Living With Uncertainty

I am gearing myself up for a possible job change. I was hoping to be able to not have any changes in my job or the way I do things, but that may not be possible. My school is having financial difficulties, which, if they survive the next year or two, could be a turning point for the school. If they survive.

My services as a supplemental instructor for reading and math are paid for by No Child Left Behind. I actually work for a vendor who is paid for by Chicago Public Schools. Next year the system will totally change. CPS is hiring a vendor to provide services to all the private and parochial schools. They do not have to hire me. My school will have to lobby hard to keep me but there's no guarantee.

So, I'm going to have to polish up a resume, just in case. Even worse, I think I'm going to have to start taking more post graduate classes and get a reading specialist endorsement on my certificate or a master's degree. Neither of which will make me a better teacher.

I'm not into titles or initials behind my name. I have no desire to take any more classes ever again in my life. I like seminars and training in things that interest me and I know will help me be a more effective teacher in an area in which I feel I need refreshing or am not accomplishing my goals.

My ADHD makes the thought of having to focus my attention on a boring textbook, or a boring professor, or having to write in a formulaic style and deal with footnotes and bibliographies in this crazy information inflated technobabble world, a nightmare.

I'm scared and I'm mad. I'm 57. Teaching is not easy. Especially at-risk kids with academic needs on the South Side of Chicago. This economy bites. My husband took early retirement when he could no longer get employment. I was hoping he would keep working and I would retire at 62.

Ain't gonna happen. According to my brother in today's world we all have to think as if we were 10 years younger than what we are. Hard to do when R&R for me does not mean rest and relaxation, it means repairs and replacements.

I've gone through major surgery on my neck to relieve pressure on two herniated discs and restore function to my right side. I still have considerable trouble with my neck. I've had shoulder repair, double knee replacements,, and a hysterectomy to stop me from bleeding to death.

And now I've had lap-band surgery. Compared to my other surgeries it was relatively minor. But its impact is just a great. I thought my co-morbidities combined with my osteo-arthritis were going to force me to go on disability possibly even before the age of 62. Now, I think I may choose to go into another field rather than try to keep teaching till the age of 67 when I'll be able to collect Social Security. But I do think my body will be able to keep working (although I'm not so sure about my mind.)

I don't know where God is leading me. So far he's taken very good care of me. I have to trust him to lead me in the right direction with my job.


I am content no matter what my circumstance,
I am content no matter what my lot
I know what it means to live in want or have plenty,
I know the the meaning of being content.
Is I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Yes I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

In His Time

Today I had my lapband fill. It was a fascinating experience. All the people waiting for a fill chatted about their experiences in the waiting room. One by one we were called into a room where we laid down under a floroscope. When my turn came, the Dr. looked for my incision, swabbed the area, and felt for the port. He took this cool device invented by someone at UIC (waiting broader distribution) pressed it to my stomach. It let out a poof of air and injected lidocaine without needles and without pain over the area. Its so cool. Its used before IV's are inserted, before shots are given, before surface cuts are stitched.

After the lidocaine the doctor inserts a needle through which the solution can be injected into the band. He had no trouble finding the port. I could feel the band puff up. Then I had to start drinking the barium drink. He watched the barium go through and adjusted the fill accordingly. When he was satisfied it was just right I was helped down and was done.

Except the picture from the floroscope was still there. So I asked him to explain it. He showed me the esophagus with the new pouch at it's base, barely wider than the esophagus. He showed me the shadow of the band and how narrow the opening was to let the barium through to the old stomach. I could see the squirts of barium curling into the old stomach. Pretty actually.

I was amazed at how small the opening between the stomachs was. Its obvious I'm not going to be able to get much through that narrow tunnel. I'm going to really have to take tiny bites and chew things to death. Today and tomorrow I'm just having liquids and then I'll be adding solids.

This Dr. was not my surgeon. He handled patients from all the surgeons. This was his specialty and he was running an assembly line.

Not everyone is so blessed. Some have surgeons who do the fill themselves and can't find the port and refuse to use floroscopes or don't have them available. That makes it hard to get the fill just right. So they inject minute amounts at a time so that it takes months and months before the patient begins to feel restriction. Its almost like torture for these desperate patients.

