On the 21st September in 1998, at the age of 25, I was born.
You get one birthday, I get two. I celebrate the day I came into the world on 20th October, and I celebrate the day I chose to try a way of staying in this world on 21st September.
That was the day I had my weight loss surgery.
One night I was sitting in my living room, eating my usual big bowl of dinner, and a segment came on A Current Affair about a revolutionary weight loss procedure that was about to launch in Australia to give Aussie folk an option to shed unwanted kilos. Without even a second of deliberation, I picked up pen and paper and wrote down all the details and the very next morning I went in and saw my GP to get a referral to some surgeons.
My mum is a nurse with many years of hospital work under her belt so whenever I need anything medical I always consult with her first. I showed her my list and she crossed off some names which she knew had less than desirable results and behaviours as surgeons until we narrowed it down to one: Tony Kierath. So I called my GP back and got him to send off my notes to Dr Kieraths surgery. Within a few days I found myself happily waiting in the reception room, eager to talk to the person who I would hope would change my life.
And change it he did!
It wasn't an overnight process by any means. The procedure is expensive and I was a minimum wage worker on top of being a 20-something with no idea on saving and already being quite in debt with stupid jaunts on credit cards. So in order to afford this I had to take up private health insurance (something I had stupidly dropped like a year previously when I was sent off my parents family policy) and wait the 12 month standard waiting period for pre-existing conditions. On top of that was a $1,200 gap and my wonderful grandmother offered to pay it for me. I think she knew the importance of this, I think she knew this was the difference between life and death. I am forever grateful to her for this gift she gave me. She was never one to hold back on offering financial assistance when it was needed, a hard working lady that underneath a massively rough and tough exterior was as generous, kind, and loving as they get. That year was the longest and most torturous year of my life. Waiting for my change. Waiting for my chance at life. Living in absolute sheer misery and waiting for a chance that it might end - either way. In that year my weight ballooned from 112 kilos to 120kilos by the time my procedure day arrived. I often wonder what I would weight now had the surgery not been an option. I think Gilbert Grapes mum comes to mind.
I don't have many photos at all from my bigger years, this was way before mobile phones or digital cameras, and I would shy away from being photographed because I felt revolting and didn't want to see that.
Let me get this one thing straight, many obese people have said to me that they won't have weight loss surgery because they are scared of anasthetic or scared of complications, going under the knife, scared of dying on the table or after that from serious repurcussions or the difficulties of living with the finniky conditions. For me there was absolutely no question about having that surgery, because in my mind I was already dead. What risks are there to someone who is already dead? None. This surgery was not a risk of death it was a chance of life. I knew that if my obesity didn't kill me, my already damaged frame of mind which was exacerbated from living as an obese person in a society where 'thin is everything' definitely would. I hoped that medical conditions would beat me to it because I'm a chicken and I found it really daunting to take that step. I was worried I would fail my attempt and be left brain dead or left with damaged organs and have to live a life worse than I was already living. But every day I woke up disappointed that my eyes had opened from another sleep, I wished I could just drift off forever and not have to deal with another day in this shitty world.
I recently was told by a distraught mother that her son had commenced a new medication for ADHD and it had severe effects where he started feeling suicidal and vocalised his thoughts of wishing to be dead to her. She was so beside herself because for a mum to hear this from a child must be the most terrible thing. I sympathised with her and told her how awful that was. But on the inside I wondered what it would be like to be a person who lived the life she was living where thoughts of suicide were abnormal. I do not remember a day in my life ever, not even as a child, where that wasnt a normal every day thought. I thought how lucky that little boy was that all he had to do was stop taking his meds and that frame of mind would disappear. Even now, as I write this, I know my life is really pretty bloody awesome and I have a lot to be grateful for and happy about, but to be honest it would be so much of a relief to just not be here. I grew up feeling jealous when someone died. In the late 80's there were two incidences of teenage girls my age dying of asthma attacks. I was jealous as hell, I was angry at the gods (I still believed back then). Why would that take these people who wanted to be here and who would be missed, when I was willing to go? My asthma was shockingly bad and yet with as much suffering it gave me it never took me, just made me keep suffering and suffering, attack after attack. Ghasping for breath like a fucking helpless junk fish that a fisherman threw on the sandy banks of the river because it wasn't worth throwing back in the water. Flopping around, eyes bulging, fins flapping, mouth opening wider and wider like that was going to help get in extra oxygen. And yet here I am. I got through every episode. What was the deciding factor between them dying and me surviving? Was there a God and was he/she some kind of sick fucked up joker? Who knows. Even now, I hear of a death and think to myself how lucky they are that they don't have to deal with this shit anymore. I don't know, maybe that is a normal feeling, it could be, but no one ever admits to it.
