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Cue: The Rest of My Life

So, now that I have you here…

This blog, as you all know, began with the focus on my journey with my weight and there is lots more to say about that  – from the past and whatever is out there for me in the  future.  In huge times like this, it would be logical to hope that life clears a little space and only throws you one doozy at a time.  But life doesn’t always comply (in fact, I wonder if it EVER does) and it certainly is not a nice, linear progression.  So, I find, that if I’m going to write plainly about my life and have this blog as my way of thinking out loud and putting things out to the world, it’s time to start bringing in the rest of the picture.  Without it, I would have to start parsing what and how I talk about things and that is precisely not the point here!

For those that know me – you know that there is a LOT that I could (and will, over time!) talk about.  My career in music is multi-faceted – conducting, teaching, performing.  It’s a constant juggle and also a constant source of inspiration, aspiration and little microcosms of life!  I’ve often thought that there’s material there for at least a couple books.  There’s the hobby business that I have with my partner, Nelson, that has stuff in it that you just can’t make up.  The world of gamers is a fascinating and broad spectrum of humanity.  We’ll get to all of that – later.

Anyone reading this blog also knows that this has been mammoth year for me.  I’ve talked about some of that directly and some less directly, but I think you know that it’s been a time of both emotional and physical revelation – excruciatingly hard at times and also a time that will change my life and my perspective on life permanently and, I very much believe, for the good.  And I have not been alone in this.  Yes, in the sense that I have not been going through this alone , but to the point of this blog post – I also mean that my journey is not the only revelatory event at center stage in my life.

[Ready, honey?  Here we go…]

My partner is undergoing a transformation of his own.  It, too, is about coming into who he really is.  It, too, is an enormous physical and emotional transition.  It, too, will be excruciatingly hard at times and will change his life, our life and our perspectives permanently.  And it is here, now, and happening alongside my own huge time of life.  My partner…my husband…will become my wife!  He has identified as transgender and is in the first months of a male to female transition.

[For those of you who didn’t know…deep breaths]

There are questions that I would guess start springing to mind and let me attempt to answer some of the broadest ones:

What does this mean for your marriage?  It’s something that is going to happen within our marriage.  The safe space for him to explore this need has developed over the course of our marriage and we are in this together.

Where is this coming from?  Well, for him, it’s coming from as far back as he can remember.  Up until now, he didn’t feel that it was something he could explore/pursue without too high a price…or even at all.  For us, it’s been a very gradual discovery that we didn’t know would lead to this reality until fairly recently.  I’ve known since before we were married that Nelson had thoughts about being female and, together, we have a trust and a communication in our marriage that made it possible for him to say more about that and what his true feelings are.  In this year, yes, we’ve had a crisis that was driven by my crisis, and through it we’ve learned so much about the capacity that we really have in our relationship and we’ve recommitted ourselves to doing the things that we truly want to do and doing them together.  Well, you can’t talk about realizing your true self or your dreams without this one coming in for him.

When is this happening?  It’s happening now.  He is starting his third month of hormone replacement therapy.  Since he has not been outward in any feminine presentation, we can’t really say when the milestones will be, but the whole transition will take some time.  Milestones include – when to switch names (from Nelson to Nicole) and, along with that, those pesky pronouns; when she’ll be out at work; when she’ll feel ready to be out in public as a female (or any of the steps leading up to that)…and many more.  We’ve told our families and a good number of friends.  The response has been mostly just incredible and we’re very, very grateful.

And there are a ton of other questions, details, thoughts and feelings all wrapped up in this.  We know that there will be hard things about this decision and it is my very great hope that we will come through whatever hard the world (and ourselves) has to throw at us with our tremendous community around us.  We are not out to put this in anyone’s face (though there isn’t any way that it’s not a visible, physical process) and, in the end, Nicole simply wants to live as the gender that she feels she truly is, not have her life be defined by the transgender label.  But it is a complex, awkward (and, I say, why not wonderful as well!?!) road between here and that state of being.  This blog will be a part of the way that we choose to walk that road.  We also are documenting the process through a video blog together.  You can find that on YouTube.com.  Our channel is Two2Transform and here’s the introductory video.  If you choose to walk with us, you are very welcome and we are, again, very grateful!

See what I mean about life not complying?  It just doesn’t work that way!

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The Day The Mall Almost Ate Me

There is SO much shopping to do – I know, go ahead, feel sorry for me!  With the exception of 2 or 3 tops and bottoms, I had to get rid of everything in my closet.  I’ve been wearing the same 2 shorts and 2 t-shirts that we bought after the drains came out for 3 weeks now.  And I’ve been waiting for this 6-ish week mark when the swelling has largely gone away (supposedly).  AND…thanks to my UU Choir in Rockville for their so generous gift…I’m sitting on nice wardrobe budget to get me started!!

So…it’s pretty much time!  You’d think that I would be skipping in glee to the nearest mall (if I could skip – which I cannot just yet!)

And…I ALMOST am…but there has been a sense of hesitation and a feeling that I should go a little slow.  I even tried to say that this is part of my attempt to be less impulsive sometimes and take my time with things – which I would like do occasionally, but in this case, I think that’s a cover!  It’s kind of hard to say why, but I think I’m figuring it out.

So, on Thursday, I decide that I will go to a mall, on my own, for a limited period of time before my first hair cut in 2 months.  I have two goals – find a real bra  (non-underwire, but anything that will give me two distinct breasts rather than the sports bra uni-boob) and discover what my size range is.

