gastric bypass

So on the fouth, I got Roux en Y gastric bypass.

Let's skip the arguements for or against it, shall we?  Suffice it to say I  was a borderline diabetic, hypertension, have a family history of diabetes and heart disease, and I'm almost 38 and have been fighting my weight since I was about 13.

Anyway...the Saturday after Beltane, I went out to some friends' house and we had an outdoor ritual in honor of Beltane.  Well...being Texas and outdoors, I used some 'all natural' mosquito spray to keep the bugsies away.

Sunday, the night before my surgery, I started blistering up in that allergy way.  Monday I had my surgery.  By monday night, the welts were huge.  I got through to Tuesday and Tueday night after they discharged me, the welts had turned into pustules and blisters and I was in agony.

So last Thursday, I had to do a steroid shot.  And...other than being completely miserable skin-wise for my allergic reaction, the gastric bypass surgery recover is ongoning.

The first week was spent sleeping on my back in a reclining-like position.  My doctor cut six holes in me to rearrange my guts, one of which you can't even see anymore.  I have a few really deep, ugly bruises stil healing.  The soreness in my belly is just now to the point that last night I was able to sleep on my sides again...which is probably why I slept so late this morning.  Mainly, it's dealing with the soreness and keeping hydrated.

The eating thing has been a challenge, sort of.  I'm rather a strong-willed person, so there's a lot of things that I don't mind not eating.  I've been cooking a lot for the family in the time off, even if I can't lift some of the dishes when they're done.  I've taken a lick of cheese sauces, drank broth from soups, but I don't really mind not being able to eat what I cook.  Sometimes I just worry about taste.

Anyway, in the first week, going easy, I've drank protein shakes, broths, eaten sugar free popsicles, and drank grape juice.  I've lost over 10 pounds in the first week, which is alarming, but not really I suppose because I can't eat anything.

When I was right about to go into surgery and the day after surgery, I had a few people say to me directly, "Aren't you excited?"

Now...I would like to take the time to ask people, before you just mindlessly ask stuff, really think about your words before you speak them.

"Why?" I would reply, fully anticipating their answers.

Because you'll be thin!  You'll be sexy!  You'll look great!  All variants of this tumbled out of their mouths.

Are you kidding me?

Firstly, I would answer, "Excited to have (had) surgery, being cut into and having my guts rearranged so I can't eat for weeks, and when I can, I can't hardly eat anything?  Uh, no."  Not daunted by my deadpan response, they would carry on.  Theyre my friends, gotta love them, but really, I just kind of let them go for a bit and just didn't go too much into any more response to that particular question.

So...I look at the weight loss as a side-effect of what I was really trying to accomplish, which was not being diabetic.  I have a lot of self-hate, a lot of things I absolutely hate about myself, my body, the way I look...I don't expect these things to change, especially with size.  And right now, the biggest anxiety is the change of other people's perception of me and how they will then identify me, and then how I will come to identify myself.

For example...in one of my weight-loss expeditions, I was taking weight lifting in college.  I could leg press $700 without much trouble.  I am a big woman, but I am a strong woman.  I have presence.  I have a very solid way of moving.  I cannot imagine being small enough where a big guy doesn't consider whether or not I can actually take him, but his only thought is to laugh and toss me over his shoulder.  That idea terrifies me.  Because not only am I hating myself as I am, even as I try to work on that, my self hate transforms into other venues.  So...we will see how it goes.  And I'll write here from time to time about it...but it's part of my journey now.

Pick-ups in back...

Not long ago, my husband had surgery on a hernia that was re-injured.  It was a day surgery to insert a mesh into his abdomen.

As I go to pick him up from the valet parking, there is one car in front of me ready for valet parking.  Before he can pull forward, I shit you not, a cream-colored hearse backs into the valet parking.

The valet parking is nearby the emergency entrance.  A large black man steps out, wearing a leather vest with a matching golfing hat.  His shirt is a light blue, collared with short sleeves.  He is dressed quite casually as he walks up to the valet, speaking loudly, but not loud enough to hear him from inside the car.

