Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Spent the morning with Granny Whiddon’s Angel Trumpets …if she could see me now.

One of my fondest memories as a child was Granny Whiddon’s garden.
Don’t ask me how… but I scored some Angel Trumpet seeds that were from 1980, and I planted them a couple of years ago. As it rarely turns out, the Angel Trumpets seem to like Dallas, Texas far better than Jackson, Mississippi or north Louisiana. Every year my plants get bigger and bigger. Their technical name brought up all kinds of stuff on the internet because apparently some people eat the seeds to hallucinate. Angel Trumpets are also called Datura and if you wish to Google it, there’s a horrible story about what a German teenager did to himself after making “tea” and drinking it. It involved an emergency room visit and a couple of things that could not be reattached to his body. In fact if you don’t do it just right, you’ll die…. so you can bet I am one careful gardener when I get them on my hands.

This morning there were so many blooming that I HAD to take pictures and video. I have to share these shots because they are beautiful.

I thought about granny’s life and what it must have been like. Fretting over computers, blog content, and photographic quality were not part of her daily routine. My grandfather was much older than she was and he was actually in the Mississippi House of Representatives. He was a very stern man and didn’t say much at all but when he did talk, he called us “fellas” (this included the girls). My grandmother cooked as well as she gardened and I cannot imagine explaining weight loss surgery to her. I assume she never tried to diet even if she needed to and I laugh when I remember her telling me that she only read the Bible, biblical magazines and The National Enquirer. Many times I told her that National Enquirer wasn’t true but she just laughed and read them anyway.

So here are some pictures of the flowers…

from the seed....

that Granny Whiddon had many years ago.

What a strange long trip this has all been but it is what brought me here…to the beautiful place I am right now...

with Granny Whiddon's Angel Trumpets.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Unrealistic Expectations?? Is that fair??

As I have said many times, the weight loss surgery field is so very new and EVERYONE is learning new stuff every day. It isn't that the people in charge are bad people....they are learning just like everyone else is but somewhere, sometime back in WLS prehistoric times, someone thought it was a good idea to tell you not to have unrealistic expectiations.

Digging into my deepest core feelings, I said "I don't think that's good!"

Here are the reasons....

It all started when I heard a bariatric doc say that we should not have unrealistic expectations. He said not to expect to get to the weight you were when you married.

What if you got married three years ago? My brain interpreted it this way. "Ok little fat girl...we know you are less than and can't do things we regular people can do."

Granted... this is more than unfair because it was what I heard. For me, it was comparable to telling the "fat girl" that she could only make a C on the test instead of an A.

I am currently at the exact weight I was at my very smallest in college (35 years ago). I starved myself for two years just to be thin.

When I was challenged by my teachers in school, I performed. I had one teacher that seated us according to our grades. If you made an A on the last report card, you sat at the front table. Guess where I was sitting??

The front table.

My dad was really strict but I only had to make a C to maintain my privileges and that's pretty much what I made if I was uninterested or unchallenged in class.

When I went to college I had the priviledge of choosing my classes and because I loved music and the courses I took, I was on the dean's list. I knew I could do it if I wanted to. I also knew I could do this weight loss surgery and succeed. Believing it from the very beginning, knowing it was the answer was all I needed to make it happen. That's a subject for another blog entry but for now I wanted to address this unrealistic expectation concept.

I don't know if it's the same for others as it was for me, but telling me I couldn't do something was probably not the way to go for someone who was pretty sure she was a failure because of obesity. Being a master and always first in line to beat myself up, I could do a bang up job all by myself. Perhaps it is because of the quote below.... that I put so much stock into what we have to say....the people who have walked this path.

"No one can lead you down a path that they haven't been."

I look forward to the day that we as patients can contribute to the programs designed for us because we have so much to offer and I'm ecstatic when there are professionals that totally get what's going on with us. It seems to be getting better every day!

Below you'll see the video that chronicles the changes in my life due to weight loss surgery.

Wow....what a joy to be "Living My Life!"
hugs and blessings, Yvonne
aka Bariatric Girl