A snip

Things are still tough at work.  It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so demotivated and demoralised.  Which, in a way, is a good thing – the fact that it’s so sporadic.  Doesn’t help me for now though.  You never know what is around the corner though and I’m hoping that that corner will come up soon and that it will improve things for me.

So, Friday.  It was a very odd experience and again, really disappointing.  On the plus side, I did not cry.  I almost did but I managed not to.  So I’m proud of that.  The assessor was really nice – she even told me that I was doing the right things and it was very unfair.  One of the things you have to do to qualify for surgery is lose 5% of your current weight.  Given that I’m averaging 0.5-1lb a month, that is a tough thing to achieve.  And they’re clearly not keen on the band (preferring the bypass or the sleeve – both of which are much more radical in terms of surgery and in terms of permanence)  But it’s pretty much a moot point now – the waiting list is 1-2 years.  I don’t even know where I’ll be then.  Well, probably here but really, who knows.  When I was waiting to go in, there were a number of other people at various stages.  I was listening to ladies talking who were post-procedure, oooh they were moany.  There didn’t seem to be any appreciation of how lucky they were to get an expensive procedure for free.  The first woman, who was probably the largest lady I’ve ever seen, said she’d lost 10st – good for her, I thought!  But she went on in tones of aggrievement that since she’d had a hysterectomy, she’d not lost a lb, she then got quite aggressive about not being told about this, not seeing the same person every time she came and she “wanted some answers”.  Lady 2 said she had no complaints about the medical team – then went on to say that she still eats McDonaldses (I hear “McDonaldses” quite a lot and it’s irritating beyond belief).  Oh yes, said lady 1, in tones of ‘well, duh’, she still ate McDonalds too, of course.  Then lady 2 went on to say that she hadn’t followed the advice post-op (you’re supposed to be on liquid for a week, then puree for 1-2 weeks, then mushy food for 1-2 weeks).  Oh no, she said, who’s going to puree a roast dinner?  She isn’t a baby, why would she eat puree.  Lady 1: “Do you like fish?”, Lady 2: “Yeah, in batter”.  Those women have stopped or delayed people who might have taken it all a bit more seriously – it’s an abuse of privilege.  I feel really sorry for the medical team lady 1 was clearly going to tear a strip off too, she clearly didn’t feel she should have to do anything.

Anyway, I shall, I guess, pootle along the process but there are several thing that, I think, is likely to mean it is not to be.  First is the wait: I know that nothing is likely to have changed before then (I wish I felt otherwise) except feeling more desperate – and I’m not sure how much more desperate I can feel without imploding.  Second is the actual process – the team carried out around just over 160 of each of the two other types of surgery but only 3 bands.  This makes me nervous both in terms of familiarity with that op but also in being steered strongly towards the more radical types of surgery.  Thirdly, the ongoing maintenance would be an issue.  And I think this touches on point two.  The sleeve and the bypass are both longer ops with more recovery time but little is required in terms of ongoing care.  With the band, you have to have it filled up a bit (or unfilled) – a process that initially takes quite a bit of fiddling to get right and thereafter probably monthly to 6 weekly adjustments.  So more labour intensive from a medical perspective.  And of course, it’s difficult to get an appointment and it will invariably be at tricky times of the day.

I had read about a company that offers it privately.  They have good reviews, they do a lot of bands so the expertise is kept constantly up-to-date, they do the op in 45 mins and you can go home that day as long as there are no complications and I could go for fills after work or on a Saturday (I believe).  But of course it depends how much it costs.  I suspect (and it’s kind of an educated guess) it’s about £8k.  This is a lot.  I would have to get a loan to pay back over 5 years.  But at this stage, I don’t know what else to do.  I will go for a consultation I guess and see how I feel after that.  It’s hard to think when a ‘good time’ is for doing this too, not too close to when we go on holiday in mid September and I think I would be very sad to do it so I was on mush at Christmas.  Meagre portions I am absolutely resigned too, but sitting at a table with a bowl of mush whilst other people enjoyed Christmas lunch, would be very hard.  And tricky to manage on the secrecy front too.

Still here

You probably thought I’d gone again, dear Reader – I wouldn’t blame you.  I’ve just had a really busy couple of weeks at work (our busiest time).  I’m also feeling particularly low which brings with it a kind of apathy that means I do the bare minimum of social engaging. 

