8.4

I know I've been a little absent lately, I weighed in this week and yes- I lost 8.4 pounds but I feel like it's cheating, I'll tell you why. I had an emergency gallbladder removal surgery on Valentines Day (Happy Valentines Day to me) and then after some complications had another procedure two days later and then if that wasn't enough, I ended up with a fairly severe case of pancreatitis. I was in the hospital for 8 days and for most of those 8 days I was not allowed to eat or drink, just received IV fluids so that my pancreas could rest.

Sad thing is, I actually expected to lose more weight after not eating for 8 days, I mean really! It was somewhat of a hellish ordeal, I thought I would come out of the hospital a skinny women. Well, that didn't happen. However, I am back on plan and at home resting and recuperating. There were a few times I was ready to say screw it, hand me some ice cream or a milk shake...but I didn't. I'm going to have to remain fairly healthy for a while to accommodate my new lack of an organ which is a good thing.

I'm also terrified that after not eating for a week and having a bigger loss that I will be a failure come next Monday because I am now consuming food and drinking liquids again. I'm also not very active right now because I'm still in some pain, so there's a lot of sitting around on my behind.

There is one major lesson I learned from this experience though- I can't put my health on the back burner any longer. Over 2 years ago I started to have gallbladder attacks on and off and I knew that I had gallstones and that the gallbladder needed to be removed. I put it off for two years and of course ended up with complication after complication. I could always come up with an excuse why it wasn't a good time for me to go through with the procedure, but what could have been an outpatient surgery ended up an 8 day hospital stay. Just shows you where my mind was, not on my health.

Not anymore though, it's my time to put me first.