THE SAGA OF THE STITCHES

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…

And one of those things is the endless leakage from two of my laparoscopic incisions. So much for in one day and out the next surgery. I’m so freaking tired… Sequence of events.

01 April

• Laparoscopic removal of gastric lap band
• Post operative bleeding from two incision sites
• Chat to four friendly nurses as they apply pressure and watch growing pool of blood on bed
• Wait three hours for surgeon to return from dinner (with three glasses of wine on board)
• Have stitches put in at bedside – incisions and stitches without anaesthetic
• Watch with fascination as he pokes and prods my insides looking for stuff and stitching deep ab muscles
• Lose half liter of blood

02 April

• For the first time in seven years, eat without restriction
• Panic at this new realisation
• Burst into tears for most of the day
• Realise my anaethetist is parent of former music student
• He kindly informs me to be careful with contraception as one of the anaesthetic drugs affects hormones. Completely forgets I’m 53 and had hysterectomy 15 years ago

03 April

• Go home from hospital
• Realise I have more pain than all my other surgical procedures
• Have large quantities of opiates in my possession. Temptation…
• Start to notice rash and itching from dressings
• Stock up on antihistamines

04-08 April

• Sleep 23 hours a day
• Fail to remember much
• Collect photographs of wounds as they continue to bleed
• Kaleidoscope of blue, purple, green, yellow bruising awash my belly, back and front bottom
• Morbidly watch with fascination as bruising heads south and threatens to crawl up my vagina
• Wonder how big the hematoma will grow under my stitches
• Drink whole bottle of liquid ferritin – allergic reaction counteracts constipating affects of opiates
• Standing up causes low blood pressure – go back to bed

09 April

• Leave house for the first time
• Spend the day with a friend – completely forgetting I have a class to attend
• Spend two more days in bed recovering from visiting friend

12 April

• Follow up surgeon visit
• Have stitches removed
• Attempted aspiration of grapefruit-sized hematoma doesn’t work
• Cuts stitches open again and sprays blood everywhere
• Drains hematomas
• Applies steristrips
• 90 minutes later steristrips are swimming in pools of blood
• Attend emergency department to have stitches put back in

13-15 April

• Dressings continue to swim in fluids
• Realise smaller wound is infected
• Lay in sun without dressings for several hours hoping to kill infection with sunlight
• Attend first gym session in a month – cannot get into plank position
• Feel sorry for myself

16 April

• Visit GP and ask for assessment
• Larger stitched wound deemed fine – no dressings required
• Smaller steristripped wound looking better
• Steristrips deemed pointless – dressings still required
• Have blood test for bleeding disorder – again
• Rash and redness from dressings allergy glaring at me
• Continue large doses of antihistamines
• Increasing panic at realisation of ease of eating
• Gain a thousand kilos
• Attend gym
• Start bleeding from large stitched wound again
• Feel sorry for myself again

Grant me the courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

• Hope God is listening
• Thank God for antihistamines
• Wonder if this absurd saga will ever end
• Hope tomorrow is a better today

GOD, GRANT ME THE SERENITY…

… to accept the things I cannot change.

I’ve had an interesting couple of days – and the interest is partly fueled by regular consumption of oxycodone so please excuse random spelling and grammar, and unrelated tangents.

I’m not quite myself at the moment – not really sure who I am when I’m not myself?

Monday afternoon I presented at the hospital for an overnight admission to have my gastric lap band removed. I wasn’t thrilled but was coming to terms with it, and valiantly thinking of it as a turning point in recovery. Which may well be the case. Who knows?

I lazed around bored witless for hours awaiting my turn and was finally wheeled to the little waiting area outside theater. I was wearing a delightful blue and white hospital gown with its delicate ties at the back and press studs at the shoulders for easy access to every inch of my body.

Left to my own devices – no glasses to see properly and nothing to look at – instead of feeling impending doom and panic at the removal of my lap band, I was overcome with serenity and peace. (No – there were no pre-meds on board.)

I’m not sure if I’ve discussed my forays into spirituality and God of late, but I’ve done a lot of soul searching and found some spiritual peace. More significantly, I’ve discovered a belief in God. No big bang, aha moment. No hit in the head with thunder and lightning. Just a knowing that I’ve done a lot of recovery work in four years, but spiritually I was stuck, and finally I just let myself believe.

I’m an absolute convert to Russell Brand who places enormous importance on the development of our spiritual selves to heal and recover. Accepting God is just faith – ie choosing to believe without concrete evidence. It sounds simple – it wasn’t.

