Burglary

Somebody up there was listening when I claimed that greed was a deadly sin I didn't have. I was sorely tested yesterday. When I returned home from work John met me with the bad news that while he was in the house - either inside the house playing card games on his computer with the door shut, or outside gardening - his wallet had been stolen from his jacket pocket where it was draped over one of the dining-room chairs (near the front door).

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At first we thought it had simply dropped out of his pocket, and the first half hour was spent looking in likely places. But then I had cause to walk about 10m to the other end of the house and I realised it was serious - all drawers had been opened and some contents were strewn around, and my jewellery box was upside down and almost empty: worthless trinkets had been left behind.

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How they got away with it with John around is a total mystery, but it was probably for the best that they did. He's the sort of person who would have confronted them, and at 81 with a heart condition, despite the fact that he used to box in the army when he was young, I wouldn't have reckoned his chances were very high at getting them to return stolen goods - in fact it's more likely that they would have responded with violence. He just shrugs his shoulders and says it would still have been worth it... (what is it with you men for goodness sake?)

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They took every last piece of jewellery I possess, except what I was wearing. There was my mother's jewellery, including a little gold ring with her initials given to her by her father which she had worn as a child, and after being worn by my sister for a while, was worn by me until my fingers became as fat as the rest of me - it used to make me smile that the initials were "GAS". Also her engagement ring, in the family for at least 100 years that we know of, and I was very proud of being the custodian of these beautiful items which would be eventually passed down to the only grandaughter, my niece. There was the pink topaz my father gave me on my seventeenth birthday, the stone for which I had chosen myself (the biggest I could see - greed again...), the peridot I inherited from Granny, and a whole series of pretty stone rings, earrings and pendants which I had bought on eBay some years ago when I was better off. Nothing flashy you understand, just stones of different colours to match whatever outfit I might be wearing - I was secretly proud of my taste, and adored wearing them. One of the rewards I promised myself after having the lapband fitted was that I would one day return to my "friends" and wear them all again.

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I'm taken by surprise as I remember them in turn today while doing other jobs, and grieve for each and every one, apologising to the spirits of my parents for being so hopeless at looking after them. At the same time I acknowledge that at the time I was buying them on eBay I was clearly displaying that which I have claimed not to recognise - greed. I just didn't expect the lesson to be so hard.

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-oOo-

The Seven Deadly Sins – random thoughts (Part 2)

Envy, Wrath, Pride and Lust…

Envy
A bit of it is fine, as long as it doesn’t take you over. I reserve my strong envy for people with strong dieting willpower, who are enthusiastic about putting up with physical discomfort so as to become fit, and for those who have used their intelligence to do worthwhile things with their lives. I’m so glad I grew out of envying people who were better off than I was, had prettier dolls and bedrooms, and lots of new clothes (and the latest Beatles records!)

There’s also the harmless envy of other living creatures that makes your imagination work – of the cat that gets away with sleeping by a fireside all day and whose looks alone usually ensure its survival among humans; the bird that can hover on a thermal as it captures the view below; the exhuberance of a dolphin that can streak through the water, diving in and out; the dog whose affections are so black and white and uncomplicated; the horse that can travel at speed, not with the intention of catching a meal or escaping pursuit, but just for the sheer exhilaration of it.


Wrath
Anger yes, temper no. I stuttered a lot as a child – I still do sometimes - and learned that you can’t lose your temper in an articulate manner when you know there’s a word coming up ahead you’re going to get stuck on. In addition, my older sister unintentionally forced me to abandon temper as a way of getting what I wanted or letting off steam - she usually managed to make me feel very small if I lost my temper, by use of the method I now know is a classic one used by children – spite: to respond to criticism by counter-criticising twice as hard. It was very bad for self-esteem.

But now I’ve discovered that I have the capacity to feel a great depth of anger towards people who have hurt me badly and refuse to discuss it rationally. To digress briefly from pathos to bathos, perhaps I’ve learned this from watching the ideal world of TV soaps where these things are resolved! However, whereas in soaps characters are forced to talk through whatever it is, my own (relatively recently acquired) coping mechanism is a strong determination to avoid people, situations and jobs that make me angry or unhappy. I ought to add a footnote here that I have not had children, but would like to believe that they would have been an important exception to this attitude.

