blood:water mission

last night i drove to roanoke with my friend tim to meet the ride:well bike tour riders as they are raising money and awareness to build wells in africa to provide clean water. it's amazing. the video explains the mission...

many of you know that africa is a place i feel passionately about. i've been to uganda twice and i left part of my soul there. it's such a simple thing that we take for granted - water - but for many africans, just getting it is often a day's work. i'm sure i have way more to say about meeting the team last night, but for now, watch the video. then go to www.ridewelltour.com to give.

vines

the wild grape vines are taking over my side yard.
usually i ignore them.
just like i ignore the poison ivy on the other side of my side yard.
sometimes i glare at them from a distance.
yesterday, i glared at them up close,
as they appeared to be drowning another tree.

when i moved here, i was told that the trees on my side yard were plum trees.
the drowning tree, however, looks to me like a peach tree.
at least the leaves do.
there are no peaches on it.
probably because it was drowning.

so today, i put on my gardening gloves, picked up my loppers, and headed towards the wild vines.
i started by pulling.
did a bit of hacking.
lopped a couple of stubborn vines.
and did a lot more pulling.
and yanking.
and tugging.

there is a BIG pile of wild grape vines
on the ground in my yard now.
it could be bigger, but i did as much as i could
and cut some off down low,
that way i can pull them out more easily
when they've died.

on the other side of my yard i sprayed the poison ivy.
i sprayed about a month ago and it killed a lot of it off.
it takes about three weeks for the stuff to die.
but i hate it way more than the grape vines.
so good riddance.

after the grape vines, the loppers and i headed to the front.
i have these big, ugly, scraggly azaleas growing in front of my porch.
the flowers aren't even pretty when they bloom.
i want to dig them up and put them in the burn pile
(with the wild grape vines).
but several friends think that's not a good idea.
so i decided to trim them back...
give them some shape...
and give them a second chance.
i don't think their second chance is going to last
more than a week.
they're still ugly.

i want pretty flowers growing in front of my porch.
that's my plan.
it's a good one.

family

i did more than nothing today...and i'm still not ready for sleep!

the pies look so pretty, and smell so good, and i can't wait to share them tomorrow! keith and mercedes and zahara and zebulun; ellen and garth; and tim and heidi and aaron, alisha and kyle are all coming over for lunch tomorrow! :) happy, happy me!!!

yesterday i opened some files on my computer that i had not opened in over a year...my papa's genealogical files. family tree stuff. stories about my ancestors. stories about my mom and dad, written by my daddy. aunt joyce wanted to have copies of some of that stuff, so i opened it up and looked at it for maybe only the third time since papa died. we printed out just papa's side of the family, with names, dates, and stories, and it was nearly 500 pages long! so much information. so much family. it's a bit overwhelming when i think about it all. i come from such a long, amazing line of people, and still, at 41 years old, i'm already an orphan. aunt joyce told me today that to her, i'm like one of her kids. i'm glad about that. but somehow, tonight, it has intensified the "lonely" and "alone" of my life. this doesn't bother me often, but tonight, it kindof does.

i'm glad that tomorrow i will be with family. surrounded by lots of people. i hope that it doesn't mean i'll feel even more alone after they all leave, but it probably will.

the level of joy is proportionately as high as the level of pain is deep...

it is good to do nothing all day...then sleep!

i love summer vacation ! :)

today i am going to bake two rhubarb pies, with rhubarb from canada, using my grandma ludlow's recipe.

so, it's been a while, hasn't it?

first i had a lot going on, then lots of nothing going on...but i'm back now :)

i finished the school year! the last couple of weeks were certainly filled to the brim, helping my students prepare for their s.o.l. tests (yes, that is really what they are called - it stands for "standards of learning" although what you're thinking as a definition for those three letters might more accurately describe the way they felt about the whole thing...!). after testing was over we were pretty much done teaching for the year, but still had 5 more days of school left. how do you occupy 7th graders when they know nothing else counts towards their grade for the rest of the year? that was not fun. but we made it through, with some math-related videos i found online, and lots of yearbook signing, and a couple of assemblies and a field trip to the north carolina zoo where it poured down rain all day long. then there was finishing final grades for the year and doing report cards and packing up and cleaning out my classroom. it's officially done, and i made it! i must say, i am HAPPY not to be going back to school next year.