After our travels in Jordan and Turkey I became interested in Christianity – there’s something about walking through the lands of the bible that’s very touching. I’m trying to learn all I can as my beliefs on religion and spirituality have been shaped by the people around me and I’d rather come to my own conclusions. As I read my Kindle bible I write lots of notes and questions, but I also find a stronger affiliation with faith I can’t explain – except to say it feels right. It’s not about church or dogma or rules, it’s far more personal – I’ve written into prayer groups asking for guidance in recovery and my spiritual path. I wrote into Christine Caine expressing a desire to know more, feel more, and be more, spiritual. She wrote back (“she” being her communications team) welcoming me as a new Christian and congratulating me on giving my life to Jesus Christ. I’m not entirely sure that’s what I meant when I filled out the form, but I confess, it gave me a lot of comfort when she (the comms team) wrote back and congratulated me. So I accept it.

I realise this divides people who know me well – some will be thrilled and some not. But it’s incredibly personal and I’d prefer friends and family focus on what I’m gaining, rather than bringing their own beliefs and assumptions to my journey. I’m exactly the same person with a stronger sense of inner peace – something I’ve sought for many years.

This brings me back to my point.

I was sitting in a hospital bed wearing sexy inflatable leg things and a dainty blue and white gown, so I talked to God. I was overcome with this image of my eating disorder being surgically extracted and disposed of during the surgery. I had this overwhelming sense of a new beginning – a fresh start psychologically and physically. All the angst about the removal of the band was gone and I just felt peaceful. And ever so tired. And bored.

Wrapped in this little spiritual glow I was wheeled into theater where the anaethetist turns out to be the father of one of my former flute students (the joy of living in a small city). Moments later I was being roused in recovery, where instead of my usual rapid recovery I struggled with pain and breathing. I was pumped full of this and that, given a nebuliser, and waited over an hour for oxygen sats to get high enough.

They weren’t terrible – just not good enough. Story of my life…

Back on the ward, two of my four dressings started expanding and ballooning out with blood. Wasn’t much longer before they couldn’t take the pressure and blood went everywhere, making a god-awful mess of my dainty gown, pristine white sheets, and black undies. For two hours I had four nurses chatting with me and putting pressure on the wounds while awaiting the return of my surgeon – who was at dinner with his phone turned off enjoying a couple of wines. He waltzed in about 9:15pm in his dinner suit and then it was all action stations – get me this needle, that local anaesthetic, these swabs, and those gloves. He cut through my skin, swabbed all the mess I’d made, fished around in the big cavity looking for the culprit, did something to it, and stitched me up with a darning needle. Then he repeated the procedure on my left side. Six sutures on the left, four on the right. For reasons I don’t understand, the local anaesthetic worked on the left but not the right. So that was unfun – being cut and stitched without anaesthetic. It wasn’t as bad as you’d think – but I’d choose numb if there was a next time. The young nurse watched my blood pressure the whole time and it barely flickered (although I was made to lie down earlier when it was dropping). Apparently I lost about half a liter of blood. I certainly made a big mess on the bed.

Once the bedside stitching was done, my surgeon went home while I had a shower to scrub away the mess. It looked like a murder scene. When I came back out, my bed was pristine and I had a lovely clean hospital gown.

The next day I was meant to go home, but by the time he did rounds late morning, I was having a panic attack and in floods of tears – yesterday’s peace flown out the window. I suspect a combination of post-anaesthetic blues, blood loss, and an awful lot of pain killers came together with my reality check. The surgeon held my hand, asking what I wanted while I sobbed I didn’t know, so he said probably best I stay another night – he wanted me to be ready to go home. So I stayed another night.

I woke up this morning feeling way better – my little pity party all over. I know recovery is not an easy road (psychologically) so I’ve drawn up goals and commitments, and downloaded an app or two. It would be so easy to eat myself senseless now – which is what I fear – but this is the moment to learn intuitive eating. Not binging, gorging, starving, compensating, purging, restricting, calorie-counting, judging, etc. Just eating properly. There are three people I’m particularly close to who want to do everything they can to support me – whether that’s a listening ear or tough love. I’m forever in their debt.

Physically I’ll recover quickly – I always do. Although having external sutures does slow the healing down – no gym this week. But the bottom line is, I’m making plans – getting recovery right, moving on with my life, and maintaining good physical and psychological health. Fingers crossed this is the big turning point I’ve been working towards all this time.

And as for God? I no longer feel alone and that means the world to me.

A NEW DAWN

In 2012, I became the very happy recipient of a gastric lap band. In 2019, I’m having it removed. On Monday to be precise.

I’m petrified.

Not of the surgery itself. Surgery never bothers me, and this is a quick, easy procedure (if you’re a surgeon…) But the thought of going back to fully unrestricted eating is, quite frankly, terrifying. On numerous levels.

Prior to the lap band, I’d spent nearly 46 years of my 46 years obsessed with food – eating too much, feeling guilt, trying to eat less, failing, dieting, gaining weight, losing weight, gaining it back with a little bit extra. In tears, and absolute desperation I turned to my GP who then gave me a referral to the lap band surgeon. I saw the surgeon on a Thursday and had the procedure the following Monday.

