A Birthday of Love

Yesterday was my birthday.  Those who know me know that I claim the whole month as mine and all this month I have received cards and calls and packages of love and well wishes from friends and family.  I also gave myself some pretty amazing birthday gifts this year.  A trimmer figure.  A more active body.  Energy.  Health.  And a new found ability to love myself.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want to give off the impression that before my Duodenal Switch I was some self-hating fat man in a constant state of depression.  No.  I liked myself alot.  But I find now that I love myself more.  How do I know?  Well, because I am more able now to let others love me.  With each card or present I opened, with each package that came, during the time I spent with friends and family, with each loving telephone call, I felt love from the other person on a deeper level.  It is more meaningful than it was before because when I hear "I love you" or "you're wonderful" I believe it is possible, because I love me and think I'm wonderful.  Conceited?  Perhaps.  But, I deserve it.

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I see you.  Slowly emerging from my body.  Who are you?  You have my eyes, but the rest is unfamiliar.  I do not understand how you move; you are becoming lanky.  I interlock your arms or bend your legs in funny directions just to see if I can.  I have never moved like this before.  Your fingers can touch the small parts of my back.  Your shoulders have become muscle and bone.  What have you done to my shoulders?  You are a strange man in the mirror as I leave the shower.  I am less startled if I fixate on your eyes.  You have my eyes.  But curiosity gets the better of me.  I follow beads of water as they drip from my hair and slip down the sharp angles of your face.  They glide down your neck and pool on your clavicles which peak beneath my flesh.  I have never had clavicles like yours.  They are foreign to my touch and odd to my sight.  You fit clothes that are too small for me to wear.  You exercise, and enjoy it.  I have no idea who you are and yet you are what I've become.

We have to stop meeting like this.

Christmas is October

I am surrounded by copper, magnesium, and potassium.  Tomorrows mail promises to bring even more exotic offerings: bio-source iron, 10:1 cherry extract, lemon lime pre-digested fish oil, and 35 billion CFU probiotics!  I am officially having a vita-addicts Christmas... or perhaps, this is just the Universe showering me with gifts in "my month" (my birthday is October 20th and I claim the whole month as my own).

Last week, I found myself so rushed it was hard to get good foods in.  I even found myself stopped at one of my old haunts and Cleveland's best Puerto Rican place Rincon Criollo.  There, I indulged in chopped chicharones - fatty, moist, salty, crisp pork bites sure to bring any diet to a screeching halt.  Instead, I managed to drop 5 pounds in a couple days.  I love my duodenal-switch!

I spent this weekend at my mom's house in the country.  I love being there.  She is so supportive, happy, and helpful.  Plus, being in nature surrounded by the changing leaves of fall is always calming.  She stocked me up with great food that will help me keep on track.  As I type this post, there is chicken paprikash in the slow cooker, thanks to good'ol mom.  I really don't know where I'd be without her.

Time for bed.  I need to fall asleep before the smell of chicken begins to fill my apartment and I can't get to sleep due to over-salivation.

Body Amnesia

As I left work the other day.  "Are you loosing weight, sir?" the stranger-woman on the elevator asked me.  "Yes, I am" I responded with a smile as the doors slid open and I began to exit into the parking garage.  "Well, you look great!" she told me.  I had just enough time to get out a sincere, "thank you" before the doors closed.

Then, I began to think.  The conversation with myself started as I walked to my car, continued as I drove home, and finishes, I guess, with this post - HOW FREAKING FAT WAS I?!  I mean really, for a total stranger to notice my weight loss, notice it to the point of commenting on it, means that at some point that same total stranger had to have seen me and said to herself, "damn, that man is HUGE."  Then, as we rode the elevator together, she thought "self, is that the HUGE man we saw a while back?  He looks like he has lost weight - alot of weight - you should say something."

