New Craptastic Post (now with 25 percent more crap!)

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My family keeps asking me what I want for Christmas.  I find it hard to give them an answer...mostly because at the end of September, when I found out that I had the uterine fibroid that needed to be removed via surgery, I started living in a countdown mode to the surgery date.

And then, I had every expectation that I would be in countdown mode again for when I would be better.

But the last four weeks since the surgery have been painful and, although I probably am getting better (in minuscule amounts), I'm still not healed.

It's hard for me to recognize that Thanksgiving is a few days away and that Christmas is just around the corner.  How can that be?  I'm not ready.  I'm not doing better.

I STILL have an infection and an open wound at the incision site.  I'm still on antibiotics and now have a fun yeast infection to add to the mix (due to being on all of these antibiotics).  Yogurt wasn't able to stave it off.

Last Wednesday, when I went in for my second appointment of the week, my OB looked at the wound and sighed and said "It's not any worse, but it's not getting better.  What is going on?"  I don't know.  She got the other doctor and nurse practitioner in the office to look at it.  They are stumped too.  My surgeon (that I saw on last Friday) said I'm the first patient with complications in over 7 years.  And I'm the first that had a wound that won't close up in longer than that.  No one gets why it's so slow to heal.  I don't have diabetes, my blood work is great.  I don't smoke and I eat healthfully.  My weight is the only contributing factor.

It's a wake up call, but one that I can't do anything about right now.

I feel helpless.

The wound (which is at the natural crease that everyone has from sitting - it's right in that bendy area) is starting to heal bit by bit (ever so slowly), but the best way to get it to heal is to have it exposed to air.  Know what that involves?  Taping up my stomach chub to the upper part of my body.  I can't tell you the mental toll that that action takes on me daily.  I have to pull up a part of my body that I think is disgusting and tape it to other parts of my body just so they won't touch.

It's completely humiliating.  I'm taping my extra skin and residual fat from 55 pounds ago.  Every day, I'm aware of what I did to myself by eating to numb.  And every day, I'm aware of how far I have to still go.

At first, it worked okay (no, the wound wasn't healing, but I was able to tape my chub and skin up to allow it to breathe).  But my fair skin (that in those parts have never seen the light of day), is pretty sensitive.  So everytime I take off the "no hurt" paper tape, I get a painful welt on my stomach.

Sunday, after two weeks of doing this to myself with little progress in the healing, my stomach decided to not take it any more,  when the tape was removed, it ended up tearing off the upper layers of my skin too - leaving a few raw spots (yes, those are now bloody and weeping) too.

So now I have to tape around those raw wounds...which means that I can't lift the sagging skin as well to air it.  Which (you guessed it) means that it won't heal as quickly as before.  And let's be clear, it's not like the healing was fast then.

Part of me wants to post about how thankful I am for life, for my life, and for all things.  I logically know that I have a blessed life and that I have so much to feel thankful for.

But the other part of me is tired of plastering this smile on my face.  That part of me just wants the complications to stop.  That part of me is tired of hobbling around, of being in pain, and of having another thing that is going wrong. 

What's more, I can't do much about it.  I can't make it better.  I can't will my body to heal faster.  I'm doing all I can and it's still not getting better - at least not noticeably better.  And I can't do much to dissipate the stress.  In fact, right now I'm visiting my dad and sisters in Chicago - and have already felt like I've had to referee two fights.  I arrived yesterday afternon.  They just starting getting into it downstairs so I left and came up to the room I'm staying in to try to get away from it.

A year ago, I would've turned to food.  But I'm proud that that hasn't been what I've been doing.  I won't say that I've only eaten when I was hungry every time since the surgery...but that's been my goal.

Six months ago, I would've turned to exercise via running or DVDs like the "30 Day Shred" in a stressful situation.  But I can't do that either.

And yet, I'm still down 6 pounds from my surgery day.  I know that means that I'm doing something right...even if I can't fit into anything other than sweatpants because I'm still swollen around my abdomen.

I'm tired.  I'm weary.  But I'm here. 

I miss catching up on your blogs.  But I'm realistic enough to realize that I'm just experiencing some situational depression.  I can't bring myself out of the fog enough to read your blogs and put a thoughtful or optimistic spin on your doings.  I hate that.  I hate that I can't be as good of a follower or friend as the kind and thoughtful women (you know who you are!) that have left faithful comments.  I feel guilty that I'm not giving back.

I'm just spent.  I'm at the point where I feel that if I lose a few followers or subscribers, so be it. 

I just can't do more than what I'm doing right now.  I'm treading water, but it's taking a lot of energy to do that.

I know.  This isn't a happy fun post.  I hate that too.  But I felt like I should give you guys SOMETHING to read since last week...even if just to say, I'm here and hanging in there.

Logically, I know I'm thankful.  And I know I will heal eventually.  

But in the meantime, I'm struggling with a positive attitude (gee, you think?) and that has to be okay too.