I'm really blessed to have been sent by my HMO to a top notch facility and doctors. I'm glad I've found such a good support group on lapbandtalk. I"m glad I spent so many years learning about addiction, ADHD, and eating disorders. I'm glad for my experience in Alanon, and OA, and group and individual therapy. My chances of success with the lapband are pretty good because of the self-knowledge I gained as well as the great support I have from my providers and other bandsters.

I really feel good about getting the band. I have this sense of peace about it, and this feeling that I'm being blessed through it--not just with weight loss. I've never before pulled all the threads of my disease out of the woven fabric they'd created in my life and examined them and the pattern they'd created all in one place.

Getting the band, seeing all these threads, and recording how they're intertwined has given me enormous relief. I rejected shame and its power over me. The power to make me feel paralyzed to do anything about my eating disorder. I took a powerful step when I decided to get the band and jumped through all the hoops I needed to jump through to qualify for the band. I stuck to it for over a year.

For an ADHD person, that was a major undertaking. I actually gained a few pounds in order to have a high enough BMI which, combined with my co-morbidities, qualified me for the surgery. Then I had to lose that weight and keep it off as part of my requirement. I had to attend eight months of nutrition classes where I knew more of the answers than anyone but the nutritionist. I had to deal with the insurance company and liase between them, my regular Dr. and clinic, and UIC. Details like that drive me pretty crazy, but I did it.

I took back the power this disease took away from me. I think it all happened in God's time. All the other things I've been through and dealt with have led to this time when an effective tool has been made available at a time when I actually have the time to deal with the disease.

Summer school was canceled freeing me up to have the June surgery with the rest of the summer to deal with recovery. I had the time to write this blog. I had the time to explore lapbandtalk. I had the time to start to heal some of my physical limitations, figuiring out how to use the incline board to relieve the pressure in my neck that was limiting my ability to walk any distance. (It was also making it more and more difficult to teach.) I can now swing my arms while I walk and do not experience burning neck pain while walking.

I believe I was sent to the right doctor, at the right hospital, for the most helpful tool, at exactly the right time.

I don't have any doubt who was behind all that.

Food, Fun, Faith, and Family. Done Right.

Had a great time with my relatives Friday and Saturday. I think two things keep my extended family relatively close. One is faith in God, even though we have some variances in worship style and Biblical interpretation. We choose to emphasize the oneness in faith rather than the differences. The other is our love of children. My youngest sister's kids are not yet grown, and my other siblings kids are almost grown or young singles, or married with very young children so our family reunions have never been without young children and young people.

We are tall people and noisy. Especially when the adults (and semi-adults) are playing Mafia late at night, or multi-generational whiffle ball in the early evening. Without any prompting, whenever a little kid is up at bat, things never seem to go right in the infield. Balls get dropped, throws go the wrong way, and somehow that child always makes it to first base. Those in the bleachers supervise the children of the adults in the field. Competition among the adults, however, is cutthroat. Even my 80 year old father plays.

Throughout the reunion little ones are swept off their feet and find themselves looking down on the world, often from much higher than six feet. They are loved on, tickled, played with, passed around, comforted and kept safe by many hands.

We catch up on each other's lives--the good news and the bad news. We share our spirtual stuggles and how God is taking care of us. Food is a constant. We never ran out at this reunion, though we did have to run out for toilet paper.

I lost three lbs. the three days before the reunion. I put 3 back on over the 2 days, some of which was from all the salt in the foods, but today I am right back on my proteinfest without any problems and am not hungry. A lot of the food was what bandsters call slider food--dips, condiments, high fat cookies and cakes with frosting and filling. These are foods that slide through the donut hole between the new pouch and the old stomach. I didn't pig out on them, but I ate them. I wasn't going to make myself miserable staring at food I couldn't have. After my fill on Tuesday it will become harder to eat these. I hope.

