hannie’s spot. all hannie.

was spent searching for surgeons, answers, ideas to combat the pain and fix the digestive issue that makes me pretty worthless right now. I only say worthless because I cannot hold down a job, most days are spent feeling pain or being one with the toilet and it’s about irritating. To any of you who have Crohn’s Disease, I feel for you. I do. Big time.

Here’s the current issue. My guts are not going outward, well they are actually…but they’re moving around the fake abdominal wall this time. They’re going to the right and I look like I have a huge alien. I’m thinking next time around perhaps we should just do a whole body mesh and cinch down action. But where does even that leave me? I don’t know.

There is still the issue of malabsorption and constant abdominal pain. I malabsorb worse than a distal patient and I believe I am still proximal. I do not believe that any of my roux limb has been touched per my persistance.
I didn’t want any of the original RNY touched unless absolutely necessary. Now I’m beginning to rethink that decision.

As it stands I have an appointment with Dr Dellinger in February. I hope that he has something positive to say on what we can do. He knows my case and that’s something important to me. My second choice Dr Landers & third choice Dr Oh will each get copies of my OR time. I will be living at a fax machine for a good portion of January.

Last night, I had a conversation with a patient who had open-RNY maybe two years after I did, same medical facility, same surgeon. She’s near dead, facing a revision and has been told she has cancer as well. A mutual friend of ours, it turns out, same story on wls, almost died as well and had to face revisional surgery. A friend of mine who again, is almost as dead as the rest of us, had her surgery a year before me. The difference here…that last friend has no medical insurance because even if it was offered her, like us, we would be turned down because of pre existing condition (that gastric bypass, fewl).

I used to tell people that I was one of the few with constant complications. However, I’ve just told you of three who we all had same surgeon, same facility, same surgery, same surgeon. What am I going to tell you?

I watch the current plethora of weight loss surgery commercials and they either make me laugh or cry. Most people you hear from are positive happy people at 1-2 years out. Hey, guess what? 1-2 years out, I was doing just fine. Almost 9 years out, not so hot. Bariatric surgery is still an elective and explorative science to me. There’s not enough conclusive data to show me that it works and works forever. It’s not a miracle cure and it’s not a magical correction to your own original bad habits you’ve developed over the years. Before you sign any paper giving your digestive tract over to a surgeon, consider this. What if, six or seven years later, this all goes wrong? Am I really willing to sacrafice myself to science and medicine and learning and constant monitoring to keep myself alive? Don’t be scared, but don’t believe the hype either.

Yesterday started out as the same drama as before, different day. I wanted to get bills & such straightened out early in my day. Others didn’t quite see things this way and wanted to make sure I really sweated it out. For being “retired” and “dying a cripple”, they sure were making a golden example to me by telling me they were in the middle of Mobile Bay, fighting a storm & yanking chains onto the deck of a small boat. I dream of crap like that, even the ability to have that because guess what, I literally can’t. I don’t have to lie to anyone about this, the US Government included. I have piles of surgery paperwork and labs that tell you I can’t. I have miles of scars from ten previous surgeries that say I can’t.

To continue, I start my day off and I get a phone call to take care of my friend’s son. He calls me and starts whining about how hard life is out on a farm. I am the wrong person to bitch to about this. The amazing responsibilities and learning experiences my son has had and done before he ever hit 18 tell me that yes, sometimes, you have to break a sweat for a paycheck. Personally, I’d love for some medical miracle to happen and I can resume work in customer service at a call center. I loved getting my own paycheck. I loved working with customers, good or bad, and resolving their issues, because I knew that my paycheck was dependent on them shopping with my employer again. Work is never easy, no matter what environment you’re in, but you have to survive somehow.

So I’m gasping in shock as I’m taking my friends son just to get a GED. I don’t want to do this. He’s much smarter than a GED, he could have gotten a high school diploma no problem. (I plan on fighting this so that he may get a high school diploma). I told him of years where my son didn’t see the value or worth of a high school diploma and I literally beat his ass down with my own diploma. I told him of how I’m currently fighting a school district to keep child two enrolled in school because they keep telling me one story after the next and I can’t get a straight answer from anyone. I’ve fought for my kids to have the best educational experience they could, resulting in a diploma.

