113. My 46th Birthday..

The day was here. So many miracles had happened so far. Amazing miracles. I surly was blessed for all of them. Things I prayed properly for, actually came true. I was today, and would be for every day after this, in a good head space. If anything was going to let me down, I would learn how to quickly shake it off and move on. Stop letting it fester in my head and bring me down. It was a good day. I had my family around me, my husband somewhat all there and next to me. A place I thought or would bet my life on, would have never happened. From where our relationship was and the hatred he had against me since 2016, I would not have thought he would be kissing me today. Sleeping in the same bed with me. I had been so weirded out by this entire experience with his mental breakdown. The sickness was real. I could never understand it before but totally get it now. The amount of research I did about it was phenomenal. Endless. Daily. Every moment I had to learn about it, I took it. Another topic I had added to my plate of expertise, you could say.

I worked today. It felt like any usual day. Marcus spent most of the day in bed sleeping. He had told me his medications made him sleepy. I dealt with the household as usual. Kids and school and therapists, councillors and doctors. Appointments for everyone. Cooking dinner and paying bills. Couldn’t get more usual. My husband finally got up at 2:30 in the afternoon. I got a huge hug and another kiss from him happy birthday. It felt nice to feel his arms around me. To smell his cologne and feel the tightness in his hug. I wanted to stand there for a few more minutes just feeling his arms around me. It felt so nice. About an hour later he said he had a few things to do. I was hoping those few things had something to do with it being my birthday. Dinner? An overnight stay somewhere? A surprise?

I was always the kind of wife that never wanted or asked for anything. Nothing. All, I ever wanted was love from him and for most of our marriage, He gave that to me. I will not lie to my readers. Every girl and I truly don’t care who you are or what excuse you may use, expects a little something. A surprise of some kind. Deep down, I always did. Not expensive. The gifts for me were never about their value, only the thought. When it is true love, the thought of an item, even a card with beautiful writing, was a huge deal for me and he knew it. He couldn’t buy me clothes, shoes, jewelry. I was huge and my size was always unknown to even myself. The 6X extra wide sizes were what I wore. SO glamorous. He for sure, could not buy me lingerie. That would have been an insult. What else? There really wasn’t anything so why would I expect anything? If I couldn’t even think of what to get for me? Yet, for a man, sometimes flowers and chocolates especially the dark chocolate, was my favorite. He knew I loved roses. My favorite flower. I secretly, anxiously waited for him to come home not really bothering him by calling him and asking where he was. Didn’t want to ruin the surprise if there was one!

Finally at 6:30pm, he arrived home. I had cooked chicken and potatoes in a delicious gravy in the roaster. The whole family’s meal of choice even for the particular eaters that were fussy. Everyone loved that!

Another big hug and kiss upon his arrival. He had a little bag in his hand. Jewelry? What else could be so small? My sister across the street and her husband came over. My niece with her newly married husband. It was nice. Everyone got together for dinner and laughed with stories of their day and such. It was time for cake! My eldest sister had baked me a pineapple upside down cake. One of my absolute favorites. With a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. After all the cake and laughs, my sister handed me a birthday card with a twenty dollar scratch ticket from her and her family. It was the new rule we had all made. So many birthday’s and we were all going through a few struggles so it was decided that with birthdays and such, we would only give twenty dollar gifts to each person. Usually a lottery or scratch ticket. We would get together and have a big celebration and have dinner together but limit the gift. It seemed in our family, there was two or three birthdays every month! With the exception of all the kids in our family, we could do whatever we wanted. There was no limit. You can’t really put a limit on a child. Truthfully, there really is nothing you can get a kid now with twenty dollars. Toys had become so super expensive. Candy? The parents would kill us! It had to at least be a hundred dollars or more.

I won twenty dollars on my scratch ticket from them! Nothing wrong with that! My husband had a gift for me. I took the bag. Opened it up and it was a box. Maybe 4 inches long. It was from Pier 1. A household store more in the upper high end stuff. It had two little glass angels in it. One smaller, one a little larger. They had a switch under them that lit them up. They were like two little Christmas ornament angels. They were precious but one of them wouldn’t light up. By the next day, they both did not work. My mother added them to my brothers memoir on the counter, where she had an array of pictures and candles she would light everyday since his passing. He also got me some roses from Costco. They were beautiful of course. My favorite flower. They were white. I was not fussy. Any color would have been great and they were.