There is a huge difference between Dr.s and how much they fill in the band at a time. There is a difference between how long they'll make the patient wait between fills as well. I read a post from a woman today whose Dr. fills only a little and makes her wait 2 months between fills. She was ready to give up. Her husband was also giving her a hard time about "eating so little." I'm hoping my Dr. is a little more aggressive than that and I'm grateful that my husband is much more cooperative and understanding.

I look forward to our next reunion. The Lord willing, I think it'll be even easier. We only seem to do this about once a year, because we come from all over the USA. Maybe by then I'll have reached the sweet spot where the the band is just right to stop me from overeating and the lifestyle change has become automatic.

Food, fun, and family. Done right.

Two more weeks and school starts. More on that tomorrow.

God is good, all the time.
All the time, God is good.

A Relative Thing

I'm going to be with my brothers and sisters, mom and dad, and other assorted relatives over the next few days. I'm looking forward to it. It was one of those spontaneous get-togethers my family does, a couple relatives going to be in the area, so a few others decided to come, too.

I've been doing a high protein very low carb diet for 3 days in order to jumpstart my weightloss. I'd stalled while waiting for my first fill in my band (Aug. 11). I wasn't gaining and was losing very slowly but I wanted to see if I could feel any restriction from my band and eating mostly meat is supposed to do that. It did. I had to eat the meat very slowly and even stop for a few minutes in order to be able to continue eating a decent quantity.

I wanted to feel free to not worry about the food while with my relatives. The band will still give me some restriction; I've dropped a few more pounds, and varying my food actually keeps me from getting bored or feeling deprived. I'll keep protein first, but allow myself a little of this and a little of that and not feel guilty. My plan is to go back on the high protein afterwards until my fill on the 11th. I suspect I won't have to worry about restriction for a while after that. All I'll have to do to feel restriction will be to go on an almost all meat diet for a few days. I love meat but I can't ever pig out on it again.

It'll be interesting to see what it'll be like to not be totally about the food while around my family. Its supposed to thunderstorm so we'll all be indoors together in a relatively small cottage and I won't have food to protect me. I will have grandchildren there and as I talked about yesterday, they can keep me totally occupied. I frequently spell their various parents and take over watching one or two of them so my kids can mingle with their cousins.

Today I took care of my two grandsons. I spent 4 hours putting together the wooden Thomas railroad for Joshua and a complex geotrax train system for David while Joshua slept. David and I played trains for a long time. I showed him how to switch tracks to not always successfully avoid collisions between our two trains. I was sore from bending over the tracks for so long but I was so completely absorbed in creating the system that I had no trouble not eating.

That's what I need to do for the next couple of days--become so completely absorbed in the people around me that I don't even think about eating. It's part of developing that mindfulness and choosing to be present that food insulated me from in the past.

I won't be posting the next couple nights unless an issue comes up that I really need to deal with.

The Lord watch between me and thee while I am gone. I have no idea where I heard that, I think its Irish, and I think its cool.

Second Childhood

I want to be like a little kid. When I go babysit my grandkids I'm totally there to play with them. I'm not there to clean the house or do the dishes or cook. Its not that I don't heat up food and serve it and, of course, I change dirty diapers, but mostly I just want to play.

I may read books, sing nursery rhymes, bounce them on my knee while singing Yankee Doodle Dandy, walk around the block, tickle, wrestle, dance, or pretend.

Pretending is great fun. My four-year old grandson, David, made up the game "baby bird." I lay on the bed with my knees up and he crawls under my knees and pretends to hatch from an egg. His little brother tries to do the same thing. We do this many times before they get tired of it.

Then David reaches up and pulls the string to turn off the light above the bed and we all pretend its night. They both crawl under the covers next to me and I start to snore. Then David sneaks out from under the covers, turns the light back on, and crows like a rooster to wake me up. I startle awake and he laughs everytime.

Lately, when we go for walks, he wants me to pretend to be "that mean lady." He tells me to be cross. He means Cruella DeVille. Then we go around the block and I order him to steal Dalmatian puppies. He goes and finds a "puppy" and puts it in a "cage" behind the bulldozer he's driving.