Don't get me wrong.  This woman was sweet and made my afternoon.  But, I have to take pause and ask myself what impression I have been leaving on people.  Now that I have lost so much weight, it is hard for me to remember what my face used to look like.  I forget the curves of my hips and how plump my belly was.  Perhaps it is my minds way of preventing the pain that is caused from loosing my physical identity - I simply don't remember ever looking any differently than I do now.  But, the thought that "gargantuan" is what I was giving off is depressing.  I just have to look forward and hope that in the future, people see me as more of a Denzel than a Marshmallow Man.

Back in the Paddle Again

Hoo-rah!  I rowed for the first time in two weeks - when my ankle started hating me.  In even that short two weeks the calluses and blisters on my hands from rowing have gone down, dried, and peeled away.  Perfect then that my rowing gloves/pads came in the mail.  Now I can get buff and hot while keeping my hands silky smooth...LOL!  Not only did I row, I rowed with no pain.  This is a good thing because I really want to keep my weight dropping.  But, you know what?  Even with two weeks of no/minimal exercise I still dropped ten pounds in the last seven days - Duodenal Switch, gotta love it.

Ineligible

Well, I spent today walking with no brace on my ankle for the first time since my "injury."  My pain is nonexistent and my doctor cleared me to return to exercise!  Who knew I'd ever be happy I get to exercise.  My ER doc said the pain in my ankle was caused by a sprain or tendinitis.  The orthopedic surgeon said it was arthritis.  The foot and ankle specialist said it was gout, secondary to a high protein diet.  Whatever, at least I'm not in pain anymore.

Last Wednesday, I went to the Clinic and weighed myself.  Turns out that I have lost so much weight with my Duodenal Switch that my BMI no longer qualifies me for weight loss surgery!  Plus, any of the commodities that may have qualified me for the surgery, like sleep apnea or diabetes, are no longer part of my life - cured, gone, finito.

I had a blast last weekend at the Cleveland Walk from Obesity.  The whole NEO DS team came out in force!  Plus, my mom was there and that meant alot to me.  She has been so supportive and loving as I go through this process.  And with sciatica and all, she walked the whole route with me.  BY THE WAY, the men and women at the Walk from Obesity need not to make a fat man walk 2 miles and call it 1.  They said that the route we walked was ONE, SINGLE, UNO, mile... well, Live Maps says it was 2 miles!  NOT FUNNY!  But the walk, with friends and family, and the trip to Cheesecake Factory afterwards was fun and Lord knows I need the extended stroll.

I hurted myself!

For no reason whatsoever I awoke early Saturday morning with a pain in my right ankle.  I don't remember hitting or twisting or doing much of anything detrimental to it.  The only thing I can think of is that the repeated "back-and-forth" action of the rower got to me.

So, wanting to rule out a clot, I went to the ER.  They gave me an air cast and crutches.  Then, I retreated to my mom's house in the country and stayed the rest of the weekend and into this week there, on my back, comfortably perched on her living room couch.

The doctors tell me I have a low grade sprain, or tendinitis, or arthritis.  Basically, they have no idea what's wrong with it, or when it will get better, or when it may return.  Thus, I wait.  Wait for the pain to go down and function to return.  Then, it's back to the rower and back on-track to my weight loss.

The Life I was Saved From

I stood looking for a merlot to season my potroast with.  Green beans, mushrooms, onions, and organic carrots filled my cart.

A man passed me on one of the store's motorized carts.  He was larger than I was at my largest.  His legs were swollen.  His limbs were scared from what I think was gout.  I wanted to run up to him and tell him about this amazing surgery I had.  But, I knew that the discovery and acceptance that one needs help only comes from within - at least, that's where my drive came/comes from.

I am by no means at my weight loss or fitness goals.  But, I am heading quickly in that direction.  I am so grateful to have been saved from that life.  Last summer my cousin told me to "get up and walk" while I still had the ability to.  Thank God I was saved, that I chose to save myself before those words were all together too true.