I had managed to get through the entire day without crying! This would for sure, be a first.

At the end of the night, after all the guests left, we all said good night and went to bed. Upon discussing our day in bed, he told me he had been irritated trying to find a certain part for his truck at the junkyard and could not get access to it. It was cold and the dead of winter and he had been scouring the junk yards for truck parts. I felt a little out of sorts as I had hoped to spend the day with him, go for lunch, breakfast, whatever. Just have a me day with him. Waking up so late in the afternoon and spending the afternoon at a junkyard was not what I had planned but again, nothing was getting me down today. I was not going to cry today.

After washing up, he got into the bed to cuddle. He squeezed me so hard as I hugged him and laid on his chest once again. Listening to his heart beat. His arm around me caressed my back. I could hear his heartbeat getting faster and faster. He was not saying much. He had the remote control in one hand and his left arm around me, caressing my back. I have no idea what made me so excited. I thought this was the night. This was the night we would finally make love after such a long time. I was not ready but I was. I had spent the entire morning while he slept before getting on with my day, to shower and shave and make everything beautiful down there if you know what I mean. My hair, a little makeup. I was ready. No period to deal with. It was late anyways.

I quickly got up and excused myself to the bathroom. I could feel that this was going to happen! Finally happen. I had yearned to feel him as I always did. Not just around me but in me. The closeness feeling of his every being. I longed for it, needed it to feel like a woman again and not just a best friend. Marcus had taught me how to love again. After all I had been through in my life, I was terrified of sex, love of any kind. Always felt like I was being used. Marcus taught me what love and intimacy really was. How respected it was. I longed for it now. Why was it such an issue with him? Again, I would blame myself and my looks. I would start feeling sorry for him. Almost immediately. All the time. Why did my head go there? I sure didn’t let it show. I was still so confused. This time, I think it was it! My birthday.

I got back into the bed, got under the covered all washed up and feeling good. My heart was beating out of my chest. I was so nervous and ready at the same time. The excitement gave me chills and goosebumps all over my body. I laid down on his chest again and listened for his heart beat. It was fast still. Unusual. Here we go..ok..here we go..minutes pasted, then the hour, a few more hours. Show after show, series episode after series episode. Then he spoke. “What do you want to watch now”? His show was over.

I didn’t know what to say. Wow, did the tears start fast. I couldn’t answer as he would hear the sadness in my voice. So I pretended to be asleep. He nudged me a bit and asked again. I was so shocked that it was easy to maintain a normal voice now. “Not for me hun, watch what you want. I am getting so tired and want to sleep”. He agreed and started rubbing my back while flicking through channels once again. I think he must have clicked on the remote control consistently for at least another forty five minutes before landing on a marvel series. Oh goody. Another series that has five seasons with at least ten episodes to a season. I noticed in the afternoon the following day that it was not just one but seven different shows with an entire slew of seasons and episodes. Nice..

The tears were beginning to soak his shirt but he was oblivious to it. He never noticed thankfully because I really didn’t feel like having that discussion. Once again, and again, and again. It was always the same result, same answer. My birthday passed. The days went on. Christmas was coming and things just got more hectic and busy.

On the positive note for my life? The appointments were still ongoing at the bariatric clinic. It was to be a long long process but I was not losing my patience or quitting this time. I would go through the entire process and start my life!

I needed to get my sugar levels down. That was essential. They would never consider me a surgical candidate if it was high. What puzzled me all the time was how many extreme obese people they preformed the surgery on numerous times. As you see on television. Much larger than me and with many more and other complications yet, they were all surgical patients. At the clinic, many ladies and gentleman, I would say, were at least over four hundred, some over five hundred pounds. My heart went out to them. I knew what it felt like and they had it even worse than I did. Having to carry all the layers of fat around everywhere you go. Sleeping, bathing, run getting around without shear exhaustion. I was much smaller than some but I can’t really say healthier or life was easier by any means. My whopping three hundred and fifty three pounds was still a pretty big girl wouldn’t you say? Obese class three is what my phone said. Is there higher classes? In life, was I trying to get into the higher classes as though it was a goal unconsciously? I was half way to four hundred really, no?