I walk in and I’m pretty sure that you would have laughed at my face or started in with the reassurances.  I just felt totally swallowed!  Almost to the point that I didn’t know what to do there!  And I’m thinking, “This is silly.  Of course you know what to do here.”  And I’m telling myself that there is no specific expected outcome, no rush, just experiment, just enjoy it.  I’m walking by these stores and realizing that I could go into any of them when before, 90% of the stores were just automatically off-limits.  AND I’m realizing that I know nothing about them.  Which ones I’ll be drawn too, which ones are out of my price range.  A clerk at Talbots welcomed me warmly as I passed their door and hesitated and I wandered in, but immediately knew that I wasn’t ready either to put myself in someone’s hands or to shop for “real clothes” without some good undergarments and with slightly less wide eyes.

So…I made my way to Penney’s, focused on the bra section, and let my comforting research mentality take over!  I choose one style and getting every permeation of size between 36C and 40D.  Dressing room visit one – I found the most likely bra size and went back and got an armful of other bra styles in that size and close to it.  Plus, grabbed a couple dresses that caught my eye on my way back to my lab (a.k.a dressing room).  Dressing room visit two – success!  Found a bra that worked and happened to try it on at the same time as a beautiful striped maxi dress (which I assumed would swallow me in length) and turned to the mirror and was…well…delighted!!  I was VERY tempted to get another dress that looked good – get this, a purple polka-dotta flirty number!!!  But it was full price ($60) and I talked myself out of it.

With 3 bras and the maxi dress in tow, I went off to my hair appointment.  My wonderful hairdresser chastised me for denying myself the dress – especially at this first stage in the shopping experience and her words stuck as I drove home…so I kept going to another mall near me with another Penneys!!  They didn’t’ have the dress, but apparently my hesitancy about shopping had been banished and I had myself a small whirlwind and a grand time!!

So…the mall did NOT eat me – just almost!  And I’m ready to shop!  Shopping companions beware, I’m coming for you!

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Eschewing the Norm

Today, before it got too stinkin’ hot, I got the dogs together and went out on a walk.  Both of them nosing around and pulling this way and that, taking a usual path for us through the neighborhood woods and trails.

I’ve been wrestling with the concept of “normal” in a lot of ways and this walk was no different.  In some ways, it was “back to normal” – moving at a normal pace, walking for a normal length of time, the usual dog shenanigans.  And, of course, in many other ways it wasn’t normal at all.  I haven’t walked the dogs on my own since surgery.  Moving at a “normal pace” was a first, but it felt fine so I went with it…being aware of every moment and every move to keep two leashes untangled and keep me in control, not them!

I’ve been talking and thinking about how I’ll be ready to “jump back in” to my “normal life” and how this body will “become normal” to me and how this past many months of intensity will somehow settle into a normal life again.  And I think that today, I’ve come to a good conclusion that I’d much rather explore.

“Bullshit.”  That’s my conclusion.

I think that the whole concept of normal is bullshit.

I do understand the draw of it – the comfort of routine schedules and known surroundings, the feeling of fitting in with the world, having things that are predictable and easy.  Why do we try to force those into a norm?  Aren’t we also surrounded every day by new things, ideas and people that cross our path?  Aren’t we (hopefully) growing and learning and changing – even if in little ways on most days?  Don’t we struggle with fears of complacency, taking things for granted and getting stuck?  Why would we want a norm when it would dull out the first two lists of things and make the last more likely?  Why would we want for a day to pass “without incident” or to lose sight of the wonder of an ever-changing reality?

I don’t even want to go into some of the “normal” statistics about our society…I found out this year that, apparently, it’s “normal” for women to have a crisis at age 40.  It’s normal for marriages (and careers) to go through crisis at the 7 year mark.  It’s even now normal for couples to divorce.    And let’s not send me into a research frenzy about other things that I suspect may be normal – Ritalin for children, education levels…oh, let’s just stop.

I know I’m on the high brow here, but really.  I feel that my life – especially given all that’s happened this year, has been yanked out of normal and I find that, in many ways, I’d like it to stay there.  Of course I don’t mean that I’d like to keep high, hard emotion all around me…but I *would* like to keep my emotions around me (as opposed to shoved away from me) and I *would* like to have a mindful sense of living with them in the present.  I’d like to have a renewed sense of my body and my journey with it every day and not let that settle into something less appreciative.  I’d like to look at my partner every day and have a fresh sense of why we’re together and all that we want to do.

I’m pretty positive that I’ll have my “normal hodgepodge” of a schedule come the fall.  (See, now, how can normal and hodgepodge even go together in the first place!!!)  But if I think of it that way, it could easily be stressful.  I’d much rather choose that hodgepodge – on a daily basis! – and then also plan to revel in both what it gives me and in the spaces in between – no matter if they are spent doing everyday things or unique things.  And, as my friend Tim wisely said, who says I have to “jump in” anyway.  Can’t I just walk in from where I am?

I’d like to keep this sense of calm/relax that I’m beginning to have at my core and look through that lens when a day gets crazy or when I borrow trouble.  I don’t mean this in a rose-colored-glasses kind of way.  It’s just about recognizing the fluidity of life and people.  Fluid is moving.  Norm (in my mind) is rigid.  If I can embrace the ups and downs, the fast and slow, the *process* and course of life…wouldn’t I flow better with it and wouldn’t I enjoy it more, or at least get stuck less often?

In the bigger picture, I have never aspired to be normal.  I used to mean that in a creative way.  I also now think that I may have meant it in an elusive way (part of the weight demon) and maybe even an elitist way (part of my success/failure demon).  But now, I just mean it in an everyday way.  Every day, any day would be less if it’s consigned to a “normal day.”