When I'm with my three-year old granddaughter, Skyler, the first thing she does is tell me, "You want to make a castle with me. Let's go get the blocks." This is not a request. She also looks for the presents I've given her so we can play with those. One year old Leah wants me to read to her. She likes the wierd voices I use. She loves to point to pictures and show off all the words she knows.

Without grandkids, I wouldn't sit in sandboxes and build sandcastles. I wouldn't wade in little pools. I wouldn't squirt with the hose. I wouldn't chase the kids through splash pads at the park. I wouldn't push them on swings and bounce them on teeter-totters. I wouldn't sit in the bathroom and let them play in the tub as long as they want.

I have patiently put together intricate railroad systems and built log cabins and cool castles only to watch them get destroyed in less than 5 seconds. And then I do it over again.

I'm never in a hurry or rush them through things. I am totally in the moment with them.

You know, I never eat or think about food while I'm actually playing with my grandkids. When they watch TV its a different story, but I have really made it a point now to do things with them and basically they make sure I do. I'm better than TV.

Arthritis limits me to a certain extent as did the weight, but now that I've lost 30 lbs I'm having more fun than ever with my grandkids.

Fun. Play. Dance. Laugh. These are all much better things to do than eat.

Jesus said you have to have the faith of a little child to enter into his Kingdom. He said the Kingdom belonged to the children.

I guess I'm entering into my second childhood.

Dealing with Snack Foods

Snack Foods. The perfect food for ADHD people. Grab and go. Don't have to cook, put together ingredients, shop for those ingredients, remember which ingredients to shop for. They're full of all the taste and flavor (mostly artificial) ADHD people crave. They provide the stimulation we seek when the TV shows don't cut it all by themselves (most don't).

They also provide the majority of the salt, sugar, and fat that shoot up our blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure.

Just thought of something slightly amusing--or maybe alarming. My name starts with ch and so do many of my favorite snacks: cheetos, chocolate, chips (taco, potato, pita).

It is so much easier for me not to eat them now that they're not in my house and my husband's not eating them in front of me. He might have a secret stash hidden somewhere but I never see it and he never eats it in front of me.

America's food industry, like the tobacco and alcohol industries, has a lot to answer for. All of them know they're dealing with addictive substances and do their best to make them even more addictive with chemically designed addictive additives in addition to those old standbyes--salt, carbs and fat. Oh, and let's not forget chocolate and caffeine being increased and put in all kinds of new products.

Many are designed to appeal to children and teenagers. Did you know a lot of teenagers are now having lapbands? The obesity epidemic is out of control among our young people. I see the food parents put in their kids lunches or that kids pack for themselves. Some start hauling snacks out of their lunch bags and backpacks as soon as they arrive at school. Those with healthy snacks trade with those with all the unhealthy snacks.

Schools are eliminating snacks from their cafeterias and vending machines, but the kids just carry them with them. I don't have an answer for this dilemma. I am nutritionally quite well-educated. Didn't stop me from eating snacks.

The best advice I get on the topic is don't expose yourself to the snacks. Keep them out of the house. Ask people not to eat them in front of you. In situations where exposure is unavoidable, it might be better to eat just a little bit of those things that most appeal to you than to ruin your good time spending all your effort not eating those things. Fortunately, I've got the lapband to let me know when I've had enough. Especially if I start with higher protein items the band will help me limit the snacks. The key will be to get right back on the food protocol once the party's over.

Right now, I don't have a lot of restriction and have slowed way down on weight loss. I have a family reunion this weekend. All my siblings and some nieces and nephews and their children (along with my own children and grandchildren) will be together. Food will be a big part of the reunion.

So, for three days before the reunion I'm eating protein almost exclusively, a protein shake for breakfast, meat for lunch, and meat and a veggie for supper, with milk in my iced latte in-between meals. I noticed yesteday already that when I just eat meat without a lot of moistening agents, I can still feel some restriction in my band. I already lost 2 lbs. That puts me at 30 lbs total weight loss. When the weekend is over, I'll probably go back on high protein until I get my first fill on August 11. I'll probably be back on a liquid protein diet for a few days after that, so my stomach can heal. That should jumpstart the weight loss again. I hope the Dr. puts in enough fill to give me restriction. Otherwise I'll go back 2 or 3 weeks after to get another one.

