Isn't that a great picture?! One of my favorites. That was the night we surprised Aohdan by taking him to see Third Day and Mandisa. He was soooo excited. I had not been that happy in a long time. I think that's why I love this picture because every time I look at it it reminds me of the happiness of that day. To try and summarize... For the past 6 years or so I have waged a (mostly) losing battle against obesity. I wrote about this not long ago, but I feel it's important to give a background about my struggles. I know there are many people out there struggling against the same things as I.
Going back to high school, 10th grade I believe. I was extremely physically fit. I played fast pitch softball, barrel raced horses, and was always into some physical activity. I remember working out in the gym for 2 hours, then spending 2 hours on the field doing ball drills, then coming home and working horses, and STILL I would sit in front of the tv doing push-ups...just for fun. I was in crazy good shape. This pretty much lasted until I was 30. My weight might have fluctuated 10-15lbs, but for the most part I stayed right around 125-130lbs. During these years I ate whatever and whenever I wanted. I took being little for granted. And I am sure I looked at people heavier than me with more critical eyes. To be clear I don't mean that I was judgmental towards heavier people, but I remember thinking things like "if they just.... then they could lose weight."
It is worth mentioning that several things happened throughout my life to shape my perception of being overweight. Growing up I heard several people close to me talk very negatively about anyone who they deemed to be "fat." I also have lingering memories of something that happened to me in the 6th grade I believe? You see I was not a real popular kid until I got into high school. So in the 6th grade there was a homecoming dance coming up. I never looked forward to these dances because I never got asked, and always ended up going stag with a couple of my I friends. Well one day at school, one of the popular boys came up and asked me if I wanted to go to the homecoming dance with him. Needless to say I was caught wayyy off guard. I stumbled over my words, telling him I had to ask my mom. I told a couple of my friends who were all excited. "------ asked YOU to the dance?" was their response. So I got up the nerve to ask my mom. She wasn't crazy about the idea, but after I begged her to let me go she agreed. So a few days later this boy approached me in the hall and asks me if I had talked to my mom. I noticed several of his friends and a few of the popular girls had gathered. "Yes my mom said I could go," I said. What happened next has haunted me for years.... This boy says to me in front of all these people that he had only asked me because one of his friends dared him to. I think it took several years for it to really hit me. "Was I really that big of a nerd that I was deemed the butt of such a cruel joke?" I got over it, and I have forgiven that boy for humiliating me. But it hurt. It hurt deep. More than anything it solidified a desire in me to be physically attractive or leave myself open to ridicule.
So back to age 30. 30 was a tough, tough year. I turned 30 in May, and one week later my world came crashing down....in a BIG way. My business failed, my 10 year relationship ended, and my precious mom found out she had only months to live. I sank into a deep, deep depression. I met my future husband during all of this chaos, and he became my rock. After my mom passed in December of 2003, I went through so many phases. I wanted to leave everything and move away, I partied, I broke up with my (future) husband. Several months after my mom had passed, I remember a particularly hard night of partying and waking up in the morning absolutely reeking of cigarettes. I hated what I was doing. I was sick of the drinking, I was sick of running. I missed Kenny. I told myself right then that I was quitting smoking. I set a date of June 30, and I still remember that night. I had paced my cigarettes all day that day, knowing I was quitting. I lit up my last cigarette just before midnight that night, and have not smoked since. That is not to say it was easy, but I definitely felt God's help with me. In the months after I quit smoking, I saw my weight creep up to 155. I had never been that big in my life. It's funny how your perceptive changes. So I was furiously going to the gym, doing kick boxing, anything I could do to lose the 20 pounds I had gained by quitting smoking. Then......I got pregnant. Isn't that how it always happens?!
