*SMACK* Between the Eyes

I love church. I can't remember a single Sunday that I didn't come away with something that stayed with me and helped me grow as a Christian or in my relationship to Christ - not a single time. God uses every message our pastor gives in one way or another in my growth.

So I have come to anticipate God speaking the things I need to hear every week through him, but today was something altogether different. Of the most pressing spiritual areas I'm pondering or struggling with, he hit them all. Bing, bang, boom! But there is one thing I wanted to write about because of its relevance in my life right now: I have been using the wrong shield!

The following is a direct quote from today's sermon, in reference to the shield of faith in Ephesians chapter 6 (that I thought I knew all about!):

"Many are using the wrong shield. We try to conquer the temptations & flesh in our own strength.
We fail time & time again, yet we keep trying, hoping that some day we will get it right.
Often we are not properly using the shield, & wondering why we are not victorious against the fiery arrows of the evil one. We have the Word of God, we know the Word of God, but we don’t practice the Word of God.
"James 1:22 says, 'Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.'”

Here's where I go wrong! I do listen to the Word and I do do what it says in most cases - ie, not lying and stealing and murdering and such - but when it comes to conquering temptations and flesh, I vow to do better next time, or I try harder and harder each time...and like he said, I keep trying and hoping some day I'll get it right. Oh, I'll throw up a prayer, "I'm sorry I failed yet again, Father...help me to get it right next time." But what do I change? what do I DO, according to the Word in James 1:22? Do I keep doing the same things that lead to my failure, reading the Word, but not doing what it says in relation to my temptations and flesh? Do I USE the Word to know what to DO, what I need to change? Or do I listen to it, read it, and not change a thing yet still attempt to "do better" next time? Do I have believe that the shield of faith can protect me...but then just leave it hanging on the wall and not pick it up and put in front of me?

"Yeah, God, I know that shield hanging on the wall over there will protect me, I read all about it, blah blah blah...now let me get back to trying to gain a little ground against this temptation here...oh, and will you help me please?"

*SMACK*

Coming Down To The Wire

(NOTE: If you are seeing this on Facebook, please click below to see the entire post or go to my blog itself. I don't always make my point in the first paragraph, which is all that shows up on my Facebook page. I mean, if you actually want to see it all :).)

5 more days. I realized last night that I don't want to do this. Yes, I want - no, NEED - relief, and yes this is a last resort, and no nothing else has worked, and yes this is supposed to improve my quality of life. So why don't I want it? As bad as things are, my pain is a "known". Life after next Wednesday, according to what I've read on online forums for people who have had it, is a great "unknown". That there are a fairly large number of people who have serious side effects or whose procedure fails doesn't concern me as much, as I know that God's hands will be on those of my surgeon, and both my soul and my body are under His care. (If there is a failure of some sort, it will be because God chooses to use that - to use me - somehow for His glory, and I'd be ok with that too of course.)

So now Thanksgiving is over. I ate a plate of food, ate slowly, chewed well...and was sick until 6:00 this morning. These next 5 days will be spent on mostly liquids with small (a few bites) amounts of only those foods which will build up my body for the assault it is about to have on it. Plus I'm not sure how I will get my nutritional needs met in the days/weeks afterward, and my body will need all the nutrient support it can get for the healing. So I will be concentrating on quality protein in tiny amounts. I have been saving all of my meat juices, skimming off the fats and straining out every morsel of food, and freezing them for my clear liquids afterward, and plan to make a good marrow broth as well for the nutritional value.

I've been pushing myself to accomplish things these last couple of weeks, and by mid-day my body is screaming at me to stop but I always push just a little more, so much I want to get done before Wednesday. Yesterday making Thanksgiving dinner I had to slam down painkillers through the day just to get through it. Last night - well, early this morning - I decided that whatever didn't get done isn't going to happen now. No more pushing, no more eating, no more accomplishing. From now on it is just about preparing my body and my spirit and my mind...

It will all be fine, I'm not fearful, I just don't want to face the unknown. But I'm not facing it alone. Besides family and friends who will be with me I will be in a "God-cloud" through it all, as I always am. There's no room for fear but leaving the known, no matter how miserable and painful it is, for the unknown isn't something I am looking forward to. I will do it - I HAVE to do it - but I don't want to do it.

Less Than Two Weeks....

...and as soon as I realized that, within seconds of opening my eyes this morning, I developed an instant headache and nausea. Instant. I talked to God about it, it isn't that I don't trust Him (how could I not?)...but putting myself into the hands of people in a profession that has betrayed and even damaged me in the past is overwhelming. I felt a sense of panic. What will happen to me when I am at their mercy? Thankfully I am here as a result of God's mercy, and His trumps theirs...but the headache and nausea remain.