Of course, they need positive ID for all this, and he’s 19 and has none. I didn’t stutter. He can get a marriage license, he can get married, but somehow, he has not a shred of legal ID to his name. Not even a birth certificate. What the shit? How is he supposed to get a job or even do anything without this? We’re all sitting around bitching about how “useless he is” or whatever, yet no one wanted to take time or responsbility when he was younger to get him the tools he needed to get a job in the first place. What the fuck.

I come home, utterly exhausted and in pain from running around all day trying to get this boy (not my own) moving in the correct direction and the pain is horrible. Horrible horrible. I go lie down and the next thing I know I’m awake, sweating to death and barely able to move. I scream for my daughter and she comes running, takes one look at me, and knows what’s happening. She helps me to the bathroom, asks me where the sugar is in the house (I am literally having a blood sugar crash) and I start inhaling peanut m & m’s while on the toilet. May little man not run around the corner and see all this going down..because for someone new to the world of hypoglycemia, it’s scary as hell.

I blather about going to the store to get more sugar and my child tells me not to. How I drove there and got back, I am not really sure, but I told the child to put the sugar up somewhere and I was going to lie back down. For the past few days, my blood sugar has been on the low side of things, but not low enough that I thought I’d need to worry about it. Now I find myself worrying big time, because I literally can’t remember events. What if I had been by myself or with someone who didn’t know the warning signs or what to do?

I’m scared and I guess this is really the wake up call to “I know I need better health care and in a quicker fashion” than what I’ve been doing. I’m tired of taking care of others’ fuckups and can’t imagine why they are the way they are with their adult children. Sure, I had a little hellion growing up. But I made damn sure he knew the importance of why he needed legal documentation, a state issued ID card/licence…and basic skills & information to live on once he turned 18. I didn’t want him to grow up a failure and I wanted him to have a sense of self reliance. It wasn’t easy, not in the least and there were many days we wanted to strangle one another. It came down to “here you go, these are the documents you need. You lose ‘em, get this, YOU’RE replacing them”. I’m sorta resentful that a childhood friend of mine has not gotten this concept and left a child of her own to wander around aimlessly. Was that done us when we were little? Me, maybe until I was 15 and in foster care. Her, I know damn good and well her mother would have never stood for it. I know her ex-husband, had he still been among the living, would have had at least a dairy farm over this entire situation and then some. I don’t get the lack of trust, responsibility and fight when it comes to him. I don’t get it.

I ended it like this yesterday before I passed out in a strange coma for a few hours. “You know little man, we can sit here and talk about the shit that’s been dished us for years on end. But you need to have a small taste of success and you need to be able to taste it on your own, not with my help or with anyone else’s. Once you do, you’ll know you like it and want and need more. This week, in between my doctor’s appointments, let’s make that shit happen and see how you like it. Good enough for my kids? Good enough for you too and let’s make this shit happen.”

I think my foster mother would have been proud somehow, because she too always saw past the bullshit and put people back on the correct path for years on end. She did it for me and I guess I’m just passing it forward. Duh. Must turn in Group Health paperwork and pray for a miracle to happen healthwise.

I’ve dealt with constant chronic pain for a few years now. I’ve been steady losing weight, losing parts here and there and well, about losing my mind. However, my history will tell you that it all started with a dream.

Ten years ago, I weighed 417 lbs. In fact, I was so heavy that I could not be weighed inside the hospital. I was taken out to the loading dock scale and weighed there, tears streaming down my face in embarrassment. How could I have let myself go to the point that I was not only “morbidly obese” but also proud owner of all sorts of co-morbidities that could kill me off as well? There are many reasons for this, but I won’t delve into those now. I’d rather tell you where I am now, where I am going and the idea that “what can go wrong can very possibly go wrong”.

Since having open-RNY surgery in January 2001, I’ve spent tons of time as either an inpatient having surgery to fix something or being in a wait status for this to happen. My children and my family and friends have been my greatest source of strength and love during all this. The husband decided to bail ship because he could not deal with this. Endless hours of being in and out of a hospital with every complication imaginable, well, it’s not for all. He was one of those who just stopped caring and felt that my medical issues were hindering him and what he wanted to accomplish in this lifetime.