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Pride
The most difficult to discuss. Dignity is immensely important to me, as I would discover every time I had my heart broken. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself because I needed to feel that I was better than the person who was hurting me. And yet when I was made redundant in 2007 after 19 years with the same company, it affected me in a way that left no room for dignity, and I felt cast out of a trade I genuinely loved, which was the agricultural industry.

When you’re overweight it’s a wobbly knife edge you walk on if you tend towards self-consciousness, and if in addition you want to keep your dignity as well. You end up being forced into using your sense of humour as a way of getting there before anybody else does. British comedienne Jo Brand uses this method to great effect.

On the other hand one of my pet hates is when people are unable through pride or simply lack of guts to look at you in the eye, and apologise with meaning, or don’t know the significance of the word ‘humility’. Add to the list those who feel themselves to be superior because of position, money, status, qualifications, and so on. Sexism, racism, elitism and bigotry all come from misplaced pride, and I frequently seethe with inward rage when I see them in action.


Last but not least: Lust
There are many adjectives with which I could describe what this one is for me, most of them positive, but deadly ain’t one of ‘em. I would like to think that it’s meant as a deadly sin only when it provokes crime or elicits behaviour which harms another person. It’s one of those physical pleasures which help us get through life. I'd like to explore the general topic of how overweight people view physical pleasure generally in a future post.

-oOo-

I think I’m guilty as charged on all the deadly sins except perhaps greed. However there are a host of other unofficial deadly sins, aren’t there? Let’s see… here I scribbled a list of other ones (intolerance, making war, etc) but these early Christian thinkers had it worked out, because they can all be ascribed to one of the above.

Except lying. Where do you put it? With all of them perhaps. Thinking in the context of this blog, don’t say – as I could not – that you haven’t lied so that people don’t know how much you’ve been eating, or what treat you’ve hidden somewhere, or that you’re too proud to admit defeat, or because the truth would make your anger collapse like a pack of cards, or to hide the slothful fact that you simply can’t be bothered…

Nuff said I think.

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-oOo-

The Seven Deadly Sins – random thoughts (Part 1)

Gluttony, Greed & Sloth

Gluttony
Well, it’s brought us to this blog, hasn’t it? The desire for physical pleasure which is most easily satisfied, the conjuring up of comfortable and comforting childhood when there were no responsibilities and your feeling unhappy was of great concern to grown-ups, who usually solved the problem by giving you something nice to eat. Then you got older and you discovered that you were expected to keep yourself happy, and that being miserable was no longer pitiful, but actually annoying to others – so you used the same methods, and gave yourself something nice to eat.

Gluttony is the logical outcome: the feeling of anxiety if we’re not full to bursting. This anxiety is the hardest of all the feelings to overcome when you’re overweight.


Greed
Yes, we’d all love to be multimillionaires and are convinced that it would “sort out” every single problem we’ve ever had or could have. In our heart of hearts we know that it wouldn’t really, but wouldn’t it be nice just to… sort of… well… find out for ourselves???

Greed is also what slim people see as the behaviour and motivation of overweight people (“You’re just plain greedy”). Not so. If it were we would be greedy at every level – money, attention, affection, satisfying every whim. It’s back to that anxiety again, the anxiety about feeling hungry and the threat of being excluded from the pleasure of eating.


Sloth
Oh dear, big black cross against my name here. Horrible word dating from an era when most people had few resources, and if you wanted to enjoy a decent standard of living you had to work very hard for it. Being lazy was therefore a Bad Thing, because it meant that it would inevitably result in your sponging off someone else who had worked hard. However I believe they meant it to be physical laziness – sitting around. Modern life is very conducive to not having to race about, on the whole, and now we see nothing wrong in having time to sit and reflect, and to sit and study in later life is positively encouraged. But sloth has got me -weightwise - to where I am today.

I do feel a nagging irritation towards some people who are mentally idle, and can’t be bothered to think something through, read a book or feel curiosity about the world outside their immediate circle. They’re generally very inspired about improving their physical fitness but make no effort to be better at their jobs, or learn anything new, not to mention what life is like in the rest of the world.

