Found And Lost, Part 8

 (XXV - Broke For Free)

Most of Christmas and New Years passed me by as 2019 quietly expired and 2020 rolled in.  I was too busy going to the bathroom. 

Again.

And again.

And again.

I couldn't prove it, but I strongly suspected that there were tiny men in my guts -- tiny women too.  My guts don't discriminate! -- that had taken up vigorously wringing my bladder and kidneys out as a hobby.

...That's yet another sentence I never saw myself writing.

I was really, really tired of having to pee all the time.  I was tired of not being able to go out to eat, or go to a movie, or pretty much go anywhere that was far away from a toilet.  I was tired of wearing sweatpants, because jeans and a belt took too long to get down sometimes, and it was bloody cold outside, so shorts wasn't an option at the time.

I made the mistake once of trying to go shovel my driveway after it had snowed.  My wife insisted that she would take care of it, and if you've ever met my wife, you'll know that she's more than capable of doing so.  I wanted to do it so she wouldn't have to though.  My wife hates the cold.  I sort of...love it.

Well, most of me loves it.

Inevitably, the urge overtook me between one shovel of snow and the next, and as I turned and started my hobble back towards the house, the reality of my situation dawned on me:

- I had to get inside.
- I had to take my boots off so I didn't track snow everywhere.
- I had to get my gloves off and my coat off.
- I had to get to the bathroom.
- I had to get my tweeds down.
- I had to use cold hands to manage cold equipment
- I had to do all of this while a small army of assholes was trying to push my entire bladder out through the tip of my ...

Yeah.

My wife had to finish the driveway.

January was not getting off to a good start.

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"Congratulations!  You passed your first milestone!"

My physician, as she customarily did, greeted me with a smile when she came into the exam room.  Then she frowned.  "Are ... you okay?"

"Very much so, but can I use your restroom?"  She didn't ask.  She just got out of the way and pointed.

----------

"Better now?"

I staggered back into the exam room looking flushed and -- I must assume -- noticeably thinner.  My physician was greatly amused and making no attempt at hiding it.  I collapsed into one of those suspiciously well-appointed chairs and blinked rapidly.  "Sorry, you were saying?  I sort of blacked out when you told me where the restroom was."  My suffering was rewarded with a laugh and she held up my chart.  "418!  Wasn't your first weight loss milestone 420?"  I nodded, trying to rally my cognitive facilities.  

Weight loss had never been on my mind when I went into the bariatric center, but somewhere along the line, that had changed.  I could lose weight now, so shouldn't I?  I was still happy, after all.  Happier than I'd been in awhile in terms of my physical ability and general well-being.  Some part of my mind must have decided that more weight loss would equal increased levels of that happiness and well-being and sort of...elected to pursue it more vigorously.  Interesting.  I was going to have to talk with the psychologist about that.

Thus far, the process hadn't felt like a huge undertaking for me, merely several small changes made in succession until...

"No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood," I mumbled, more to myself than anything.  There wasn't a picture to look at on the wall, so I was focusing on a spot just beyond my physician's head.  This wasn't the first time I'd gotten contemplative in her office and she knew when I wasn't in the room at the moment, so she stayed quiet for another moment.

420, then 400, then 375, then 350.

I knew those numbers were going to be the targets I was shooting for without ever really deciding on it.

"Yeah," I finally responded, slowly bringing my eyes back to my physician's face.  "420 was my first milestone."  The inevitable follow-up came next. "How do you feel?  You've lost 37 pounds.  Can you tell a difference?"

I gave her question its due consideration.  I'd long since stopped blowing off what I thought were creampuff questions from anyone at the Bariatric Center.  Once I had acknowledged that this place wasn't one of hell's branch offices, I was forced to also acknowledge that the people within it were most likely not trying to waste my time.  There was also the fact that their 'creampuff' questions had paved the way towards my first meaningful weight loss in...many, many moons.

"Yes, and no.  There are places on my body where I know I've lost weight.  My neck is smaller, for instance.  Significantly.  I used to wear a 24 collar on my oxfords.  I very much need a 22 collar now or the shirt looks very much baggy around my upper torso.  So there's that. I still don't...feel that much different though.  I don't feel much smaller.  I know I keep saying this, but I understand the abstract of what 35 pounds is.  I know it's a lot of weight, it just...doesn't really resonate in a practical sense."

Not for the first time, my physician chanted what had become a mantra of mine. "Give it time."  Then she rolled closer.  "Let's have a look at those legs of yours!"

----------

We chatted for another 20 minutes or so about a variety of things.  My physician was always very interested in how I was feeling, physically, emotionally, mentally.  Had I noticed a change in my energy levels?  How was I sleeping?  Was I craving sweets?  Salts?  Meats?  Was I indulging?  If so, how often?  A dozen little questions about a dozen little things, but evidence suggested that the little things could add up to something much more significant, so I answered honestly.