After leaving Katrina (and him) I found out that I had trapped bowel and a destroyed abdominal wall. It was remeshed in the nick of time, basically reconstructed. One year later, that wall was giving way and I was patched. Another year and we discover that the entire wall is just failing. We tried to fix it. I almost died. So it was removed and I was given a year to get in the best health possible to replace it. Last September, it was replaced and again, in constant pain all of the time. I can barely eat but I can drink. Not a good place to be, yes, but at least I’m still here to see my children grow up, and see some beautiful grandbabies happen. I’ve had the opportunity to reconnect with childhood friends who meant the world to me then and mean the world to me now. I found the one first love that I had in childhood and to this day, we still love one another dearly. I’ve had opportunity to make a difference and do the sort of political things that I dreamed of as a youngster. Those political people who gave me the motivation and inspiration as a young one in South Kitsap…I’ve reconnected with them and thanked them for giving me the idea that not only as a woman but a democrat as well…I can stand up and get my voice heard and do what I can in the name of giving those who follow me a better world in which to live. I’ve had opportunity to stand up and defend that playground in which I was so honored to have as a child and now, Puget Sound.

I’m blessed to have been able to take what I was given from birth and to pay it forward and I’m so proud to even say that.

Yesterday, I was with my doctor and I’m tired, frustrated, upset because I can’t seem to get the pain under control and I questioned if my current med regimen is even working. I lift my shirt up to show him where the pain is and he gasps. I look down and there’s the telltale sign of yes, another hernia. I feel defeated. I feel lost. All those years of surgeons and me coming together and trying to find a feasible solution has yes, yet again, failed. Back to calling the hospital and asking, begging for someone to see me and allow me a pain management solution and a surgeon who is bariatric knowledgeable to give me hope or an idea or something to fix me.

I get in this morning with the head of Internal Medicine and thankfully, he’s familiar with my case. He doesn’t have to weed through four sets of medical paperwork that are at least three inches thick. He’s been with me for at least a year of my medical hell. As he looks and feels he looks like he too wants to cry. We go through my pain regimen and he sees what has worked and what has failed. We go back with what I was doing before but at stronger strengths and he suggests that I am sent back to UW. I was there before, but I had to fight with the insurance company to even be seen there, because they weren’t in the know as to how bad off I truly was. I had to go into the insurance office and beg and plead for authorization for care there. My body gave out, gave up before I could have surgery there. I could not be airlifted to Seattle because I was that close to death, so NH Bremerton took over my care. Because it’s military, those original surgeons who saved me are in private practice now and out of the military system. I don’t want to be sent to Madigan for a revision surgery. I want the best bariatric surgeons to tell me how to stop this nightmare from recurring and how to stop the weight loss.

Currently, I stand at 197, which is the lowest I’ve been since high school. That’s about 22 years ago. My labs, although yes, the best we’ve seen in a few years, still scream on some serious vitamin/mineral deficiencies. I’m scared that the weight loss won’t stop, can’t stop. I’m scared that there’s no more fix left. And I’m scared that we can’t find a pain management treatment that will work for me.

Today with the doctor yes, it was confirmed that I have yet another hernia popping out. The doctor believes that the hernia is coming from an area that was not meshed out, somehow it’s gotten around the mesh. So I tell him that I want out of the military medical system. I’m not knocking it, but I’m saying that I want a specialized bariatric surgeon to evaluate my case, somehow come up with why I’m hernia princess and fix it one more time.

Must be on my way, but again, we play the waiting game. We wait for the referrals to go through, the paperwork to be approved, and the endless commutes back and forth between UW for more tests than I can shake a stick at. And this, my friends is why I beg for single payer/public option healthcare. My health history is a prime example of what can and will go wrong when you have too many cooks/doctors/surgeons/insurance companies in the mix. In the end, YOU pay with YOUR LIFE. It shouldn’t have to be that way. Never. Ever.

