The Morning After – Whose Journey is This Anyway?

I led a sheltered life. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I’ve never had the opportunity to wake after “tying one on” royally and wonder whose head was laying on the pillow next to mine. Until now.


Sorry for the drought in this blog. When I'm going through something, I never quite know what to say, but I always catch you all up eventually.

You ever wake up and go what the ___? I’m still at “heck,” but the blank is getting hotter every second.

For nine months now, I’ve been on a journey to wellness. I was never fond of the idea of weight loss surgery and I wasn’t excited about lap band surgery because of my need for a size 9 jeans. I was told that my weight was standing in the way between my baby and her healthy mommy. I had scary, painful ovarian masses and I embarked on this journey as my “get out of pain free” card when the day finally came that I needed to be smaller to address those issues.

I’ll give my weight loss journey one thing, it went well and I don’t regret having an adjustable gastric banding or lap band surgery. I had lost almost 80 pounds in eight months before I started yo-yoing back and forward between the same 10 pounds. My new lap band life is full of great food and cool new experiments in the kitchen. I don’t feel deprived, but I have put a lot of me into making there be less of me.


At nearly 350 pounds, I was told that I wasn’t a good candidate for major surgery to remove my much-tattered plumbing. A psycharitrist told me it didn’t make much sense to him that I was having one surgery because I couldn’t have another surgery. I agreed with him, but I told him there were no other emotional pullings for me. I didn’t feel ugly or dumb or unwanted. My husband loved all 300 plus pounds of me and I was possibly the most egotistical “fat chick” in America. I added that God gave me one surviving baby, Cecilia Grace, and this surgery was what I needed to make sure I could be there for her until she could take care of herself.

Cecilia has always been my motivation. Those masses could be harmless pains in the butt, or maybe not. I decided if 150 pounds had to go so I would never be the fat woman allowed to suffer an early death, so be it.

So I had a very major surgery ... and then another ... and then another/another (same week) ... and then another ... and then another. Every “another” isn’t related lap band surgery. Please, please note that. My surgeries aren’t complications to weight loss surgery. But I had one surgery to avoid risky surgery and had FIVE more after that.

Ya think I’m bitter? Read on.....I’m pleasant so far.

Last week while recovery from my fifth surgery since my lap band, I began having an overwhelming pain on the other side of my body than the recent issue. I inquired about those pesky masses and found that one had grown to more than 8 cm. Sounded kinda big and painful since it was 5 cm only two months and one surgery ago.

I reached down for my virtual “get out of pain free” card and laid it on the counter. Now, I’m curled up in a ball at this point, but the ball is 80 pounds less of a ball than before. Surely, there will be no question of what needs to be done since I have surgeries more than I perm my hair.

I got bumped around to a few offices as most of my doctors gave the “we don’t do that” reply. Finally, I was back to the folks who “do that” if that is surgically remove masses that may or may not involve cancer of the reproductive organs.

The answer came in a couple of hours.... drum roll pleeze... “Dr. __ doesn’t feel like it’s that much bigger than it was this time last year. He’ll see you in two months.”

To my pain, they added, “you 'did' just have surgery, didn’t you.” To my weight loss, they added, “Your weight would have never meant a difference to us. We’ve done this surgery on larger people.”

So, here I sit in the middle of the night, listening to Cecilia Grace’s sleep sounds whistle through her pacifier. I’m wondering how I ever let someone sell me the “it may all resolve itself after you lose weight” sack of crap. This is HER journey, not mine. I hope she and her lap band have a long and happy life. Fact is, some things in life can’t be weighed and measured by a scale and a BMI.

And now that I my journey to wellness and freedom from pain doesn’t involve this lap band what do I do with this strange bedfellow? My motivation begins and ends with my child and doing what’s best for her. I think what’s best for her is an all-out assault on my real health issues.

If you have your ears on, tell me, where does this journey fit into my life and do I have the luxury to continue this fight?