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To be continued...

-oOo-

Restriction yet no restraint, control yet no self-control

On the occasions when I listen to my inner voice - for which I need a hearing-aid most of the time, it must be admitted - I start a meal too fast, the discomfort and threat of PB appear, I slow right down and eat very slowly, and soon I feel full and able to leave some of it. John takes the plate away and I reach after if whimpering... but my brain has caught up with my stomach, and with minimal willpower I am able to accept that I don't want any more to eat.

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That's on good days. Even on medium days, the fact that I deliberately don't buy wrong foods serves to help my wavering willpower. But most of the time it's a fight I rarely win, and the most I achieve is that my weight stays level. Some days I'm actually sick ... "how brave you are, to put up with all that discomfort" they say. No it's not. It's humilliating because I know I'm not listening. The band is saying "I'm here to help you, slow down, you stupid cow", but my brain is slipping back into the old mode and saying "See? You deserved that, it's a punishment because you're plain greedy and you'll never change."

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My next fill is Wednesday 18th March. I hope it will be a step on the road to restraint and self-control, and to liking myself a little more.

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-oOo-

Protect me from my friends!

Have I mentioned that I work in a hospital? I enjoy my job as administrator, and my kind and friendly colleagues (professors, consultants, doctors, research fellows, nurses, cleaners and admin people like myself) are supportive of my bariatric surgery and keen to help. So I get advice on what to eat and what not, I'm encouraged to use the stairs instead of the lift, when there's food from a buffet left over it's swept away before I can get near it, chocolate biscuits given as presents are handed out generally far away from the office where I sit, and I'm gently chided if I look longingly at the chocolates which are regularly given to us. Even my boss has gone out to buy snack foods for meetings so that I won't be subjected to unnecessary temptations - I was very touched by this. "Lets all have a bacon butty" is a phrase I remember (just) - with affection.

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I've had every encouragement to go to the gym, and it's been explained to me in a wealth of detail the difference between yoga, pilates and step aerobics, jogging with an MP3 and without one, and after reminiscing with them about a halcyon period when I did aerobics 20 years ago, why I must be the only person in Bristol never to have felt an adrenalin rush after an excruciating session of aerobics and that in fact my feeling bloody awful must have been my imagination. All this is backed up by sound clinical knowledge, there's absolutely no escape. I consider myself fortunate that my department is urology and therefore where weight loss is concerned, there aren't too many dire warnings they can give me about how overweight affects that part of the body. Aside from incontinence of course. Sigh.

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When a recent TV channel asked us if we wanted to take part as a department in a diet & exercise driven let's-see-who-can-lose-the-most-weight-in-the-shortest-time, expectant looks were cast in my direction to see if me-and-my-lapband would lead the way. (We wouldn't. My bandy friend would not have been summoned to help if I had not been the most self-conscious person on the planet. TV cameras? I'd sooner bungee jump down an active volcano).

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I'm by nature communicative. Quite capable of keeping secrets when required, but on the whole fairly willing to share things about myself (healthwise) if I can see I'm not going to send someone into a coma by saying more than one sentence. This is mainly because I hate telling lies. Some of the bandsisters in Taunton have kept their op a secret, and I thoroughly respect that - but I didn't, once the deed was done. Just as well - John was close to calling in the paparazzi 24 hours afterwards. However the trouble with this approach is that people look you up and down when they see you thereafter, and the disappointment is inevitably etched on their faces. They've seen too many TV programmes where the 6 month gap in the middle is edited out, and too many Hello magazines with celebrity before and after snaps. I find myself gabbling in a most undignified manner words to the effect that 'it's early days', 'I need another fill', 'half a pound a week isn't very noticeable', and feebly on and on.

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So as if my journey wasn't difficult enough, I also feel I'm in some sort of goldfish bowl both at work and socially - and for a self-conscious person it's quite uncomfortable.

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So this had better work...

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-oOo-

Second fill - NOW you're talkin'!

