be.
All that to say… I’m kind of ok-ish now. The flu part (fever, aches, etc.), that’s all gone, but the cough got worse and turned into a sinus infection/bronchitis combo. And of course, I am now unable to say that I have bronchitis without thinking of Sweet Brown.
Ain’t nobody got time for dat, indeed.
I have to say, Dave has helped out a lot with the kids while I’ve been out of commission. And yeah, ok, he’s the dad, that’s what dads are supposed to do, but whatever. Credit where it’s due. They’ve had so much fun with him over the past couple of weeks, and for that, I am grateful.
And my family just… damn. I don’t even know how I’ll ever be able to thank them enough. I mean, because of their help, we managed to keep the girls’ lives as normal as possible through all of this, and they’re FINE. Better than fine. Catie decreed that it was the “Best! Christmas! Ever!” Which is funny since that’s exactly what she said last year. And they’ve thought that getting to have sleepovers at their grandparents’ house – with bonus aunt and uncles included – was just an awesome treat. So they’ve had a blast.
As for me, I’m waiting for these antibiotics to kick in aaaaaany minute now, and 2012 can just see itself on out the door, thankyouverymuch.
(Yes, I know that’s mostly water weight. I’m hoping actual pounds lost is two. Even that might be optimistic, I don’t know.)
I have also decided, as of the piece of whole wheat toast that I broke down and ate this afternoon, that I am officially DONE with this whole liquid diet experiment.
It was interesting, and I learned a lot about myself – mainly, that I do have more willpower than I ever gave myself credit for, and that it is possible for me to feed the kids without nabbing a bite of their stuff for myself. It’s hard as hell, but I can do it. And hopefully if I can continue to do it long enough, it will eventually become a habit.
I learned how very little it takes for me to actually start to feel satisfied, and that I need to listen to my body cues and pay closer attention to that, to help me control my portions. I think the diet books call that “mindful eating.” The whole idea of putting down your fork in between bites, not eating in front of the TV or computer (damn, that one is HARD for me), that kind of thing. So I’m going to continue to work on that.
And I learned how much better I feel when I’m not full of salty junk food and when I’m really well-hydrated. (Probably TMI, but OMG y’all, the peeing this week. It has been INSANE.) I thought I was drinking a lot of water before, but I learned that I need way more water than I’ve been having. I’ll keep up with that too.
So, hopefully, even though the liquid diet is over, this will be a good launching point for me, and I can keep some of the momentum and continue to lose weight. We’ll see, anyway.
I’m on day 4 of the liquid diet. How’s it going, you might ask? Well, let’s see…
* Day 1 – Hey, this isn’t so bad!
* Day 2 – Holy crap, somebody is going to die before this week is over.
* Day 2.5, part 1 – I cracked. And let me tell you, that was the most delicious handful of baby carrots I have ever eaten in my entire life.
* Day 2.5, part 2 – I’ve decided that negative-calorie foods (meaning raw celery, plain lettuce, etc. – things that burn more calories in chewing/digesting them than they contain in them) just don’t count. Because OMG, I NEED TO CHEW SOMETHING.
* Day 3 – Major headache, I’m guessing from carb/sugar withdrawal. It sucks.
* Day 3.5 (last night) – The combination of sleep deprivation (thanks to Lucy’s current sinus infection), the aforementioned headache, and the lack of food turned me into a Rage Monster. And that was when I almost hit Lucy.
It was bedtime, and she was crying and kept climbing out of her bed instead of going to sleep, which is not all that abnormal really, but for some reason it just pushed me over the edge. I don’t remember the last time I was that angry. I wanted to hit her. I wanted to throw her down the stairs. I wanted her to just… disappear. For that one moment, I hated my baby.
Instead of doing any of the horrible things in my head, I closed her bedroom door and walked away, and I left her to scream for a while. I essentially put myself in a time-out. I felt sick and my hands were shaking. I texted Greis (who is doing this liquid diet in solidarity with me this week because she is the most awesome friend ever), and I took some deep breaths and tried to calm myself down. Then I went back and got Lucy and gave her a bottle, and she was asleep about two minutes later.
And even though I know that that wasn’t really me, that it was just a lot of external factors overwhelming me, I still haven’t quite forgiven myself for the things that went through my head last night.
* Day 4 – So far I’m ok. Got the kids off to school this morning, no meltdowns or anything. This morning, I weighed myself and I was at a number I haven’t weighed in well over a year. (Yes, I know it’s mostly water weight, but I’ll take it.)
It occurs to me that I’ve made it over halfway already, and I’m grateful for that. I’m not sure if I’ll make it all the way through Saturday, but I’m going to give it my best shot.
Next time the Rage Monster shows up, though, I may have to just bite the bullet and give her some damn carbs already. Because I really don’t want to feel like that ever again.
I was debating whether or not to talk about this here, and I decided that not talking about it makes it seem like something I’m ashamed of, so here goes.
I think it’s kind of public knowledge at this point, but I had gastric bypass surgery over ten years ago. (Btw, if you go look at that entry, all of the picture links are broken and I’m not sure where the original files are to try to fix them. I’ll work on that someday.)
I lost about 100 pounds from surgery. It absolutely changed my life and I don’t regret it for one second. But in the past 10 years, I’ve had two pregnancies and a relatively traumatic divorce (hello, several months of post-partum depression/anxiety combined with eating my feelings!). As of today, I’ve regained a little over 30 of the 100 pounds that I lost. I reached a number on the scale that made me panic. I think we all have THAT number in our heads, and it varies for each person, but it’s your own personal “HOLY CRAP!” number. In my case, that panic led me to set up an appointment with a bariatric surgeon.