Anyways, I kind of digress but I suppose it is important for you to understand my mindset if you are to understand why opting for surgery was something I didn't hesitate about. When people asked me if I was worried about surgery (of patients who experience complications, 1/3 are obese and nearly 15% are morbidly obese) i responded with "I was ready to die on that operating table trying rather than live one more day in the life I was living". And that was that. As it was, due to a major event in my childhood there was the belief that I was allergic to general anasthetic. For many years I wore a medic alert bracelet for this in case I was in an accident. The lap band anaethatist asked me to get my notes from Princess Margaret Hospital Records so he could prepare and make sure he didn't use the same anasthetic, when we dug up the records it was revealed that I wasn't allergic, we were lied to when I was a kid and my anaethatist had overventilated me which caused the double lung collapse and my subsequent weeks in intensive care where i nearly died. My mum was extremely angry to find out about how we were lied to all these years, but relieved that I was not allergic to anasthetic for upcoming surgery.
It was hard to be young and feel young when back in those days the big size clothing was designed for old people. I really wish there were the beautiful labels back then that are around now. I remember the hard thing for me was not being able to dress how I wanted, my sense of expression was taken away for a really long time. I love to dress flamboyant, this was not possible.
I remember the day I packed my bags and went to Glengarry Hospital for my procedure, it was exciting, I was so eager to get there. I also remember the day before very clearly because when you have a weight loss procedure you have a very strict and bland diet to follow for the month afterwards. So leading up to it you tend to pig out on all of your favourite foods. I remember making a bacon butty that had a whole pack of bacon in it. I remember eating a whole party pack size bag of chips, a block of chocolate, all the things that I loved and would be giving up for a while. My best friends in life. Glengarry is an old hospital but it is also very beautiful inside, nothing like any public hospital I had seen. My room was amazing, it was a private room with a neat little courtyard attached. I wasn't worried about the upcoming surgery, I think I was more focussed on the feeling of fasting and thinking about the weeks ahead of liquid diet then mush diet.
After some hours of waiting, my time came. I showered with the chlorhexidine wash, popped on my paper undies, paper hat to cover my hair, cotton wrap, and hopped into bed. The orderly came in and wheeled me to the surgery waiting area. There the nerves did kick in as I thought about all those nightmare horror stories of people waking during an anasthetic but not enough to say they were awake but just enough so they could feel what was going on. That was a terrifying thought. The pre-med drugs started kicking in and that settled my nerves somewhat and made me drowsy. Then they wheeled me into the surgery which is a big white, empty and clinical looking room with just a bed in the middle and a big light hanging over it from the ceiling. They shifted me from my bed to the cold, skinny, hard operating table and covered me with a heated blanket. They then put in my drip bung (never a pleasant feeling), next came the anasthetic. I have now had many anasthetics in my time, some injectable and some gas, this particular one was gas, my first one as an adult and quite an experience. A big black mask gets put over your nose and mouth, it seems thick and rubbery. You are lying there wrapped in fear and it looks like it is bigger than your face as the big black form slowly comes at you with the anaethatists gloved hand holding it. The nurse tells you that you will be fine, she sees your tears, the anaethatists tells you to breathe normally and count to 3. You breathe in the funny smelling gas that is mixed with the smell of rubber, and as you do this you start counting.
you feel your head start to spin, you kinda feel 'high'. This is actually quite a nice sensation, I imagine it to be how a junkie feels when they have a hit of heroin
you fight to keep your eyes open so you can feel this wierd sensation for longer. You feel your eyeballs rolling around, blinking gets heavier and longer, the room starts to sway like you are looking at it through a ship porthole on a really choppy day...
