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Baseline

in , - on 10:29:00 AM - 1 comment
On September 27, 1994, my mother passed away from a cerebral aneurysm that put pressure on her brain, hemorrhaged, and put her in a coma from which she never recovered.

Some doctors and scientists think that there might be a genetic/hereditary component to aneurysms. As such, my primary care doctor has wanted me to get an MRA for quite a while. The test is like the reverse of an MRI.  An MRI's image filters out the moving parts of your body to create a picture of what is not moving.  An MRA filters out the still parts to create a picture of what is moving (i.e., my blood).

The result is this:
looking straight at my face
 I think my brain is rather photogenic.

Looking at the right side of my face
I am expecting an unremarkable radiology report to come back from this.  But I thought the stills were too cool not to share.
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Not Dead Yet

in , - on 10:09:00 AM - No comments
So...  I've not been writing that much on my blog mainly because I feel like I'm repeating myself regarding the back stuff and then I worry about my blog turning into one big buzzkill.  Well I'm going to try and rectify that for everyone that hasn't seen on social media.

On September 1st, I called Teladoc because I had some pain in my upper right abdominal area and wasn't sure whether that was a "Go to your PCP" type of issue or "Go to ER, you're about to explode" issue.  Teladoc went with the former so I called my PCP and asked if I could come in sometime that week.  I get a call back to come in immediately.

She poked around a bit.  She knows that I live on the higher end of the pain scale, so for me to say that something is painful means that it's (1) new pain and (2) above my regular threshold.  She wants me to get tests, but says that I can get them faster if I go to the hospital.  So that's what I did.

I got in a cab and took myself to the hospital where I had blood drawn by a really hot nurse (and almost threw up on him/fainted).  In addition to the blood tests, they sent me for an ultrasound, and a CT scan.  Everything came back pretty unremarkable except for a few elevated blood levels that could be explained by having thrown up the night before.  So they decided to admit me to run a test the next morning.

The most frustrating part of being in the hospital was the lack of communication between the ER doctors, the surgeon, the nurses.  They would ask me what the other ones said.  Um. Don't you have my chart?  

Second most frustrating part was the speculation.  They were throwing out possibilities of pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer.  For a good 20 minutes I was having a serious talk with myself about my own mortality and what I had yet to do in my life.

At that point, I called my brother and asked him to bring me a change of clothes and my glasses (so I could take my contacts out), my external phone battery, and of course my otter. He sat with me in the ER for a bit and we had a really good talk about life and stuff.

The test the next morning was pretty effing cool.  It's called a HIDA.  They inject me with a radioactive isotope (technetium 99) while lying underneath a Geiger counter.  They record how well my liver passes the 99Tc to my gallbladder. So yeah... for 6 hours I was radioactive. Sadly, no spidey powers. (notice the metal syringe in the photo below -- that's so the technician limits his exposure)


Fortunately/unfortunately, my liver and gallbladder did their job.  We were no closer to an answer. Odd thing was that I was in quite a bit of pain before the scan (they couldn't give me anything stronger than Tylenol the night before the test and I hadn't eaten in 24 hours at that point) and after the test I was in less pain.  They offered to keep me at the hospital and give me more fluids, but at that point, we still didn't have a diagnosis. I was discharged with instructions to follow up with a gastroenterologist.

I went to the gastroenterologist on 9/11 and he reviewed my blood work and test results. He wants to do an endoscopy (on October 9th) of my upper GI tract to get a better idea of why I'm still in pain (and can't really handle meat, fats, alcohol, carbonation). He thinks I may have some biliary sludge that just didn't show up on the tests.

My gut instinct (see what I did there?) is that my gallbladder will be removed.
I just want to get this over and done with because I'm just tired, irritable, and hungry.