June 2000- 417 lbs
November 2009-197 lbs

Numbers scare me.

So tonight I was sitting around thinking I was going to go to bed. I strip off my shirt because I’m still going through the constant hot cold thing and I see it. It’s this lump of sorts and it’s up against my left rib cage. I don’t know how high up we did the mesh, but I’m fairly certain we did not venture into my ribcage.

It doesn’t really hurt, but it’s quite solid so I have to pause and wonder if this is more scar tissue forming (looking at my actual incision line, you would see that this bump is right at the top). I’m scared about it in a way, but not because you know, I’m still here. If it hurts tomorrow, I am going to hightail it to Gig Harbor. I will not let the jerks at Harrison touch me.

Honestly, I’m tired of hospitals, I’m tired of operating rooms, I’m tired of being in pain or sick all the time. So what keeps me alive and keeps me going, even in the darkest of hours?

It would have to be my friends and family who love me dearly no matter what I look like or what I’m going through this week. I am so blessed to have those people in my life who love me unconditionally as I do them.

Being in pain sucks. Being in pain and absolutely ill after doing your best to eat or drink something sucks too. I wish there was a magic button where that just disappeared and I felt awesome and could do anything my little heart imagined. Certainly I would be a winner in this respect, wouldn’t I? I think I win because I still have a certain determination in this lifetime to do something positive and give back to those who have been so wonderful to me.

I slept for a few hours and so far, things are not hurting. The sleep is good, I close my eyes and drift off to sleep thinking of those I dearly love and I do eventually drift off. That’s one of biggest things when I feel sick or in pain or need to sleep. I close my eyes and I think of people or events or times in my life where I felt really loved and secure in my surroundings and it sort of calms me down and allows me to drift into sleep. I also recommend playing Animal Crossing for either DS or Wii. You have to actually concentrate on the game instead of what ails you at the moment.

Tomorrow’s just another day. Today, I’m doing what I can to enjoy this.

it’s time to once again clean up the world around me and start seriously taking time for those who are deserving of my time. Manda has been trying for the good part of a week to get me to sleep on my bed. Last night, it was rather lucky I had ignored her and stayed on the recliner. I woke up, not only in pain but freezing, but with that all too familiar slime trail of ghastly stomach acid coming out of my mouth. Yuk.

I was over sleeping at a friend’s house…naturally drifting off in his arms and it was great. Waking up though, I felt where I had started the backlash of stomach acid coming up (please keep in mind, for me, stomach acid takes a long route to travel to come back and revisit me) and I was only slightly scared. I say that because those who are not exactly all knowing of my medical issues often get scared hearing about them, and sometimes it even can make them either walk from my life or treat me with kid gloves. If you can’t handle the weirdness I bring, then yes, walk because I have a specific living will that states that I will be a burden to no one. I try to uphold that in every situation possible.

The stomach acid thing, commonly known as GERD, that came back to me maybe six years out or so…and why, I don’t know…but this I do know. I tend to spit up more, often to the point of choking in my sleep at night (why I was glad to be on the recliner, I can’t choke in an upward position) when I am more stressed out about things. If there’s unrest in my world, it happens. Time to de-stress my world around me.

I used to care about everyone around me but not me. Not caring about my health and me has really taken a toll on me, mentally and physically. So now, when my body talks to me in such a way, I listen. I tell many wls patients or even those who are considering surgery, look, I know it’s been years since you cared about yourself. Seriously, look in the mirror. I can see it because I’ve been there too, but once you have surgery, you need to re-organize your list of importance. If you expect to succeed in any way, “you” needs to be moved to the top of the list and not the bottom where it’s been for years on end. It’s a hard thing to do because hey, we’ve all been out to please everyone else around us and not ourselves for so long, we forgot what it felt like. Success begins with you and your outlook. You’re worth it and you would not be looking at weight loss surgery if you weren’t. After undergoing 2-3 hours in an OR having the ginzu knife procedure done to you to save you, don’t you think that yes, now is your time and yes, you’re absolutely worth that? You are and then some. Don’t let anyone tell you any different, ever.