So here we were preparing for our first child. I stayed active, felt good, but still hit almost 200lbs by the time I delivered. I spent the next year working at taking off the baby weight in preparation for my wedding. Yes we did things a bit backwards:-). I lost all but 5 pounds of my baby weight in time for our wedding in 2006. It would be only about 5 months before our next baby was on the way. Ava's pregnancy was really tough. I threw up every day for 5 months, and the only thing I could eat were things like salty french fries, pasta, anything carb-loaded. With Ava I also gained 40lbs, most of which I lost during our 3 months stay in the NICU at Children's Hospital. During those 3 months I desperately tried to keep up with my job at Toyota, while also trying to keep up with everything going on with our little girl. We also tried our best to spend as much time as possible with Aohdan. Those 3 months in early 2008 were some of the most trying times of my life. When Ava came home in March of 2008, we were suddenly thrust into a life of caring for a medically fragile child, and having nurses in our home for up to 12 hours per day. For someone who had always lived life on the go, it was as if the life I used to live had ceased to exist. No longer did I get up each morning and go to my job at Toyota, which I loved by the way. A lot of people complain about their jobs, I loved mine! I loved the people, I loved the product I represented, everything. I always thought I would end up running my own dealership and, ultimately, retire from Toyota. Not so...
When we brought Ava home she was on oxygen pretty much all the time. And even with oxygen, her 02 sats hovered around 89. Anything over 90 was a good day! She required deep suctioning about 30 minutes or so. This required donning sterile gloves and guiding a catheter down her nasal cavity, all the way into her trachea. When friends would stop over to see us, I couldn't just hand Ava to them to hold. You see because of her brain injury, her muscles were stiff. She was very much like holding a board. And then I was constantly repositioning her nasal cannula so that her oxygen supply didn't get cut off. Most nights I would sleep beside her crib, sometimes with my hand resting on her chest. After weeks of this, Kenny actually brought the mattress into the family room so we could actually sleep together in the same bed. During this time I lost my position at Toyota, and began staying home with Ava full time. Nursing at this point of our journey was not yet established so I was home with a very fragile baby, and a 2 year old little boy who was having a very hard time dealing with all of this.
Before I make this next statement, I want to give a disclaimer. I do not in any way think that we have it harder than anyone else just because we have a medically fragile child. I know people often say to us, "I can't imagine going through...." Fill in the blanks. I believe everyone has their difficulties in life. I have a dear friend who endured being married to an abusive spouse. Because I am married to a man with such a kind heart, I cannot imagine the atrocities she went through. I know parents who have kiddos with medical conditions that are not "severe enough" to qualify for nursing help. You see what I mean? Everyone has their tough things I life. I really do not consider ours to be any harder than the next person. That being said... The night Ava was born was more traumatic than I can even convey. She basically got stuck during birth and I pushed with everything I had for more than 2 hours. I pushed so hard that I broke all the blood vessels in my eyes. Her heart had stopped before she was born, so when she emerged she was lifeless and gray. As I laid there in the ER, watching them do chest compressions on my lifeless baby girl, and seeing my husband crouched on the floor with tears streaming down his face, asking God to bring her back to us, It was at if I was in a time warp. During Ava's birth, my own body was left broken from the trauma of trying to get her out. It would take several months to realize the full trauma from that night.
I am pretty sure I began to suffer from some kind of post traumatic stress. I was in COMPLETE denial of course. I had always been a self-assured person, so failure was not an option for me. I put on a great face for everyone that came around. Inside I was a complete and utter wreck. I quit going out, I quit riding horses, I quit working out. Everything that had made me who I was... I gave up on. About a year after having Ava I ventured onto the scales and realized that I weighed the same as the day I gave birth to her. I was mortified. I tried in vain to lose weight. I remember for about a year or so, I ran the gauntlet of fad diets. Some were pretty good, most promised a quick fix. I was desperate for results. My self esteem was in the toilet. I found myself avoiding people who knew me from "those days" because I had gone from 130lbs to over 200lbs. Remember what I said earlier about how things early on in life had shaped how I viewed the physical body? Because I had grown up believing being overweight made you unattractive, it filtered down into every part of my life. I was always tired, and not just from being depressed. For several years after Ava was born, I had gotten used to being woke up several times a night to her ventilator being disconnected, or her 02 sats dropping, or her crying because she hurt somewhere and couldn't tell me. For years I had gone without good sleep, and had lived with a level of stress that is....ummmm....not typical. I had gone from having a successful career with Toyota, to being a stay-at-home with a medically fragile child. And might I add, this was NOT a natural transition for me. I have some good friends who are stay-at-home moms. And they make it look SOOO easy! I envy them! It is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. There are many days I wish I could just get in my car and go back to my old job. But I took a different road. In 2010 I decided to go back to school to become a nurse. It has been a long, long journey. In the midst of getting my degree, we welcomed our 3rd child. A lively little boy named Anson. I remember praying and pleading with God to give me a healthy baby this time. Anson has been healthy, happy, and such a joy to everyone around him.