i left town on the last day of school and headed east, to suffolk to visit karen and her family, and to va beach to see debbie and her family. i enjoyed days of sleep, laughter, sun, water, more sleep, more laughter, etc., etc., you get the idea. :) then i headed over the chesapeake bay, up the eastern shore, and i ended up in delaware to visit nikki (on her birthday) and her family. we had about three days of catching up to do, so we did! and then down to no va to see sandi and her family and (another) debbie and her family. traveling was a good way to celebrate the end of a long school year...

on june 10 i picked up my aunt joyce (dad's sister) from the airport and she has been here with me. this is her vacation and we have been hanging out here at mirembe hollow, reading, watching movies, talking, sleeping, putting puzzles together, working in the garden, sitting on the porch...basically anything that requires little to no thought and sounds like fun to us! :) she will be here until the 24th.

so i've officially lost 40.5 lbs. and am still feeling good! i've hit the part of the process where it is simply "slow and steady wins the race." i am still having trouble drinking as much liquid as i'm supposed to (no, alcohol does not count)! so i'm trying to make a purposed effort to drink more.

well, that's about it. you're all caught up now. have a peaceful day...

update

i've been on "real food" for about two weeks now. i like real food. my first meal was at olive garden. i was craving something cheesy and pasta-y. i got five meals out of that one trip!

so i can basically eat anything i want, just less of it. the focus is on protein though. eat that first, and if there's room left over, i can fill it with something else. so do you know why the focus is on protein? because if i don't get enough, my hair will fall out. yep. not like i have enough hair to lose any. so, there's my motivation!

weight wise, i plateaued, i gained a little, i lost it again, and it's going down, much more gradually. but down is good. and slowly down is good too. i'm still losing centimeters and inches. i have no hips and i have no butt. never did. and that's causing problems in that i'm constantly having to hold my pants up. once they slide off the roundest part of me (my tummy), there is nothing there to keep them up!

i was feeling like my tummy was just not getting smaller at all, but i tried on a couple of blouses and sweaters that were previously too tight, and yea, they fit! :)

so...

there are only two weeks of school left! i'm so so glad to be almost finished with the school year. so incredibly glad, that i'm pretty sure i'm not gonna do it again next year. i interviewed for the "teen living" (a.k.a. home ec) position for next year. there's NO way i'm doing math again next year. i should find out this week whether or not i got the job. and when they do offer me the job, i'll say...

follow-up

i had my second follow-up visit today via phone. it went very well, as i expected it would. i got to start "real" food today, 4 days early! yipee!!! so of course i spent the day deciding what i wanted to eat for dinner tonight.

i picked olive garden, and went with two of my friends. i had two bites of salad, two small bites of breadstick, one small rigatoni (1 in. x 2 in.), and three medium shrimp. i'm happy as a clam! and stuffed, probably more than i should be, but oh, yum! of course i've got at least four more meals out of my leftovers!

still no weight change. this is why they tell us not to weigh ourselves every day. so i'm stopping. i won't weigh again until next week. my body is re-adjusting to food, and i'll give it proper nutrition in the mean time. i wasn't so good about that in my "former" life.

only three more instructional weeks of school and one "field trip, etc." week left! i can hardly wait!!!

it's been a week since my last post...

mostly because i feel there is no news...

well, not NO news, just not great news. i haven't lost any more weight since i started on "mushy" foods and i'm a little bummed about that. my clothes are still getting bigger though, so that's good. i talked to my friend suz who had similar surgery 6 years ago and she said that the same thing happened to her. since i've started back on real food (not just liquids), my body is still getting used to how much food it will be getting and my metabolism is adjusting. once it realizes that this is the way things are gonna be now, it will accept it, and then start dropping weight again. yea!

meanwhile, i will focus on my non-weight related successes! more clothes in the "give-away" pile.