I have lots of them, too numerous to count, but here’s my problem of the morning.

My morning tweet…I once weighed 417. I currently weigh 203.5. I’m lumpy and have just as many scars as I do tattoos. And yes, I AM a real person.

I was watching GMA because I like to do that sometimes. There was a story about “large people” finding love and how the plus size type shows don’t truly represent how larger people are or feel. I’ve never watched any of the shows they mentioned except for “The Biggest Loser”.

Using that show as an example, I think it’s showing the challenges of trying to get the extra weight off. Yes, you need to eat better. Yes, you need to get exercise in. No, it’s not easy to make those changes in your life and yes, it gets frustrating as all get out and you want to cry.

So they’re speaking with this woman on “fat acceptance”. She’s livid because these shows tell people how much each contestant weighs. OMG GASP! Yes, people get touchy about the subject of weight and yes, some would rather it not be broadcast because well, in my case long ago, I was ashamed of how out of control my weight and health were. I tell my numbers to people all the time now, I don’t care, because you can surely under or over guestimate how much a person weighs. In my case, absolutely you can. Am I healthy right now? As healthy as I’m going to be.

So “fat acceptance” person goes on to talk about how large people have no concept of self esteem. Right on the money there. For me, gaining the weight meant that less people would pay attention to me. Of course, we all know I’m your favorite attention whore, but for a long time, I was under the belief that being fat would make me more non-descript. I was, and still am at times, an emotional eater. Happy? Let’s eat. Sad? Let’s eat. Depressed? Oh hell yea, we’re eating. Many of those food choices, pre-surgery ,were crappy ones. I won’t lie. I stopped caring about myself and threw myself into everything else but me.

I believe that even after you lose weight, you still have self-esteem issues. I weigh what, almost 200 lbs. But if you asked me what I envisioned myself at, weight wise, I would tell you 400 lbs. It’s a common perception problem.

There are some who just cannot deal with the attention that you get once you’ve dropped the weight. Sure, people look at me, but you know, keep looking and move along. Thank you for the compliments, sincerely, but more times often than not, I somehow tune it out. I have my own self esteem battles just like anyone else, and I can bring the criticism on myself from my head to my toes. Why shouldn’t we be addressing this sort of thing on any “large people” reality shows? This is reality. Be real. Don’t be hoppin on tv and crying foul on this because you feel it degrades the plus size. It’s part of the plus size that any one of us has had to deal with.

Enough. All I’m saying is, if you’re going to have a reality show based on plus sized people…make it that. As for “fat acceptance”, well you know what? I got news for you. Not everyone appreciates fat. Heck, some people don’t appreciate skinny either. If you’re looking for acceptance on looks alone, I don’t feel you’re going to get it. If the other person is judging you on looks alone, I swear they’re not worth your time. The true people are those who look beyond and see you for the beautiful person you are inside. They’re not hung up on your looks. Believe me, my weight has gone up and down repeatedly and I speak from personal experience on this. Be you and be the healthiest you that you can, because you’re absolutely worth it. To the world you may be but one person, but to one person you may mean the world to them. Learn it, live it.

So my cool new friend melting mama is doing the Walk From Obesity this year. You’re thinking hey, neither you nor Mama are no longer obese, why the heck should you care? We care because we were once really super obese and we know the physical and mental pain of being in this condition. So please donate to Melting Mama’s team if you can, because we’re all about working to make others happier and healthier. Get on it and thanks for your support.

Okay, so yes, I am in the hospital. I am about ready to scream from the pain of coughing up so much blood. One nurse told me that I need to see a surgeon because I have way too much scar tissue built up on the right side of me, right, interestingly is the same side that hurts like hell right now because I am coughing up so much blood. I feel like the doctors are stupid because one, he doesn’t tell me much of anything no matter how many times I ask. I need to know why we are coughing up so much blood and I am still in excruciating pain. Why haven’t we questioned this? No, he wants to sit around and talk about me smoking, legal or otherwise. Dude, shut up, the moment I felt pain and achy I stopped. I used to say that I smoked really to lessen the pain and it helped. In this case, no, just made things worse.

Let’s start from the beginning before I start going off and how this doctor sucks and I will so ask to be transfered in the prayers of better care. I think screaming whiny football watching girl gets better care, but she’s in worse condition than me. But shouldn’t someone care about me and how bad off I am doing? Apparently not. The doctor literally chased me off when I asked him when I was leaving, what was going on, and what we were going to do about the pain. “I said you’re getting a chest x-ray”. Oh goodie. Let’s do that some more. Why weren’t we doing this yesterday when I cried about the pain and the blood YESTERDAY? Needless to say, it just seems odd to me.

So yes, how did we get here. One of the tricks that my super old wls friends and I have is that if we know our potassium is low, we must eat hot sauce. You have this insane craving for it. I sat and ate hot sauce and jalapenos while my daughter just watched in horror. I don’t know if this is entirely true, but I can speak to at least three friends and me have this affliction. Don’t take it as medical advice but yea, know that you should probably be bumping up the potassium somewhere.

I get home and I ache and I’m so cold. Like cold enough I feel like my bones are frozen. Uh oh, let’s find that thermometer. I read at about 102. No biggie, I can take some tylenol and it’s gone tomorrow.

Here’s the thing though, I’m babbling incoherently. I’m either super hot or super cold. So we know that’s fever status. To someone like me, that means, carry myself into an ER straight away because I’m dehydrating. If I’m dehydrating then I’m losing what little potassium I have left. I get to the ER and they start in on me about losing the IV and I’m sleeping and bitch bitch bitch. Excuse me, I’m not there for a social visit. I’m there because I’m sick and thanks to all of you for poking me a million times over a few hours *before* doing that chest x ray to see how sick I really was. At one point, as I was originally coughing blood, they spoke of tamiflu. Personally, they should have handed that over straight away. WTH? Oh well.

Right now all I smell is waffles and french toast and I want to throw up. I got a tiny bit of cottage cheese and some fruit, and hopefully my body will like it. I think things I truly appreciate is being in ANY hospital and you pretty much have to educate your doctor as to what you can and can’t take, can and can’t eat. Don’t you think that as an internist, you’d want to take a little more interest in the care of bariatric patients because you know, that demographic is getting HUGER instead of smaller? Why am I educating you each time I walk in the door and for all you screaming republican idiots, I got a question. Just who do I receive my health care from? And how correct will that care be or am I just asking to die because no one is really clued into open or Lap RNY? I don’t want to spend a week educating you. I need you to know. Please.

Oh so yea, when you get hauled off to the ER for dehydration, pretty much you get the regular bag and then the cool bag with potassium and lidocaine. You want that lidocaine in there. It doesn’t burn your veins as bad. Every time they take an ounce of blood from you, you want to know what they’re doing. You don’t have to look, but be sure to ask.

I don’t know what’s going to happen or how long I am going to be here. Honestly, I don’t think the jackass assigned to me knows either and it really amazes me that he’d sit around and treat me like crap. I’m sorry, is it because I’m a poor person? (seriously I think I have found someone with worse smelling poo than me. It’s the lady next door. I thought my son or me had that contest in the bag. Nope.)

Oh, to explain the bad poo poo of wls, it’s because you’re no longer processing food the same way as before. So you can really stinky up a bathroom. I think I wrote about how I offended some older woman at Fred Meyer. Yea, well hey honey, I wish that they carried some small cans of air freshner that worked quickly. I just don’t feel good about lighting a sulfur match in any bathroom.

This has got to get better. Maybe I annoyed the doctor enough he’s actually going to do something. I’ll let you know.

Today I went back and found my old pages and sorta dug around. Generally, I don’t like looking at them because I feel that when I read back over those entries, I see some of the emotional pain now that I wasn’t seeing then. There’s entries that leave me bawling because I was just in a bad emotional state and I didn’t see it when I was writing. I see it now, years later. I didn’t see it back then. I guess really, I keep those pages up because it does, for the most part, hold true to what was going on then, good or bad, and honesty counts somewhere. I’m not sure where. I hope that it all helps someone in the end.