My journey to becoming a registered nurse began in 2010 and, God willing, I will graduate in August. For the past several years I have juggled Ava's many Dr appointments (which is usually at least a half day event), Aohdan's private schooling, home schooling, therapies, having a baby, nursing a baby, AND trying to keep up with my school work. I have had very little time to do anything for myself. Starting last fall, I began to notice walking up stairs made me winded, and I could no longer fit into any of my pants or shirts. I found a few pairs of pants and a handful of shirts that fit and I would rotate wearing them. The last time I had bought clothes for myself was before Anson was born. I found playing with the boys to be a chore. I began to really get down on myself. I was pre-diabetic, heading towards full blown type 2 diabetes. What really scared me was caring for patients who were not much older than me and already experiencing life changing complications of obesity; diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, etc. I remember one day in particular I was making the 1.5 hour drive home from clinical and started thinking about my kids. I didn't play with them like I should, I had no energy to do anything. I felt like my days were just passing by in a blur. I began to cry thinking of how good of a mom I had. My mom took us kids fishing, camping, Cedar Point. I wanted to be more involved and active, like my mom was! I felt like this cloak of fat was holding me back from being a good mom and keeping me depressed. It wasn't just the 'fat' at that point, I wanted ME back. I wanted that confident person back, I wanted that energy back, I wanted to be HAPPY.
It was during the fall of 2013 that God started to lay on my heart that he loved me right where I was, and that I needed to love myself right where I was. You see all my life I have never been happy with how I looked. Right now I wear a size 18/20 pant...I would love to be a 14 right now. Funny thing is, 3 years ago I WAS a 14 and I wanted to be a 12. Where does it stop? So a few months ago I decided I would love myself right where I was, regardless of size. So one day I asked Joanna if she would take me to Lane Bryant. We spent several hours, and a good $200+ and had A BALL!! Even though I had to come face to face with what size pants I wore, I actually felt pretty and WANTED to buy clothes, rather than hiding in a pair of sweat pants. Learning to love myself at a size 20 was hard, but I am doing it. Beyond losing the weight, I have really come to at point where my goals are more health related than weight/size related. I mean SURE I would love to be a size 6 again, but I would rather be a 14 with tons of energy! Which brings me to the end of this long story. This past year, God has helped me to learn to love myself again, even my extra fluff layer😉. Joanna and I have been calling it our extra "sexy." So when we woke out we call it getting rid of that extra sexy, haha.
I have been wanting to do something for myself. Something life changing, but in a good way this time.
Last year Joanna and I completed to Color Run 5k. It was an awesome feeling of accomplishment. So we decided we are definitely doing that again! Then a friend of ours who has recently enjoyed a 100lb weight loss, told us about a 1/2 marathon that you walk. "I could do that!" I thought. So off to the internet I went, searching for information on completing a half marathon, and looking at training schedules. I found a .pdf file of a 20 week training regime that basically said if you could complete a 3 mile walk, you could complete this 20 week training regime. Well...I may be a big girl, but I can walk 3 miles no problem. So guess what?! My friend Joanna and I signed up for the Akron Marathon on Saturday, September 27. We begin training on Monday, May 5. It is our hope that we can complete the full 42k, but if not there is always the half marathon! I am very excited about this journey, and hope I can share something along the way that inspires you!