You don't even make it to 3. By then you are out like a light. Blackness. No more thoughts.
My next memory was waking up, I couldn't breathe, I was that junk fish flapping about the sandy bank ghasping for air again. I remember a commotion in the room, I remember a nurse putting a nebuliser over my face, I remember it being late at night and her telling my mum she was asigned to sit by my bed throughout the whole night to monitor my asthma. I fell asleep again, waking a few more times through the night with asthma and having more neb masks put over my face then drifting off again. Feeling the pain of my surgery site, and groaning, until the nurse put more pain relief into my IV drip line.
The next day was pain and discomfort but I didn't care, my chance at a new life had begun. I spent the week in hospital. The worst part in my memory is that of any hospital visit, the pain of heparin injections every day. On the 3rd day when the nurse came in to give me my heparin shot I asked if it was nesessary. She said it was until I was out of bed moving around fully myself. If there was ever incentive to get up and atem that was it. I made an effort to be up and moving in no time. Out after 5 nights on a Saturday and returning home to my flat for recovery. I lived on my own in a small 2 bedroom flat with my 3 ferrets.
A few days later an offensive odour started rising from my wound dressings. I called my mum, she popped over and took it off. There was a load of puss and mess, it was a wound breakdown. YUK! A trip to the doctor and my external stitches were cut and the necrotic tissue removed. From then on I had about 10 weeks of stuffing the wound daily with alginate and then applying absorbent and waterproof dressings, then removing all the dressings the next day, pulling out the old alginate and stuffing in new ones. If you have ever seen the price of all these dressings you will know how bloody expensive they are. I was so lucky to have an Aunt who was a silver chain nurse that was able to supply me for free with samples and off cuts, otherwise it would have sent me to the cleaners. I wish it was the era of mobile phones and cameras so I had some pictures of what an absolute mess this was but all I have are my very clear memories. I went into a very dark depression. I regretted my decision because at that point in time my life was worse than before the surgery. I was only allowed to drink clear fluids (the band needed time to settle into place) so my usual crutch - food- was absent from my life, I was still in pain and healing, and I had this gaping 20cm x 5cm hole in my abdomen that looked hideous. Things were dark indeed.
As time went by my wound healed up nicely and as I progressed from clear fluids, to thick soup with no lumps, to puree food, to soft food, and then to normal foods, I returned to my doctor for check ups and weigh ins. By Christmas I remember feeling like I was looking fabulous! I had already shifted about 15 kilos. Things were looking up.
It took about three years in total to lose 2/3 of the weight I wanted to lose. In that time I also had further complications with the band and had it operated on and replaced three times, twice for it slipping and once for a pocket forming. Luckily my surgeon just removed the old band and popped in a new one within the same surgery, something I now know no other surgeon does (they all like to get their double fees for two procedures). The last revision I had was for the pocket back in 2001. I had started getting really dizzy and passed out at work so was sent to the doc. A blood test revealed extremely low iron and a barrium meal scan revealed a pocket had formed above the band that had ulcerated and was bleeding internally. I had gotten used to living like a zombie slowly over many months so this decline in health was unnoticed by me, i just thought that getting skinny came with having no energy because you are eating less. I was very very sick. This was when I developed and addiction to codeine because for so long I was trying to eradicate the severe headaches I was experiencing which ended up being from the low iron levels. But when my lap band was fixed and my iron returned to normal if I didn't take the panadeine I would get really terrible body aches, so to stop the pain I would then take it again. I worked out the corellation and ended up spending a few days and nights in a horrible state of cold turkey and withdrawals, the worst pain ever, the whole body is cramping and burning and there is nothing you can do to take your mind off it. Now I only take codeine sporadically - if I am in intense pain, and never for more than one day, I wont take it two in a row. The strangest thing I remember back then was I had strong cravings for pate` which is something I don't even like. I was eating pate` all the time, I couldn't get enough of it. Now I know it was my body telling me I was iron deficient and seeking some iron intake. I also had this wierd compulsion to chew ice cubes all the time. A man at work (Adrain, from Bunnings) told me I might be low in iron as the urge to chew ice is a sign of that. At the time I thought him eccentric (he was a quirky feller) and ignored it. Turned out I realised after my diagnosis that he was spot on. Have never heard that since but it always sticks in my mind. When I get the craving to chew Ice I make sure I have lots of iron rich foods.
