The emotional side effects of grief are pretty straight forward.  There is depression, anxiety, despair, fear and so on.  I know I experienced all of those plus several more.  That is probably to be expected for most anyone.  What totally caught me off guard was the physical nature of grief – the effect of what losing my son would eventually do to me.  Jenny.

 

Initially following Dalton’s death, I lost weight.  Who wouldn’t?  Who has time to eat when all you can think about is the fact that you buried a child?  Food does not look good, nor does it sound good.  That lasted about 4-5 months (approximately the amount of time I sat around like a zombie refusing to leave the house unless it was absolutely necessary).  Spring of 2015 came and we started going out in public more, gradually resuming normal daily routines.  One of those “routines” became eating out.  Cooking had lost a lot of its appeal.  Apparently, so did exercise.  Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months of ignoring self-care, until old habits eventually turned into new habits.  I had managed nearly 40 years of declining dessert after meals and all of a sudden there didn’t seem to be a single meal that Troy and I would forgo something sweet at the end of our dinner.  In fact, I was rather irritated if a waiter didn’t even suggest it, thus making me look like the pig who had to awkwardly bring it up.

 

In the beginning, I think the dessert ordering stemmed from the idea that if we drew out the night a little longer, we could postpone going home in the evening to a house void of our son.  After all, there were no basketball games or baseball practices filling our schedules.  No one was going to greet me at the door with a desperate look in his eye telling me he needed me to help him write a paper that was “due tomorrow.”  With no one to drive to school the next morning, I could eat what I felt like, drank whatever numbed the pain and then wake up late the next morning.

 

I had packed on about 25lbs of “not really giving a shit” weight by winter of 2015.  Then February of 2016 came and at 39 years old, I discovered I was pregnant.  I took that knowledge as an excuse to eat even more because I was “eating for two.”  I knew I was gaining a lot of weight but it didn’t worry me because I knew I had always lost my post-baby weight so easily.  Except I didn’t take into account that that was 20 YEARS AGO and there is this evil thing called HORMONES that happens to us women as we get older.

 

In my last trimester of pregnancy, my weight was nearing 200 lbs.  The only time I got on the scale was when I was at my prenatal appointments.  It was embarrassing, but I managed to convince myself it was just “baby weight,” like I was about to give birth to the world’s biggest newborn or something.  Even though the sight of my growing body was starting to bother me, I mostly kept that fact to myself.  The only person I ever told that my weight was upsetting to me was my then-best friend.  She always told me I was being silly and that would make me feel a little better.  Truth be told, I was over the moon about having Dawsyn and putting on the pounds felt like a trivial side effect after losing Dalton.

 

I gave birth to Dawsyn in October 2016 and was totally confused when months went by and my post-birth weight put me at only about 15 lbs lighter than when I delivered.  That wasn’t supposed to happen.  Don’t you get skinny from breastfeeding?  Which, by the way, according to that theory, I should be a freaking stick.  So that didn’t happen, obviously.  And the pounds didn’t fall off like they did in my twenties either.  Not to mention, I was so enraptured with the idea of being a new mom again that I wasn’t going to part from her for two seconds to allow myself to exercise.  Sure, we took walks.  We spent lots of time outdoors and were always busy.  I even tried the workout videos from home, but lacked the personal discipline for them to be effective. For the most part, I bathed in the beauty of my new baby girl and did very little else.  I practiced mediocre to no self-care and I can’t say I really regret that.  There is not one burpee or jog around a track that I would trade for a single snuggle with her.  I would read every book and sing every song a hundred times over in the past two years just as I did without hesitation, even if a genie had magically promised me a set of six pack abs and a firm rear end.  During that time, I just needed her.

 

I would be lying if I said the lack of self-care stopped at all the extra weight I had gained.  The time came where I quit looking in a mirror for anything.  My face was so round and the tell-tale lines of anxiety and depression were unattractive, haunting reminders of Dalton’s accident.  I never understood where all the new wrinkles came from – crying I suppose.  My eyes were hollow and were perpetually puffy.  Sleep deprivation likely added to that.  Rest has only come in short increments since November 2014.  I seriously long to sleep normal again.  So big, baggy clothes became part of my daily routine along with little to no makeup because it didn’t exactly help the situation anyway.

 

Are you wondering yet what the point of all this is? It’s only taken eight paragraphs for me to get to it after all.  As many people close to us already know, Troy and I attend New Spring non-denominational church on Saturday nights and the Catholic Church on Sunday mornings.  It may not be ideal for everyone, but it works for us.  Pastor Mark of New Spring is currently preaching a series called “Healthy.”  The messages thus far have covered all aspects of being healthy, including physical, spiritual and relational.  The very first message of the series was titled “How do I Live My Best Life?” In this talk, Mark stressed the importance of physical health and how God really and truly is concerned with what we put in our bodies.  In the same way God wants us to fill our minds with healthy content and our relationships with good company, He wants us to make smart choices with the foods we put in our bellies.  Listening that Saturday night back in mid-January, it occurred to me that I had let food have mastery over my body.  Not only that, I recognized that my choices were leading to some serious health risks if I didn’t start taking back control.  The first step was going to be the toughest.  I had to choose to make some changes.

 

Only days after that talk Mark gave, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed late at night when I came upon a status written by someone at Kansas Surgical Arts (I had no idea I had ever even liked that page).  They were advertising a free consultation for a procedure called Orbera, a 12 month, non-surgical weight loss solution that involves inserting a gastric balloon in your stomach.  This idea was completely foreign to me.  Apparently the deflated balloon is placed into your stomach through the esophagus and then filled with saline solution.  The concept is designed so that the balloon basically tricks your stomach into feeling full, thus reducing the amount of food you can eat.  The balloon is removed from the patient after six months and he or she must follow an additional six months of healthy eating and exercise.  On its website, Orbera claims their patients lose up to 3x the weight of diet and exercise alone – up to 20 to 50 lbs.  Within those first six months, a person is reducing the amount of food they can eat and re-training their brain to better anticipate when their stomach is getting full.  A support team is in place during the duration of the year long program – a dietician, trainer, psychologist and doctor.  Oh, and it’s not cheap.

 

I scheduled my consultation.  By the end of my consultation, I had scheduled my procedure date for Orbera.  Is it an easy way out?  I don’t know – maybe.  Is it guaranteed going to work for me?  Absolutely not.  All I know is that circumstances and poor choices got me where I am today and I’m ready to get healthy again.  I pray this is the jumpstart I have been so desperately needing… my incentive to take back control of my life.  I want to be able to keep up with a highly energetic two year old (and two foster “grandchildren”) without feeling exhausted.  Hopefully the discomfort of my plantar fasciitis and carpal tunnel will ease, along with recent nagging joint pain in my hips and knees after some of the weight is gone.  I mean, it can’t hurt right?

 

The procedure is set for the middle of March.  Please pray for me because I am nervous.  More than nervous, though, I’m excited.  God loves me and cares about me.  And He is the biggest and strongest voice in the crowd urging me to get healthy again.

 

“Humanly speaking, it is impossible.  But with God everything is possible.” (Matthew 19:26)