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Recovery Stage Three

Hello!  I know it’s been awhile since the last blog.  I’m not sure how I can claim that I got too busy…this relaxing business is very time consuming!  Plus, there have been a swirl of half-topics in my head that have refused to clarify into any write-off-the-cuff full topics.  I probably should just start writing with the halves and trust that I’ll have plenty to say from there.  I usually do.  No, please…no need to agree with me!

I do believe that it’s time to declare Stage Three – though what that means is less distinct than the “on my own” switch into Phase Two (which actually didn’t entail much on my own time…but it did feel different!)  We are just over 4 weeks into the 8 week period of time that I cleared.

I have some interesting things to report from my last visit with the surgeon (this past Monday), but recovery-wise, everything is fine and dandy.  I don’t need to see her again for at least a month and she would even be comfortable with two, though I’m not sure I would!  I’m driving and the incisions all continue to heal nicely…a couple slow spots, but nothing to worry about.  Still a variety of compression garments that I switch around depending on if I’m going out or staying in and how tightly wrapped I can handle being.  No real shopping yet, but a couple brief experiments – enough to know that the world will be my oyster!  Or, at least, the Outlet stores will be my oyster…or something!

And, some funny (both ha-ha and interesting) changes and discoveries about this new body.  As things settle in and the swelling goes down, things move around more (breasts, mostly) and that can be uncomfortable.  Remember that there is a TON of internal stitching that can pull and shift probably even more than the external!  There are places that feel like things just got wired wrong in terms of nerves. Running a finger down the mid-line incision causes sharp tingles all the way out to the sides.  And, funny but too personal…the breasts (really the nipples) are hilarious!  One feels double wired so that it almost hurts and one we thought got no wiring, but then discovered that it’s just somewhere close by…we’ve decided that it’s like the north pole versus true magnetic north!  I’m deciding that this, along with the little foothills between my breasts are just fun new quirks that make me even more unique!

The other set of interesting things from the surgeon is the looking to the future.  I know I’ll talk more about this down the road.  Suffice to say that she’s known from the beginning (and tried to tell me, but I haven’t wanted to look at it this way) that this large a surgery can only result in the best possible initial result  and there is more to consider once we know how things settle out.  Don’t jump in with me on this, please.  I need time to have opinions about THIS body and time to really enjoy it – to dress it and move it and all kinds of things.  If there is more work that is needed, that will be a decision backed by a TON of questions and a TON of personal inquiry about what would be important and impactful to me.  For now, it’s definitely just something for my percolator.

The other part of Stage Three is how I spend my time and what I hope to come out of this period of time having done.  Relaxing/refreshing is certainly a big part of that (as is the recovery, of course).  And the hobby business that Nelson and I have (Cheese Weasel Logistics) has it’s big annual event that is right at the 8 week mark – the Gen Con convention in Indianapolis.  We’re on top of the work for this, but there is a load of work for this and that will pick up here.  I think I’ll write a small series of blogs to start explaining the pieces of my life (like this one) as the blog transitions from my health/weight to my life as a whole.  So more about Cheese Weasel then.  The blog writing is happening and I think it will be easy to continue that, though I can’t promise any certain frequency of posts.  The other focus is my music and that’s got a few big areas to it.  The song-writing.  The start-up work for the band that I’m forming with a friend.  And Plunge! – my nonprofit cabaret theater that I have with my friend and collaborator, Tim, that is ready to work again and we want to find the venue for that.

I want a balance of picking up work on these things, spending time that is usually harder to clear, and feeling only the pressure that I want around accomplishment.  That’s a tricky thing.  And that’s the debate as Recovery Stage Three gets underway.  To acknowledge that half of the time has passed and “only half” is left, but also relax that it’s still time and really a different stage since the first part was so taken over by the physical recovery.  This is where I need to bring back my thinking on making things “munchable” – choosing the accessible first pieces and doing them (and enjoying them) and trusting that they will lead to the bigger picture.

And so…Stage Three…ready or not!

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Turning the Monitors Down

I’ve talked about the constant monitoring that I believe has been a part of my brain activity for many, many years now – way more layers deep than I was conscious of.  From the physical (see the whole list here in my 321 lb Girl Part Two post) straight on through every reaction to and from me, and the emotional impact of every word out of my mouth.  And I know every word as it comes out of my mouth.  Even though I speak extemporaneously (in both personal and professional settings), I am weighing and adjusting every word.  I thought everyone did this, by the way, with the speaking.  Nelson says he doesn’t – he doesn’t think about what he’s saying as he actually says it.  I guess that means there are more out there who do the same thing?

We do all monitor – or at least most everybody, I think.  And self-monitoring is a good and healthy thing.  Here, finally, we can talk about equipoise.  Equipoise is a word/concept that my father came upon last year.  It was used in Daniel Pink’s “A Whole New Mind” with the following definition:  the ability to serenely monitor the movements of one’s own mind and correct for biases and shortcomings.  I leapt on this with such enthusiasm – thinking this is EXACTLY what I do!!!  This is why I walk around with a constant in-my-face opinion of myself.  In the end, it was often a positive opinion – having negotiated a relationship or conversation or rehearsal well, showed patience or chose kindness instead of criticism.  The net positive would be because I felt that in any interaction, there were plenty of places where it could go another way – the person I was talking to could have thought less of me or I could have been insensitive – and I had the presence of mind to correct that possibility on the spot.