In this time of change I lost a relationship. You hear this as a common thing when obese people lose weight. I have even heard people tell me they don't want to lose weight for fear of it affecting their relationships. People mostly assume it is because you are with someone who is attracted to big people and you are no longer big, but it also affects your relationships because so much more about you changes along with your size. I was with a lovely man (Guy) for around 6 years while I was obese. We met when I was 19 and I was 25 when I had the surgery. He was a sweetheart, a good, hard working, caring bloke, but he was the 'knight in shining armour' type, I think he liked to rescue, to feel needed, and boy he found himself a great project in me. I am so grateful for him being in my life while he was as he did indeed save me. I think during those obese years the only thing that kept me (somewhat) going was knowing that he loved me. I didn't make it easy for him, I was a complete and utter nut case. I was so low and so lacking in any self esteem & respect it was ridiculous. That didn't manifest so much as sadness, it manifested as a nasty, spiteful, and hateful person who wanted everyone around her to feel as shitty about the world as she did. I hated life so lets make sure everyone around me does too by being as shitty to them as possible, make them miserable. I was terrible with money, I found ways to spend money I didnt have and was always being chased up by debitors, I found solice in cigarettes, I cheated on him, not because he was lacking in anything, more to convince myself I could still attract attention. I flirted to draw someones attention in and then felt disgust in myself for doing so and was disgusted in any man who showed interest in me because in my eyes they must be one of those fucked up fat-fetish wierdos and how could any normal person like me. It was such a warped vicious circle.
Funnily enough, it was when the majority of my weight started to shift and I started to evolve into the person I was to become that we parted ways. Why, just as I was becoming a better person physically and emotionally, would he leave now? I found that really difficult to understand and found it hard to let go. But I look back now and see that it was because I no longer needed him. Oh I definitely wanted him, he was an amazing guy, but my clinging need to be taken care of was diminishing and my desire to explore this new life was strong so I think we evolved in separate ways as he realised my independence was growing. We remained friends for a while, but that fell apart when he found himself another person to 'save'. I was so angry at first, I couldn't understand why just as I was 'coming good' he moved on, but looking back I see fate steered both of us in the right directions. I have bumped into him and his partner from time to time since then, they married, they had a kid, and from what I have seen they have had many years of happiness together which is a really wonderful thing. Who I am now would in no way shape or form suit the lifestyle he was destined to live and visa versa. But to this day I am glad he was around while he was. I don't think I would be here if it weren't for him. I have heard of people not wanting to lose weight for fear of it affecting their relationship, but seriously, anyone who loves you and is on the same life path as you will still be there on the other side. And if they are not, then there is someone else out there who will be a great partner for the new you, or perhaps your new destiny is going it without anyone. That is a great path for some people too. Don't let those stupid fairytales lead you to believe that there is only ever one true love. I think that some of us have more than one, and that we have different phases in our life where we need people with completely different attributes to take that journey with. I have had four. He was the second one after my first one (the highschool sweetheart), there was one more to follow, and I am now married to my greatest and what I hope to be my last. I think what I learnt from each relationship and the memories made were needed for me to fulfill my own life ventures for the future. None of them were worth me opting not to have the surgery for, I did that for me.
Guy saved me and was the perfect partner I needed to get me through those harrowing years. But as the lap-band worked, I changed, and we parted ways. I will always be grateful for him being there when I needed someone like him. But I am also very glad that my life took me on a whole new adventure in a different direction and that I am where I am now.
