Just some thoughts...

Hello all you beautiful people who read my blog. Im so thankful for each and every one of you, for my last post there were eight hundred views, thats amazing!! It hasn't been such a long time since I have written but I thought now was as good a time as any to update you some things. I have encountered one of the dreaded side effects of this surgery, but as with most things in my life and timeline I am encountering it quite late in the process... HAIRLOSS!!! Along the way I have had some thinning going on here and there and my amazing hair dresser has suggested a wonderful product. Redken Intrafoce (for any of you dealing with the same dilema) but like with everything else in my life I slacked off using it, mainly becuase of cost, and havent used it in a few months. My hair was doing well and I was getting my protien and fluids all in so all was ok. Well this morning I got up and this had happened A BALD SPOT!! I have been out of surgery for over a year and now is the time my hair decides to turn against me and fall out... all in one spot! I really think its still able to be camouflaged yet. I never really noticed it until i straightened it. I have been wearing it curly for a while because it gives the illusion of fullness, and also I can get away with out washing it if I curl it in the morning! So if you see me with curly hair chances are it could very well be dirty too... just kidding, I was washing it way too much which was not helping with the thinning process. So here I am with a bald spot, but guess what I am not doing, I am not stressing about it. Its only hair. Im feeling amazing and energetic and on top of the world and im not letting a little bald spot get to me (i said little though... if it gets any bigger me and my hair are going to have a problem!). I had a moment id like to share with you all, for a moment I thought I would keep it to myself but I think it puts some things into perspective so I will share it with you. I was at work one afternoon and pulled up my laptop screen while it was turned off, and the screen was black, because of this I could clearly see my reflection. For a second I thought "I look pretty today" that was a monumental moment, I have never uttered those words to myself in my life time, and certainly never when I was having a bald spot day. Things have changed for the better. I still get frustrated with some things (slack skin) but thats for a whole other blog, but on the whole my life looks so much better than it did before. I did make another huge discovery recently when I started feeling a feeling of anxiety that I had never felt before, I have lost my life long coping mechanism now so my ability to handle stress has changed I I felt a physical reaction to stress the other day and I think its because I had always numbed my stress before, eating copious amounts of food was my coping mechanism but that is gone now. I recognized that and I can deal with it now that I know its there. I would like to wish you all a very merry chirstmas. Everyone who reads my story is going through this process with me in some form, and I thank you all. If you are reading because you know me, love me, found me on twitter or instagram, or out of pure curiosity, you are all going through it with me. So merry christmas to you all!! Ill leave you with a the Christmas pics of our little men who are having are the sweetest things ever. I know their faces would make my Christmas so ill share them with you!! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas season. From my family to yours!! oh and we cant forget these two

My Official One Year

So I met with my team yesterday for my one year follow up appointment, actually its four months late because I have had to keep rescheduling it. It went really well. Im pleased at how pleased they were. I do feel somewhat disappointed in a few things though. let me explain, I have lost one hundred and thirty two pounds since the day of my surgery. I have lost one hundred and forty six since two weeks before my surgery. I have lost one hundred and sixty six pounds since before my referral. Its amazing and when I write it I cant hardly believe it, but yet I am disappointed. I look down and still see a stomach that annoys me. I could be referred to plastic surgery but my BMI is still too high so I told the team not to bother yet. I have sixty pounds to lose to reach my goal. That sixty pounds is so small compared to the one hundred and sixty I have already lost, but its still between me and my goal. I checked my BMI the other day.. a number that is very important to weight loss surgery patients before surgery because if its too high you cant have the surgery until it is lowered (and i started out at a bmi of 67, seven points too high for the surgery) and the bmi calculator told me that to get to my optimum weight I still need to lose between 23 and 60 Kgs. KILOGRAMS!!! that's well over a hundred pounds. Its disheartening. I lost sight of the point that I have lowered my BMI by by twenty six points. I mentioned this to the team and they told me these calculations do not take into account where I came from. I know that from here on out things will be harder. It will be hard to lose weight again. So Im kind of disappointed and kind of not disappointed if that makes any sense. proud of where ive come from but not quite happy with where I am. Maybe I may have to let go of the idea of perfection in my head. There is a weight and a look that I want to be... and realistically I may not ever achieve it... but I have achieved a one hundred and sixty pound weight loss. I realized today what my body has been through... its been through a war. I have abused it for thirty six years, then I cut out over half of its stomach, made it survive on less eight hundred calories a day, filled it full of scars, shocked it completely by working out after spending years not walking further than my house to the car, Its been trough a lot, and who am I to abuse it further by not embracing where it is now. Sure Im not finished, but I have come a long way. So if you are like me and are in the midst of a life change and your body hasn't caught up to where your mind sees it, don't be too hard on it, love what you have!