No.  What I was doing was hypervigilance.  Let’s define that one.  Wikipedia says that hypervigilance is “an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect threats.”  It’s accompanied by anxiety and another definition I found says that hypervigilance is “when an anxiety sufferer is excessively aware of certain things that are anxiety-provoking to that particular sufferer.”

Well, damn if that doesn’t make more sense now I am looking back at it.  I had projected my personality as a mask to my weight and that gradually developed into uber-control of my personality.  Trying to make it flawless.  And that’s linked to my feelings of being loved because of all those personality traits (that I was in control of) – all my responses – all of my ways of being helpful.  And of course I walked away with a net positive opinion because I wouldn’t accept leaving a situation in any other state.  One way or another it would end with everybody being okay and happy.  And so, I assumed, thinking only of my wonderful role in that and therefore not anything negative about me or my body.  That’s the threat I was protecting against – my “certain thing that would have been anxiety-provoking.”

But then, as things started to fall apart last fall and all the way up to now, I lost control of many things.  I didn’t have control of my physical well-being and as the more I began to realize these emotional walls, the more they started to break down and the more vulnerable I became.  And what I’m tempted to say is that I lost control of my emotional hold on the people around me, but what I know to be true is that I never did controlthe people around me – emotionally or otherwise!  I may have been able to impact them significantly, but I never controlled them.  That’s just the read that I got from my monitors.  All clear on the emotional front!

So…now…in this place of relative stillness that comes partly from everything that I’ve been through in the last many months and largely from this forced slowness and isolation of surgery recovery…I find that I need to adjust to some new feelings that I think come from my monitors trying to change.  I will get little bursts of anxiety – how am I doing?  How is Nelson?  How are my friends?  What’s it going to be like when I jump back in?  Was it really okay to leave my lists for this long?  Is anyone sad?  Is anyone going through a rough time and I’m not there?  On and on and on…  And with the simplest tiny application of rational thought, I know that everything is okay.  I am doing well – physically and emotionally.  Nelson and I are doing well.  The path ahead is exciting – not because I’m making it exciting, because it is exciting.  My friends are living their lives and I’m in the loop.  I’m not worried about jumping back in or what’s ahead in the recovery and the new body…I’m just not to that point yet and need to wait a little longer.

Stillness needs to be a good thing in my life.  These little flashes of anxiety feel like part of the process of adjusting things down a little bit.  They’ve been so present for so long that they were constant.  The fact that they are coming in flashes now is probably a good thing.  It’s a little like trying to empty your head before being able to rest, or what I imagine would happen if I tried to meditate.  Let the flashes come up and then let them go by and eventually you’ll just be able to sit in stillness.

I would like to live with equipoise and not hypervigilance and that’s a big learning curve for my monitors.  I think they are beginning their adjustment and I just need to let them!

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Recovery Stage Two

Two weeks and two days post-surgery and I’ve felt (right at the two week mark, actually) that we’ve definitely entered the next stage of recovery.  I’m not exactly sure what that means, but let’s talk about it and find out!

A few things ushered in the new stage:

  • The last two drains got a little unhappy over the weekend and they had us come in on Monday morning.  They ended up whirling around me, taking out the drains, clipping external stitches, packaging me back up and sending me on my way with full confidence.  It was just that my body was done with foreign objects, I guess!  So – drains out after 10 days!  WOOT!
  • A little glimpse of shopping and future.  Being less encumbered, we went to get a few things – some support clothing (tank and spanx underwear) that we’d heard could gradually take the place of the surgical binder and bra, plus some house shorts and t-shirts that fit me.  It was a thrilling experience!  I could really see my body and how changed it was and was just so excited to be in that situation after a whole lifetime of dreaming and wondering if I’d ever get there.  The couple of times that I’ve worn what we bought – just full of awareness and awe and adjustment!
  • Mom went back home.  I want you to imagine everything that the ideal Mom could be during this period of time…every way in which you might want that kind of care…that’s my Mom.  She fills that role to overflowing!   She took care of me, my partner, my dogs and our house.  She takes care of the physical and the emotional.  She is present at every moment, but never in the way and never overbearing.  She took care of herself too and we had a good time with conversations, movies and small adventures.  She didn’t step on Nelson’s toes or make him feel like he couldn’t or wouldn’t have taken care of me.  She’s just amazing!  And…it was time.  Dad missed her and things were coming up for them.  I had met the list of milestones that she had in her head…it was time.

So, stage two begins.

Physically, it’s just about good care and the passing of time.  All of the incisions except for the two tiny places where the last drains came out just need massaging with vitamin lotion 2-3 times a day (which is a LOT of surface!).  No more padding or gauze.  A good combination of taking it easy and moving about – slow but a good amount.  Sleeping is getting easier – I can be in our bed the whole night and find comfortable enough positions on my own.  Experimenting with various binders and compression garments to balance good support and a little more comfort.  Overall – still full of restrictions, but definitely improving steadily.  It’s a balance of pushing the envelope (which is inevitable for me) and being incredibly mindful.  No stupid moves.  No stubborn moves.

Emotionally, I’ll have to work harder in this stage to really start bringing to fruition the unique time that I want this summer to be.  The physical recovery won’t demand as much focus and I want to have and follow inspirations to work with music and writing in ways that I have not had the time to do.  I also want to balance my want/need for engaging with my family/friends/community with more options for spending time with myself.  I don’t want to feel bored, restless or impatient if I can help it.  I want to recognize opportunity to both relax differently and do different things.  And this stage is a real crux.  No driving yet.  No shopping yet (which could serve as a symbol of getting everything prepped to dive back into normal life).  Really just existing with all that’s around me!

