Social media...

So I'm typing this on my phone again so please excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes  :) plus I'm only human haha... well some would disagree.

So I want to talk social media and how much it's changed me in fact I would day it's contributed to my social anxiety.

I'm also starting to rethink today how much I share my life on it. I love sharing photos of my kids and their antics and achievements. It's almost like a log of their lives and because Facebook gives you memories it's something I can look back on.

But when does it become too much? Or a problem or just an issue?... I'm starting to question that maybe social media more so Facebook is taking over my life and I need to start stepping back bit by bit.... why?

Who really is there for me? Us? My husband? Kids? I put so much on Facebook that people take it for granted. It's their way into my (our) life. And it stops them from picking up that phone and saying "hey, how are you?" It's probably also stopped me in a way. Why bother asking after someone if you can just check them out on Facebook. Easier than picking up the phone.

Did you know my suburb alone has at least 10 (minimum) social media pages just for chatting group! A crime and theft page (yeh that page is all sort of awesome), mums pages (think about a group of women on social media letting rip), estate pages that are specific to certain areas and then you have the buy swap and sell pages. Everyone knows everyone's business and it's all thanks to social media. I'm not part of many of these pages because half the time people get abused for differing opinions. These opinions can range from which school is the best, high schools, crime, local shops and doctors! Heaven help if you go against the grain!

Gone are the days where our parents just sent you to the local primary school closest to you because it was convenient. Now it's become a competition who goes to the best school! Heck I got near on abused because I went against the grain when we decided to move the girls school.
Local shops get negative feedback on pages before people even tell them what they did wrong... gone are the days we rung them directly and told them what's wrong.
Heck some days I'm afraid to walk around the streets in case I end up on social media (joke... it won't happen but you never know lol).

..... so I've decided that starting in June I'm going to do a social media cleanse. I'm not going to cold turkey as I've tried before and I always sneak back. Trying the following over a month...

1. Less photos
2. Less updates
3. Less groups
4. Less sharing

My goal is to go back to who we are. And hopefully over time I'll really start to realise who's there. Who is stalking my page and expecting updates on there but can't be arsed visiting us or calling?.. simple things like this will hopefully stop my reliance on social media.

June is a big month too in this house.
2 little people's birthdays so for once it won't be on Facebook like it normally is. It's something I loved sharing... but this month I'm going to share it with those that want to share it.

And hey... those who read this blog - messenger is always open as is our home and phone :)

Blockages and Banding

I thought I would type a blog about what happens with a blockage... it's the big negative side effect I find to banding.

So on Monday I got a routine adjustment for my band.  I was told I had 7.5mls in a 10ml capacity band. So because I hadn't had restriction to eating like I wanted I thought go for a big fill of 0.5ml

Tuesday - Thursday I followed my usual liquid only diet followed by mush. I was feeling pretty happy.

Then Friday I went to work. My morning coffee didn't go down too well but first thing of a morning your band can be a bit tighter than normal. Didn't think much. I finished work at 2pm so while on break I had my usual salad with chicken. After 3 mouthfuls I felt full but also found my 3rd bite wasn't going down too well. That's not a first and I've experienced what's called blockages many times. You just got to unfortunately purge it up or wait for it to pass through the band.

Driving home to pick up the kids was torture. I had to pull over to vomit up "slime" what your body produces when trying to pass food down the oesophagus.

I finally got rid of the blockage at 3pm and thought I was OK... but the pain continued and the purging continued. By 6pm I was still able to sip on water but it was a painful process. I was still getting that horrible slime in my mouth.

I was home alone as Alan was working back so I couldn't do a thing and normally my blockages eventually pass. I pop the kids to bed and myself too since I was working the next day.

An hour later at about 8:30ish I woke in bed to saliva build up in the mouth and horrific oesophagus pain. This is the point I realise I'm too tight. I struggle through the purging and bringing up slime and saliva. I'm thirsty but now I can't drink! Alan finally gets home and off to ED I go.