I never hid that I had a weightloss surgery. On the contrary, I was very vocal about it. I was enjoying the weight falling off and thought it my job to share that with others so if they were feeling the way I used to feel about being obese then I could let them know there were surgical options available and they could talk to me about it. I'm generally a very open and honest person anyways, it never really occurred to me to keep the surgery to myself, but down the track (after the age of social media) I did come across a great deal of people who had weight loss procedures and didn't tell anyone, some even lying saying they were working out and dieting. That never sat well with me. But over time I found out why they chose to keep it to themselves, the general public are a judgemental bunch. They judge you for being fat, then they judge you for having weight loss surgery, and then when I lost the weight I was judged for being thin. You can't win apparently.
Some of the things I have been hearing for the 22 years that I have talked about my band are pretty standard:
1) you took the easy way out
2) why didn't you just diet and exercise instead?
3) you cheated
4) you're lazy
5) I would rather do it the right way
Whilst sometimes these comments get to me, other times I can easily fob them off. I suppose it depends on who it comes from and my frame of mind at the time, if im feeling vulnerable or if I just don't give a shit. You know, the funny thing is that I can't for the life of me imagine why someone would think that weight loss surgery is a negative way of going about it, I mean shouldn't they just be happy for someone that they lost the weight, regardless of how, and shouldn't they be happy that the person is now healthier and less draining on their tax payers dollars in medicare health costs? And those very same people that judge it are the same ones who also judge you for being fat. So what do they want from you? I don't know, perhaps they want to see you suffering whilst you do laps around the oval and end the day eating your undressed lettuce salad. And then they are the same ones who laugh at you being the sweatting fat heffer waddling down the road or in the gym as you exercise. If only they knew how damn hard it is to manage your new life after surgery, 'easy way out'? no fucking way!!!!!!!!! This is the hardest thing I have ever had to work with, and continues to be to this day, which is why when they claim it is the easy way out I want to slap them in the face, with a bat, named Lucille. But despite the difficulty, it is SO worth it.
The irony is that a lot of people I know who have had a weight loss surgery and managed to get down to their goal weight have ended up quite focussed on eating right and maintaining a healthy regime including some form of exercise. They are enjoying their new body without the restricted movement of all that extra weight, they are enjoying that they can go dancing lessons or to the gym and not be stared at as some kind of circus act, and they are enjoying that they are able to move freely without being out of breath within minutes. I remember the very first time I ran. I was working at Bunnings and someone needed a price check for something at the other end of the store (the days before computers) so i grabbed the item and made my way to the shelf. When I got there I realised I had ran, and I was shocked and excited, its the simple things that are these amazing milestones you don't expect. I remember the first time I realised I could tie up my own shoelaces and therefore start wearing sneakers that werent slip-ons. I remember the first time I could chase a friends kid around the house playing a game and the first time I could walk far without it causing an asthma attack. It is really difficult to exercise, actually, it is really difficult to just move when you are obese. So the motivation to pump it out at a gym is vertually zero. Especially when you are among all those spray tanned fake lashes/hair/nails/boobs/brows babes who pose around the place making you feel even shitter that you already do. They glare at you with either amused grins or pathetic sympathy. Either way, you are not a real person, you are a freak show. Gyms and the people that venture them have never been my scene. I generally find them a whole other species, the pouty airbrushed instagram crowd.
Believe me, moving all this body mass in a gym or around a park or treadmill is way harder than anyone of normal size could ever imagine. When skinny people say "why don't you just exercise" you feel like smacking them.