I had my telephone pre-registration appointment this morning. Her name was Linda. She has parrots too. Discussing them set me at ease before the actual interroga...er...interview began. She was very nice, good sense of humor, going through medical issues herself - I liked her. Until the end. I can't wear my wedding rings (yes, I have 2 bands, a story for another time), and they are so adamant about that that if I show up for surgery with my rings on, it will be canceled. She said they are dead serious about that. My heart started racing, I felt panic, and like I needed to run away. She told me that if they won't come off (and they won't, no matter WHAT you try - trust me on this!) they need to be cut off. CUT OFF?!?!?!? I started to freak out; she went from pleasant to insistent and was approaching dictatorial, at least from my perspective. I couldn't wait to get off the phone and try to pretend it didn't happen. Pete assured me that the jeweler will be able to put the rings back together afterward so I can wear them again. He'd better, if he can't then I don't know what I will do...this is perhaps the most awful thing I've heard yet.

Maybe you - whoever you are - don't "get" my feelings about all of this. Of course you don't know my history or my past, or me, well enough to understand it. That's ok. Just accept at face value that there are good reasons for these panics-alternating-with-periods-of-acceptance-even-if-not-CALM-acceptance. I need to get through the next less than 2 weeks, and better than I am doing it today.

Less than 2 weeks. The symbols of my strongest earthly bond taken off. Less than 2 weeks. The unexpected. Less than 2 weeks. At the mercy of people I don't trust. Less than 2 weeks...less than 2 weeks...less than 2 weeks...

All Eyes On December 1st

Everything in my life, it seems, is focused on Dec. 1st. When I think about the future, it is divided into "before my surgery" and "after my surgery".

Goals for before my surgery: lay up a supply of food for my parrots (formerly known as Itty Bitty Birdie Bites, when I was still running my business); get my shop reorganized and cleaned; move our keyboards/bookcase/music books from the dining room to the half of my former shop that will now be the music room; clean the dining room, including the carpet; move my table/chairs from the sunroom to the dining room; clean the sunroom, including the carpet; move the futon into the sunroom for added living space or a place for guests; rearrange the bird cages to the other side of the living room so they'll have southern exposure and sunshine from the biggest windows through the winter, and move our living space to the other side where the birds were - of course cleaning thoroughly (including carpets!) as I go.

And I am putting up a website for our church. This is really important to me. Right now we are living without an income, and therefore without a tithe. This is our offering that God can use for the advancement of His kingdom and is very important for me to provide. It was grieving my heart that I had nothing to offer until we get some sort of income, then God put in my heart that I can still work toward growing His church and supporting my local congregation. Creating a website is how I am doing that. I want to get it up Before Surgery, and can fine-tune it and add to it After Surgery, especially in the first days (or weeks? I hope not!) when I probably won't be doing a whole lot else. But it energizes and excites me to know that I can still contribute resources to God's kingdom in this way.

These are the main things I want to accomplish. Each day I try to do at least SOMETHING toward my goals, depending on the state of my arthritis and gut pain I do more on some days than others. But these are things that I feel MUST be done.

I am writing an ebook also, and have picked it up and worked on it on and off for several months. Not sure what I will do with it once it is finished, but that is something I want to do After Surgery. I also want to do some more recording of music on my keyboard, and I have a lot of Christian materials here - music books, CDs, fiction and nonfiction books - that I need to organize and decide what I want to do with them...and I probably will be listing a bunch of stuff to sell that I will have weeded out during my rearranging and organizing Before Surgery.

I have much in my mind that needs to become reality, and I am making it happen. So I do what I can, when I can, and it will all get done...Before Surgery or After Surgery.

Low Carb Eating and Priorities

I find I am not worrying about carbs as much as I am concerned with comfort at this point. Whatever doesn't cause pain is what I eat. And trying to reduce any inflammation in my gut before the surgery (the reason for the liquid diet suggestion by my primary doc) is a priority as well. The two should go hand in hand. I have been sticking with soft foods though, rather than liquids. I am not getting a whole lot of pain eating this way - along with my digestive enzyme supplements to help break things down - and I am guessing/hoping that the levels of pain and inflammation are connected...

At any rate, this is about carbs and not about pain or surgery :). And I have introduced some carby foods that I wouldn't normally eat, for the sake of the above. Low carb foods that I am eating are eggs/heavy cream scrambled with cheese...cottage cheese...chicken...cream soups (homemade)...string cheese...SF jello/whipped cream (sweetened with sweetzfree)...SF ice cream...yogurt...

What I have eaten that is comfortable to my gut but not low carb: potatoes (baked or mashed) and rice, both well-buttered, and both eaten minimally (only made rice once in fact).

I'm finding that more things bother me than I thought. Most vegetables are all but out of the question, as are many meats - although I do a pot roast the other day, cooked until very very tender - falling apart in fact - and could eat small amounts of that, very well-chewed. But only very small amounts.