I have few clothes that fit me. I'm going through my closets trying to decide what's worth taking in, which of my "skinny" fat clothes fit me now, and what to give to Goodwill. I've started going to thrift stores, since I will not be at this weight for very long and don't want to spend money on clothes. I can't buy ahead because I don't know how fast the weight will come off.

But these are good problems to have. I've dropped one cholesterol med and one blood pressure med. I'm seeing if I can do without my stomach med since I ran out of it and won't be seeing my regular doc for 2 more weeks.

I get to see my relatives this weekend and I'm not going to worry about food!

God is good all the time.
All the time God is good.

An ADHD Evening

My husband is losing weight on my diet. Actually, he's not on my diet but he doesn't eat goodies in front of me at night anymore and as a result he's losing weight. The articles I read on the ADHD/ADD-eating disorders connection say that night-time is the hardest time for an ADHD/ADD woman to not eat. Evenings are our worst time because our projects are done. We need to find stimulating, adventurous things to do at night to keep us out of the food.

I bury myself in Facebook and my blog right now at night while watching TV at the same time. I may be in trouble when I start losing interest in Facebook (which is beginning to happen), and I imagine eventually I'll run out of things to say and start repeating myself on my blog. When church and school activities begin in August and September it'll be a relief.

I knew I wasn't nuts about the connection between attention deficit disorder and my eating disorder. There is a big connection for about one/third of compulsive overeaters. We have difficulty with organizational skills which is why food plans and food journals and countaing carbs, calories, or points don't work for us. We have poor impulse control which is why we're on the see-food diet: we see food, we eat food. And we have poor self-awareness which leads to not knowing when we're hungry or when we're full. When we're busy with something that stimulates us we totally forget to eat which sets us up for ravenous hunger later, and because we don't sense fullness we eat till we're stuffed.

Its very important that ADHD people speak up for themselves about being put (in all innocence) in situations where they are confronted with favorite food at a time when their impulsivity level is at their highest.

I had asked my husband to not eat treats at night in front of me and he graciously complied. He is now reaping the benefits.

I had a really ADHD evening. I steadily accomplished things all day today and then forgot a meeting I was supposed to attend tonight. (Sorry, Roger) I did the same thing last Saturday morning with another meeting. Mind you, this morning I told my husband to help me remember I had a meeting on Monday night and he said, "Today's Monday." I saw Roger today and we talked about the meeting. Up until an hour before the meeting I remembered. Then something distracted me and I forgot.

I'm totally off any regular schedule in the summer and my mind frees itself of the school year structure that helps me remember stuff. On the other hand, my mind is popping with creative ideas. I wrote two children's stories and came up with some ideas for my school. I write this blog each night. But I forgot two meetings in three days.

This kind of thing is not an infrequent occurrence with me. I wonder if you can imagine the shame this has caused me in the past? Understanding my own ADHD has greatly reduced the shame I feel, but I know other people find it frustrating and really don't understand.

According to the authors of the study, ADHD people are the ones least likely to succeed on any form of food plan. Does that explain a lot. They suggest that we keep a variety of the food we should eat available at home and at work because we're the type to forget to pack a lunch. They don't even suggest trying to restrict the food because we're such failures at it, just try to stay on a maintenance diet of 1800-2500 calories/day. Well, I'm glad I've got the lapband so that I'll actually lose weight faster than a maintenance diet.(Though, frankly, I would lose weight on that because I ate more calories than that.) And so that on really ADHD days, like today, I've got a tool that will stop me from getting too badly into the food.

Just for today, I did not get into the food. Fortunately, the knowledge that I missed a meeting happened just before I began working on my blog, giving me a chance to process the whole thing. I also noticed Roger was on Facebook and chatted with him online and apologized for missing the meeting. I've had to do that a lot in my life.

He sent me the minutes. I'll catch up. But I lost an opportunity to share ideas with others--something to which I was looking forward.

Oh, well. ADHD has its gifts as well as its drawbacks. Today was more drawback than gift. But by the grace of God, I haven't eaten.