But not dead yet.
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Dogfight: Isn't it funny?

in , - on 12:27:00 PM - 4 comments
Two Fridays ago, my neighbor called and said he had spare tickets to the Keegan Theatre's performance of Dogfight -- the musical version of the movie by the same name.  The basic plot is that on their last night in the U.S. (San Francisco) before going to Vietnam, 4 Marines decide to have a dogfight:  the guys all put money in a pot to have a party and the guy who brings the ugliest date (unbeknownst to the girl) wins the pot.  
8th Grade
6th Grade
I was never a thin girl with cool clothing or a perky personality that put me in the middle of every clique.  I was trying to rock that whole fat and awkward look as best as I could.  Back then, I was also quite gullible/naive, wanting to always see the goodness in people. 

So when I was in 6th grade at my first dance, and an 8th grader asked me to dance, it never dawned on me that I was a walking punchline.  I had kind of known him from my brother's baseball team, and I guess I must have thought that he recognized me too and wanted to be nice to me.  He pulled me in the middle of the dance floor and as I started dancing, I could see from the corner of my eye his friends huddled together, laughing. 

 I spent most of the first act with tears in my eyes -- especially the song where Rose (the female lead) reacts to what happened at the party:  "Isn't it funny? Isn't it funny? Isn't it funny you believed that it was real? Pretty funny.  All disasters have an upside. You can find one if you tried. You went dancing, you were dancing, you were dancing with a guy."

Dogfight kinda brought up all these feelings -- of inadequacy, of being an outsider, and learning to be distrustful of men and their intentions.  After my mom died (8th grade), many of the "popular" boys started being nicer to me (I'm not sure why but I think one of the boys' moms had something to do with it).  I was thankful, but still not trusting.  I was shocked, but not trusting, when in 9th grade gym, one of the most popular kids in the whole school (the older brother on the boy I had a crush on for most of my life) wanted to be my gym mixed-doubles tennis partner.  I was shocked, but thankful, when my crush came to my Sweet 16.  

Time for juxtaposition! 

So I realized that this whole jaded, distrusting thing that started in middle school lingers still.  
For example -- 

I posted this (and many other online dating first message disasters — #wtfokcupid) to my personal FB and a dear friend said "At least he finds you attractive. That's a type of compliment." And not only did I disagree, but I felt my stomach tangle into a knot.  In my world wanting to fuck me doesn't qualify as a compliment. 

I'm sure that many of my female overweight friends know what it's like to have a guy just come out and say that they're "throwing [you] a bone" or that it's only pity sex, (i.e., they think fat girls are easy targets that will take whatever they can get).  The sad thing is that some girl will say yes to this guy, or guys like him, not because she's interested in casual sex (no slut shaming here!), but because she thinks that it's a compliment and/or that it's all she deserves. 

I may still be a fat, awkward girl but through all of the taunting and teasing, the jabs and arrows, I have still managed to learn to believe that I deserve to dance (because the world is full of music) and that I deserve to be loved (because I am worthy and lovable for more than just a night).  But despite that I'm still wary of guys and their intentions.

One of the few guys in HS that I actually came to trust and adore said that one day I'd make everyone wish they were nicer to me.  I always thought it was because I would change.  I think I'm realizing now that he didn't mean that I would change -- it's that all the mean people would realize that underneath the fat, I was an actual person.

[ugh.... this was a hard one to write... took 2 weeks to really wrap my head around it.]

[Edit -- a friend from HS helped me to remember that not all guys in HS were assholes -- so shout out to ND who saw me walking home from school one day in the middle of winter and offered me a ride home.  Thanks to JH for picking up the phone the day I needed him.  And thanks for JE/PE for making the first xmas without my mom that much more bearable.]
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The Problem(s) with "Dear Fat People"

in , - on 10:43:00 AM - 9 comments
**POSSIBLE TRIGGERS:  Please proceed with caution!!**

 So... the whole Nicole Arbour "Dear Fat People" video thing... 

 **deep breath**

 1.  Obese people are fat, not blind.  We know we're fat.  We don't need some chick with a big mouth and a rabid following not talking to us but rather yelling at us as if we're complete idiots.  It's not like we need some Youtube channel to provide the same epiphany our very own eyes can provide.  