32 pounds and counting!

well, i can hardly believe it, but i am practically 1/3 of the way to my goal weight and it's only been 5 weeks! it seems unreal. in an amazingly good way. i know that there's still a ways to go. i'm up for it!

i got to start my soft-food stage today...two days early! yea! i had egg salad and chicken salad for dinner. of course they were "finely mushed". there are so many more options now! :)

i think i can safely say

that winter is over.

i told someone this weekend that this blog was only about my surgery, and my healing. but i think i lied. i think it's more.

if i invited you here, and you chose to come, or if you've stumbled across this page of words and you keep reading, then it might be because you want to know me.

my style is unedited.

it's nice to see you here.

i made it through another winter. some of you know how hard this can be. i love the way books or movies, or sometimes a song, or just a line from a song can touch me. i just watched a quirky movie - dedication - and it touched me. i was about a very broken person, and a close friendship, a death, a winter, a cemetery, and a love.

i'm still waiting for that last one.
my love.

i've had my friendships.

and the past several years have been years of death.
mom. aunt ruth. dad. aunt margie. grandma.

the winters have been long. cold. dry. painful.

the cemetery is arlington, where the tombstones line up in perfect rows like trees in an orchard. but trees are alive. cemeteries are dead. cold. snowy. icy. sad. my heart breaks all over again when i go there, so i can't afford to go often. my heart, i've discovered, is still healing.

i want this to be my year. my year for physical healing. my year for emotional healing.
my year for love.

i don't want to be broken any more.

doing well

i had my follow-up appointment with my surgeon up in reston today. he said i'm doing extremely well. he's really proud of the progress i've made. my incisions are healing beautifully (don't worry, i won't make you look!). he gave me pictures of my surgery. don't worry, i won't make you look at those either! so i'm feeling incredibly great! i get to start eating "mushy" food this week and i'm psyched about that. this will be when i really find out what my "limits" are as far as how much i can eat. i need to be careful not to eat too much...that's what makes some people sick. so this next phase will be about me really listening to my body and stopping when it's full without taking another bite! i can do this!

i went to my old church yesterday and that was great. it was like going home, seeing so many of my friends. then went downtown and out with a couple of friends last night. i discovered that my "new" stomach is still going to let me have a drink every now and then, and i must say, i was happy about that too. :) that's not always the case after this surgery! of course, since there isn't much room, i certainly don't have to worry about too much alcohol!

i made it back to madison heights by 6:00 tonight. as good as it was to be back "north" hanging out with my friends, it's good to be home. back to school tomorrow...only six weeks left! :)

i'm smiling again today...

feeling good. my total is 27 lbs., and it feels good!

i'm back up in no. va. this weekend, hanging with my friend debbie. today was decadently lazy, sleeping till 10:30 and then hanging at starbucks for an hour nursing a tall mocha. it's never taken me so long to drink such a small coffee before! :) i love it though... then we went shoe shopping...what girl doesn't love that?

i hit a lull around 5:30 and thought i needed a nap. i drank a protein shake, and that pepped me right back up again. i've had no pain meds since thursday and i'm doing great. i see the doc for my post-op follow up on monday (that's really why i'm up here) and i expect a glowing report! he will certainly be getting one from me!

i'm going back to my "home" church, gateway community church, tomorrow morning. no one knows i'm coming...it's a surprise! i'm so excited! :) i have so many friends there...it will be so fun to be there!

life is good. my life is good, because God is good! and it just keeps gettin' better!

okay, today kicked my butt.

it actually started yesterday afternoon.

you see, the pain meds i'm on have been known to "stop you up" after a while. that's not been a problem for me before, but this time, it had been about 5 days and i thought i better do something about it. the doc recommended milk of magnesia for it's mildness, so after i got home from school, i had a gulp. well... about an hour later i had the extreme opposite problem, and that lasted pretty much all night long and part way through today. not so fun with a classroom full of kids. needless to say, i'm feeling that all of my insides are cleaned out - what a way to detox!

so somewhere in the middle of last night's drama, i decided that i didn't need any more pain meds, i could "handle" the "discomfort", as it wasn't really "pain". just before lunchtime today, i came to my senses, popped another dose of meds, and felt much better for the remainder of the afternoon. i'm home now, but completely exhausted. and ready for another dose of meds. i always tell my friends, "your body can't spend it's energy healing your incisions when it's fighting pain. take the meds! there's a reason they gave them to you!" so i'm gonna take my own advice.

and then, i'm going to bed!

school today went just fine...no problems at all!

i took pain meds in the morning, but didn't need to take any more throughout the day, so that was good. it's good to be home, resting, but that's usually the case, regardless of having had surgery! :)

i'm officially down 24 lbs! woo hoo!

