Hope in Front of Me | Week 116 Weight Loss

Day 824. 245 lbs. Lost (as of 3-14).

I feel almost like I am coming up for air. I have desperately missed writing about my journey, but simply put, I got sick of my old platform. I looked at it constantly, and it didn’t feel like home anymore. I was frustrated because it started to get outdated and it wouldn’t do the things I had envisioned, so I just stopped writing. I realize that sounds silly, but I figured I would just redo it and presto….. on to the next thing. What started out as a simple desire to redo my website turned into a complete overhaul of everything I’m doing in my life. It’s kind of like when you’re cleaning your home, and you find a dirty spot. You start cleaning. Before you know it you find another spot that needs cleaning and so on and so on. I thought I would have it done within a month and it turns out, there was nothing wrong with the site. It was the messages, and my goals that needed a tune-up and those took a while to figure out.

I feel like there is so much to do. I’m working on the podcast landing page and loading recipes. There’s so many, it will take me a while to get a bunch in here. I’m sure over the next few weeks, there will be lots of downtime.

If you’re new here welcome!

So first things first, let’s address the weigh in. There wasn’t one this month. I realize that’s odd, but there is a reason for that. I suspect it wouldn’t be accurate if I did. There is so much fluid and puffiness around my legs that I decided to wait for the inflammation to go down after surgery before I get myself all worked up about whatever number is on the scale. Even water weight would get me frazzled at this point, and there’s no sense adding any extra stress right now. So, we will put the next weigh in off until May. The rolls and rolls of bandages might be off my legs by then, but I will see about that when I get there.

My emotions are all over the place. That’s not unusual for me during stressful times. Every week that got closer to surgery was more exciting, but here we are a week out, and now I’m just nervous. I’ve never had a surgery of any real kind. I’ve never even had a broken bone or stitches my entire life. The closest thing that came to anything like that was “endoscopic surgery” when I was in high school.  Don’t laugh, but I swallowed a sewing needle. I still have the x-ray. You can clearly see this sewing needle just hanging out on my lungs. Long story short, I was sewing a dress and taking the needles out of the fabric as I was sewing down the line so I wouldn’t run over them with my stitching needle. Instead of putting them in the pincushion, I was putting them in my mouth. Every sewer does this – okay, lots of us do this. No big deal. Until…………………… I had to sneeze. Mm-hmm…….

I felt prepared until last night when I found myself asking the question, “what am I going to wear”? I practically live in leggings which might be difficult to get on with a wrapped stiff leg, and I don’t own many dresses. They were never really my thing. Partly because I was never able to wear heels because of this darn leg. It might also have something to do with the fact I couldn’t stand the feeling of my legs rubbing together under a dress. I am going to get a rash just thinking about it. I dislike dresses. Maybe one day when my legs aren’t rubbing together my opinion on them might change.  Anyway so then I had to go on a quest to find shorts that were either quite short or ones that had wide legs. Here I was thinking I had it all together and in reality, I was going to be naked if I didn’t get a stash of “post-surgery-friendly” clothing.

I guess I’m good with most everything. I can only be prepared for what I know – everything else I will just tackle as it comes. My only real source of frustration comes from a pair of CrossFit shoes symbolically hung up in my laundry room. It was my way of saying, “It’s time to hang it up for a bit.”  I will cry if I think about it too much. I always said I would be doing CrossFit until the day before surgery, but unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. I’m moving at the pace of a turtle, and simple walking has become difficult once more.  I try not to think about recovery time. When I start thinking about that, I start thinking too much about the second surgery this fall, and it’s easy to get caught up with “time.” “How long is it going to take,” “when am I going to be back in class”………. Etc etc.  It pains me to sit it out, but I know as usual there is a lesson in store for me. That’s usually how God works in my life.

My CrossFit shoes might be hung up for a bit, but my heart and legs will be ready for the tough work ahead. All I can think about right now is getting back in my groove. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared, but gosh. There’s some real hope there. A year from now I will probably be able to do things I never thought possible.

That wouldn’t be the first time, would it? (smile). Bring it on.