 1a.  She makes a joke about fat people not being able to chase her down... LOL.  She doesn't know about us athletic fat people -- you know, the ones that finish marathons, IronMans, Tough Mudders, etc.  And she also doesn't know about sneaky, light-on-our-feet fat people that don't need to be fast because we're so nimbly bimbly after all those Zumba, yoga, and barre classes. She forgets about the strong ones who could dead lift her heartless, humorless body. 

 1b.  There are many of us who aren't strong enough to weather the gale-force bullshit spewing from her mouth ("You have to be really f*cking slow to be offended by satire," she says in the [follow-up] video. "If you can't handle the truth it means you're a psychopath.").  And for as much as she thinks her "truth bombs" can help people, there's collateral damage for which she doesn't seem willing to take responsibility.  She offered some lame ass apology, "I never intended for kids to be watching it and I'm sorry if any kids who didn't understand that I'm a comedian were shocked or upset."  As if kids are the only ones who can be hurt by her words.

 2. Yay! Another skinny person telling us how our fatness offends them using the transparent guise of "helping us."  **eyeroll**  If you want to help people, you ASK what they need.  And not all fat people are created alike, and not all fat people need the same help.  Some people need easy things like motivation, accountability, recipes.  Some people need experts (see below).

 2b.  No where in her video or links does she offer actual help.  No online resources or support groups.  No recommendations to go see your doctor and get a physical, work with a dietitian, work with a NASM-certified trainer.  Nothing.  

 3.  Her OPINION (i.e., not really a "truth bomb") really misses the mark.  In my opinion (based on talking to a lot of people, reading a lot of books, studies, and other materials) excessive body fat is a symptom more than it is a disease. I have said time and time again that I think that obesity is more often than not the byproduct of trauma (physical, mental, psychological, sexual).  And the more I started thinking about it, the more I came to believe that most food/exercise/body disorders (as they're interrelated and on a spectrum) are as well. (And if it's not trauma, there's still other outside forces that can influence a person's size, shape, and health -- but I'll leave it to other people to argue socioeconomic and other points.) 

 3a.  Making fun of the survivors of trauma makes her an asshole, not a comedian.  

 3b. Making fun of the survivors of trauma for not being able to wrap their heads/bodies around the trauma in their lives doesn't help people to address the trauma.  It re-traumatizes them.   For example, look at how many people gain or lose weight as a barrier between them and the people who sexually abused them.  You wouldn't yell at a bulimic to eat a cheeseburger when the real issue was someone violating their body.  Equally, you shouldn't tell a fat person to put down the cheeseburger when the real issue was someone violating their body. 

 3c.  People who have endured trauma should probably start with professional help. 
(a) Cause you never know what trauma is lurking underneath all the layers of fat, and sometimes what's lurking needs a safe place to make its debut.
(b) It's really easy to transfer one harmful behavior to another.  For instance -- people who go from being food addicts to exercise addicts is not a myth.  It's an actual thing.
(c) People have been known to do some pretty harmful things in order to chase down their unrealistic goals. 

 I'm sure there's more... but I'm kinda annoyed with myself for even giving it this much time/thought when really I should have just said "Bitch please."
Old photo is a perfect salute to Nicole.
here are some other responses: 

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SEO Click Bait

in - on 9:13:00 AM - 4 comments
For all the people who find my blog because they have Googled "fat girl bikini" (and its various permutations) here you are.  I even put a filter and a frame on it for you. Artistic, right?


Rocking It.
(Buy the bikini here)

Update -- 
And yes ladies, he's single. 

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Sympathy Pain

in , - on 10:53:00 AM - No comments
Sometimes I say things flippantly and it takes a moment for it to set in and I realize how profound I can be when I'm not trying.  I just tweeted about how I'm in pain right now:


I realized two things in this moment.  

First, though I know my body is physically connected to each other as a dynamic machine, but I never paused to consider that my body parts may be emotionally connected to each other.  That some deep part of my reptilian brain (the one that says stop, relax, heal) is trying to override my hominid brain (keep moving and rehabbing).  

Second, I quite often say "Until you understand, you don't understand back pain. And I wouldn't want you to understand."  Part of me realizes how shitty this is -- that I'm limiting other peoples' ability to relate to me and to my injury.  The other part feels that it's completely legit.  Spine pain is kinda unlike any other physical injury--it doesn't localize itself.  

