How I Earn my Crust

Sally from Ramblings from the Other Side... asked what we do for a living so I thought I would post this. Over the past 35 years, I have worked as a Registered Nurse, taught Nursing, been a stay-at-home mom, Avon lady, president of the PTA, nutrition counsellor and finally in 2000, I went back to school to train as a computer technician. A year later, I graduated with all these cool Microsoft and Novell certifications and nifty geek pins to wear. Then the high tech meltdown began and no one was hiring. That Christmas, I went to a cocktail party and met a woman whose boss was looking for some new IT people and three weeks later in January 2001, I started working for the Federal Government of Canada in IT. I began with a bunch of guys doing computer support, setting up computers, installing Windows, crawling under desks to hook up the power and cables. I then moved into Application support and got to sit at a computer all day answering questions on why an application didn’t work or helping people fix their passwords. I know all those techie jokes and they are true.

Now nine years later, my title is Systems Analyst but I just got another title—Senior Documentation Specialist. Basically, I write down all the processes, help guides and step by step instructions for my group. I also help design and build software and do database stuff. Right now the group I work for is in a disorganized state with rotating acting managers. I just told my boss today that I would not take on someone else’s work just because they are lazy and don't want to do it. I'm the one they usually go to because I get the job done. No more—I’d rather spend my time on-line reading blogs :-)

Well that’s me and my job. This is my secure job with fabulous pay, benefits and a pension so I’ll stick it out for many more years. I don’t get any cute puppies or kittens to work with but then no ones dies at my job anymore. For all of you going back to school or thinking about it, it’s never too late to retrain or change careers. What I think I would like to do next is either work in a coffee shop or bookstore. Maybe when I retire. So what do you do to earn your crust?

Stop the Presses—I’m NOT Perfect!

I have been in a bit of a funk the last few days and was trying to get my head around it. As I stepped out of the shower, it hit me—POW!—I’m not perfect. The last few days have not been stellar eating—a chocolate bar here, cookies there. What happened to all the “this time I’ll be a winner, this time I’ll do it, this time is different”, now that I have the band. I have more or less been a good girl for two months. As I thought more I remembered that on most other diets I would generally give up after two months (guess what—I started the pre-op diet on January 26th—two months ago). I would usually lose about 20 pounds, feel good and then give up, only to gain the weight back. Well I’ve lost 25 pounds give or take a couple of ups and downs this week. I think my inner voice/conscience/whatever was goading me into submission that of course again I am a failure. Might as well give up and resolve that you will always be fat and will never succeed in losing this weight for good, that you will never be perfect. Then I started looking for the blame or excuse. It wasn’t me, it must be some other external force that I can’t control. I’ve been back to work for two weeks and it isn’t a happy place right now. Not one person has commented that I look thinner—which means maybe I haven’t actually lost any weight. They are morons anyway. My son is leaving on Sunday for his trip to South Africa. He has been house-sitting for the last 6 weeks so I haven’t seen much of him and I miss our talks. He is coming home for dinner, but then I won’t see him for another month. I haven’t seen many of my friends for a long time since I was sick last week and haven’t felt like going out. So don’t you agree, I have my list of excuses for quitting this diet, which is really a non-diet, which I was never going to succeed with so why did I waste all this money and time. Eat the cookies, eat the chocolate—it’s not my fault!

Then a few thoughts started filtering through which made me stop the downward spiral. Some of the blogs I am following were posting similar insights. Then my best friend who is on this weight loss journey with me (without the band) sent me this e-mail:

“Today the scale finally showed 189. Well that is unbelievable. I have not sat at this weight for years. This took from the time I returned to school (last September) until now to lose 12 pounds. I can tell you that now that I have crushed the threshold I feel like there is a renewed sense of energy. I have a new goal—to be under 180 by the end of June. I have not been there in years so if it takes three months to get past the 180 mark so be it. I have decided it is little bites at a time so I do not feel overwhelmed. When I count down what I want to lose altogether I feel overwhelmed and discouraged but when I do it like this and the goal is reasonable I don’t get discouraged. I think when you are discouraged you beat yourself up. Sandy, keep up the good work too, do not discouraged because everyday is a new day.”

Reading this I started to feel that maybe I need to start working on me. The last 3 months have been a whirlwind of research, preparation, surgery, recovery. I am feeling a bit lost now, 6 weeks post surgery, as to what am I supposed to do next. I love analogies and liken getting the band to the feeling of getting married or having a baby. We research and plan like crazy for months. The day happens—wedding day or birth of babe—the honeymoon phase hits and then the real work begins. The excitement is over and the day to day stuff still has to happen whether you feel like it or not. You have to work at a marriage. You have to work to raise a child. Well now that the excitement of having the lapband is subsiding, I have to work to lose the weight. Too bad it couldn’t have had a wire attached to our brains to reprogram our thoughts.