I had my second fill on Wednesday - from 4ml in a 10ml band I've now gone up to 5.5ml. I was pleased - nay amazed - that they recorded a 2kg loss since last time, a month ago. As usual I had been keeping away from the scales out of fear rather than 'doing the right thing', so that was a boost.

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For the first time I was able to enjoy the friendly banter in the waiting room, and the exchange of information. My only 'group therapy' so far has been the blogs I read - and they're brilliant. But it was nice to get instant answers to questions, and to learn that it was not at all unusual that 2 months into all this I've felt very little restriction, and certainly no feeling of fullness after eating.

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There was one lady there who was banded 8 months ago and has only lost three quarters of a kg in that time, despite being on 9ml. She lives in London and drives all the way to Taunton for her fills and consultations - brave or what. She's very fed up about it and says there's a suggestion that her band might be leaking, so next time they'll be checking to see how much is actually in there. (I thought they withdrew all contents before filling again to check the volume, but the doctor explained that they only do this if they suspect there's something wrong, and that in any case they can't empty it altogether because it would create a vacuum effect and cause problems when re-filled - so they can have a fairly accurate idea, but not 100%. Interesting)

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Since then I've been amazed by the difference. I can feel it almost straight away, and have had to be very careful not to feel tight, sick, etc. This morning at work I started on a home-made brown bread tuna mayo sandwich and after three bites had to rush to the loo. Both horrible and embarrassing, but wotta lesson. However, I don't feel 'full' after a teacup full of food...

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I had salad last night without any problems, and this makes me fear that it's bread that will be the problem. Tragic.....

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-oOo-

Doubting Thomas and Diabetes

I haven't posted for a week due to a combination of feeling it was very trivial in the light of the fires in Australia and the number of Australian blogs I enjoy, and because I've been a bit glum myself.

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I feel barely any restriction: the band only makes its presence felt when I eat a piece of bread or pastry too quickly. Then I get gradually increasing pain and I have to stop eating for 10 minutes, or the keen desire to burp - productive or otherwise, and on one horrible occasion a couple of weeks ago (at home thank goodness) I was sick and didn't even make it properly to the loo in time. The cause was a piece of toast eaten before a bowl of soup, of refined white bread and eaten too fast. But the point is, although I'm reassured that I have a band and that it's working - even if on a go-slow - I have no feelings of fullness after a small portion, just the discomfort, and then my appetite returns the same as before.

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Yes, you have to work with the band...it's just a tool... ; yes, you still need a certain degree of willpower; yes, you can't shout at it "Stop me eating, will you!!"; and yes (wistfully) I realise other bloggers I read are successful particularly in the early days and clearly I'm not. However my willingness to cooperate is tempered by low spirits which have nothing to do with being overweight - although of course they make it harder to bear - and I find myself wanting to negotiate with this inanimate object I have in my chest and say "show me first that you can work properly and then I'll do my bit"... like a latter-day Doubting Thomas who wants the miracle before he'll believe...

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I have my second fill coming up next Wednesday 18th, and I'm hoping they'll give me enough to start this process properly. Listening to other bloggers' experiences it seems to follow a cycle: a fill gives you a jump start which makes you lose weight which gives you a real lift, and in seeing the obvious improvement in yourself it gives you the strength and enthusiasm to carry on, which makes you continue to lose weight. Then gradually the restriction relaxes a bit, you get impatient at first, then downcast, then give into temptation, slip a bit, slip a bit further... then back for another fill and the process starts again. I know this is a bit simplistic, it doesn't always happen like that. Some of you maximise the good phase by doing exercise, and sometimes the cycle speeds up due to outside circumstances...

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To my surprise I'm losing about half a pound a week, evidently there's a tiny bit of restriction I'm not even aware of - so it's not all negative.

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I'm too self-conscious to start the only exercise I'm interested in - swimming - until I've lost at least a couple of stone, and have finally got the diabetes back under control since the op. I keep having middle-of-the-night hypos due to insulin overdose, and swimming makes the glucose go down faster. A hypo in the pool is awful and you get little warning - it feels as though you can barely reach the end to get out.