When my neck was really bad, my left arm got the worst of it.  I'm still dealing with the continual tinnitus.  I was constantly dropping things (I sometimes still do on days when I'm tired and not paying attention to my posture). With my lower back, I can feel the heat of inflammation over L3-4, L4-L5, L5-S1.  But I also feel it in my hip.  I feel it down my legs.  I'm quite often unsteady in certain positions (like when in the shower washing anything below my hips, or flipping my hair over so I can put it in a towel), sitting becomes painful at work (it's impossible to make my desk a standing desk without losing all my working space b/c it's a circular cockpit). when at the kitchen sink washing dishes, etc. 

I realized that I identify more with people who have full body injuries, diseases, and chronic pain, than people who, for example, just sprained an ankle or dislocated a shoulder. When I talk to people with chronic pain, chronic diseases and injuries, there's this pause of recognition where we just understand there's the pain of the injury/disease and the pain the injury/disease causes. 

In the discussion that Janet and I led at Fitbloggin (Living with Pain:  A Survival Guide), we had two posters:  one of a really badly drawn (mea culpa) body for corporeal/visible pain and the other one a list of "invisible pain" (I would share photos, but we had people put their names on them--so it's not for me to share really).   When we were talking about visible and invisible injuries, there was almost this collective sigh of relief when we could say to each other that we were depressed, anxious, scared, embarrassed, disappointed, and just plain exhausted.  

What a beautiful release to not have to be strong and perfect. 
What a beautiful expression of grace to be able to hold each other in our hearts for just an hour. 

(now that I'm in full on tangent mode....) I think that's what sympathy pain is really about -- the ability to allow someone to be in pain and be in their presence and not try to fix them, to cultivate empathy in your body and your mind and be able to shoulder their pain for a short time. 

Maybe my body is trying to spread my pain in a thin layer, rather than a big glob of pain right over my back. Maybe my legs are saying "we're strong enough to take some of this."  Or maybe it's my back saying "I can't handle all of this." 
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LOPMIAAMO -- the new FOMO

in - on 4:51:00 PM - 1 comment
Screw FOMO (fear of missing out); I have LOPMIAAMO (lack of planning means I am already missing out).

In the first few Fitbloggins, I think we were all still getting to know each other and we really saw the hotel as our space to connect. In more recent times, I feel like the hotel is the cruise ship and everyone is going on shore excursions (tea, Rockies baseball game, Red Rocks, etc.).

My LOPMIAAMO usually stems from the pre-Fitbloggin dread of not feeling like I have done enough to earn my spot here cause I haven't exercised enough or lost enough weight.  Or hell, I haven't even blogged a lot/at all lately.  I know it still shocks you all to find out that I am an introvert. (No lies, I really am.)

Then there is the always-present nagging voice in the back of my head that no one wants to play with me.  Last-picked for kickball kind of stuff.  When that LOPMIAAMO sets in, I usually just wander off by myself. I have done a lot of walking in Denver cause of that.


This year my LOPMIAAMO is a bit of the above with also having had a busy month leading up to Fitbloggin15. I just didnt read any of the "ZOMG LET'S DO THIS!" posts.  I signed up for Fitbloggin and the hotel months ago and then tucked that away in my brain only to unwrap it to book my flight and get packed.

Last year the LOPMIAAMO really got me down. And this year, I didnt plan any better.  LOPMIAAMO is worse than FOMO because it means i could have done something about it and just didn't for whatever reason.

The solution is finding a way to reengage. I will get there.

[Edit:  I realize now that had I planned better, I would have taken a day trip to the Anschutz Wellness Center....]
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The Pre-Fitbloggin Post

in - on 6:51:00 AM - 3 comments

So... I don't want to surprise/shock any of you all if you see me using this at Fitbloggin.

I don't always need it, but certain things like traveling and sitting down for long periods of time exacerbate my lower back pain.  Lately, I have either had this or my big umbrella with me when travelling just in case.