A friend asked me last night what I’m playing while I recover – as in what computer game can I totally sink into to pass the time.  I could do that – get back into a World of Warcraft phase or pick up something new.  But I really don’t want something to take over my time like that.  I don’t want to just pass the time.  I want to live it and do something different with it.  I don’t want to dull it out!

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Beautiful

Simply.  Beautiful.  Could I be that?

I’m not asking you.  I could never ask you and then draw much meaning from your responses.  Just now, I’m asking me and I can feel that my answer may be changing.

Beautiful has been a hard word.  I have been told that in a personal way only a couple times in my life and my initial reaction to it has been to cry and shove it away.  It’s a trigger word for me.

Selectively beautiful I can handle – how many times have I been told that I have “such a beautiful face” or eyes or voice. That something I’ve done is beautiful or even that I look beautiful (though that hits a little closer to home).  I can accept those remarks – either because they are targeted enough or because I hear the selectiveness of them.  Or I just let them roll past me and say “thank you” the way a performer learns to say thank you and be gracious.

And now, actually, I feel like my relationship with that word is a little complicated by this huge physical change.  In my outlook on the world and other people, I don’t believe that beauty comes from having the perfect body.  I just don’t.  The people that I describe as beautiful (and it is not a word that I use with abandon) – I do believe are beautiful in both spirit and body, but as I picture them, I see there is a whole range of shapes, sizes, ages, colors, etc…  There is definitely a body component to this word for me, but it’s not body perfect (when applied to others).  And as I struggle with the word for myself, I know that the physical change is not a simple thing….like,  I am smaller and therefore I am closer to beautiful…

Wait.  Stop.  God, do I love to intellectualize the hell out of a concept.

Here’s what happened – I looked at myself a couple times yesterday and I caught a glimpse of beautiful.  And I loved it.  And as I try to write about that – I’m wishing that I could have seen that before I got to this place with my body.  And I worry that others will think that I equate beautiful only to smaller.  Was I beautiful before I lost weight?  Before I had this last surgery?  For myself, I couldn’t see it – wouldn’t let it in.  Undoubtably, and unfortunately, my physical change is a big part of being able to let it in – but I know that this change has come from and through a much deeper process and I think that maybe the physical “is the least of it.”

The glimpse that I got was of “simply beautiful.” Maybe I should just stop there and see if I can take that in.  I say this to my voice students ALL the time.  We work in glimpses.  The first time that something beautiful pops out of you, you may not recognize how to keep it and do it again.  But if you relax and get more glimpses, you might trust it more and figure out how to keep it around.  A glimpse is not something to dismiss!

So, Jennifer, don’t dismiss it.

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The 321lb Girl – Part Two…the Repost

Here it is – my blog from several months ago that started to explore the contents of my head on my way to 321lbs.  You’ll see some repetition – starting to identifying that I monitor everything and actively replace my negative with huge personality positives.   I’ve said some of this on this blog too – but, well, it’s pretty much the hugest of conclusions for me and the pieces of this are what I’ve met in the mirror many times – so, it’s pretty much why I’m here.  Here’s the repost…

“Let’s start further back:

I am very, very proud of and very, very grateful for my family.  My childhood has been described by many people as Pollyanna – and it’s easy to see why.  Two functional, smart, loving parents with 3 healthy girls, the requisite cat and dog and single family home with money enough to get by with good management.  We communicate and express ourselves well.  We have good ethical and moral upbringings.  We are untouched by significant disease, injury, disability, abuse and hardship.  We had chores, curfews and expectations, camping trips, good grades, a home church, manners and scrapbooks to document it all!  And, today, we are successful, interesting, active people.  My parents have crafted their retirement beautifully and are truly present and engaged with their own lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren.  Us girls are happily and healthily married and successful in our fields of medicine, theology and the arts.  My niece and nephew are healthy and beautiful.  My dogs have a perfect dog life.

I don’t feel this as Pollyanna – because that word smacks of artificiality and this has all been my real life.  Not fake.  Not crafted.  Just hugely fortunate.  And still, somehow, I managed to get to 321 lbs and not really be able to effectively deal with that until I was 30 years old.  I find that I can’t say a whole lot (I don’t consciously know a whole lot) about where/how the failures happened in that process.  I could probably make a decent record of what programs we tried, but that’s the logistics, not the emotion. There is probably more exploration there that would be useful – looking at scrapbooks and trying to remember how I felt as I grew up and grew larger.  I know we talked actively about it through the years and struggled with the attempts fairly openly – at least while active attempts were happening.  And I know some of the last triggers that led to reversing the process:  not physically being able to keep up with my impression of myself or all that I intended to experience and having the stability of schedule/job/home to have it take over with full intensity and support.