From that point, weight peeled away quite consistently. But the flip side of that happy coin, was the rapid expansion of my already disordered eating, into a return to full blown bulimia. Which I’ve battled the last seven years.

I felt I was finally in control. Until I wasn’t.

As my life fell apart in 2015, I had to finally face the reality of a long-standing, deeply embedded eating disorder. I’m gradually doing that.

My lap band is no longer functioning correctly. Due to use and abuse of the band – through restricting, purging, binging, purging, binging, purging, purging, and so on – even with an empty band – I struggle to eat a balanced diet, losing a lot of the meals I eat, whether I want to or not. So it has been determined the only way to solve the problem is to have it removed.

it’s not urgent – I could put this surgery off for months – but I’m not really into deferring stuff that needs to be done. So the removal is scheduled for this coming Monday, and the emotional reality is just starting to sink in. I’m going to be just like before – unable to control myself around food. At least that’s how it feels.

I feel like an abject failure.

I failed all my life to eat in any way that could be construed as normal. And now I’ve failed to use the most extreme weight management tool we have available to us – surgical control of food intake.

While I have learned a ton of useful tools in the four years I’ve spent with my psychologist, and I spent a miserable but highly effective seven weeks in an eating disorder clinic last year, I am terrified of relapse. I haven’t even fully recovered yet. I know I’ve made big strides in many areas, but I also know I’m still fragile. So quite frankly, knowing that once I’ve recovered from my surgery, I will be able to eat with absolute freedom and abandon, is starting to send me into a panic. I’m starting to wonder if it’s a good idea.

I know absolutely everyone else thinks removing the band is a terrific idea, but all those everyones don’t have incessant food obsessions screaming in their head day in and day out. All those everyones learned other ways of dealing with the normal stuff life throws around. And all those everyones won’t have to control the movement of my fork to mouth. Nobody can do that but me.

I desperately hope that in the weeks and months to come, I declare the removal of the lap band the best thing since sliced bread. That it offered me the freedom to eat healthily and intuitively – the ultimate aim for all us eating disordered folk. But I desperately fear the opposite will be true – that I’ll lose control, slip back into old habits, regress to my old binge eating self – with or without some kind of purging. Or possibly the fear will overwhelm me so much, I won’t eat at all.

I’ve been utterly blessed to spend two amazing weeks focusing on myself – a week in Sydney at a writing retreat, followed by a week of camping at the Bay of Fires – swimming, kayaking, staring at the night sky, and just lazing around with a beautiful friend. The whole two weeks have been incredibly cathartic and healing in a myriad of ways – physically, mentally, psychologically, spiritually. But today, the reality of what I’ve signed myself up for on Monday just started to hit. And before I go stark raving mad, I needed to write all the catastrophes out of my head. Because interestingly enough, writing it all down, abates the fears. Catastrophes are far better outside my head than inside.

So Monday is the big deal. I don’t know what the future holds (because of course none of us do at any time), but as I fear the worst, I’m trying to hope for the best.

COMING HOME

Excerpt from the five-day writing retreat I’ve just returned from. Day five…

I’ve known a lot of homes. An endless cascade of houses where I lay my head and unpacked my bags. A dozen educational institutions where a seat was mine and mine alone, and I found a place to feel belonging and purpose. Friends where no amount of time and distance have separated us, and despite the years in between, a phone call picks up where the last conversation left off. And I’ve found home in my husband and children, when all my world crumbled, grief stumbled in, joy and excitement were too big to contain, they’ve been the place to sit and share and hold me.

But there is one more home I seek. Myself. I need to come home to myself.

If home is a place of safety, security and familiarity, then that is the place I seek. A place deep inside my belly with an eternal knowing that no matter the tsunami of life eddying around me, there is security in my being. I have survived every day life has gifted me so far.

To come home to myself would mean an end to numbing. An end to punishment and self-recrimination. The beginning of acceptance and love. A willingness to embody the body I was born with – and appreciate its ability to carry me with ease and grace. Resisting illness. Growing and nourishing children. Carrying me into the ecstasy of carnal love and allowing me to experience the agony of brokenness and the relief when agony abates.

To come home to myself would mean an acknowledgment of all my faults and flaws, in equal measure with all my gifts and talents. To accept the whole of my unique self, as no better and no worse than any other – as we all attempt to navigate the world around us.

To come home to myself would mean a deep sense of peace. A peace I barely know or recognise, but have in brief moments of time, felt deep in my soul. A peace I yearn to know more deeply, more easily, more frequently. A sense of comfort with myself – the wrinkles, the scars. My intellect and creativity. My empathy and caring. My inclination to rush and catastrophise. The well-intentioned need to solve everyone’s problems. My gift of teaching and music and writing. The whole of me. The me my friends choose to spend time with – decade after decade. The me my husband adores. The me my children love. The me my father is so proud of.