Post bariatric surgery weightloss isn't a nice constant journey like you'd expect. The surgery is a tool for weightloss but it isn't the whole picture. There are times of the infamous plateau (when after a while of loss you suddenly stabilise and for weeks nothing happens), you realise that you need to change something as you've gotten as far as you are going to go doing what you are doing. So you decide to either change your eating, exercise more, or tighten up the band. I had a few years of a plateau where I thought I was about as small as I was ever going to get. I was about a size 12. I was so happy with this size, in fact I remember when I was obese my only goal was to get into a size 14 because then I knew I could shop in any clothing store and there would be things to fit me. Anything over a 14 and you are either hoping they make bigger or having to shop the big size labels and believe me, in the 90's the big labels were few and far between and of the ones around they were mostly drab older people styles designed to just cover you up and hide you away like the shameful blob you are. It wasn't until I got skinny that the beautiful designers like City Chic came out with lovely clothing that reflected young, modern women who want to be seen and want to look fabulous. It also was later on when the internet became a household thing rather than just 'something those rich people had' that the international online designers with their more generous sizing became easily accessible to everyone in remote Australia. So having been obese for so long, I thought my being a size 12 was it. I remained this size for a few years, and then post split with another partner of 3 years, I kinda went on a great fun single girl rampage which included getting a tummy tuck. When I had the tuck I had to have the band fill removed, then afterwards have it put back in. When it went back in I started to lose more weight without even really trying.
Over the course of about 6 months I found myself getting down to a size 6 which for my height of 168cm was incredibly small, in fact I had never been this size ever in my life. I loved the feel of my hip bones and collar bones protruding. I felt like I looked how those supermodels who proudly strutt the runways looked, beautiful! Well they must be, they are models, and they get paid millions for looking the way they do. But at the crux of it, I was once again sick. This time I wasn't sick from obesity, I was sick from being underweight. I was literally throwing up the majority of what I ate. I didn't mind, I just wanted to taste it, it was irrelevant to me if it nourished me or not because the joy I got from buying those teeny tiny glamorous clothes was all the joy I needed. My period stopped and again I experienced frequent headaches. Of course there were a lot of people telling me I had got too skinny. I told them they just weren't used to seeing me thin after being so fat. I knew I wasn't healthy, I knew I was thinner than my body could handle. But I didn't care. And you know what, this is how fucked up society is - this is the time in my life when I got the most compliments! I would go nightclubbing and be told all the time that i was beautiful. That is how society works - so long as you are skinny, it doesn't matter that you are slowly killing yourself. This lasted just over a year and as luck would have it, this is when I met the guy who is now my husband.
Married since 3rd December 2011 and absolutely no regrets. I found the perfect life partner for where I am at this stage in my life after all the up's and down's and all the things I have learnt which shaped me into who I am today. No doubt I still have a lot to learn.
The photo on the left was taken in December 2007 when I was at my thinnest. About 54 kilos, size 6. I felt great, I thought I looked great, but underneath it all nothing was really functioning very healthily.The photo on the right was on my honeymoon in 2012, at about 60 kilos, size 10, my sweet spot for the most part of over a decade.
The fear you have as someone with a lap band is that something will go wrong down the track and you will have to have it removed and you will go back to your previous size (likely plus some!). I met my hubby when I was teeny tiny. Yeah, I am no longer teeny tiny, i put on a bit when we hooked up (mainly because i started eating right) and managed to get to about a size 10. That is my sweet spot, bouncing around between 58 and 60 kilos. At that weight my periods returned, my skin got back its glow, I had energy again, and I was able to be better hydrated so the UTI's were less frequent. But I always wonder what would happen if my band was removed and I ended up obese again? I know our relationship would break down. For two reasons, one because I would no longer look like me, and two because I would no longer act like the me he fell in love with. I would no longer be the me that is productive in society, that is active in the world, and that functions from day to day. I have thought long and hard about this, and if I ever went back to what I was I would definitely end things. I just flat out refuse to go back, I have not got it in me to go through all that again. People say to me "Can't you take the lap-band out now you are thin?" but i didn't have a lap band because I can't be bothered eating right or exercising, nor did I get the band because I needed a kickstart, I got it because I literally have no control over my overeating. None whatsoever. People who've known me a lifetime might ask why I was thin growing up and that was totally because I had a controlling parent. I wasn't allowed to eat whatever whenever, I had to ask first. I wasn't allowed much junk food or treats, and every meal was controlled and served to me. My weight gain all began when I got a job and moved out and my life was then my own to do with what I wanted, and I soon realised that what I wanted and what I was capable of was two entirely different things. So no, I can't take the lap-band out and magically stay thin forever, because the minute that band isn't doing its job and I no longer have control my obsessive overeating is right there waiting to take over. And it does, and has many times when my band has had issues.
