I Am the Other

My husband, Steve, finds my hairbrush most offensive. I truly do not understand this. I mean, yes, it is filled with hair of mine that has come out of my head..and I admit...I am not always on top of cleaning it out as often as I should, but this is the most offensive thing in our bathroom to him. (I think there is WAY more offensive stuff, but, whatever). The thing is....I do not have thick, beautiful hair like he does. I don't have great hair like my mother or my sister or my brothers. I hardly have eyelashes. My siblings were all blessed with long, "look like you always have mascara on" eyelashes. I look like I lost mine at a Hibachi steakhouse...and that's with loads of mascara on. I am was not blessed with a fast metabolism like my siblings either. Remember Sesame Street? The song that talked about how one of these things is not like the other? That would be me. I am the other.

My weight has yo-yo'd my ENTIRE life. There is a picture in my parents basement of me, as a gymnast, (short-lived, I have no athletic ability either) wearing a lavender and white striped leotard with a pot belly. I was probably 8 or 9 years old in the picture. The belly has always been there. Over the years it got smaller and bigger and then smaller and then even bigger, but never, ever, ever was it flat. Finally, after reaching my peak, and my doctor telling me I really needed to do something, I underwent Gastric Bypass in June of 2009.
Best decision I ever made. It has made a HUGE impact on my life and my health and my overall well-being--mostly for the good...and then, there is the bad.

See, I had complications post-op...I was the 1 in a 1,000,000 (anyone who knows my family knows we ALWAYS fall into this category). I will spare you the very gory details of those few days, but, after everything seemed to have leveled off and I was on my way to recovery, I suffered a seizure. From what I've been told, it was quite a sight to see. I felt totally fine before it happened at 1pm that Friday.....and then next thing I knew, it was 4am on Saturday..I was restrained to my hospital bed and my poor mother was trying to sleep in a very uncomfortable chair. I was slurring something awful (since I took a nice bite into my tongue during it) and had no idea what was going on.  I do remember screaming and swearing and being rather belligerent (I'm all these things on a good day, so I don't really understand why they say that can happen after a seizure) at the poor nurse who was being so super nice to me. And the really sick guy in the next curtain over in the ICU...well let's just say his family was quite happy to see me leave. (And I was thrilled to leave the ICU because the woman who came in after suffering a heart attack who was screaming on the phone at someone about how her doctor didn't say she couldn't have another cigarette, well she was just too much for me to handle. She was super loud on the phone and my swearing was too loud for her---it was a mutually happy parting) From what I was told, they ran every test possible and there was no reason they could come up with for the seizure. So, they basically chalked it up to the trauma my body had suffered and figured it was a fluke thing. The neurologist at that time put me on medication, suggested I not drive for a few months and that was it. The not driving lasted all of 6 weeks. I was ready to lose my mind and decided I was fine. I felt fine. My energy was back. Everything was heading in the right direction...and it was.....until January 13 of this year.