When I sat down to try and say what I could about my teens and twenties, I started with what was obvious to me.  In short, for a long, long time I have been very mindful of how I frame and present myself.  I choose when and how to look at my reflection.  I often balance negative feelings and thoughts with good counters or with plans and resolve to fix them. I started to list some of the self-dialogue that I know has been with me for these last 25+ years.  I thought, at first, that these were just the expected things – comparing myself to other overweight people, being aware of myself in space – fitting in chairs, holding my posture, etc.  But pretty quickly, I realized that my inner dialogue goes WAY beyond a healthy awareness and observation.  It goes WAY beyond my physical weight.  And way beyond equipoise.  I leapt on the word equipoise earlier this year – the mind’s ability to serenely monitor one’s thoughts and actions and correct for bias and shortcoming.  There is not as much serenity in my usual monitoring as I’d like to think.  To repeat some of what I find that I *constantly* have thought about:

  • constant comparisons to overweight people I see – if they are bigger or smaller than me, if they hold themselves better or worse, what I think of them, what they radiate about themselves, what I think others think of them.
  • how I sit, how I hold my arms, my legs, how far my stomach sticks out, how tall can I make myself in my seat, how my clothes drape on me, how much room I can create for others sitting next to me, how engaging and bright can I make my face….
  • how I might react (retort?) to any given situation.  At first, this was if someone were to address my weight – either in a casual way (a look, an off-comment) or a personal way.  But now I realize that I do that for more than weight – I look to react in the “right” way to anything – employing humor, kindness, smarts, whatever – to be the way that I want to be in relationship to the people around me.  To make the situation a good thing for everyone involved  (fix it, encourage it, whatever).  AND – to emerge successful and well-thought of.
This last part is the important one here.  There are lots of good things about being aware and responsive to the people and situations around us.  I pride myself on that and don’t want that mindset to go away.  BUT, I am realizing that there are some very not good sides to this.
I have developed a way to feel that I ensure an impression of me that I can live with – and this same method has likely helped to push away dealing with what wasn’t good (my weight) and, in the process, build some pretty cemented defenses. Emotionally – I constantly monitor and control how I respond to any situation – let’s just go ahead and call it hyper vigilance.  Making sure that what was noticed about me was my energy or humor or competency or talent or organization or my beautiful voice or my bright face.  Trying to make sure that the impression of funny or kind or smart or capable was the only impression I would make and it would outshine anything that people might remember or say about my weight and, eventually, I think that’s become about what people remember/say about me period.  Lifestyle-wise – this same control has been the thing to prioritize my actions and my focus.  If it looked like something that I wasn’t going to be successful at (dating and weight-loss for two primary earlier example), then I focused my time and energy on what I could ensure – my artistic pursuits, management/leadership/organization, great friendships and family relationships.
And from this carefully chosen positioning – I could convince myself and others that I was open, trusting, successful, balanced, healthy, etc., etc., so forth and so on.  And – in many, many ways, I am those things – plus the creative, smart, kind, funny, capable…
But I have also spent a great amount of energy – a HUGE HUGE amount of energy – shoring up my positioning, monitoring everything and talking myself out of the pieces of that that weren’t so healthy – including, for 20 years, the elephant in the room – literally.  This on-her-way-to-321lb girl.”
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The 321lb Girl – Part One

See that 3rd picture from the left – the biggest girl with the smile almost lost in all that face? How did that happen?  I *know* that this is the question that every overweight person asks themselves.  Even if they can answer the question, I guarantee that looking in the mirror the words will spill out…”How did this happen?”

And the turning and facing of weight is just riddled with complication – when inspiration meets up with means – the effort can renew again and again.  When a last straw meets bad timing, it doesn’t end up being a last straw.  I am completely convinced that it is a RARE occurrence to find an overweight person who is “just lazy” or who “just doesn’t care.” Oh we care.  We care so much that there are times when the only thing to do is act like we don’t care.  However that plays out – using humor and being the funny girl that is so amazingly comfortable in her skin, embracing the “love yourself as you are” mentality with fervor, reassuring friends and family that you’re working on the next plan, or…simply ignoring it.  Simply refusing – at least for a small moment – not to see.

Of course, I can’t tell you how many of those moments got rudely, cruelly interrupted by an unfortunately placed reflective surface.  You’re just trying to have a day and that stupid store window snags your attention.  And it’s immediate damage control.  Everything from confirming or ignoring what you saw to the lock down of horror…which includes the self-talk of all the things that are going right and all that you hope and plan to do.  This can happen in the space of a second.

The smoke in the mirror is the thought that I kept these moments from impacting me too much.  Of course they impacted me and each one got added to the reference file in my psyche!  Sometimes I would have to swallow a scowl and a descent into a bad mood (sometimes unsuccessfully).  More often, for me, I would respond with something extra positive.  Say something nice to someone, be extra witty or extra patient.  That’s just how “my thing” played out.

I’m trying to decide how much time to spend in the going back and piecing this together – and I think it will end up being a fair amount of time …especially if I choose to write about it.  But, I don’t want to reframe my life in the negative when that’s not how I lived it.  Even with demons underneath – I didn’t know they were there and I lived as fully as I could – planning how I would overcome my weight as often as I could.  I don’t want to re-remember my life as though I’m watching the demons put on a puppet show.  This is tricky, though, because now that I can see them – I can see how influential they were.  The solution for me – is to also see the person that they built…and, again…say “thank you” and good-bye.

I blogged through a couple of significant times during this last phase of the weight loss – just a private blog to express some thoughts.  I’ll pull in a couple sections from that blog now and again and it’s time for the first of those (to follow this post).  The one where I did try to go back and ask how I got to 321lbs and ended up first recognizing how many layers of control freak were there to sort though.  So, the post doesn’t necessarily stay to the pursuit of the question, but it does really dig into the things that would go on in my head…constantly!