This fear was dug out of hiding and brought out into the open just this last week. I have a few major events to attend over the next couple of months and my band needed a slight bit of fill. Ive known for many years that it had a very small leak that required a tiny top up about twice a year. So in I went. within a couple of weeks I noticed no weight had shifted and strangely enough I could eat more. So I went back for another fill. Same again. Strange. My thoughts were that the band port injection site had worn out and given up the ghost. I made an appointment with my doc for a weeks time and that was such a long week! I was absolutely stressed to the max wondering what I will do if my band is kaput and needs to come out. I straight away was wondering how long I would go without it if they cant replace it and I was thinking as far as how long do I have to live. I knew that if my band came out i would last a few kilos upward before my backup plan was put in place. Thankfully in my appointment it was found that there was a leak in the joiner that connects my band tube to the port tube and it was a simple procedure to fix it under a local in a day surgery. He booked me in the next day! Thank goodness.
So here I am, recovering from my procedure, so grateful that this time around I was saved again. It was a simple one and recovery has been nice and easy. I am just so glad that my actual band didn't need to be touched, just the port and tubing. I have a Ball to go to in just over 1 week, my 30 year highschool reunion to go to in just over 3 weeks, and a wedding in just over 4 weeks. I am so glad that I can now go to all of them. Had my lap-band not been fixed I would have ballooned out and I would have had to cancel (except the wedding, that is majorly important and I wouldn't miss it for the world). I know myself and I would have been miserable, nothing would have fit, even if I got another set of outfits I wouldn't have enjoyed them anyways. I would have been depressed and just left early. I would hide myself away in my house as much as possible until something happened, one way or another.
I definitely couldn't go to the highschool reunion in that frame of mind, it takes me a massive load of guts to go to those things. Everyone in school absolutely hated me and mostly still do (behind those fake greetings and disinterested predictable introduction lines of "so how are you and what are you up to these days?"). So why do I go, you ask? because I need to for myself. Highschool was extremely traumatic for me, a lifetime of irreperable damage. I have been to two reunions so far, I have held my breath, held my head high, and walked into those things like it was nothing. I didn't want those fucking assholes to think they have me beat. I want them to know that despite all the fucking bullshit they put me through for 5 years that I am still here and I need to know for myself that I have the strength and courage to face them and talk to them (without punching some of them in the face, like I am playing out in my mind) as an equal and not some piece of shit like they all made me feel for so long. I think the best thing about growing old, and I can say this as an old fart on her 47th birthday, is that the older you get the less you give a shit what people think of you. Yes, I want to look fabulous all the time and I love compliments, but that is for me. I know when I look in a mirror if I look great or not, and that now is my favourite compliment - the one I give myself. I love nothing more than leaving the house knowing I am my best version of me, and I generally have a great day and can face anything when that happens, it comes from inside. But if someone else thinks my outfit is crazy, colours dont match, my hair is too drab, or whatever... then that is on them. I also no longer care when people don't like me personally. Not everyone is liked by everyone, and I sure got a bloody good preparation for that in highschool being liked by no one, lols! Anyways, for me, I am just glad that my band was fixed in time so I can walk into the lions den without fear and if no one talks to me then so what, I will go to the bar and order a cocktail and enjoy the music on my own ;) But I turned up, that fuels my fire.
So, today is my actual birth day birthday, and I've made it through another year, thanks to my lap-band. I am 47 years old and have been alive for 22 years and 29 days. Happy birthday to me. I am still alive, I am living that life, and I am still banded so there is more to go. How much, I don't know, no one in the world knows how much sand is in their own hourglass of life, but for now I know that today I feel fabulous and my god, Tony, has given me the chance at what I hope to be many many more. Thanks Tony, you totally rock x
Here is a little montage of the things I can now enjoy, thanks to my lap-band: