hannie’s spot. all hannie.

I know you’ve missed me. I mean, I would hang out with you every day, sometimes 2-3 times a day because I have this crazy obsession with you. I have this insatiable need to know exactly what I weigh each day, and I’m eight years out. I can’t explain it, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that I’m back down to 235 and I know that if I work harder at it, I can be 200 or even lower than that and really defy those who told me I could not make it happen. Now, I could discredit some of that weight loss to me alone, no, I could tell you that because of numerous surgical procedures, I’m just glad to be alive and I keep a pretty straight ship on what I should and shouldn’t eat, have my prescription cocktail regularly checked to ensure I have no weight gainers in the mix, and drink lots so I’m not dehydrated. Truth be told, I need to be better about water. I should drink more, but the thing I’m saying here is that I sat down and thought about everything and I realized how grateful I really am. Why spend that time sick or sleeping because I made a bad choice?

Okay, so scale, guess what? I met this incredible person, and he showed me this video of someone trying to get a date, and intestinal problems held him back. I speak to Crohn’s, which is super bad, and I’d have to say worse off than me, but I can totally identify with anyone with digestive problems of any sort. You just don’t want to make an ass of yourself when you’re trying to woo that potential suitor.

Puking over the deck is super impressive. Puking over that deck for an hour straight and it’s dry heaving and I’m crying because it’s super painful, score ten points more. Having that “bad day” and you tell the date um, I need to be seated super close to the bathroom, and I might be in there for a while makes for a super fun one too. Yea, I’ll give you a walkie talkie and you eat and I’ll just stay in the bathroom and we’ll hold that conversation and get to know one another. No. Not a cool idea for that first date.

I think that one that well, sorta makes my parents mad at times, is when you go to a restaurant with well, whomever, and not only do you get to order the adult portion, you pray it isn’t something that’s going to make you desperately ill. And if it makes you that ill and you *thought* it was a safer choice, you want to cry even more because you’re in pain and stuck to the bathroom and how are you supposed to enjoy company with other person? Maybe we could install like video monitors at the nicer restaurants, table to bathroom stall and fake background so you don’t know I’m in the bathroom and we could see each other. My parents threw a tizzy fit because for their anniversary dinner, that’s what happened. I ordered what I thought would be okay in small portion and nope, didn’t work.

I always have a doggy bag from restaurants. People ask about that…OMG, there’s so much food left on your plate, oooh, did you not like it? Are you okay? I’m fine, thanks for asking, but my new tummy is 2 cm. No, you can’t see it but you have to take my word on it, because the scars across my abdomen don’t mean a darn thing and uh, I *look* fine because well, I LOOK fat. Very valid arguments those are. But I can’t drag actual copies of CT scans to show you how my new digestive system works, because then it gets too technical and right into TMI category, and do you or I really honestly have time to drag that story around again? Google it or something, but I’m not the Surgery channel when I want to impress you. Unless you ask and you really want to hear it, then I’ll be happy to speak to it.

If you have had WLS and you’re in the “dating pool” and your world is just a bit medically crazy, yes, your laundry list of what you’re looking for in potential date gets a little longer. For me, if I know that I’m being inpatient and I’m fixin to go under a knife yet again, I break off relationships with people. I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to get so emotionally tied to someone and then have something go wrong and yet another person is left hanging and praying for me. It’s bad enough that my parents and children have had to do that a few times. Just as I made my friend make me a promise that I knew I could hold him too, he made me make a promise to him that he knew I could hold, and that was to not include him in that list ever. Said person understands me, rhyme and verse to my inner core, so I can say absolutely, you are not on that list. Those are the people you hold closest to you and say “aha, keeper!”

So yea, scale, sorry about that, I’ve been busy and really working hard on not being so scale obsessive, because it almost is yet another key to unlock the door to total self love. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m happy to even be alive so you know, I will take what I’m dealt. Believe me, there’s days where I am really hard on myself, and we are our own worst critics. No one is perfect, but sometimes, you get so caught up on your own image that you start believing you can be perfect. You can’t. When speaking to your body image and wls, perfection can’t be achieved, but if you’re happy with where you are and what you look like, life can be much better. When you love yourself first, those who love you imperfections and all with no reservations just come pouring out of the woodwork.

Scale, don’t get me wrong. I love you, I do, but I’m trying to break bad habits here. You can appreciate that, right?