And here’s my conclusion about that…like with ANY other situation in life – you don’t know unless it’s you.  You can’t look at anyone you see and have the context for how and where they are.  And our brains can’t help but try to categorize and understand.  I see a fat girl who is jolly, who is unsure.  I see a single woman who is flirtatious or who is bitchy.  I see a macho man or a gentle, androgynous man.  Someone having a bad day, someone being nice and cheery,  someone radiating health and well-being, on and on…

You don’t know…just as they don’t know all that goes on in your head.  But I hope that I’m learning not to assume.  For those I just see – I will try not to assume.  The big girl that walks into the restaurant.  The slow, erratic driver in front of me.  The exasperated hospital admissions clerk.  And for those that are in my life – even closely in my life – I will still try to check my assumptions.  Ask them before I try to “help” them.  Give them space for their own perspective on life – including their perspectives on me.  And open those lines of communication so that they can let me in too.

Because part of “how this happened” was the stacking and winding tight of many little layers of impact and many assumptions.  All of which I thought I had a handle on and it was the true letting in of vulnerability that showed me how my control on the situation had gone very awry – and, in fact, wasn’t good control at all.  Too much control = wound too tight = rigid and unyielding.  More emotionally vulnerable = more loose (and maybe unsure?) = more open and pliable.  Imagine each of these taking a blow – which is more likely to break?  Hmm….lesson to be learned in my book!

 

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The Home Update and a Full Body Tour

This post will bring us up to current from arriving home from surgery (last Friday, 6/15) to today – with another long recounting of medical details.  Then, I hope to feel freer to tackle any of the other subjects that are waiting – more of the emotional impact, some history and lots of looking forward!

As we go along – I’m very happy to engage in conversation through this blog – answering comments or questions and expanding on topics or parlaying them to not just my life.  I don’t know if the comment structure through WordPress is the best, but if there is trouble with it – let me know!

There are two parts to a medical update – what I feel like and more describing of what my new body looks like.  Let’s do the new body first!

So…here I am at my post-surgery best!  We’ve been joking that it’s almost reminiscent of a quaint 1920s swimsuit.  Let me give you the tour:

First – my  6 little friends – the drains.  They look like clear rubber grenades attached to tubes which are attached to, well…me.  Two of them go into my breasts, two into my front abdominal area and two into my back.  The tubes are long enough that we can pin them all in front.  We keep them in this middle position that we’ve found – away from the sides so that I can try to sit/sleep on one side or another and not directly in front so that I can have my computer on my lap.  We empty and record the volume of them 2-3 times each day, which is really nothing more than tedious.  Yes, the concept of what’s going into them and where that is coming from is not very pleasant, but it’s relatively easy to ignore.  So – the big news!!!! – at my first post-op appointment this past Thursday (one week and one day out from surgery) – they were able to remove 4 of the 6 drains!!!  That’s more than we dared hope!  And the final two hopefully will come out next week.  you’ll hear more about the difference that this makes!

The tank top goes over the surgical bra (which is a velcro opening in the front) which goes over a layer of thick padding that protects my new boobs.  My new boobs (which I will not be displaying pictures of other than clothed!!) have an incision around the nipple area, vertically down the center bottom and then across the bottoms all the way over to the sides of my body.  I have NO IDEA what size they are – but not more than c-cup now and that’s a big difference.  We’ll talk more about that later!

The tank mostly serves to keep the abdominal binder (the white bottom piece) from riding up and creating an uncomfortable relationship between bra and binder.  This is especially important in the front center of my body – where I have my own version of the Mixing Bowl (if you are familiar with Washington DC traffic) – it’s where all kinds of roads meet up – mainly the incisions across the bottom of the breasts and the top of the long center vertical incision.  There is a small area – about 1″ x 2″ where it’s just a hot mess.  The skin is all bunched and stitches going everywhere.  Some of this will calm down as the swelling decreases and the incisions heal and then I guess we’ll see how it ends up and they may need to tweak it a bit.  More about that later too – I was not prepared to talk about tweaking!!!

So, yes, there is a long vertical incision down the front of my body where they both pulled and tightened all the skin, but also went deeper to tighten up the front abdominal muscles.  This part could easily have been the hardest to recover from – I might have felt so tight in that area that I wouldn’t want to stand straight and would have to retrain myself to do that.  Luckily, that’s been a fairly minor problem.  I have to work to straighten only a little bit.  The other fun thing about this incision is that it is pretty crooked!  And – I’m not exactly sure what the long-term fate of my navel will be.  There is a small area with more stitching around it that is supposedly where they saved the navel (and it’s connection down into my body?) and pasted it back on.  I, however, can’t yet see through the stitching to determine if there’s really much there.  Good thing I’ve never considered myself much of a navel-gazer!!  HAR!  Alright, whatever, back to the straight up reporting…yes, the incision is quite crooked.  At this week’s appointment, the surgeon said that they talked a lot about that in the operating room.  It came down to either being able to get a better “landscape” – meaning more excess skin removed and a leaner contour – or having a perfectly straight incision.  She’s a perfectionist and I think she regretted not being able to have both, but they went with the better landscape.  I’m fine with that – wasn’t planning on becoming a bikini girl.

Okay – and down to the bottom.  The incision goes 360 around my body.  Very low (at the junction of torso and hips) in front and then a little higher around my low back.  It’s just a single line all the way around, but from there, they were able to remove and shape my body pretty much everywhere.  My butt is WAY flatter/tighter and the fronts of my thighs.  Of course the huge pouch of skin is gone – both the primary one and the smaller one above that.  In the pre-surgery appointments, she noted that the secondary roll presented one of the biggest challenges.  It’s just hard to get all of that surface smoothed down.  They did a great job – that’s very apparent.  And…there are places that aren’t exactly ideal.  Again – we’ll talk later about tweaking.  Apparently, they expect for there to be a tweaking process (!!!!!)