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So far I haven't read any bandster blogs by diabetics, though I'm sure there are plenty out there - so I wonder if these comments might be useful:

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(1) Your eating pattern changes when you lose weight before the operation. You barely eat at all, and insulin-wise that's easy because all you have to do is react to the result of the blood test you give yourself. My consumption of insulin went down to a third.

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(2) In the hospital you follow their advice - up to a point. It's better to have high glucose than low, but in the first 10 hours my glucose climbed steadily, and the nurses kept consulting each other and the on-call doctor as to what they should do, and gave me a different type of insulin. However, the glucose kept climbing. I asked to be allowed to decide for myself what I needed, using my own insulin, and eventually they did, making me carry out frequent blood tests. As I was leaving the senior nurse's comment was that it had been better to let me judge what was best for me.

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(3) Insulin intake during the initial slop phase is more or less the same as for the crash diet beforehand.

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(4) The interesting bit comes once you inevitably start to increase your food consumption, and here's the thing: if you take your glucose reading before you go to bed, and it's high, this could be because (a) you've had dinner and/or sweet & greasy snacks too recently; (b) you had a meagre dinner but had a substantial lunch - or sweet & greasy ditto - and forgot to test or inject (I know I know, don't nag me); or (c) you snacked on sweet or greasy foods throughout the day - even reasonably lightly.

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(5) If (a), then the usual amount of insulin for that reading will be fine; if (b) or (c) it will be very difficult to gauge how much insulin to give yourself: the high reading may be on its way up because of (a), or has already peaked and is on its way down, so the 'usual dose' of insulin will be too much.

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(6) So - there's another bad habit to overcome, apart from over-eating, and that's irregular meals...

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It's not just my body that has a long road to travel.

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-oOo-

"Interview" Part 3

DocSly asks what is worth seeing if she should ever visit the UK, and whether I've ever been to the US.

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Visitors to the UK are besotted with London - certainly a beautiful city reeking of history, and locals always sound puzzled as to why this should be. I think it's good "placement", as they say in the advertising world: not just in English-speaking countries, but also Europe, South America and as far away as Japan. Your education has included the images, the films, the nursery rhymes, the kings and queens, Henry VIII and his wives, the changing of the guard, Buckingham Palace, the present-day gossip about the Royal Family, Wimbledon, The Beatles (if you're of my generation)... so when the visitor arrives in London, they can at last see 'the real thing' - it's not just the old buildings: the Tower of London isn't just an old fortress, it's where history happened which you already knew about before you came - to give just one example.

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But there's so much more to see in the rest of the country. For history there's the big cities, not just London, but also Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Brighton, Bath. For quintessential pretty British countryside (often in the rain, why else do you think it's all so green?) there's the Welsh valleys, the Cornish Peninsula, Devon and Dorset, Somerset - for the cute villages to die for there's the Cotswolds and the Midlands, Kent and not forgetting Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon. All at its best in springtime. I've visited Northern Ireland three times and can say that it's about time everybody, English included, discovered what a treasure it is. It's the way England used to be when I came here for the first time in the seventies. Quiet, sedate, conservative, charming, with a stunning north coast - but a lorra lorra rain...

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If you want to get behind the pretty façade visit the northeast or the Welsh valleys and learn about the gripping and sad history of the coal industry, or the Midlands and the northwest for how the industrial revolution made Britain the country it is today. Above all, talk to the people, learn to understand their accents and how they differ from one region to another, learn how they think. See the enormous cultural mix and understand how it happened, it's good and bad influences - i.e. leave the rose-tinted spectacles behind if you want to see what modern day Britain is really like. I guarantee you would return home understanding why the US got such intense support at the time of 9/11.

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I was born and brought up in Argentina, and at 18 visited the US for the first time. I was immature and a bit timorous, so I stayed with relations in Maryland and went as far as five hours driving would take you in a day, with my uncle and cousins. (Richmond, Harpers Ferry, Washington, from memory). I loved it all. I spent a day in a typical American school with my cousin of similar age, and I loved that - I had seen so many films set in high schools... (Example of the reverse of visitors to London described above - I was seeing the real thing only read about in books or seen in films!). And don't get me started on the first time experience of hamburgers... Sigh - which brings me back to the reason for this blog...