I had my work evaluation yesterday.  I know I do a good job, and I’ve had effusive (written) praise from the top of the organisation, I have a manager whose style is more stick than carrot.  She knows I’ve applied for another job that is a little more senior than my current role (for a different organisation) and essentially told me I wasn’t up to it.  Apparently I not only need to do my job well, which she reluctantly agreed, but also to “find something every day to do that benefits the organisation”.  “Every day” I queried, incredulous.  Not every day she conceded, but often.  It’s not enough to work to a high standard and they will – apparently – expect more.  I spent the whole of Easter working on my application.  I thought it was a long-shot but now I feel that if I get an interview, it’s pointless putting myself through it. 

This woman is my friend – I alerted her to a job here and helped her to get through the interview.  She was having a horrible time in her previous job and I buoyed her up, told her that it was them, not her and that she should go somewhere where she would be valued.  I know she has to do her job, but she acknowledges – if pushed – that I do a good job.  Just not good enough, apparently.  She has a friend who is very senior at the organisation I have applied to.  She’s too senior to be involved in the application I’ve made – but of course it matters.  They had two jobs a bit below what I’m doing now.  I wish I’d applied for those.

It’s particularly exasperating as there is someone in our small team who is that higher grade already – and she is one of the most useless individuals I have ever encountered.  She shunts her work on to more junior members of the team, seems to do very little but is quick to try and blame others for her mistakes.  My manager – her manager – seems to do nothing to tackle the poor performance.  I honestly can’t understand it and the comparison stings.

I was useless afterwards – luckily it was late afternoon.  I managed not to cry – or at least I had a small, private weep in the loos.  I went home and told P, who was furious.  I knew he was furious for me, but it manifested itself in being furious with me.  He called me a wuss, spineless and a coward.  I am not sure what I could have done.  And yes, I am those things, but it really didn’t help.

So, after 4 hours sleep, I’m back at my desk, feeling as if it’s a supreme effort of will not to just bolt for home, trying to act as if I’m okay for my team.  Today cannot go quickly enough.

And tomorrow I’m off.  Not for a fun reason, but to spend a day being evaluated for weight loss surgery.  I don’t rate my chances of not crying at frequent intervals.  My resilience is paper thin at the moment.  I’ve done all the form (it really was a super fun Easter) and of course I’ll go but it just seems exhausting.

In other weight loss news (and it IS supposed to be a weight loss blog after all) I lost 0.5lb last week and put on 0.5lb the previous week.  So, that’s going swimmingly. 

Hopefully I’ll be less gloomy next time I post.  And will have some interesting things to tell you about the assessment day.  Until then, then.

Pasta la vista, baby

Numbers have never been my friend.  If there’s a god of maths, he hates me.  I think I have dyscalculia as I find it hard to see groups of numbers more than four digits long, they sort of dance about and I’m likely to switch them around when writing them down, unless I’m very, very careful.

What’s that got to do with anything? I hear you cry, dear Reader.  Well, numbers controlled by Scales of Doom have had the power to ruin my weeks since time immemorial. 

Did I tell you I was diagnosed with diabetes about three years ago?  Well, my blood test result for my 2^nd year showed that, with medication, I no longer had it.  I’ve just had my results for this year.  To put it in context – with medication they hope to get your blood sugar after fasting to 43 (no idea 43 whats).  Last year I was 40.  This year I was 100.  Shocking, eh?  Well, I was shocked.  I sat down and thought about what it might be: firstly, my diabetes tracks my weight (which is why my specialist is keen for me to have surgery) and I think I’ve probably put on a stone or even a stone and a half since last year.  Secondly, I have allowed carbs to creep back in.  I think the one that’s probably the biggest problem is pasta.  I like pasta generally.  I like rice but I’m a bit more fussy.  I’m even more fussy about bread.  I eat potatoes infrequently.  But pasta is so easy.  And two of my comfort food dishes are pasta – both made by P, carbonara and spaghetti with meatballs and spicy tomatoes.  I also make a pretty good crab linguine.  

Last year I did monitor my blood sugar levels with a kit I’d bought myself and was ticked off quite unpleasantly by the GP: I had no business doing this, apparently.  But if I had been able to carry on, as I told the (different) GP today, I might have spotted the rise in my blood sugar before a full year passed.  They’re still not keen but I probably need to do it, even if I buy the expensive testing strips myself.  People in the know say you should test first thing in the morning and then before and after every meal (two hours after each meal – but some people also do three hours!).  I’d whip through those strips alright.  And that’s if I remember to do this.  The fasting one is easy to remember – less so, the others.