This is also the next problem with banding - in cases when this happens where do we go? Normal public hospitals aren't equipped or have the know how of ports and removing fluid. But Casey ED tried their hardest. Amd xray was done and found the band had slipped slightly... not a good thing.  They were great and the surgeon on duty while new at this, tried to remove fluid. Unfortunately with little success he stopped trying as he didn't want to cause more pain. My options were Monash and wait for a superior surgeon or Alfred where they have a bariatric section. It was 3:30am at this stage. I was tired and in pain. I opted to go to Alfred in the morning as Alan was heading to Altona with the kids for their rugby match.

At 4am I get home and attempt to sleep sitting up.
I got 2 hours before we packed up the kids and headed off to Alfred on the way to Altona.

Alfred were amazing - got I'm straight away and I felt I was finally going to get somewhere. Trying to find a vein was tricky, I have horrible veins and was also dehydrated. But we finally got there. At this stage I was vomiting bile and saliva and in heaps of pain. I was moved to Short Stay where I was to wait for the surgeon.

Finally at midday my hero arrived. Within minutes I was on my back, needle in and fluid out... all of it.
Now here's the worse part. Remember how I said I thought I had 7.5mls in. She removed 9mls of fluid! That's way too much for a 10ml band. There would be no give and I was in the red zone to the point I could've ended up in emergency surgery.

I'm very lucky that no damage had been done but I am now on strict liquid for a week. My band had not created a pouch (a stomach above the band which is an extemely bad thing to have) and considering the vomiting the band had not moved too much to warrant surgery.

But I'm a bit pissed my reports state 7.5ml and 9ml was removed... questions are going to be asked.

Weightloss Surgery, while many would say is the "easy" way out. But considering what I just went through I would hope many people may change their mind.

I couldn't;
Swallow, drink, eat, sleep, lay down for close to 24 hours.
I was in pain that I couldn't have medication for - morphine would be useless as saliva is still going to build.
When your surgeon goes home on a Friday you're limited to where you can go in these cases.
These incidences can cause severe damage to your stomach and lining. I'm very lucky this hasn't happened.

I hope this gives you a little insight into what I went through in 24 hours.
I've added a photo to show the amount of pressure my stomach area took while looking for this port.

The Last Bit...

When I got married 12 years ago - I didn't think much about the whole process.  We are very laid back people.  We don't love big fancy things, we aren't materialistic and for us our wedding day was always about spending it with people we loved and having a big party.

I didn't care that my dress wasn't "perfect" or that our reception was just a golf club with a small dance floor filled with our own music playlist we made up.  That was us...

But one thing that I could never move or "warm" to was the tradition of changing my last name.

For many it's just a name - and I fully understand that.  For me it has always been so much more.

Why is the assumption that when a woman marries a man, she should need to conform to society and change it?  Does changing your last name mean you love your husband more?  Does it mean you're leaving you life behind?  Does it mean you're changing your identity?  Should mean nothing - and it should always solely be up to the woman if she wishes to change her name.  No one bats and eye if a professional woman chooses to keep her maiden name for good reasons - but when  I chose not to fully take my husbands I got some very odd comments.

"Don't you love Alan?"
"It's what you have to do"
"It's just a name..."

And yes my last name is JUST A NAME - maiden or married.

My maiden name held a lot more to me than just a last name.  It was my ties to a family who loved me more than anything - who supported me and encouraged me.  They helped me through the breakdown of my school life and the shittiest part of my teenager years.  It was also my ties to my heritage; who I was - my connection I suppose to a Grandfather I had never met. 
So I decided to hyphenate my last name until I was ready to "cut" those ties. 

12 years later I still have a dual last name on most of my personal documents like bills, banking, licence and anything else of importance.  Though my medical side is married name, we knew we wanted kids quite early in our marriage and I knew that having the same last name as the baby is less paperwork and also less confusing (sad point haha).

Today my licence renewal came in the mail - it's also the year of our cruise where I need to get a Passport - and I also need to get a Working with Children's.  Obtaining two of these items requires proof of who I am.  I need to decide which side of the fence I sit on.  Keeping my maiden name, my ties to my family or changing (conforming) to my married name.  I made that decision a while back but today I am blogging about it to let people understand how hard this process can be for some people. 

It's NOT just a name I am changing - in some ways it feels like I am losing my Dad once more.  That's the hardest part in all of this I suppose.  Losing him once more, not physically of course... but losing the one thing that he gave me is hard for me to cope with.  It's also an acceptance thing - when you feel like you don't belong in certain walks of life - and you're a circle being shoved in a square box...I don't think I will ever feel accepted and I think I am finally OK with that.
Then if that's the way I feel, why am I changing it?  Why don't I just put my foot down and just let people understand this is my decision?  Ultimately I am doing this to make things easier to apply for, like my working with children's.  Plus changing my medicare details is more of a pain in the arse than the rest LOL.  Changing them would mean doctors, school, centrelink.  Simply changing my licence is just that my licence - the rest would follow. 

When it comes to my children to get married I am going to make sure I support their decision in whatever they want to do - heck if Jacob wants to change his last name so be it!  It's not the end of the world and it's his choice.  I don't want my kids to feel the pressures of "tradition" if it's something they're not comfortable in doing.  They will have their reasons - just as I have mine. 

There was never a right or wrong answer to this, a right or wrong time.  There was however a choice to make.  It was never an easy one.. this decision may seem so small compared to other big things that you need to decide upon - but for some this decision can rattle many people's views.  But the only view that should matter, is yours.

Social Anxiety ...

When you meet me - talk to me and get to know me what I will tell you next may come as a shock to most if not many of you.

While I don't have a clinical diagnosis for anxiety - I know that I suffer from a form of social anxiety.  It's not your common one where you don't like crowds, shopping centres or busy places.  Mine is more centered around where I need to go, who I may see and who I may know. 

This next blog isn't a very easy one for me to type - it's also going to be a very hard one to read for some.  It is why I won't share it directly but I hope some will find it through clicking on my previous blog.

In high school I found it hard to find who I was - I had a good group of friends and a great best friend.  I also struggled with my self esteem as I wasn't the skinny, blonde pretty girl.  I was the average height, slightly curvy, brown hair and eyes and bit average looking.  I had your typical high school crushes - asked a few boys out (got rejected LOL) and my esteem got lower and lower when I had boys come up to me asking if my friend was interested.  I didn't think I was unattractive but it played a pivotal role in what would happen in the coming years.

In year 10 I befriended the year level gossip - people picked on her but she seemed to take it in her stride and funnily enough to this day people who disliked her in school are still friends with her.  This friend was in the Essendon Cheer Sqaud and I loved Essendon.  So she took me to some games where I got to know a few people in the squad.  They didn't know me from school - this was my way to I guess break away from that shy girl at school with esteem issues and be someone else.  I quickly found my footing in the group and they all seemed nice.  I dated a couple of guys in the group - but that would later bite me on the back.

In year 11 you sort of ended up chatting in MSN and Yahoo local chat groups - I had at this stage basically left the cheer squad because of what was being said about me.  I met this guy during chat he seemed nice enough.  Little did I know - this was a set up to bring me down, even though I had left that squad they didn't want to leave me alone.

This guy wasn't a nice guy - he hurt me physically and emotionally.  It's not an easy thing to talk about and while I am an open book - some things I can't openly type.  It's not hard to understand I guess what did happen.  
The worse thing about "this guy" was he was set up with me with the intentions to hurt me.  These "friends" from high school may not of known the full extent of what he did to me, but they wanted to hurt me emotionally.  He also blackmailed me - when I thought I was gone with him for good, he rung me and took what good was left of me and got me to tell him I loved him so he wouldn't kill himself.  He had audio recorded that conversation without my knowledge... and I was meant to catch up with him at a football match.  I wanted to, to make sure he was OK and safe.  Even though he had hurt me so much I was left exposed and battered and I needed to feel like I was helping someone else.

So I went - when I saw him, I also saw another 8 people from the cheer squad.  I was by myself... and the people I thought were my friends decided there and then to call me Slut, Whore, Bitch... this friend from school who no one liked set me up with this guy and did the most horrific thing possible to a person.  The used my audio recording against me saying I was a cheating slag and I would do anything for a ... well you know the rest.

I left that game shaking, I approached the security but was told to bugger off - a group of girls were lovely enough to see how distressed I was and looked after me.  I went back home and was never the same again.  I did see the Police but back then unless you had solid proof nothing could be done.  I had a meeting with the school's vice principal but nothing could be done because it was done off school grounds (oh and of course she was the Aunt of this girl).

A few weeks later - I left school.  I was wrecked. 

This girl took it upon herself to ruin what was me - because I had a few boyfriends she decided that I was something worse.  She got a boy involved who did damage beyond repair and while I don't know if she knows what he fully did - I would never accept her apology.  In actual fact that Cheer Squad ruined me.  It also ruined my love of the game.  While I know they're a few between a few hundred, but it left a sour view for me of the game.

It also left me with anxiety no one could understand.  I take a lot to trust people, I don't like a lot of people.  Not because I don't want to  - but because I can't.  It's a big reason I self hate myself, I comfort eat (think lap banding).

It's also why I get extremely defensive when a girl is mocked for what she wears (like she's asking for it).  It's why I can't watch things like 13 Reasons Why (too close to home...) and it's why I have a strong opinion on certain things in life.  I had MY choice ripped away from me, my innocence and what I loved most about me because of these people.

I see these names come up on Facebook every now and again - and I HATE the fact that she got to finish high school with a clear conscious... I hate the fact they all did! 

While my Social Anxiety isn't run of the mill - it's why I hate conflict and when a friendship or something ends I can't go to the same places I used to go (all because of what happened at the footy).

I am just glad I have my husband - who loves me - and is soft and caring towards me... and who I know would never hurt me.  But I still even have barriers for him.

Lap Banding

So I have had 2 requests in the past couple of hours for what I should blog about next.  I will go with my easiest first - it may give you an idea as to why I went down this path once I finish my blog after this one.  It was basically a process.
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There are 3 different weight loss surgery options - each is relative to the persons decision and honestly not one is better than the other.  A lot would say don't go band because such and such had issues with it.  Go a sleeve or a gastric bypass... Three choices I have just typed there. 

1. Gastric Band
2. Gastric Sleeve
3. Gastric Bypass

There are a couple of other ones but I am sticking to the main 3 that I had to make the decision to have.  The decider of course was money - when you're self funding it plays a big part in what you choose.  Honestly I could have waited another year and saved and paid for Private Health, but at the time I wasn't working we couldn't afford the private health option.

I am not going to go into much detail about the other two options because there is solely no point.  I can't offer advice on that procedure and I also don't know enough to give advice on if they work.  They of course DO work - but with any weight loss required, the head is a powerful tool and it's what you do with that, which will make all 3 work for you.

The band is 3 parts.  A port, tube and band.  The port is attached to the inside of your abdomen this allows your surgeon to add fluid - which will travel through your tube into your band.  The band sits just start of your stomach.  It creates a funnel like system.  This is why Gastric Banding is such a great tool.  And that's what it is - a tool.  This is why many people choose not to go down this path.  This tool makes you work to lose weight.  You need to adjust your eating habits.  You can certainly still have "treats" but you will quickly find treats become less existent with the band.