Christmas time was coming. The time of more food and of course sweets. I couldn’t contain myself when there was temptation all around me. Our family had many Christmas tables set out for the entire month of December. It was tradition to place tray’s upon tray’s of assorted candies and cookies and pretty much anything christmasy around the house for your guests. It was as though you were living in a bakery and a candy store both at the same time. Not healthy by any means but traditional at Christmas time. Our home was always grand central station with family and friends coming and going at all times of the day. Many guests would come just for all the special treats.

Being a diabetic, it was not a good thing when you were consistently surrounded by all kinds of temptation. My will power would have to kick in more than ever if I wanted this surgery to happen. I was at the limits with all my diabetic medications and having a severe allergy to insulin didn’t help matters much.

The bariatric process was surly a long one. For me, anyways. It was now time for me to see the phycologist. I was not sure how to answer their questions to make this process quicker. Do I tell them all is awesome? Do I lie? Do I tell them the truth about the madness in my life? My frustrations? They needed to learn about me to see if I was an emotional eater. Was I a binge eater or what made me get so heavy? They had to analyze my mind. Oh dear God. I felt sorry for the person that had to deal with my head. I had so many things going on. Past, present and future. The ordeals in my life were not little ones. They were motion picture hits. Nothing really, in my life, happened small. Always larger than life and puzzlingly shocking. This was going to be an interesting appointment. For the first time in my forty six years, someone was going to try to get into my head. I had done such a terrific job keeping things bottled up and dealing with issues in my own way. It worked for me. I was not an alcoholic or had mental issues of any kind. I, inside, was a strong superior, powerful woman and I knew it. I had built and barricaded myself up to a point that no one, not even my own family, would know. It didn’t show. I never let it and secured it well. Now, someone was going to try to get to the underlining problem of my weight. Good luck with that. I don’t think, even if naturally tried, for real, that someone could get in. There was no way on God’s green earth that someone could get in. My being was strong enough to withstand any storm that came my way by now. Half way through my life already and I was that strong. Proud of myself, really.

I went to see her. She was an older lady, maybe early fifty’s. The appointment was for two hours. I sat in her office and prepared myself for what was going to come. She began by asking simple questions such as how I was feeling all around. About life, issues in life. What I would describe as a problem or problems I had faced in my past. What I was going through right now and how I felt all together in general. Holy shit. Really? Did she have a few weeks to go over all this? Where would I start? Should I have given her access to this anonymous blog book I was writing? Should I perhaps give her the web address so she could just go read it all and call me in a month when she is done? Were my problems truly set back from when I was a child? All I went through up to and including now? Do I simply pick and choose certain events in my life to mention and leave out the rest? I was super conflicted. Anyone who has been along side me reading my book blogs could understand my instant confusion to her simple questions. However to me and my life, they were far from simple.

So? Naturally, I decided to only mention a few of the present things. I had just touched on the stress of my husband, simply touched on the stress of my kids whom both had disabilities, the stress of running a household I was appointed to do as my now job, simple things. The doctor’s face, the entire time, said it all. She just looked at me with her eyes slightly widened. Let me finish all I had to say without questioning me yet. Her response when I was done was “so you have been through and are going through a lot”! Dear lord lady! If only you knew. You think that is a lot? Those topics I touched on are just the morsels of the massive destructions in my life. Nothing at all! I thought if I had touched on the most simple things, only, this would be a quick and easy appointment. I was so totally wrong! She was blown away by my struggles in my stories. I had to laugh. Her actions and reactions to what was no problem at all to me, was so funny that I started chuckling a little. I couldn’t hold it in. Now I definitely looked like a true mental patient. I so badly wanted to burst out in laughter! I had tears coming into my eyes from trying so hard to hold back my laughter that she now thought I was crying from sadness.

It was then, I realized I was truly fucked up but in a good way if that makes any sense. The mixed emotions of my life turbulence that I had overcome and where my mind was hopefully heading not to mention the gratifications of all I had overcome without ended up in a loonie bin, yet.