i'm three days out of surgery

i decided to take today off since i didn't know how i'd be feeling, so i'm home.

i switched to a lower dose of pain meds this morning when i woke up. i didn't wake up as much in the night, and the pain was less severe. i'm still feeling really good! i anticipate that i'll be using just tylenol for pain tomorrow.

i've officially lost 20 lbs. i weighed 264 at my pre-op appointment on march 10th and today i weigh 244. sue, at dr. pinnar's office, took measurements of me at my pre-op, and i'll be seeing her next monday, april 21, for my post-op. i anticipate that she will measure me again, and i'm really eager to see those results! how my clothes fit is a much truer measure of progress than any scale!

i was able to start back on protein drinks yesterday. of course, they are much smaller than before! this helps to ensure that i get the proper nutrition i need.

it's saturday night and i'm back home already!

surgery was friday morning, about 11am. the docs said i did really well. they said that my low carb/high protein liquid diet did exactly what it was supposed to, and shrunk my liver down nice and small so they had plenty of room to work. i got up to my room around 2pm and nana, my wonderful nurse, got me settled in with pain meds. i took a little nap and then got up for a walk down the halls. i was, and still am, amazed that i am not in more pain than i am.

i did quite a bit of walking today (they say it's really good for me). i was feeling so good that suzanne and i went to trader joe's to get some yummy soups for these next two weeks of liquids. then we stopped at target and got my scrips filled. and then we headed right on back down to lynchburg! i was home by 7pm. i took my pain meds, and i'm obviously feeling well enough to be hanging out, typing away on the computer!

thanks so much for all of your prayers...i am confident that is the reason i am feeling SO AMAZINGLY well! i don't look like i just had surgery. i'm able to walk at a normal pace. i've been able to drink plenty of liquids which is often very difficult during the first 2-3 days. God is orchestrating an amazing healing in my life and i'm so thankful and excited!

it's thursday evening before surgery!!!

everything at school is ready for my sub tomorrow and monday. the teachers on my team sent me off for surgery with well-wishes for a speedy recovery and a thoughtful gift card. it's nice to know that i've made friends at my new school this year!

i have lots of folks praying for me...thank you!!!

i'm so excited. surgery is at 10:30 tomorrow morning...

i'm ready!

surgery is six days away

i started my liquid, pre-op diet yesterday. i can have any liquids as long as i keep my carb intake at less than 50 grams, and my protein intake at more than 60 grams. the nurse said this would be the "hardest week of my life." i kindof blew it off, knowing that i can do this. i'm quite determined when i set my mind to it. so i found protein powder at gnc that has zero carbs and 50 gm of protein! yea! i got one in vanilla, and one in peach mango. from what i've read, one of the hardest things about this liquid stage is "taste fatigue." but i can still have my coffee, so how bad can it be, right?

so, i find myself excited about the surgery. excited about letting go of this clutter, this weight, this unhealthiness in my life. i'm excited, but the excitement doesn't make it easy. i'm ready to do this. i'm looking forward to doing this. i'm trying to prepare for the hard parts of doing this so i can be successful.

have you ever noticed how in your life there are things that are unhealthy? sometimes they are habits, sometimes weight, sometimes people. and even though you can rationally explain all of the reasons why you allow these unhealthy things, you know that they need to be removed from your life, but you still can't quite let go. there's a comfort in keeping things the way they are, or have always been. you know what to expect that way.

so, i'm going to let go of the comfort of knowing what to expect. this is my adventure. out with the unhealthy, in with the healthy. this is my season...

it's really going to happen... yes, today it seemed real!

i told a couple of friends i'd write about my lap-band experience, and here i am, as advertised.

it started back in december when i went to see my back surgeon. i'd experienced several months of physical therapy, lots of tests, and medicine to make it all bearable. the diagnosis is degenerative disc disease and the tests determined that the discs in my lumbar spine are shot. so surgery seemed inevitable, with fusion likely. dr. subach said he'd like to keep me "comfortable" with p.t. and meds for as long as possible since fusion is so permanent and i'm so young.

young. *smile*
i'm not old, but i look so much younger than my 41 years that middle-aged women still call me "dear".
(what exactly is middle-age?).

i know i've digressed. it's my story. i'm allowed!