This is only temporary, but I miss my cooking and the types of meals that I am so used to eating. I will get past this in a few months, and be able to get back to my beloved and precious low carb eating. I think I will pick up a good protein shake mix to add from now until the surgery, because I know I'm not getting enough protein. I also need a liquid vitamin supplement since the big pills are just too much...

Anyway, just an update on how I'm doing with my soft-foods and my eating. Nothing earth-shattering. Which is probably a good thing :).

At The Doctor Yesterday

So there are a few things I need to do to prepare for surgery on Dec. 1st and one of them was to see my family doctor. Yesterday she did the standard stuff like an EKG and ordering lab work, and we also discussed the particulars of the upcoming surgery which she can pronounce and I still can't.

One of the things she mentioned is that I should consider going on a liquid diet now. This makes sense from the aspect that everything I eat makes me sick and causes pain and bloating anyway. (Recently I've had such huge bloats that even my largest pair of sweat pants don't fit, and I look flat-chested even though I wear a DD cup!) I know I can do this, I can do whatever I have to do. Many are the times I have wished to just go Home and leave the pain behind if I can't live without pain.

The irony here is that I am such a foodie! I go to sleep most nights watching recipe videos on YouTube. I blog about food, write about food, plan my life around food - not because I have a need to actually consume more food than others, but because everything about it fascinates me. I love creating dishes, I love serving food to those I love. I love grocery shopping, budgeting, planning. How food is used by the body, which foods cause health and wellness and which will kill, what our bodies need - and don't need - from the food we eat, why we eat what we do...everything about food fascinates me. Food is my passion.

Everything else we discussed during my 30-minute-long appointment is a blur now. All that stands out is that she strongly recommends I go on a liquid diet (not clear liquid, BTW) so that my "pipes" are in the best possible shape, and I will have the best possible outcome. And all I could think about was the huge grocery stockpiling I had just done last week, all of the wonderful marvelous dishes I had planned...

Today I am dealing with it all. I awoke this morning with the realization that I can still plan, shop, cook, and provide wonderful meals for my family and friends...I will just need to make my own soups and yogurt smoothies and things at the same time. (I will blog about what I will be eating in my other blog.)

Just another step on the journey, one that is maybe trying to trip me up a little bit but it is all part of attaining the goal of a normal healthy future.

Things Are Changing...

...for the better I hope.

First, my gut surgery, which I have mentioned previously, is scheduled for December 1st. This is NOT weight-loss surgery. And I don't completely understand all of it but will probably mention it later either here or in my personal blog.

Meanwhile, I have a month and will work on losing some weight before that time. Actually I have already started. Don't plan to weigh myself, will just eat right and go from there.

As I've had so many health issues, and as my independence and entire life has become more and more limited, I believe depression had started to set in. I'm pretty familiar with the signs, having been hospitalized twice for it in the past (the WAY past, the last time was over 30 years ago), and have been fighting it with the help of God's grace. But when so many other things were taking priority in my life - like trying to manage just getting through each day - how and what I ate weren't at the top of the list anymore. I knew it but also knew that it was ok and had peace about it.

As I'd written before, I've been maintaining well for several years. During the periods when I've been unable to do the shopping and cooking and my wonderfully nurturing husband has stepped in, we've eaten carbier. And when we have had to resort to restaurants or carry-out, we've eaten carbier. It is only that I have shopped and cooked as much of the time as I have that I didn't regain all of my weight.

Anyway, I still don't want to lose so much weight that I have all of the hanging skin issues (yes, people keep telling me this will resolve in time - it's been well over 5 years and frankly folks, it ain't happening!) but I know that even if I lose another 10# this month it will help for the surgery and also afterward.

Speaking of afterward...I guess I'll be on liquids for some 2-3 (or more? don't remember) weeks, then on mushy (oatmeal consistency) foods, then gradually onto real foods. He mentioned something about not being able to eat raw vegetables (a staple to me!) but I don't know if that's temporary - I hope not. And I don't know if the dietary regimen after surgery is the same as after WLS (and it doesn't matter), but I do know that eating a liquid diet will probably cause me to lose even more weight.

I did tell Dr.F that my diet consists of 90% vegetables, meats, and dairy - in that order - and he said that will be fine, with the exception of raw veggies. So I guess that's something that I will need to clarify somehow...he also said something about not eating bread but that won't be an issue for me either, I do ok with my modified version of oopsies.

So. The whole point is that I'm back off maintaining my weight, and back to losing, at least for this month. Then after I get back to "normal" (either my old normal or a new normal) eating I will re-evaluate if I want to stay with my new weight, whatever that might be, or will continue losing until the loose skin issue approaches the intolerable level...but I am already doing self-talk with the latter option as the goal.

Things change, minds change, bodies change. Here we go!