Twenty the hard way

It's been a while since I posted on this blog. I apologize. It seems old patterns are hard to break. I get gung ho on a project and I stick with it for a while. But then I miss a day or two or three. I swear I'm going to get back to it but as more days pass it gets harder and harder to return to it. So here I am 10 months later giving it another try.

A lot has happened in these past months. I gained back the 8 or so pounds I had lost last summer and continued my usual pattern of bouncing between 205 and 215. I watched my 16 year old niece battle anorexia and get down to around 90 pounds before having a break through and learning to get back to a healthy weight. I turned 40. And probably most significantly, at the end of April, I was in a car accident. A pretty serious car accident.

This was not my first car accident, but it's the first one in which I've been seriously injured. That day started a lot of firsts for me. The first time I've been in an ambulance. The first time I've stayed in a hospital. The first time I've broken a bone. The first time I've had major surgery. The first time I've ever had morphine. The first time I've ever had a view of my own mortality.

What happened was this...

My brother Chris picked Scott and I up early that Saturday morning in his Saturn Ion. Scott being 6'6" got the front seat, while I had to make do with the small backseat. It was a lovely morning as we headed out to Flemington, NJ. We were going to the Amish Market out there on Route 206 to get some of the world's best donuts and some pork from the pig roast they hold on the last Saturday of the month. But mostly we were going for the donuts.

We had gotten on I-78 heading west. I was sitting at an angle trying to get comfortable with the minimal amount of legroom that the Ion provides backseat passengers, especially when they are sitting behind 6'6" boyfriends. Chris and Scott were chatting away up front. I recall thinking that I should probably put on my seat belt, when it all happened very quickly. I didn't see it so I can only relay what I heard and what I was told later. We were traveling in the left lane going around 60 mph. What I was told was that the car in front of us, lost power and came to a dead stop in the lane, no lights, no warning, nothing. What I heard was my brother saying "Oh shit!" and then the unforgettable sound of one car impacting into another. Suddenly we were stopped, the airbags in the front seats were deployed and I was between the two front seats. We were all conscious and checking on each other. As I began to move myself back into the back seat, I realized something was wrong. I got the back door open and began to shift my body to get out, my left foot was hanging limply on the leg. At first I thought my ankle was broken, but as I continued to shift I realized it was the whole leg. The problem was my hip. And as the adrenalin wore off the pain started. The pain was like nothing I've ever felt before. Scott, who was relatively unhurt because he was wearing a seat belt and had an airbag, hovered helplessly and anxiously nearby. My brother was in the front seat with what we found out later was two broken legs and a broken knee. It seemed like an eternity until the EMTs arrived. And apparently it was. It took over 40 minutes for the State Police to arrive on the scene. They wouldn't call for an ambulance until they assessed the scene. So it was another 10 minutes until the EMTs arrived.

Chris said the worst moment of his life was listening to the paramedics move me out of the car, screaming in pain. From here on everything is a just blurbs of memory for me. Answering questions, begging for something for the pain, every bump in the road on the way to the hospital. One of the funny things was that whenever someone asked me what I weighed I would say "210.6". I knew precisely because I had just weighed myself that morning. At the emergency room I was still lucid enough to call another brother and sister and let them know what happened. At this point I was coming in and out of consciousness as the doctors and nurses did their work. I recall opening my eyes at one point and finding myself surrounded by all my siblings. Frankly the next 8 days of my life are pretty much lost to me. I had 2 subluxated vertebrae in my neck and a broken hip so I was heavily medicated and in traction. I had surgery on my neck the next day (Sunday) and that went well. My hip surgery however kept getting put off. Every day they would tell me that I would go in that day and every night they would say "Nevermind". Because I could not eat anything before surgery, I wasn't allowed to eat even if I wanted to (which I didn't, between the drugs and the pain, I had no appetite). I was finally taken in to the OR on Thursday. During the 14 hour surgery to repair my hip, I apparently developed bacterial pneumonia and after the surgery they were unable to extubate (remove the breathing tube) for three days. I found out later that during those three days my family was not certain that I would make it.

I spent another week in the hospital, finally able to eat something after over a week of nothing. I didn't have much of an appetite, which was okay since the hospital food was terrible, often crossing over to inedible. After that second week in the hospital I was moved to Kessler Rehabilitation Center to begin the work that would let me return home. One of the first things they did when I got there was weigh me. This was accomplished by rolling me into a sling and lifting me with this crane type thing. When the nurses aide announced "210 pounds" I couldn't believe it. Two weeks of eating nothing or next to nothing and all I lost was half a pound?!?! What's with that? It was pointed out to me that I was still very swollen and bloated from the surgeries.

That first week at Kessler, though the food was a lot better, my appetite was still very low. I would only eat about half of whatever they brought me. I was doing about 3 hours of physical therapy a day, but at least half of that would be me resting as most activities exhausted me. However, I was making progress. When they weighed me at the beginning of the next week, I was down to 202 pounds. By the second week I was getting stronger and doing more. I was eating a little more, but only at mealtimes and I never thought about searching out snacks. I progressed rapidly and before the end if the week I was swinging myself along on crutches (I've had a lot of experience with them due to my chronic knee problems). That was all the incentive the insurance company needed to kick me out of the rehab hospital and send me home. They weighed me once more before I left. I about fell over when I found out the new number: 199 pounds! I was under 200 pounds for the first time in about 15 years! I couldn't believe it. It finally happened! And all I had to do was get into a horrible car accident! Not the recommended weight loss method I have to say, but it was a nice silver lining to this difficult time.

While I was happy to be home after 4 weeks of hospitals, it wasn't as easy as I would have hoped. I felt bad that Scott had to do everything for me, including all the cooking. One of the first things he noticed was that I wasn't eating as much as I used to. I often didn't finish my meal. I've been home for about a month now and while my appetite has improved, I'm definitely not eating as much as I used to. We don't keep lots of sugary snacks in the house because both of us are watching our sugar more closely these days. I don't snack a lot because, being on crutches I can't carry it. That's not to say we haven't succumbed from time to time. Scott bribed me with a mini-cupcake if I could make it to the cupcake store on my crutches (I made it in record time!). A client send me a box of gourmet brownies. Of course, we ate them, but I limited myself to no more than one a day and I did skip a couple of days. And I made a blueberry buckle this weekend. We ate part of it and brought the rest to my brother when we went to visit.

I weighed myself this morning and I am happy to report I'm down to 187.1 pounds, that's down 23.5 pounds. According to the standard BMI charts, I am officially no longer obese, now I am merely overweight. If I lose 28 more pounds I will be a "normal" weight. Since I have finally broken that 200 barrier, I'm more confident that I can get there and possibly even to my goal weight of 145. This is the first time in a long time that it has seemed attainable.

In about 2 weeks I will be able to put weight on my left hip again and begin physical therapy to begin walking again. I'll be happy for the increased activity. Unfortunately, I will be unable to do any hiking this summer. That bums me out a bit.

The accident was definitely a life changing moment, but the silver linings I have discovered are many, the weight loss jump start is just one small one. After a lifetime of feeling unlovable, I learned that I am well and truly loved. I learned that I have the most amazing brothers and sisters who circle the wagons when crisis strikes. And I learned that I have an incredible support system of friends and family that I never really understood was always there. I've always been a very independent person and I have a hard time asking for anything. I can't thank all the people who have been there for me during this time enough. I think I'm going to come out of this a much lighter person, both physically and mentally.

Cheerios!