anyway, prolonging the inevitable seemed to be the best solution, with hopes of fda-approved artificial discs coming out before the pain in my back demanded fusion. so i went for a visit to the good doctor (and his p.a.). these guys always make me smile. as we were chatting, i think i asked his professional opinion about weight-reduction surgery. i have three dear friends who've had such great results, and i'm so tired of losing weight, feeling good, (okay, not tired about that part, actually, but tired of) gaining it all back again, and feeling achy and "old".

the good doctor said, "i know a guy." as it happens, the guy he wholeheartedly recommends had the honor of removing my nasty gallbladder about four years ago! i took it as a sign. well, the docs are up in northern va, and i'm in southern va. i decided to stay with the best and called to make an appointment with dr. robert pinnar.

the consultation was positive, and i left with a little pile of things to read, tests to have done, etc., as i considered the possibilities. i told my family and friends that i was getting a new body for christmas this year, but it just hadn't come in yet! after phone calls to the insurance company, denial from the insurance company, more phone calls (they aren't covering, but i know it's still the right thing for me), lots of prayers and loans from two dear friends, i called to schedule my surgery.

my pre-op appointment is monday, march 10. today i had all of my tests done in preparation for that appointment. my morning started with a "barium swallow test" where i had to drink nasty, goopy, lumpy, chalky liquid while they took pictures of it coursing through my system. the gag reflex is strong, but i was stronger. with the morning off from school (thanks, amanda, for subbing for me), i swung by starbucks on the way to my next appointment. there, they did an ekg and took four tubes of blood.

the pre-op tests are done. the results will be delivered to dr. pinnar's office in time for my monday morning appointment (thanks, dee, for subbing for me monday!) and then it's only one more month until...

...april 11

that's the day of surgery, but it's not the day the ("new me"? no. i won't be new, thought there are elements of that. how about "former me"? no. there are elements of that too, but that's just not it. oh, i know...), that's the day the "healthy me!" gets a super boost! yes, the healing has already begun! so april 11 is not the beginning, it's just the shot of adrenaline that will help me keep moving in a positive, healthy direction!

i'm excited! it's actually going to happen! i got a healthy body for christmas, and they're about to deliver it!

five years later...

and i'm still here.

when i began this blog, it was to help me get through the long, blank days that kept on going after my mother died. it was alarming how i could just sit and stare and the walls for hours, doing absolutely nothing else. i could pass entire weekends that way. and writing was what kept me sane, when i could actually do it.

so it's been five years. here i am, back in the world of typing out my thoughts for anyone to see. in 5 minutes, it will be the one-year anniversary of my father's death.

it affected me much differently than my mother's did. mom and i were close. so close. we were so much more friend and friend than mother and daughter, although that is a bond closer than any other. and when i became her caregiver, our relationship grew in a whole new direction. she needed me. she relied on me. i did for her, as an adult, what she did for me as a baby. cancer ate her body from the inside, out. it was terrible. but when she died, she did so with grace and with peace. that probably sounds weird, but it's the honest truth.

after mom died, i stopped. just stopped. stopped living. stopped doing. stopped dreaming.

i was allowed, for a season, to live in a world where i stopped, but the world kept on going around me.

and bit-by-bit, i started living again. God brought purposes to my life. not big purposes. little purposes. bite-sized ones. things i could do without too much pain or effort. things i could succeed in. those purposes were closely related to people, and they were a critical part of re-discovering myself.

one of the people who had always been in my life, who had allowed me to stop so i could heal, who understood how much it hurt, was my papa. and who would have guessed that this man who had known me every second of my life would become such an important part of it?

how many girls get to be grown-up friends with their daddies? not very many, i think. i was one of the lucky ones. would i have had this blessing, this treat, if my mom were still alive? probably not. i told papa once that the one and only blessing i could think of that came out of mom's death was that he and i got to be friends.

i miss him.

one year ago, january 29th, i was on the road between kampala and kabale, uganda when i got a phone call saying that he died. he had a seizure. it was unexpected. he was healthy. he was only 70 years old. and just like that, he was gone.

my last words to him, as i was leaving for the airport for a two-week missions trip, were, "i love you, papa!" he smiled at me, and said, "mmm, i love you too."

i hope to share some stories of the adventures papa and i had during those five years after mom went to heaven. right now, my abba is with his Abba, and i have to believe that i've got two daddies looking down, taking care of their little girl.