Right now I have padding over all that incision and then secured by both the tank top and the binder.  Soon, I think, I could just wear comfortable underwear and that will be the case then for six weeks.  Binder and surgical bra for SIX WEEKS – I think that will be half security blanket and half chomping at the bit to be done with them.

To end the body tour – of course the extremities beyond the torso are unchanged.  The extra volume on the thighs, the flaps under the arms.  I think we’ll just have to see how that all plays out.  I have had no intentions of being a surgery addict.  I don’t want the physical experience and I don’t want the emotional need either.  But it is a reality that my body will have different issues and different proportions than it would normally and I’m sure that I will have a host of reactions to that.  I’m a conductor and I don’t want to worry about how my arms look if I wear something sleeveless.  Right now, I don’t really worry, but I also have to tell myself not to worry.

Okay – to finish the update – just a bit about the physical experience and challenges in the first week after the surgery.  For the most part, it’s just about negotiating movement and energy.  Everything feels fragile at first – will I feel pulling on the stitches?  How can I pull or push myself in and out of chairs and such (and accept any help offered!) without something pinging. Can I move around – particularly up or down stairs or at any length and not feel dizzy.  Well, this all changes and improves every day.  I’ll give you a couple bookend examples:

Day One at Home – in the afternoon we decide to do the first changing of the dressings – maybe a modified shower – and let me see my body in the mirror for the first time.  And we decide that the place to do this is upstairs in the bathroom – so first time up the stairs too.  BUT…surely we will take this all very slowly and Mom and Nelson will do most of the work around me.  So it will be okay, right?!  Not so much.

I take a couple percocet and head upstairs (not thinking to take time to let the percocet have it’s impact – both for pain lessening and the dizziness that we weren’t really realizing could accompany it).  Mom is imploring me to stop after every few stairs, but it feels fine and I just keep going slowly and steadily.  My legs are very strong (thanks to all the climbing and such pre-surgery!) and the stairs are all about the legs.  W e get into the bathroom and start gingerly pealing the layers back.  The bra and binder, the pads, the drains – which have to be constantly paid attention too – Good GOD don’t drop them!!  So, we’re basically there with me in the nude, someone holding a collection of 3 drains on each side and we’re about to start figuring out how to proceed.  I can see everything for the first time – all the angry incisions – the immense bruising – dark brown along the whole underside of my breasts – the hot mess referenced above – tightness – boobs I don’t recognize.  Mom and Nelson have seen this a couple times and they are beyond the harder impact of these things.  They see the huge change in shape and are excited for me to see that and they see improvements in the incisions and bruising from what they saw in the hospital.  They ask me what I think.

I’m not exactly sure of the sequence of events after that.  I did realize that I wasn’t responding and I did realize that the room wasn’t quite clear. I heard Mom say, “Oh my God” and I felt a little stumbly.  Apparently I went completely white and somehow my husband dimension-blinked into the next room and got a chair under me as I started to go down.  I know he moves fast – but I had no idea!  But it’s a very good thing – because there is NO good place to hold onto me if I go down.  That’s a sure call to 911.  So – the next 45 minutes were simply spent putting everything back together and getting in my face and telling me I was okay.  We decided that a shower would wait for at least a couple days!

Today (Day 8 at Home) – Mom and I walked around the block for the first time – slow, but pretty steady!  Then, on a bit of a lark – we got me ensconced in Nelson’s

convertible – with pillows around every side of me and went out to the bank, the Farmer’s market and Starbucks.  I got in and out of the car 3-4 times on my own, walked around the market and in and out of Starbucks.  I was definitely tired and my body was pinging all over the place, but no pain and energy level was still pretty good.

As for the in-between, well, there’s a lot of course.  The worst is at night when I end up feeling like a stuffed burrito – all stiff and round and immobile.  I spent the first few nights downstairs – switching between the couch, the recliner and the big chair – surrounded by pillows of all sorts and getting assistance for any major move.  Now, I’m sleeping in the bed and gingerly switching my own position every couple hours.

The only other thing to talk about, most unfortunately, is the other scary set of moments at home.  I think I really must choose to generalize this for you – I just can’t go into details.  But for 18 hours I experienced the most painful and scariest physical period of my life thanks to a single, ugly word – constipation.  We knew what it was, we knew it was a possibility and we had taken some proactive measures (Colace) but had we known what would happen – we would have taken far more proactive measures.  Probably too many and I would have been miserable in another way, but I just can’t see how it could have been worse.  All I can say is – you can know what’s going on, be reassured that you’re doing the right thing and that everything will be okay – and still be completely convinced that a horrible, embarrassing, disaster is in your future and your body is, in fact, going to rip apart.  And you say “for better or for worse” to your husband and that your mother has been through it all with you, but still have to work really hard not to die of embarrassment before the aforementioned ripping apart takes place.  If you are going to go through this surgery – please, PLEASE consider your proactive measures seriously!

Okay.  That’s done.  I knew I had to include it, but I was dreading it!  Maybe I’ll ask you not to bring this one up in polite conversation.  If you must ask questions – I’ll entertain those individually!!  And – after just sleeping and existing for a day after all that resolved – we’re back to steady improvement – including convertibles and farmer’s markets!

And…we’re caught up!  Finally!!  Did I mention that you should expect details?  Read of your own volition.  All 487+ of you…which jumped from 8 followers just a couple days ago…which is freaking me out…but I’m determined to write this blog the way I want to!  I’m sure I’ll blog about that later.