Which led me to the conclusion, that I’m not perfect. I will never be perfect. I am a great believer in inspirational quotes and when I opened another e-mail, there was the weekly inspirational newsletter from the Doctor from the Weight Management Clinic I go to. This is the same doctor that does my fills and who did my unfill (or is it a defill?).

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.”—George Bernard Shaw.

If you want to read the full newsletter click here. Also in the newsletter, my doc made the comment that INNER POWER must be cultivated. You must work on this constantly, and never give up trying. Success in weight loss, success in achieving fitness, means working to understand and accept your feelings. You must learn to accept yourself. You must learn to see the good you have. Don’t concentrate on lost possibilities (real or imagined). Accept yourself, and then seek solutions to control eating even under tough circumstances. Don’t make excuses.

Which means I have some inner work to do. All these “excuses” or circumstances that are happening right now are just missed opportunities to go forward. The wedding is over. The baby is born. The honeymoon is paid for. Now life goes on and with it some insights and struggles—our “Why’s & Wherefores”. It’s taken me a while to figure out what the expression actually means. So I did what I always do when I need to know something—I Googled it. And here is what I got.

Few people these days, in truth, can be quite sure what wherefore means. As a result, one of Shakespeare’s most quoted lines is often misunderstood. When Juliet asked, “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”, she wasn’t checking to see if he was on the ground below her balcony but asking why he was the person he was, a member of the hated rival Montague family. It means “why”, not “where”. The usual meaning is a bit more than just that of the individual words, which is why the apparent redundancy has survived — as a way to emphasize that what’s needed is not just a reason, but the whole reason, or all the reasons.

This post is just one of the “Why's & Wherefores” I will be working through in my blog. Sorry if it is really long and disjointed. It is how my brain is working today. And yes, it is a new day. And so will tomorrow and the day after that.

Friday List

I wasn't going to do this but I got sucked in by all your lovely answers...

1. If you could change your first name - what would it be? I like my name so probably wouldn't change it, although when I was a teenager I wanted to be called Alexandra.

2. Why are man hole covers round? I didn’t realize there were covers for the holes in a man. All these years I could have used them for their mouths and butts. Oh the suffering I have endured. This would be a good gift for Drazil’s office mate who likes to explode in the bathroom beside her desk! But I really like the one answer which said a round cover could never fall into a round hole, but a square one could fall into a square hole. Guess it is a safety thingy.

3. What's one of your biggest pet peeves? Co-workers getting praise for a project when you actually did the work and they weren’t even here!

4. If you could be a car - what would it be? I don’t really care about cars. Right now I drive a small SUV that I bought because it matched my nail polish. The Chrysler Crossfire is my hubby’s mid-life car. But I don't really like it—too hard to get in and out of and it is standard—come on they fixed that years ago when they invented automatic. He got the sports car and a year later I got a new kitchen.

Seriously, if I could pick a vehicle it would be a motorcycle. Fast, cool and you get to wear leather.

5. What's the biggest thing you learned from a blog this week or which blog spoke to you the most this week off the top of your head? Camille posted pictures of her surgery and I found it fascinating to see the band around the stomach (Caution: May be too graphic for some audiences. Viewer discretion is advised). Oh and Drazil had me in stitches about trying to eat some chocolate.

6. Did you eat anything last night that you wouldn’t want all the world to know ? Yes. I mixed up, rolled, baked and then ate a dozen peanut butter cookies.

I know that question wasn’t on the original list, but I hoped to slip it by everyone. Yes, I ate 12 peanut butter cookies. And they were so good. Today is a better day, but the dough is still in the fridge. And I will also add that the scale is up. Go figure.

Annoying Automated Voices

This is one of those posts which doesn't have a lot to say so skip over it if you like. Twice a week I travel to another work location to help out another group. The offices are located in a huge 4 Tower complex in Québec and the elevators talk, not only in English but in Canada's second official language French. As I stood heating up my lunch (the microwaves are located by the elevators), this voice kept repeating

      ~~~~~~Niveau Trois~~~~~~Level Three

(I work on the 3rd floor and lots of people were heading out or coming back from lunch)

Once in the elevator, she tells you where you are going.

     ~~~~~~Descendre~~~~~~Going Down

or

     ~~~~~~Monter~~~~~~Going Up

When I first got here I thought it was kind of cool (put in place for the visually impaired or those caffeine deprived individuals who don't know where they are), but when you have to stop at every floor it does start to grate on your nerves. For security reasons we aren't able to use the stairs so I guess I'll just practice my French. I got thinking, if they would just repeat two different words a day in English and French the entire workforce will be bilingual in no time at all. We'd just have to ride the elevator all day!

