The Hypochondriac/Faker Child.

Anyone else have a kid that goes to the nurse every week because they "don't feel good *exaggerated cough*"? Or maybe when they get hurt, the limp or favor that part of their body for days even though you know they're fine? That's my Lily. She's a sensitive girl...emotional...doesn't handle pain well. She's my mini me. If someone in the house is sick or has a cold, she's in the nurse the next day "sick too"...but has no fever and the nurse suspects she's full of crap.

One time, we were at a birthday party bowling and she dropped a bowling ball on her bare toes. That had to hurt. She couldn't walk and was crying uncontrollably. Brought her to the ER and got x rays...doc said "nothing is broken, but it's probably going to be sore and bruised for a while." 20 minutes later, she's running around the yard at Grandma's. WTF?

Tonight she was riding her bike and fell...landing hard on her knee. Instantly it swelled up and looked like hell. She couldn't bend it at all...I decided to bring her to the Urgency Room and as we were there, the tears subsided, the swelling started going down...and she started screwing around with her wheelchair. Mom's been duped. Doc said "it's a little sprain." cleaned out her scrape and sent us on our way. Lily was miraculously able to hobble out of the clinic. Imagine that.

Why do I bring her in right away? Well, a couple reasons. 1, I don't want to not bring them in and have it end up being serious. 2, When I was young, I broke my foot in the most ridiculous of ways and my parents didn't think it could possibly be broken...and it was. 3, She's one hell of a freaking actress. Seriously...she needs to get into acting. Next time, she better be missing a finger before I bring her in! I'm tired of looking like an idiot when it turns out she was exaggerating an injury. Yeah, yeah, yeah...my mom and Jim say "ice it and wait it out" but when they're screaming and crying in pain...it's not so easy. Ugh. I'm tired of being the chump lol.

I know she's doing it for attention...and it works so well. When I say "Lily, are you faking?" or "Are you fibbing?" She freaks out and asks why I never believe her. Well, she's kind of a hypochondriac faker face. That's why. Well...mama's sympathy is gone. And the trust is shot. She is the girl that cried sick/broken. She's going to have to earn it back. If she ever breaks a bone and I don't bring her to the doc for several hours and they ask why, I will share this blog post. *sigh* What an exhausting night. Time to ice the brat's knee. Later.

Wow! Would Have Been Nice To Know!!

  Lovely to find out several days after other family members knew, that my Grandma is critically ill and possibly dying. It's clear where my family stands in this "family". Clearly my dad isn't important enough to know that his mother is so sick. This is bologna. I see cryptic messages on facebook and even "pray for my grandma" and when I ask which grandma, I receive no response. You could have said "Your grandma, Jen." Something. Would you have told me if she died? How many of you knew and didn't even mention it to me. Not even a "hey, did you hear about Grandma?" WOW!!! Yes, I AM upset. How rude of you people.

Thursday Weigh In!

In one of the weight loss support groups that I'm in we do weigh ins every Thursday. So, every Thursday I'm going to update here with my newest stats! :)

My highest weight was 280...that's when I decided to have the surgery.

Day of surgery, I was 270.

Today, 17 days after surgery, I weigh 252.8!!!



On top of the 27.2 pounds I am down, I have lost a little over 8 inches over my body. I'm seeing the difference in the mirror. My clothes are fitting different/better. I'm shrinking!! :)


Today I had my 2 week post op meeting with my surgeon and he okayed me to move onto soft foods. Whew! Thank goodness. Pureed foods look like dog poop. For dinner the hubby grilled me some chicken breast tenderloins and I ate seriously 3 bites and I was too full. It's crazy! During my liquids weeks I couldn't imagine feeling full. Now I get it. I also now understand what it's like to eat a bite too much and have to puke! It's really working!

 

Slowly but surely, I'm getting there. :)

Baby Steps!

 8 months ago, I hit my highest weight ever. 280 pounds. I was shocked and appalled. The next day I visited my doctor and got my referral for weight loss surgery. Over the next several months I jumped through every hoop they had and I was maintaining a weight of 273. I had surgery on 9/16/13 (10 days ago) and today I stepped on the scale to see 260!!! I've lost 13 pounds so far!! That may not sound like much...but to me, it's awesome! It's showing me that I made the right decision. I can't wait for next week's weigh in!! Yeah buddy!

SERIOUSLY, Start Watching Your Children!!!

 So, we live in the burbs. But, it's "the projects" in the burbs. I'm pretty sure I've posted about this before...but I feel the need to repeat that as it pertains to the story I'm going to tell. It's a nice place to live, honestly. Our neighbor keeps stealing our trash can and I'm pretty sure his twenty something loser kids are smoking pot in their garage (if not them, someone else certainly is...I haven't found a skunk anywhere to make me think otherwise) and our upstairs neighbors can be loud as hell...but aside from that, I've been happy here.