I freaked out a little while ago about how people would handle seeing FGvW with a cane.  Kelly/@CurvyFitGirl reminded me that I can't control how people react.  But please don't be too worried if you see me using this prop.  I assure you that I am fighting every day to get through this.


Who knows... I may use it to up my Zumba game.
My other yearly pre-Fitbloggin post and disclaimers:

(1) my brain is a sieve when it comes to names. Please forgive me when i forget your name the first, second, and twelfth time.

(2) I am actually an introvert.  Sometimes I need some quiet or a good cry. Fitbloggin is an emotional place. But when I am out an about I am good for hugs.

(3) I back dat ass up. Beware. (Ask @DubyaWife.


Okay, almost go time. See you in Denver.

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When it rains...

in - on 10:27:00 AM - 1 comment
I was really shocked to find out that the idiom "When it rains, it pours.®" was coined by ad execs to sell Morton's Salt.

You know how salt is hard to pour if it has absorbed any humidity? Morton's solution was to add magnesium carbonate to their salt.  It absorbed the humidity before the sodium chloride. This meant, even when it rained, the salt would still be free flowing.

This is totally different than the connotation now attributed to the phrase regarding luck -- that when either something good or bad happens it tends to trigger a deluge of the same luck.

Anyways...

Y'all know I've had some pretty spectacular misses when it comes to dating.  You all know that an boy damn near made me a quadriplegic.

Well... it's pouring.

Not in the whole magnesium carbonate way (well I guess in an additive sense...), but in the whole deluge of luck way.
I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but just know that I'm really happy right now. Content, cared for, adored.  I'm excited for all the possibilities.

It's raining and I'm out there dancing.



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Not whether you win or lose; it's how you play the game.

in , , - on 2:55:00 PM - 2 comments
I've mentioned in the past that I play this nerdy game called Ingress (join the Resistance, we have cookies!).  It's an always-in-flux worldwide game of capture the flag using your phone and GPS location. There are flags (portals) everywhere around you and you use your phone to claim (deploy) or capture (use xmps) them, get resources from them (hack), or connect them to other locations (link & field). 

It came into my life when I wasn't feeling so great about my work effort in the gym (back in December 2013).  I couldn't run as much and there were days when I could barely walk.  Ingress gave me the motivation to get out of the house and at least try to walk around the block at the very least.  Some days I was able to move more, some days less.  

You can play the game as a solo player, but the game's strength is when you start playing with other players (agents).  My teammates have been a great support at times (and sometimes a pain in my ass).  One of my favorite friends from the game even came to the hospital to visit me when my back went haywire a year ago (wow, it's been a year since being in the hospital). 

We also have these large-scale events called anomalies where hundreds of agents converge on a single location to play the game for a 4-hour block of time (with meetups before and parties afterward).  This past weekend, I had hundreds of teammates (and opponents) converging on Washington, DC for an anomaly.

I was very busy preparing for this event last week -- so much so that I walked 72 km (44 miles) from Sunday 5/24 to Saturday 5/30 while playing the game (almost 2000 km since 12/18/13).  Crazy, right?  Sadly, the Resistance lost the DC Anomaly - but I had a lot of fun playing on the NYC team (**waves to Team Cherry Bombs/Terribly Delicious Decisions**).

Now that the anomaly (and the swag orders) are over, I can start to focus on my next big event: Fitbloggin 2015.  

Much like DubyaWife, I always spend the few weeks before Fitbloggin with a certain amount of dread and self-critique:  "You don't belong here..."  And my friends spend the few weeks before Fitbloggin reminding me that if you feel like you don't belong at Fitbloggin, that's when you need to be there the most.

This year I'll be leading a discussion with Janet Oberholtzer on a topic that is near and dear to my heart:  Living With Pain:  A Survival Guide.  Both Janet and I have had some pretty fun injuries.  I think there's a big difference between suffering an injury and learning to live with one.  Living with an injury isn't about accepting limitations or accepting defeat -- it's about moving into a new phase of your life with a bit of grace, humor, forgiveness, and a plan of attack.

I can't wait to see you all there.
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