The band is what gets tighter and tighter with the fluid that is put through the port.  It's not a lot of fluid, maybe 1ml here, half a ml the other time and sometimes even less.  And at times, they can take it out.  It's not a permanent weight loss surgery.  It's something you adjust to you.  This is where many people fail - they don't treat their band with respect.

People think because I have the band I am "cheating" I don't see how you could call it cheating.  I eat slower than the average person - 20 mins to eat a child size serving, I also get these horrible things called blockages.  This is where food doesn't pass through the band and sits above it.  Creating pain and almost jumping up and down above the band.  Most times this doesn't pass through - most times I need to purge it back up.  You also get this lovely thing called sliming - it's where your body turns your saliva into slime as it tries and breaks down that food quicker.  It's a horrible feeling - and when I have these blockages - I am reminded it's not the easy way out.

BUT I also have my issues - my issues aren't with the band but myself and my self control.  I started to indulge in "slider foods".  Foods that would pass through my band.  I was going through a stressful period and I would eat - comfort eat.  This is why I had the surgery to begin with!  A year later, alcohol, ice cream, potato chips... I had put on 15kg.  I don't blame the band, I just fell off the bike.  I am slowly getting back on.  But I need more fill.  I had some about a month ago but will require more so I get that restriction back.  It's not an easy thing. 

This procedure doesn't change the way you think about yourself - it doesn't give you an automatic feeling that you have your shit all together.  And it certainly doesn't stop you from eating or consuming all things bad (but taste oh so good).

Am I glad I got this done?  Yes... as much as I want to be 15kg lighter again and back to my wedding weight I know that is through no fault of my own.  I go back to when I told you about my alcohol - this was a big factor in why I stopped drinking.  I didn't want to go back to the way I was!  I may not be a size 24/26 anymore... and I definitely probably never going to be a size 8 either.  But I will get my happy place/weight.  Once I get to there I will be happy.

A size 8 doesn't determine if you're going to be happier or even healthier.  Yes BMI wise I probably would be.  But my conscious wouldn't of caught up.  I think I needed this hurdle to remind me of who I am as a person.  Honestly getting to a size 14/16 I would be ecstatic, elated and proud!  No shame in being a bit on the curvier side.

I have attached a couple of pictures to show what and where the band sits.

10 things...

I am going to do a quick blog - this one is a prelude to what I could possibly write about.  I have a lot of things to say but sometimes I think breaking it all down into one post is easier to digest.  Not just for myself but others who read my blog.

I could ask my readers to choose something for me to blog about from the following 10 things, but don't think I have enough readers to do that yet LOL.

So here are 10 things, 10 things you may or may not know about me.  I am a pretty open book.  I don't hold anything back from anyone who asks.  I may bend the truth a little on certain topics but most of the time I am honest.
These things are probably the most iconic things in my life that stand out.  I have done a lot of silly things in my life but that's for another post all together.

1. I have lap banding.  Lap banding is a medical procedure for obesity.
2. I have never broken a bone, and watching my children growing up I do wonder if I have a bit of gross motor issues and core strength going on.
3. I hated Maths in Primary School, in fact I hated most of my primary school life.  I self taught myself Maths in Year 10 to get into Maths Extension as a elective
4. I hate playing sports - I try to be a team player but feel I don't perform to certain people's expectations.  So I pull out early on even though I really want to be there.
5. I was engaged at 20, married at 21/22
6. I wanted 5 children, but compromised at 3.
7. I never wanted to be a Baker
8. I have slight Social Anxiety due to a horrible event that happened to me in High School
9. I was part of the Essendon Cheer Squad - it's a big part of the reason I don't follow AFL much anymore, it's also a big part of why I have social anxiety around certain things.
10. I have huge self esteem issues due to what family members said about me

There are a few things I guess I could touch on in this blog piece - but I was wondering, if there is anything you wish for me to open up about.  Maybe something in there could help you open up and realise we aren't all that different...