In other numeric news, I lost precisely 0lb last week.  The last week I lost 1.5lb.  So my usual breakneck whipping through the numbers on the way down.  The site I use says I lose 0.5-1lb a month on average.

My life is governed by numbers.

Read all about it

Today there is a story in the Times about gastric sleeve surgery.  A London hospital has developed a way to complete the operation in a day in some cases.  Meaning the patient would be in theatre at 8am and allowed to go home, barring some complication, at 4.30pm.  The surgeon pointed out how much more pleasant and less stressful it would be to recover at home.  They carried out the first such operation in January.

I know a bit about the media and my advice and my mantra is ‘do not read below the line’.  But I did.  You do not necessarily get a better class of commenter in a broadsheet than, say, the Mail.  Okay, that’s not true.  But you don’t get a more considered post, that’s for sure.

Everyone had an opinion and the general consensus was that fat people are lazy and greedy, why should they (the commenters) have to pay for their surgery (presumably not directly) when it’s easy when you restrict calories.  Or follow Atkins.  Or go to the gym every day.  Or stop stuffing your face with fast food. Or “Fat lumps could save up by not buying tons of pies, cakes, beer and chocolate” and pay for their own surgery.  One man commented that girls in the UK are too fat and men should demand more (not more girl, presumably).  He even commented that gastric bands should go around their necks.  Nice.  Better dead than fat, eh?

These are invariably accompanied by pictures of woman busting out of their jeans and/or eating a burger.  I have a horror that one day I will see myself there.  Because you can be sure that those women were not asked for their permission.

You can see why (if it goes ahead) I won’t be telling anyone except my husband and you, dear Reader, about my op.  My boss knows that I probably have to have an “embarrassing op” and we’ve agreed she doesn’t need to know.  I said I’d rather use leave to convalesce than have to discuss something so personal.  And my experience with Lighter Life has taught me how very unobservant people are.  No-one noticed anything until I’d lost a couple of stone.  And no-one noticed that I didn’t eat.  My boss now has more of a gimlet eye – she commented that I was eating my breakfast (Greek yoghurt, raspberries and carb free granola, fact fans) later than usual.  So maybe this will be trickier. But that’s the least of my worries – I have no idea what the waiting time is likely to be.  And I will have to make my case for a band, compared to the sleeve or bypass.  But before that I have an enormous form to fill out.  It must be 30+ pages.  No doubt I will put it off to the evening before.

Clothes

I have written before about this but it’s a consistent problem for me – in many ways.

1. Special events: we went to a black tie party at the weekend, to celebrate friends’ recent wedding abroad.  I found this so traumatic that I was actually shaking.  I had a dress that was about as good as it was going to get for me – but a) it was gold and full length and b) well, it was on me.  I prefer to be better camouflaged but just generally, having to dress up is really stressful.  I wish I could enjoy it but I don’t.  I look forward to things – right up until the moment I’m seized with panic about meeting new people and having to dress up.

2. Lack of clothes: I have many clothes in different sizes (almost all smaller sizes than I am).  And I continue to be an idiot optimist: every time I pack away seasonal clothes, I tell myself that maybe next year they’ll be too big for me.  They never are, they are only too small for me.  I have things with the tag still on that I intend to downsize into (is this only a housing term?  Well, I’m the size of a house so…).  I never seem to learn from my own history

3. Dressing differently: as above with the gold dress, I caught sight of myself togged up for the “snowmageddon” . Skinny jeans so I could wear my leather wellies and my parka (and obviously a thermal top, jumper and two pairs of socks).  I looked unbelievably dumpy and distinctly bag-ladyish.  

4. Being a wuss:  I order things and then I don’t try them on.  Which, of course, means I don’t send them back.  I’m just too afraid they’re not going to fit and will look awful so I put it off and put it off.

I think it’s partly that I have learnt to get dressed and even put on make-up without looking at myself in the mirror.  Something that breaks that trend, forces me into looking and really seeing - and it’s upsetting.  I feel like I should carry a card to give to people – or a banner – to apologise for polluting their vision.  That’s how bad it’s got.

Also, I am beginning to find more and more that being in public is stressful.  I can deal with being at work (just), but even going out for supper with my team I find really difficult and upsetting.  And I go home feeling awful about myself.  P asked me if I thought I was becoming reclusive and more and more introverted.  I can see his point.  I am okay with maybe one other couple (and even then it depends where, eg I went to a club (not the dancing kind) in trendy Shoreditch a couple of years ago and found it so upsetting I cried silently in a taxi all the way home.  