Let’s start with this. Yes, if you’ve previously lost your will to live and then you enter a marriage thinking you’re going to do better and you don’t, it’s a bummer. Life is one big emotional rollercoaster and some do better on it than others. I have more health education behind me than I ever dreamed of having. I wonder if I would make a good nurse somewhere.

I have become the ever so popular pain in the butt annoying person. Someone accused me of being single because I was a prude the other day. Nice, but I think you’re off base with that. I believe I am single because I am so medically complicated. I am an exhausting person to deal with. People tell me that oh yes, I am a wonderful person and no, they would never dare turn their back on me and yet they do. I get it. Living your life the way I have to mine, not knowing if I am going to be sick or not, not knowing if I can even leave the couch one day to the next, is emotionally draining. It can and will drag you down, as it has me. I want to be better, I want to achieve more and do more, but these days, it’s hard. I just don’t know.

Looking at pictures of me from a long time ago, it’s sad anyway I slice it.

Unabashedly, I will be the first to say that we are our own worst critics. I’m super guilty of this.

Today, I should be dishing out ice cream, meeting with fellow citizens of Kitsap County and getting what’s on THEIR mind. Much of the time when I write, believe it or not, that’s how I gain my greatest inspiration. What are you wanting to know and what are you questioning? How can we collectively come up with ideas to make our county the best in Washington state?

Many of you will say, “Oh but now Miss Hannie, NO ONE comments on your blog.” Sure, they won’t type anything in there, for many typing in my comments area is like asking to be shot in the foot…but finding me and telling me what they thought and their reaction, well, it’s done all the time. I think the personal feedback to my face actually does much more than just ploinking out something to the tune of “hannie you’re wrong, you suck and you should just roll over and die.” (Some people actually believe this. My response, “Please look in your own closet first. When you’re done, then come back with an actual credible complaint against me.”)

Even though I’m the healthiest I’ve been in about 3-4 years, I’m still sick. I’m ready to go, jump up and holler and do everything I haven’t been able to do for that past timeframe. However, I’ve discovered in doing so, I’m not as ready as I thought I was.

Long ago, I had a conversation with Doug Green who was, at the time, SKSD administrator. I had known him since I was little, as a teacher first. But here I was, maybe 17, in his office and fighting for my education and a high school diploma. We went back and forth for some time (we did this, we did.) and his best words of advice to me were, “You know Johanna, I understand how you want to conquer the world. But you have this insane tendency to put all your eggs in one basket and then you end up burning yourself in the end, and what the heck have you solved then?”

At 17, I thought Doug was full of it and knew nothing. At 40, I know that Doug was doing his best to teach me a valuable life lesson and I blew him off for some time on it. I thought I could step up and put all those eggs in one basket and make it all work, and as Doug can oh so well tell me, yea, it doesn’t quite work that way.

I want to do and see and achieve so many things and help as many as I can. But the bigger picture that I’m not quite seeing until this morning is that in having that sort of goal, I have to realize my physical limitations in doing that. I need to take some time and a few deep breaths for me. I have to be a little more demanding in asking my family for what will help me most. If they should decide to offer that help on their own, I should be willing to take it, appreciate them for it and not be so critical because they did it their way instead of my way. I whole heartedly admit that sometimes I truly believe my way is the best way, so I guess that Charlie can officially say I have an ego problem. Now if he could follow up with taking away a couple of my birthdays so that I’m less than 40, that would be cool.

I’ve learned some solutions that help me be a better person and not feel so stressed or mind whirring all the time. However, I think I need to learn to achieve a better balancing act and be able to stick to the commitments that mean the most to me. Sometimes, those commitments have the tendency to walk on me or detract me from what I really want to be doing. I don’t like being mean or downright nasty, I don’t, but somewhere there has to be a balance. Somehow, it will all come together like pieces to a puzzle. I’ll be all the smarter for that moment.

However, right about now, I feel about stressed, I’m not entirely sure that I can handle all of the complexities called my world and my self esteem is having a bad hair moment. I’ve weathered larger storms and done just fine. Sometimes though, I share my vision and how I got there with others and I think that they miss the boat, either on what I’ve said or what my goal strategy is. Shame how that is.