Forgiveness is an act of courage and strength. And to come home to myself requires forgiveness for all I am not. All I have lost. All I regret.

Appreciation is an act of love and kindness. And to come home to myself requires appreciation for all that I am. All I have been. All I have achieved.  

Self-love is an act of compassion and acceptance. And to come home to myself requires self-love from my chipped painted toe-nails, to the roots of my greying hairline.

I choose to come home after this long journey of recovery and healing. To take the hand of the little girl who was never good enough in her mother’s eyes and say, You are enough. Right now. As is. To squish her to my breast and meld her to my heart. Complete healing. That is to come home to myself.

THE EMOTIONAL TRUTH

Excerpt from the five-day writing retreat I’ve just returned from. Day four…

The universal human need to be needed.

The basic human rights of love, care and acceptance.

The intimacy of belonging to community.

These are the emotional truths I wish to explore. How my needs, rights and sense of belonging have, and have not, been met. The consequences to me, and to everyone I connect with, from my lack of self-love.

The story of victimhood I carried for so long and the story of recovery I tell myself I am learning. The emotional truth of my story is love and acceptance. As so many – if not all – of us are damaged as small children, my job is to go back and take the hand of the little girl with the golden curls. The freckles on her nose and gap in her straight white teeth. The little girl who learned to smile for the camera while inside her wild spirit was slowly whittled away, until nothing was left but the desire to die. It took just ten years to kill that spirit. She felt the arrogance of false strength, buried the truth of her own emotional experiences, and crafted a carapace of fake courage around her being that was so thick, she couldn’t tell the difference between truth and lies.

The emotional truth is mothering. To be mothered. To mother. To be cared for. To care. To be loved to love. To all of us whose roles reverse as parents age, we learn to mother our parents. Buried deep inside my broken carapace is a little girl who was never mothered – never received the unconditional love, acceptance and freedom to dream a million dreams. I want to take her by the hand and walk her through the flames – burn away the hurts and lies. Scorch the fears and false beliefs. Crack that shell and let out the tears and tantrums. Joy and jest. Depression and anxiety. Tell her how to deal with life – all the shit that’s flung around like a monkey high on ecstasy. That it’s okay to eat when she’s hungry. It’s okay to stop when she’s full. There’ll be food when she wants it. Sit with the feelings, surf the urge, and ride the waves of all the other clichéd emotional coping tools. I want to teach the little girl to do no harm – to herself. That her needs and value, are as valid as anyone else. That while it feels good to give, it’s okay to receive.

The emotional truth is life is precious. It’s gifted to us – whatever religious or spiritual belief each one of us may or may not hold – it doesn’t dispute the fact that this life is gift. Don’t waste it. Don’t wish it away. Learn to love it and be in it. Learn to accept it. Learn to be okay with disappointment and failure – to yourself and to others. Learn to walk away from things that don’t serve you, and grasp with two hands those things that nourish and feed you. And for fuck’s sake – learn to tell the difference.

Let that little girl be seen for who she is. Not as a reflection of her parents or siblings. Not as a middle-class white girl. Not for her body or skin colour or hairstyle. Let the little girl be seen. Her wild spirit that wants to break the rules and fly free. Her love of the ocean and wind in her hair. Her need to run and run and run and feel the freedom of being alone. Her courage to face any obstacle that stands in the way of her dreams and climb it at any cost. This little girl is feisty and fiery, and her spirit doesn’t need to be destroyed – it needs to be nurtured and loved and accepted. A little taming perhaps – but she wants to please people. And that’s okay. But teach her not to give of herself to her own detriment. Teach her she’s beautiful on the inside and nobody cares about the outside. External beauty is a fleeting, subjective opinion. Inner beauty grows exponentially the older we get and holds so much more value than facial symmetry and high cheekbones.

Perfection – forget it. You’ll never get there.

Beauty – who cares? It holds no value.

Social status – why? Money and power aren’t preferable to kindness and courage.

This book is the story of a girl with an eating disorder. But an eating disorder is but the symptom of a hunger in the soul that no amount of food or starvation will ever satisfy.

WHEN THE MUSIC PLAYS

Excerpt from the five-day writing retreat I’ve just returned from. Day three…

Dear Vanessa,

My beautiful darling sister – I miss you and I love you.

I hear you and remember you every time I hear your favourite songs.

Moves Like Jagger is playing right now with its beautiful juxtaposition of unfettered joy and overwhelming grief.

I miss you and I love you and I see you now in a place of peace and joy and acceptance, cleansed of all your mortal imperfections.

Your beauty and joy and generosity flowing through and shining out.

That is who you are.

That is who I know.

That is who I love. xxx