They ran a lot of tests on me, and found that the space between my pouch (surgically-reduced stomach) and my small intestine has expanded. So, basically, when I eat, everything empties out of my stomach immediately, which is why I’m constantly hungry. And constantly eating. Bad cycle.
So, I could theoretically have what they call a “revision” of my surgery – where they go back in and reduce everything back down to its original post-surgery size. And I’m pretty sure my insurance would cover it. But that also means, you know, HAVING SURGERY. Which was not a big deal when I was 26 and single. But at this point, with two kids who need me to be on my game around the clock, the whole idea of “recovery time” makes it seem like an impossible thing to even consider.
The surgeon I met with suggested that I try a liquid diet for a week. The idea is to sort of hit a “reset” button on my appetite, and to try to kick-start my metabolism. I knew I couldn’t do that over Thanksgiving, so I started it today.
I have no idea what the outcome will be from this, and I’m terrified of failing, but I’m giving it a shot.
So, you know, if I seem a whole lot grumpier and more sensitive than normal for the next week? Well, now you’ll know why.
Last week, when I was in the throes of a “woe is me” moment, I started crying when I was talking to my dad.
I said, “And I don’t even get to go to BlogHer this year. All of my friends will be there, and I can’t go. And I know that’s selfish because I should be putting my kids ahead of me, but there it is. I’m selfish. I want to go and I can’t and it’s not fair.”
I went to the bathroom to get myself cleaned up, and when I came out, my mom had come in the room and said, “Wait, when is BlogHer? You need to go!”
They’ve said several times that they can’t handle both girls overnight, so it didn’t occur to me to even ask if they could take the girls so I could go. I just assumed that they would say no.
Of course, by this point, the conference was long since sold out, and I couldn’t get a plane ticket on less than a week’s notice, so it wasn’t going to happen. But: next year? So there.
This year, though, it turns out that it was really lucky that I didn’t go, for two different reasons:
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1. Last Tuesday, I got really, really sick. Like, fever spiked to almost 104, I was hallucinating, the whole thing. My mom had to call 911 to have the paramedics take me to the ER so my parents could stay with the kids. They pumped me up with fluids and IV antibiotics and pain meds and I finally got discharged from the hospital around 3 a.m. on Wednesday. Oof.
I’m still on antibiotics, but I’m mostly ok now (it’s a long story and I don’t really want to get into my diagnosis since it partially involves my lady bits, and… well. No.), but I’m so glad that I wasn’t in a hotel room in NYC when all of this happened. It’s much nicer to be sick and miserable in your own bed, and I would have missed so much of the conference being sick. So it was kind of lucky that I wasn’t there.
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2. Lucy started walking on Thursday. Like, for real walking.
That video is actually not the best example, she can usually get from one side of the room to the other without falling over, which is kind of amazing. And if I had been at BlogHer, I would have missed it.
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So, you know, I’m ok with the fact that I missed the conference this year. I was a little sad reading tweets from people I love talking about meeting up with other people I love, and thinking, “I want to be there with youuuuu!!”
But overall, it’s ok. This weekend had some really nice moments, even without all of the awesome people and parties and big city and all of that.
Monday started off like a normal day. Dropped Catie off at daycare, and Lucy at my parents’ house. Did my work stuff, went to daycare to pick up Catie, then went to my parents’ house and had dinner with them.
At some point while we were at my parents’ house, Catie went to the bathroom, and she started crying. I went to check on her, and she said it hurt when she peed. Obviously that was a major red flag, but I also know that she has a tendency to hold it for a really long time. Since she had no other symptoms (no fever, otherwise acting like her normal happy self), I wrote it off as a fluke. She’s never had a bladder infection before, so it seemed unlikely.
When we got home, I took the girls upstairs to give them a bath. Catie said she needed to pee again (red flag #2, she had just gone less than an hour before, and she normally pees maybe 3 times a day tops, because her bladder is the opposite of mine). She got on the toilet and started screaming that it hurt.
Right. Ok then. Time to go to Urgent Care!
I called my parents, they came over to take care of Lucy so I wouldn’t have to bring her along.
Unfortunately, all Urgent Care offices here close at 8 p.m., and it was 7:55 when we left the house. Change of plans: off to the ER!
The triage nurse called us back and asked a bunch of questions. Catie impressed me by being able to answer the questions about her symptoms herself. Sometimes it still stuns me that she isn’t a toddler who only I can understand.
Then we had to wait for a bed. The hospital has a separate pediatric waiting room, which is really just a little nook with some ottomans to sit on, and a TV showing Nick Junior.
I’ve never been so grateful to see Dora the Explorer in my life.
We finally got a bed, and, as Catie put it, “They let me pee in a cup!” (Gee, that sure was nice of them, wasn’t it?) Found out that yes, she does indeed have a UTI. They sent us home with a prescription for antibiotics and a list of instructions for things to be careful about from now on.
We got home after 10:30 p.m. (Again, SO THANKFUL I didn’t have to lug Lucy along with me through all of this.) I insisted that Catie had to take a bath, because, eww, ER germs. She finally crashed after 11. I crawled into bed soon afterward.
Then, of course, Lucy had me up from 4 to 6 a.m., so I basically feel like death today. (Tired, grumpy, headache-y death.) And I have a ton of work to do today, which is going to be a challenge.
But Catie is starting to feel a little better, so I’m thankful for that. And she was excited that she would have the most exciting story at Show & Tell today. So, you know, there’s that. Priorities.
The good news is that we’re halfway through 2012 and this was our first ER trip this year. Fingers crossed that it’s also the last.