I was rewarded for my honesty with a pronouncement from my physician that my edema had abated enough that I could now drop down to once every other day on my HCT.  We agreed that I would probably stop taking it all together when I got close to my 400 pound goal.  There was only so much water that I could siphon off, after all.  Once I'd gotten my body used to moving the fluid around more actively, it would keep the work up on its own as long as I continued to pull down 64-72oz of water a day, give or take.  I'd learned to tell the difference between when I was hydrated and when I wasn't.

Hydration is a funny thing.  Science has shown that being dehydrated manifests in a variety of ways, one of which includes hunger.  The body is after water, and it isn't discriminatory about how it gets it.  If it thinks it'll have a better shot of getting fluid by asking you for food, that's precisely what it'll do.  Studies have been done that show that most people can't tell the difference between being legitimately hungry versus being dehydrated.  

My solution on all of this was to keep water everywhere I went in the house.  I had water bottles stashed all over the place.  I had one in my bedroom.  I had one in my office.  I had one in my living room, and one in my refrigerator.  My goal was to make sure there was a hammer available any time thirst or hunger reared its head.  If I even thought about food or water, I would immediately take in around ten ounces of water.  Then I'd go back to whatever I was doing and wait.

I would be remiss if I didn't also point out that, in this particular mission, much of my success was due to circumstance.  I'm fortunate in that I'm allowed to work from home.  That means fewer interruptions to my day.  It means unfettered, unscrutinized access to water and a bathroom.  It means that I can very deliberately use 20oz water bottles instead of larger vessels so that when I run out, I have an excuse to get up and walk somewhere.  To move. I'm not sure if I could have made the water thing work as well in an office.  I would have needed to bring a larger container for water since getting up with that much frequency wouldn't have been as easy or as convenient.

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"Drinking more water means I eat less frequently, which means my stomach shrinks, which means I couldn't eat as much even if I wanted to."  I'd said goodbye to my physician for the day and was now sitting with my psychologist, working my thoughts out with him as I had grown accustomed to doing. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but you guys are far more devious than I gave you credit for when this whole thing first started."

My psychologist gave me one of his gentle, humored laughs and steepled his hands in front of himself appropriately. "How do you mean?"

I rolled a wrist in response. "Every little step you guys have asked me to take has come with aftershocks.  It's like ripples in a pond after you throw a stone."  I gesticulated with my hands, circling my thumbs and forefingers before slowly expanding them.

I gesticulated a lot with my psychologist.

...I gesticulate a lot, period.  Never mind.

"Give me some examples," my psychologist prodded.  This was a game we were used to playing.  I would start a thought and he would gently goad it down its path.  In a way, this was working my mind out in the same way that I'd been working my body.  That realization made me smile and shake my head, but I'd latched onto the previous thought and wasn't going to be that easily distracted.

"You ask me to eat more meat, to prioritize it in my diet.  That means more fresh meat, which means more trips to the grocery store.  That means more walking.  More activity.  More standing, more moving." I ticked off a finger. "Then you ask me to devote a tiny amount of time to walking a few times a week.  That leads to more walking. I'm doing it outside, which means fresh air, sunlight, vitamin D.  It means catharsis and de-stressing.  It's hard to just walk for 10 minutes if you're outside unless you have a very specific route picked out, so you get more by default.  And you knew I wouldn't be able to stop at just 10 minutes." I ticked off another finger. "I don't mind parking farther away from the entrance to the grocery store now.  I take more time walking the isles in the grocery store instead of blitzing it." Another finger.  "Then there's the business with asking me to drink more water.  The HCT helped of course, but drinking more water meant I would stay healthier due to greater hydration, I would eat less, which meant my stomach would shrink, which..."  I gesticulated again, miming a growing explosion with my hands.

"While I'm not entirely sure we gave it the kind of forethought you're implying here, there are some overlapping benefits to the things we've asked you to do, yes."  He could tell I wasn't done yet though and gestured for me to continue. 

I waved his comment off, dismissing the possibility that they weren't as clever as I was giving them credit for. "All of that is interesting enough, but there's another facet here that's more important."  My psychologist raised an eyebrow and waited.  "I wonder how successful I'd have been with all of this if you guys had told me about it up front instead of letting me put things together on my own.  The difference between knowing a thing and knowing a thing."  I leaned back a little and pursed my lips.

For his part, my psychologist merely leaned in a little and said, "I think you're giving us a little too much credit for what has been a success due largely to your own willpower and willingness to take the next logical step."  He gestured at me with a hand. "I'm not implying that we haven't provided useful guidance here, but you're failing to acknowledge one very critical piece of this whole plot.  Maybe the biggest piece:  You wanted to do this."

I spread my hands. "That's..."  I took a moment to chew on the inside of my mouth while I rolled that thought around.  I looked at the picture on the wall to double-check things before I murmured, "I was broken."  I looked back at him a moment later.  "There's a lot of me that's broken.  This was something I thought I could fix, so..."  I left it there.

My psychologist inhaled a little through his nose. "So you had to try and fix it."

I nodded mutely, and he had the good grace not to press the issue.