I wiped the tears away and she of course told me, she wanted to see me again. Dear lord, go through this again. She was not going to get it out of me, not all of it anyways. The only reason I told her a few of the simpler devastations was to speed up the process. My thinking was, if I told her how my weight had effected my mental state of health, a few points, she would go ahead and make this entire process go by faster. Well, I was totally wrong. Not just one follow up appointment was booked but four. each within a few months of the other. In between, I would have to keep seeing the dietician to talk about food journals I was supposedly keeping and the right and wrong foods to eat. Well, I knew what those were already, temptation just never allowed me to follow through.

It was time for the fake journals to start. Another task added to my daily horrific days of busy madness and limited time. The appointments with the dietician were long. Again, lying and making up foods I never ate in hopes to speed up this process. I figured if I wrote down all the food I was eating to keep me swaying between the three hundred and fifty to three hundred and forty pound mark, they would see the problem and book me in for surgery right away. I had never lied so much in my whole life. My daily food journal consisted of high fatty foods at all hours of the day. Totally wrong way of life. What a mistake. Now that led to months of appointments in teachings of why I should’t do that and to be mindful of my food intake. This process was now becoming a game to me. If I had the twenty some thousand dollars it would cost to simply have the surgery, I would have paid for it and finished with it a long time ago. With our health care system it would be free if you complete the program. Naturally, why not right? This game is one I would win. What ever they asked me to do, I would do it, somewhat.

On my next dietician appointment, I altered the food intake I apparently was eating to satisfy her. I now made the journal look like a lot of food, somewhere between three and four thousand calories a day, so still significant but this time, healthier. Right? That should work right?

I almost omitted all the fat from the journal adding foods that were high in protein and lessened the carb intake. Perfect! See? Now I wanted them to see that my problem was not my food choices, it was that I couldn’t control how much of it I ate. All lies. My biggest real life issue was that I would go almost all day with hardly any food than by dinner time, I would be starving and eat for most the night into the wee hours of the morning. Chips and pop were my weakness. Of course doing that, I would just maintain my heavy weight. Up and down a few pounds all the time. Not really getting anywhere.

She analyzed the journal asking me so many specific questions that I had to make up answers for as none of it was really true anyways. I told her that being a chef, I had to sample and taste all the meals we had prepared which made it so tricky to write a journal. She didn’t seem to care much. She wanted every item listed and when it was consumed including all beverages.

The dietician made it clear to me that she was concerned I was overeating regardless of the fact that is was now healthier. This game was getting harder than I had suspected. Another three appointments were made months apart to keep up with me. I was so disheartened. Instead of hearing the words, “it looks like his surgery is going to be perfect for you, lets pass you and get this going”! Nope. “I will see you after six weeks and lets see how you have tried to manage you food intake ok”? Shit. I was mad. This fake food journaling was taking so much of my time. Trying to get it right. I couldn’t lie and put small amounts of food as they had requested because it would have to then show up in my weight when I weighed in with them. Every time. If I was eating smaller healthier amounts of food, why was my weight not decreasing? Shit. I was all out of angles. What I thought was going to be right was the complete opposite. It only set me back further.

In my mind, if I could just have the surgery, I would get my health back, my husband back and have a new outlook on my life which for real, was so true. Everything currently in my life, was very life threatening. I needed this surgery to save my marriage. I could never tell anyone that. If I had tried to lose weight the natural way with out it, I would lose my mind and marriage for sure. I had never been so desperate for something in all my life. Not a lottery win, nothing else would have saved me. I was going into 2018 with so many problems that needed fixing right away. I had to be patient. I had to remind myself that the only person that could change my life and my ways was me.

So I burned out in the lies at my psychology appointment, creating further appointments to be made, burned out with my dietician appointments trying to create the supposed meal plans they wanted adding more months of appointments. Now it was time for my diabetic nurse and blood sugar appointment. My A1C read very high in the latest bloodwork results she had. Again, wrongly, I thought the higher my sugar count, the quicker they may get me in for surgery to save my life. Um, that was worse. She relayed to me that the surgeon would NOT proceed with the surgery as long as my sugar was that high.