Well that's my boring day. Listening to the elevator lady. Maybe I will dial my voicemail and see if that lady wants to talk today. The other night I had to order a prescription renewal and the voicelady took forever to repeat what I wanted. You know when they say "If this is correct, press 1" over and over again. And those GPS voices-Oyyyy-I don't have one but I could not live with someone taunting me to turn all the time or telling me where to go. Funny how all these voiceladies (not too many voicemen out there) don't listen when you yell at them. They just calmly keep repeating the instructions.

I just finished lunch and ate mac & cheese and a spicy chicken breast. I guess the band has opened up, because I can eat again. I still get this funny ache in my left shoulder after I eat and am hoping I can stay in control and not eat junk. The weight isn't budging but then I think I did get rather dehydrated over the weekend. I need a little walk so I guess I'll just go Descendre. And...(You can use Babel Fish to translate-except for my french friends who will probably correct me)... J'espère que vous avez un beau jour!

Goodbye Obese, Hello Overweight

Very quick post. By not eating much in the last week, I slipped out of the obese BMI and into overweight. I thought it would be much more cataclysmic but it's just another day. I'll take it though. I also managed to hit the 25 pounds lost. Must be the Chicken Noodle soup. I've slowly started to eat some pureed food again and am feeling so much better. Thanks for all the uplifting comments. You guys are soooo great!

Sending everyone a nice smiley sun to brighten your day.

Chicken Soup

Just had to post what a great day this is! I have been drinking all day (and nothing alcoholic). The doc suggested I get in some extra salt and so glad I did. Since this morning and the un-fill I have been able to easily drink down the following:

>>coffee
>>1/2 glass skim milk

>>chocolate protein shake

>>chicken noodle cup-a-soup (whodathunk chicken broth can bring you back to life)
>>broccoli soup
>>edamame beans (well not truly liquid but covered in salt)
>>4 cups water
>>handful of tiny Rolos (chocolate covered caramels)
>>milkshake
No pain, no barfing, no problem. Now hungry. So happy. I need a fill!

Un-Filled

I just got back from my Doctor where I waited in tears for an unfill. I told him to take it all out, but I’m sure he left some in. I had my first fill two weeks ago, where he added 1 cc to the 3 cc that were there at surgery. So one would think, I wasn’t even close to a “sweet spot”. But what a weekend I had. I'm pretty sure I have the 10 cc Lap Band VG (the one with the little pockets in the right photo)—that is the one he showed me.

Last Tuesday, I had a problem keeping food down so was on fluids, gradually working back up to soft foods by Thursday. Friday seemed fine so I didn’t call the doctor for an unfill. Then one lousy bite of chicken did me in after the meatloaf and squash I had for dinner on Friday. Saturday was no better—12 hours of vomiting—and I hadn’t even eaten anything. Sunday, I could only sip on some water and broth and the spasm pain around the band was bad. I couldn’t even swallow anything for pain. I had been dissolving two aspirin in some water but just that small gulp of liquid wasn’t staying down. I was only able to sleep with 4 pillows propping me up and leaning on my left side. I was sure the band had slipped and that my stomach was going to be squished in two. My doctor assured me that it was almost impossible for the band to slip as they suture it in place. Amazing the things that go through your head when you are in pain.

By Sunday night. I was ready to grab a knife and tear out the band. I was so unhappy that I had done this stupid, stupid surgery. I was in countdown mode until 8:00 am when my doctor’s office opened. After finding out he was actually in the office and could give me an unfill, I burst into tears. Afterwards, he also gave me his emergency contact number to call in case this happened again—a number he had forgotten to give me at my last appointment. So it is back to square one (no Gilly—not the mall). Most of the weekend I kept thinking back to when I was pregnant—I was nauseated and threw up for most of my two pregnancies. I remember then thinking that throwing up is the worst feeling in the world. It still is.

I am off work again today. Pretty weak—but so would anyone that has dropped 8 pounds in a few days. I know I am pretty dehydrated so will be drinking fluids most of the day. Right now the inside of my stomach is so inflamed, I need to take it easy and slow. I want to get this right, but also want to be able to eat my food, not drink it. I feel like I am back on the pre-op diet, b!tchin’ and complaining. I only read a couple of blogs over the weekend but gave up when I noticed a few postings about Chinese Food, subs, pizza and other good things to eat. That got my stomach growling and the pain started so I had to stop reading. I do hope you all enjoyed your food. I am so envious.

I am working on patience—not my strong suit—it took me years to get to this weight and maybe I need to remember that I am only 6 weeks out of surgery. I have to take each pound as it comes and give it time and work with this band (my buddy). It’s being very stubborn right now so I need to make friends with it again. I’m sorry, little Buddy, I really didn’t mean it when I said I wanted to cut you out. Can we make up and be friends again?