 Some of you may recall my post from June, about Fiona being injured at the playground. That situation was resolved...and I have become friends with the child's mother. Well, since then, several things have happened that center around the park and I am to the point where I don't think we can live here past our lease.

 A HUGE problem here, is that a vast majority of the parents don't supervise their children at the park. I've seen a 2 year old out here being "watched" by his 6 year old cousin. People let their children go for hours and hours and don't so much as check up on them to make sure they haven't been kidnapped. The problem here isn't kidnapping, thankfully. It's that their children are little hoodlums. Not all of them, of course, but, when the cat's away, the mice will play. Know what I'm saying? The kids are always fighting with each other and it's been getting physical. Some of the parents are even condoning their children fighting. It's disgusting and disturbing. If I am at the playground when something happens, I lay down the law and tell them to knock it off and go home or go play. I will not tolerate bullying.

 Now, although the park is directly across the private street from our apartment, we do NOT let our kids play there by themselves. One or both of us are out there with them. A few months ago, my 14 year old nephew was watching Fiona and Eoghan at the park while I dropped Lily at a birthday party down the road. It literally took 10 minutes. When I got home, Fi was crying and my nephew told me that another boy (4/5) at the park beat Fiona up!! He hit her and BIT her while the mom allowed it to happen and when Fiona told the boy she hated him, the mom said "DOn't say that to him!" Needless to say, since then, this mother has been on my shit list for a bit. Yesterday, the same little boy (who is a little monster) attached Eoghan because he wanted Eo's toy. He punched him in the nose! I wanted to push the little effer down. But instead, I sent him home and told him to tell his parents what he did. A few minutes later, the mom comes out looking for the toy that her kid left at the park. Clearly, she was not going to talk to me. I went up to her and said "Hey, I sent him home because he attacked my son." She said "Oh, thanks." WTF!? Did I just step into the freaking "Twilight Zone"? She gave me the wrong freaking response. The correct one would have been something along the lines of "OMG! I'm so sorry! I will have a talk with him and watch my little brat from here on out. Again, I'm sorry!" It was all I could do to not go Jerry Springer on her. (I just had surgery, I am in no condition for this crap!)

 

 On labor day, I was with the kids playing there and one of the boys in the complex, a severely autistic 13 year old boy, came to play too. Usually, he's accompanied by his grandmother. This time, he was alone. He's a pretty happy kid...swings on the swings and laughs hysterically. His mother came to check on him and we chatted a bit and she told me about his condition and how he's a good boy and she wants him to have a normal life. She doesn't agree with her mother keeping him under her thumb all the time. Um, ok. Well, what I didn't tell her is that just before she got there, her very large son just about ripped my dog's arm off when I wouldn't let him pick the pooch up. Whatever. Mom went home and left the boy to play. Bad idea. He went into the woods and drug out a very large branch...grabbed a big stick off of it and hit Lily in the side and on her shoulder, very hard. I was freaked out and hurried to collect our things to go inside, and told him to go home. He started following us and then throwing rocks at parked cars on the street. I went in and contacted a friend to ask what I should do. Do I call the cops or let it go? I decided to let it go because he's differently abled. Bad move on my part. The next day, the same boy was alone at the park again and took that branch from the day prior and hit another boy in the head with it 3 times. I ended up calling and making a police report about Lily and another mom made one about the other boy. The boy is now no longer allowed to be unsupervised at all at the park. Clearly, that is a no brainer.

 The kids have been known to go into the woods and collect wood and other pieces of debris to make forts against trees in the commons area. It's an eye sore and it's just plain dangerous. Last week, a few of the usual suspects built a fort complete with fire ring and started the fort on fire. Now, the lack of parental supervision has become extremely dangerous! Just yesterday some kids had been in the woods again and brought out not only large branches and small logs but metal siding to play with/build a fort. WTF!? I told them to get away from it all and stop bringing crap out where people could be hurt. (they were swinging the metal around!!!)

 

 Last night I emailed our landlord and told him that if something wasn't done and parents weren't supervising their children, I would be forced to call the police any time something happens there. Our kids love to play at the park with the other kids...but it's getting way out of hand and dangerous to be there. I'm hoping that when our lease is up, they will let us either go month to month or sign a 6 month lease so we can move in warmer weather. Better yet...I'm hoping the problems are resolved and we're able to stay. Ugh. Dying to find out what kind of crap will happen TODAY!! :eye roll:

 

 
 

*boom* Week One Down!