What the fuck. So. You mean to tell me that if I had a clear perfect mind, ate perfectly healthy and normal and had terrific blood sugar results that I would pass for surgery? If that was the case, then what the fuck was I doing here? Why the hell would I need to go through this program and why the fuck would I need surgery? Someone had to explain this to me and now! Nothing really confused me much in life to this extreme but this? Totally, royaly, absolutely, completely dumbfounded. Now what. Why? So you mean to tell me that all these overweight people, all these morbidly obese people having the surgery and are passed for surgery are completely healthy in the mind, body and spirit? Why the fuck were they here then too? Isn’t the reason to have this type of surgery done, would be to fix all of that? To get healthier? So people could have the perfect mindset, or somewhat one? To lose weight and be able to eat more properly? Would it not help my blood sugar levels if I had the surgery to a point of diminishing completely? Would everything not be CURED after surgery? I was not getting any answers. It felt like I was just getting the delayed run around. No wonder the waiting list for this surgery was so long. No wonder it would take over two years to have the surgery with unimaginable amounts of appointments and bloodwork. They had to always take so much blood out of me that I would feel sickened and dizzy. For a person never really keeping up with doctors and health stuff to having to be forced to commit to regular weekly appointments by not only the bariatric staff but also our regular family doctor and now an entire slew of endocrinologists, dermatologists to only name a few.

I was a stubborn girl. I expected things I should have never expected in this process. At the end of it all, my good state of mind said to me, “You wanted to start working on yourself right? You made a pact with yourself after looking in the mirror that horrible night before your bath. You said that the time way now. Make time for you. Screw everything and everyone else. Just do it because you really have no other choice”. Words to live by. My own words. See? I was not mentally challenged and unable to see things clearly. I just simply tried doing this the faster way but after finding out it was only severely delaying me, I decided to go with the flow and do what they wanted. There was no choice to be had here. I could choose the path I wanted to take at this moment. I knew the consequences of the right and wrong paths. I was far from stupid. It was a matter of my brain now following what my heart wants to do.

The still feelings of losing my husband again worried me as did many other things but I chose to stay on the path of healing and suffer those consequences if there were any to be had. If he left me through this process because he couldn’t wait, then so be it. It was going to happen and it was meant to be. If I was skinnier and more beautiful, I don’t think I would have a problem finding another love of my life. I knew there were plenty of wonderful men out there. I see and hear about them all the time. I had to leave my fate in God’s hands instead of guiding it myself. To choose me, my health was the way I wanted to go. The consequences for that path of course, seemed to be the best for me and all of those around me. I would get to live longer and healthier.

I began actually watching what I ate. Tried to eat throughout the day so I wouldn’t be starving. I was not considering myself on a diet. That would only make my mind always go to failure for anything I would eat that was unhealthy in any way. I attempted to just simply start somewhere and see as I go, the results of the small efforts. I had nothing but time with the bariatric clinic anyways. Many appointments for a long long time. The only thing I could still not manage to do was food journal. That was the truth. Being a chef, so many small bites of things to taste for spice consistency and flavor. How would I journal everything and the contents of the nutritional values of them in spoonful portions? It was more madness that ever but only this had to remain a lie with the clinic. I also knew that I would never open up with the psychologist. That would set me back way way more than any other patient in the clinic for sure.

It was none of their business what my past held. It did not effect me. I knew this for certain. I knew and no one had to tell me that I added weight to myself in hopes to deter my father from raping me daily. It didn’t work. I knew that I was an emotional eater but who wouldn’t be after all I had gone through? I knew many things and there was no way of fixing those things. It was like taking me back to the past to relive it all again and I was not going to do this. I worked long and hard on myself mentally to overcome many things in life. I didn’t need a doctor to help me rethink anything or fix it. It was already fixed the day he died. Even with the episodes that happened after, they were not within my control. It was just the luck of life and of course mainly, life’s lessons.

I was in a happier place from the past that was for sure so I went with that in our appointments. I told her I was receiving help now from many avenues so it was not all on my plate. A lie but the help received was from my mind and way of thinking. That was true. It seemed to work. She was happy and now booked followup appointments to keep up with this progress.

Patience hun, patience…. I let processes take me in the direction they were going without fussing about it anymore. As they say, “go with the flow”! I had never tried that before so why not give it a try now? I surly was not going to hurt any process here so it couldn’t go wrong. Right?