The valet disappears into the hospital, then reappears with what appears to be a woman in scrubs.  The woman begins talking to the man in the vest.  In turn, the man begins to wave his arms wildly, getting loud, as the woman steps forward towards him, motioning her thumb to point behind her.

So yeah....the guy from the funeral home was trying to do a 'pick up' out front at the valet parking.

I really can't make this shit up.

Dusty.

Yup, I'm a serial writer.

Thought I would dust this off a bit and give maybe a bit of an update.

I'm not driving anymore, I'm at home.  I got to get across the country a couple of times for a few months, and I wound up rolling my rig in Alabama, about 11 miles short of the state line to Florida.  By the grace of the gods, I walked away from that one.  It was a helluva experience.  Suffice it to say that there was mechanical failure, a re-treaded drive tire blew coupled with inexperience.

What a ride.

As souvieners, I met some wonderful people, got to see the great wide spaces of America, and my left shoulder will ache with the weather change for the rest of my life.

But it hasn't all been bad.

After a couple of months of therapy, I wound up kicking around with an old friend I hadn't seen in ages.  For a birthday gift, I walked into a head shop and asked if I could have a job.  Within a month, the boss walked out and I was running the store.  About six months later, four robberies at one location, a two week stint at another location which was also robbed, they made me a desk jockey at a warehouse, inputting the latest shipments of water pipes and let me drool over the lastest, greatest show pieces to come through the pipes in the art of glassblowing.

The new job consumes a lot of time, which I bitch about but really isn't a bad job.  I mean, the boss is rather absentee and when he appears, he does a lot of bitching.  But we try to keep his stores selling, we try to keep his stores stocked, and in general, try to keep all hell from breaking loose.

It IS a chain of head shops.  I mean...there's a certain expectancy that there's going to be some crazy shit happening.

And it has.  I mean, the manager that walked out embezzled over fifteen grand, not to mention I can't even begin to imagine the thousands of dollars of merchandise she was lifting from the owner (and I do mean thousands....for a while, each of his stores independently ordered their items....so as far as we can figure...she would over-order a few hundred dollars worth of stuff then quietly stash it away in a storage rental....total sleazeball thieving waste of a person...).  I got to fly to different cities with the Big Boss and buy cool shit for the stores.  Hell, I even got to the Champs Show in Las Vegas, saw Tommy Chong and had my picture taken with Jerome Baker.

And you can't imagine how much shit I've learned about smoking pot in less than a year.  It's crazy.

I smoke socially on occasion now.  Before, I really didn't at all.  The stuff would make my feet numb and I would talk about philosophical ideas until I realized my train of thought had no caboose (or someone switched the track...), so I didn't really care for it...but...the year before I moved back to the big city, my sister's cancer got worse.  She called me up one day and said that the ultra-high dosage of morphine wasn't helping her anymore and 'could I please see if I could find her an alternative'.  So I started doing some research.  My hippie and witchie friends were asked many questions, mainly, how could I get some pain relief for my sister without her having to smoke the shit?

So...I learned to make green butter.  And tincture.

My sister passed about a year and a month after...but some ideas just kind of stick.  So...as I got into the head shop game, at first, it was kind of one of those "how far can I push this before I get fired?"  So far, I haven't hit the limit, but the more vertical I've gone up in the company, the less inclined I am to do the really crazy shit I did at first.  Like bring vodka to work.  Or drop acid and run a register.

Anyway, in the past few weeks, I've been working on the edibles part.

I've been told I'm rather heavy-handed with alcohol.  Being a borderline diabetic, I have a tendency to not get drunk on copious amounts of alcohol.  A friend of mine dubbed my drinks "Roofie-coladas" and frankly, most people are warned from letting me mix drinks for them.  Since I have been working on the edibles, it's apparently much the same way.  "Chocolate-roofie-chip cookies" go over well, though.

Guess right now I'm just touching base, trying to get back into the swing of writing.  Hopefully, people will read.