Well, it's been a week since I changed my life. It's been a rough one too. I went home from the hospital on Wednesday early afternoon and around 9:30 pm, my calves were hurting...I was freaking out. All I could think was "OMG! It's a clot!" So, my Mom took me into the ER as per docs recommendation. He even called them to let them know I was coming in. Worst. Idea. Ever. The ER was packed to begin with, then every 10 minutes an ambulance would bring somebody in. I sat in the lobby long enough for the pain pills I had taken earlier to wear off. I was in pain and crabby. I was going to leave...obviously they weren't too concerned or I wouldn't be so low on the triage scale. But, the jerkface triage nurse convinced me to stay. Another 45 minutes later, they brought me back. Thankfully there weren't any clots...doc said it was probably from anesthesia or just sore muscles. She shot me full of pain killers, said some very sweet words of support and sent me on my way. I finally got home around 4 and crashed.

 

The rest of the week held a lot of napping, water sipping and walking around the house. I even made it to the Children's Museum with Jim and the kids! I was exhausted afterward, but I did it! Then on Saturday, a friend of a friend that had also had weight loss surgery, said if I was exhausted as I was, I wasn't getting enough protein. Truth was, I wasn't getting any. My surgeon told me "clear liquids for a week" when he discharged me. Well, I'm pretty sure it was killing me. I decideit was time to move onto the "full liquid phase" so that I could start drinking protein shakes. I also started adding unflavored protein to soups and applesauce for good measure. The next day I was feeling MUCH better.

I am so grateful for my family. Hubby took the whole week off work to be able to be home for me. He was so good. He cooked, cleaned, did laundry, played with the kids and took care of me. He is a great man and I am very lucky to have him. I am a proud wife. The kids have really tried to be nice and gentle with me...I love those guys. I know they're excited to have me "back to normal" so we can go do all the fun things we usually do.

Today was my first day going solo since surgery. Thankfully, I'm feeling about 90%. I'm beat after running my errands...but I'm not dying. :) AND, I've lost 10 pounds since last Monday! It seems small, but after hovering in the 270's for so long, seeing 261, I was pretty pleased. Yay! It only goes down from here...especially once I'm able to work out.

Thanks for all of the support friends and fam!

*whew*

 

Well, surgery was a success...I made it through surgery and recovery and home. I went into the hospital at 270 pounds, gained 6 in recovery (iv fluids) and this morning weighed in at 267. Going in the right direction! I'm still getting used to everything and I'm still exhausted and I probably will be for a while. It doesn't take much to tucker me out. I'm so excited for the next several months. Being able to eat and exercise and be healthy normal.

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes!!
Jim, thanks for taking care of me...seriously, best husband ever.
Mom, thanks for the midnight ER rescue (again lol) and for staying up until almost 4 in the morning and not bitching at me.
Abby, Thanks for coming to visit me! Sorry I was so tired!!

It's the Final Countdown!

Well, I did it. I made it all the way through the hoops I needed to jump through...7 months worth. Now, here I am, less than 24 hours away from surgery. I'm scared. I'm excited. I'm ready.

 

The past couple weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster for me. At one point, I broke down in tears. There is a very small chance of death associated with this surgery and my risk is a little higher because I wasn't told soon enough to stop a medication. So one night I set out to write my children a letter, in case something happens to me. I wasn't able to get through it. I lost it. The thought of leaving my children motherless and my husband to raise them alone terrifies me beyond belief. It literally hurts my heart to think of it. Thankfully, there is much they can do to prevent anything happening. After that breakdown, I am now at peace. I am ready for the change. Ready to be the new me. It's not going to be an easy ride, but it's going to be worth it. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?

 

 

 

If anything DOES happen, those that are close to me, please stay in touch with Jim and the kids. When they miss me, tell them I'm in heaving watching over them and all of the stuff kids need to hear to not be totally broken. When they turn 21, get them drunk and tell them of the stupid shit I did when I was young (but only the good stuff, let my demons die with me). When they get married, tell them of my wedding day. When they have children, tell them how much I love them and how I was looking forward to being an awesome grandma.

When Jim finds a new girl, make sure she's not someone I will go poltergeist on and chase around with a butcher knife. Make sure she's suitable to be a mom to my kids. Remind Jim that he'll never be able to replace me. (Okay, I might just hate the thought of another woman all up in my business..so sue me lol.)

I'm counting on things being fine, but I just want to cover my bases...just in case. :)

 

 

Jim and Mom, thank you for putting up with all of the crap that lead to this point...and for all of the crap to come. You guys are amazing and I honestly couldn't have done it without you. I love you both so much and I know that I am very lucky to have you by my side.

 

                                     

If you're the praying type, send some prayers my way...or just some good ju ju. Soon enough, I'll be back on my feet and updating how things went and then sharing pictures of the amazing shrinking Jenny! See ya later taters!