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About ten years on I was living in the UK, married, and my then husband and I went to Vermont and Rhode Island for a holiday - and the scenery took my breath away. I'm sad to say I've never been back. I'd love a long holiday criss-crossing the country, not forgetting Hawaii one day to take pictures of waves and surfers, a long-favourite photographic subject of mine.

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You can wake up now, I've finished! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to say all this.

-oOo-

"Interview" Part 1

Dawn asks which five people I would invite to dinner; and the significance of honeysuckle at the top of my blog page.

There are plenty of people I’d adore having dinner with because I admire them and find them entertaining and funny, such as Rolf Harris, the Australian TV presenter and “national treasure” who’s lived in England most of his adult life but has lost none of his Aussie ways or accent – musician, painter, presenter of a very successful animal TV programme & very funny man who nonetheless always seems interested in others and not himself.

Rolf Harris (Google Images)

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But I’d give my right arm and leg to bring Mollie back to life, a British lady author of a book - found on eBay - which captured my imagination years ago (favourite listed in my Profile) which I’m having a go at translating into Spanish; also her parents, who travelled from Britain to Patagonia (Argentina) during World War I, where her father managed several British-owned sheep farms in very difficult and often inhospitable conditions until 1923, when they returned home.

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Finding out background information before and after their sojourn has been like pulling teeth – but from crumbs of evidence from the internet there’s a moving story waiting to be unearthed. With no descendants to beg for help, I’d go on a pilgrimage to Lourdes and sell my soul to the Devil if I thought I could have them to dinner and have some of my questions answered.

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As Dawn allows me five, I would include the aunt to whom Mollie was close, and one of the managers on the farm, another Australian, an expert in sheep rearing who helped introduce the merino breed to Argentina and who I believe provided advice when she wrote the book. These people have been dead for 30-50 years of course…
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Honeysuckle – I’ve always liked the fact that the latin name of one of my most favourite perfumes, honeysuckle, is lonicera, which is also an anagram of my name. I’ve said to myself for years that if I ever had a blog I’d call it that… voilà!

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"Interview" Part 2

Nola asks how I met my husband, and what it’s like where I live.

I imagine she refers to John, my partner, and not the ****hole and sports fanatic I stupidly married when I was too immature to know any better and who thought I was grossly overweight at 65 kilos – and then told me after 8 years when he went off with a mutual friend that I should have held him on a tighter rope. If you need holding on a rope at all then you’re not worth having – and I realised that even in the midst of the misery at the time. I never married again.

John is a sweet gentle soul who has put up with me for over 20 years. I met him when I felt low after my marriage ended, as did he over the recent disability of one of his much loved daughters, who died a few years later. He sang bass with a local amateur local opera society, and I was looking for an activity - such as helping backstage - which would help me think of other things, and a mutual friend put us in touch. It was an unlikely partnership at the time, but we helped each other and have remained very close. He spoils me to death.

John with Rusty in his favourite place

We live in a bungalow with a garden, in a village just outside Bristol which is very quiet, although the garden backs on to a field by the motorway, so the hum is always in the background – except on Christmas Day… My neighbours are mainly retired people, friendly but mostly keep to themselves. The couple opposite kindly look after my cats when we go away, and the couple next door have an adorable little boy aged 2, curly blond, very cute, sturdy and tough. At Halloween they dressed him for trick-or-treating in a pointy black hat as tall as he is, with a sweeping black cloak – I wish, wish I’d taken a photo of him because he looked good enough to eat.

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Back of the house, with annexe & and conservatory newly built in summer 2006 when my mother was coming to live with us. Sadly she wasn't able to enjoy it for very long.
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In Bristol you have the cultural, shopping and employment advantages of a reasonably large city (3/4 of a million) and some beautiful architecture here and there – what survived the blitz of World War II that is. And in 15 minutes you can be out in lovely rolling green countryside with the hedgerows, small irregularly shaped fields and lots of trees which are the feature of most of Britain. We’re also just across the Severn Bridge from Wales. However what I love best about living in Britain is that you're surrounded by history, and in most cases the sites, buildings and monuments are treated with respect and lovingly preserved for posterity.

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