Clothes are my enemy – but obviously the other option is even worse.  I want to buy something that makes me happy – but I’m a few stone off that.  I need this op and quickly.

Mind the Gap

July 2017 – February 2018: that’s quite a gap.  Apart from trying and failing to lose weight, in this time I have had a holiday to North Cyprus (not at ALL what I expected – lots of men settling to escape extradition.  Chunky gold jewellery and moaning about the bacon/useless locals not being able to make Yorkshire pudding properly).  

Also: Qatar – just back from there.  We went for some winter sun.  Which we got, but there isn’t an awful lot to see and it is VERY expensive. 

I am a stone heavier now than I was in Cyprus in September.  My weight goes up when I stop being vigilant – and then I STS when I am being vigilant.  You’ll note that what is missing from this is the (cue angel choirs and streamers) losing weight option.  Oh, how I want the losses.  I think I’m losing on average 0.5 – 1lb a month.  I know this because I weigh most days and record it. I am a stone heavier than when I started LighterLife.  My confidence, self-esteem and zest for life is rock bottom. 

As Seren wisely commented, the numbers on the Scales of Doom have the power to ruin or make your week.  I would love to make peace with SoD and to have consistent losses.  This is what I’d hope to achieve by the band.  I put the work in, the band helps me and I get a reward from SoD.

You won’t be surprised to learn that there was no use of the expensive tankini I bought for Jordan in either Cyprus or Qatar.  I am not sure it would have fit but I certainly wasn’t going to find that out.  I feel sad for myself that I cannot, dare not, get in the pool or the sea.  I know physically I could – but I would be so distressed that, in reality, I couldn’t.  Sometimes I feel like the opportunities are slipping through my hands and I am wasting my life.  Sometimes I don’t care and just want to hide away and let the world pass me by.

Finally, Lana Bump – I have tried eleventy thousand times to respond to your comment but, for a baffling reason, it won’t let me.  This is what I typed:

“Thank you for your support – it means a lot.  And you’re quite right about that vicious circle, it’s, well…vicious”

The latest chapter

I am resuscitating this corpse of a blog.  Or, rather, an online diary by this point as I last updated it in July of last year!

I stopped posting as I was boring myself.  Same old struggles, same old lack of progress, same old heartbreak.  But now I have a reason to document the next year or so (I hope).

My specialist has been talking for a few years now about whether I’d be prepared to consider bariatric surgery and I’ve always said no.  Until May this year when I said I would (consider it).  I then went away and did quite a bit of research.

I was initially attracted to the bypass option – purely and simply because you lose the most weight that way (something like 78-80% of excess weight lost).  I talked to P about it whilst we were off on holiday last week (Qatar – tried using my Arabic but everyone in a service job was from other countries (mainly the Philippines)).  He was concerned about the irreversibility of it.  I took his point.  

So I started looking at the band.  It’s less invasive and I’d be back at work sooner.  Typically it says around 50% of excess weight is lost.  Tbh, whilst I’d like to lose a lot more, as the advert says, every little helps.  Plus, although it may sound trivial, I think you’re not supposed to drink with or after eating with the bypass - I didn’t take my wine exams to never drink again. I can give it up for a period of time but not forever. 

But it all depends – of course – on what the surgeon says.  I have two appointments in April.  One with the nurse (and I think – although it’s not clear) that that’s a series of appointments over the whole day.  Then a couple of weeks later with the surgeon.  There is a lot of form filling to be done before then – it is really depressing me.  It’s forcing me to remember all the lows (in mood rather than scales – although there’s certainly an inverse relationship there) – I’m struggling to keep myself above the sucking waters of depression as it is, this is pulling me down further.

I intend to tell no-one about this (if it does happen): just my husband and you dear (probably given up) Reader.  I do think there’s a concept of ‘cheating’ with it by people who haven’t given it much thought.  I read an excellent blog of a lady who went through this: she repeated what her clinical team had told her, which also chimed with her experience, that the band helps you by approximately 30% and the remaining 70% has to come from you.  It seems that you have an initial big loss (akin to Lighterlife you lose approximately a stone a month for the first three months) and then it’s 1-2lbs a week.  You see, that would be fine for me – working to lose maybe half a stone a month (especially after the bigger loss).  What has felled me in the past is when the losses just stop, despite the effort I put in.  Then it turns into a vicious circle.  When I’m getting results, I find it much easier to stick to.  I know that’s twisted. If I were more steely I would be all the more determined. I fear I am not a woman of substance. Although of course I am a substantial woman.