The Importance of People who Give a Damn

She came to see me all the way from Utah.  Perhaps she didn't know the words to say how proud she was of me, but I already knew.  This process is hard.  It's scary.  Having weight loss surgery marks the end of one chapter of your life and, as you transform, the page to the next chapter slowly turns.  Your body and mind change and as they change the world around you seems to morph as well.  I am not yet sure if people treat me differently or if it is me who sees them differently.  With all this change it is important to surround yourself with people who give a damn.

A tap-tap-tap-tap, then a knock-knock-knock, finished with a SLAM-SLAM on my bedroom door!  I was comfortated as she woke me in the morning.  She always does when she comes to see me and she's the only person (other than my mother) who gets away with it.  Her eyes see past to the me underneath, past the bits that cause shame and the painful parts.  Again, just as she always has.  I believe - and hope that I am right - that when a person goes through such a large transformation, like weight loss surgery, it is only their exterior that changes.  That, at the base of it all, the person underneath is unchanged.  She sees that person and there is solace in that.  She gives a damn.

I thank God for friends like her.  Friends that keep me gounded.  Friends that will call me on my shit.  Friends that will cry and celebrate with me.  Find friends like these and hold tight to them with all you have!

Time for an Update: Three months

The pain is gone (again)! Since surgery I've been having pain in the upper portion of my open incision. It was a burning pain and lingered so long it really started to piss me off. The pain would go away, then come back in two weeks and I'd have to start up pain meds again... funny fat man story in 3...2...1

My pain had mostly gone away.  So, it being summer, I decided to take a trip to my family's summer lake cottage.  I brought a friend and we went boating to the sand bar (a portion of the lake that is only 4-5 feet deep.  So, my friend jumps in and encourages me to do the same.  Now, if you're anything like me, you have no problem getting OUT of the boat, it's getting back IN that's near impossible.  But I had a duodenal switch.  I've lost a BUNCH of weight.  I'm like the obese superman, I can do anything!  So, my rolly-polly ass jumps in the lake and has a great time splashing and swimming about.  Until - you guessed it - it was time to get back inside the boat!  My (skinny) friend got back in first.  Then I tried and there was NO WAY I was getting in.  My friend, freaking out that she was going to be stranded in the middle of some lake, starts yelling at me "get in, get in, you HAVE to pull had!"  Her special skinny self even offered to hold my hand and get me back in the boat... I laughed her for thinking that would help.  I'll have you know that I finally managed to pull myself back onto the boat... but it was the MOST unattractive, blubber shaking thing I've done in A LONG TIME.  AND I RE INJURED MYSELF!  But, the pain's gone now, so feel free to laugh.

This period of my recovery has been marked by Doctors appointments.  At three months I saw Dr. Lane again.  He was very pleased with my weight-loss progress but wanted me to start exercising more.  Walking, the all the movement my body does now, was really hurting my incision.  So, he told me about indoor rowing on a Concept 2 Rower - a no impact full body aerobic and resistance work out machine with a 500 pound weigh

t limit!  I bought one (used on the internet) and this is the most fun I have ever had exercising... it REALLY kicks your ass too!  Here's a picture of my baby:

(Athletic White girl, not included)

I also switched to a bariatric PCP.  He is wonderful.  He ordered all my labs and the results came to me... by e-mail!  Gotta love the Cleveland Clinic.  I have some low levels and so I need to start taking my supplements regularly (duh!).  I finally feel like I am able to take pills regularly without feeling queasy.  He also ordered an ultrasound of my gallbladder.  I have sludge, but no stones.  Not a problem, just gotta keep popp'en that Actigal!

And now, an inspirational ending.  My body is changing.  I feel new bones and muscles that I didn't have when I was a skinny five year old and have never felt in my adult life.  It is scary, terrifying sometimes, and painful.  Not physically, but to not recognize who the person in the mirror is.  It is like slowly giving birth to an alien.  But, I have not felt this good in a long time.  I would NEVER take back what I did.  I am a warrior and this is my battle.  But, more days than not I feel myself - and I love who that person is.  I celebrate him.  I am proud of him.  I anticipate the person he is becoming and I support him in getting there... wherever that is.

Peace, love, and a promise to post more.