New Hair
I have new hair. I have new hair!
It's fun hair. I really really like it.
See, if you look at my pictures (see site if you came a different way) you will see that I have curly hair. My curly hair is cool...I mean it's unique, but it's the same old hair I've always had. It drives me crazy because my options for changing it are so limited. If I cut it short it makes me look like I'm 50 years old. I mean nothing wrong with looking 50 if you're 50, but I'm 37. I don't want to look 50 at 37!
So here's how I got the new hair. A few months back when I was well into my weight loss I emailed my brother, Craig, and told him I wanted a makeover for Christmas. I told him it didn't have to be expensive, but that's what I wanted. Now he didn't know I'd lost weight. He loves stuff like that.
So he picked me up from the airport and took me to a salon in Westport (Los Angeles) where they do reverse permenants using the Japanese Hair Straightening. There's a short story about it here.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/09262002_sr_hairstraightening.html. It's very cool. It took four hours to do but now my formerly curly, kinky hair is as straight as a pin. It's wild!
So here are a few pictures:
| Before | After |
 |  |
Sisters!
Tammy, Me, Kendra | Sisters and Craig |
 |  |
| Mommy and Me | Roybee and Me |
 |  |
I've gotten some great responses to it. My kids were blown away. Get this, some of these kids have known me for three years and never said anything about me losing 96 (as of today) pounds. But change the hair and it was all they could talk about. Here are some responses.
- Ryan looks me straight in the eye and says, "Where's Mrs. K?"
- Tom and Luke don't like it. They think my other hair is geekier. Apparently they like me looking geeky.
- Geek (aka Matt) says I look 20 years younger. Sweet! I'm only 17!
- Shaun (former student) came in to visit and when I went up to him to give him a hug (he had my classes for years) he stiffened and backed up. He didn't recognize me and when he did...he was shocked.
- A staff member came in, walked up to me and said "Is Tory K. here?"
"Yes."
"Well can I speak to her?"
"That's me."
I was confused because she knows me, but today she let on that she truly didn't recognize me and was embarassed to admit it.
- Another staff member walked by me twice and didn't respond to my smile of hello. She was out the door before she realized it was me.
Fun fun fun! I love it!
So you know what the coolest thing about it is? I feel like a completely different person with this hair. I mean I know it's just hair and I have straightened it before (but never this straight). This is the first time since losing weight that I feel like I look different. I've still felt fat for a long time. It's hard to make that adjustment between how you look and how you think you look. For the very first time in my life I think I look pretty. Not knock down drag 'em out ooooh la la pretty, but pretty enough. I think completely changing my look helped me to see myself differently. It's kind of helping me to adjust to having a new shape. Kinda cool, huh?
Man these blogs are so self serving, but hey...it's what falls out of my head and onto the page!
See ya! Tory out!
Surgery Scheduled
Hi blog! How are you? I am fine.
Okay, not so fine. I mean I'm fine, but not. You know? I'm not like "Oh my God, the sky is falling!!!" but I'm also not "Marsy doats and doesy doats" either.
So I went to the doctor on Monday for my pre-surgical consultation. Okay, back up. Recap:
- Had kidney stone.
- Ow
- Went to doctor during second attack who sent me to get a CT scan.
- Went back to doctor who said, "Yeah, you have a stone, but there is this other thing on your pancreas. Don't worry. You have to have another CT scan.
- Had another CT scan complete with barium milkshake and IV. YUM-MY!
- Went back to another doctor who looked at the results and said, "No biggie. Go and live your life."
- Got call from my real doctor while on vacation who said "specialist says it has to come out."
- I assume it will be a small thing, no big deal, I'll be down for a few days.
So that brings us to yesterday. I go in and talk to the surgeon, who is very very cool. I really liked him. He immediately put me at ease. He explained everything to me on a chart, gave me the probably scenario as well as the worst case, showed me my CT scan (which looked REALLY cool) and then gave me my options.
Options
- Wait and see if the tumor grows. Have a CT scan every three months.
- Have a needle biopsy which will probably be inconclusive.
- Have it out.
I chose the bottom choice because you know what? I don't want something growing inside of me! No one knows how long it's been there so it might be a slow growing tumor that's been in there for years, or a fast growing tumor that just showed up. So I wait and it's a fast growing tumor and in three months I'm sick as a dog with pancreatitis and have to go under the knife already half dead.
Um. No.
Of course it turns out that this isn't going to be a little thing. I mean it's not a huge thing in the concept of the world and all it's comings and goings, but I was hoping they could do it laproscopically (stick in a crochet hook, fish the little bugger out, staple me back up with a Swingline). Nope. It's going to be more like slice me from stem to stern, rearrange the digestive furniture, take an ice cream scoop and scoop it out, then sew me back up.
I have to be in the hospital for 2-4 days, although it could be more. It just depends on how fast my digestive system gets back up and running. After that I'll be out for up to three weeks.
Three Weeks!
Yipes!
So I'm a little freaked out. Not because I think the tumor is going to be bad. Okay, sometimes I indulge in a little "Oh my God, what if it's cancer? What if I die? What if? What if? What if?
But most of the time I am okay. They assure me that they do not believe it is cancer, although they'll have it biopsied when it's removed to make sure. They also assure me that on the very remote chance that it is cancer, we've caught it so early that it should be treatable (too spite the dire warnings of the pages on the Internet I've read). Normally you don't find something like this until you are symptomatic, but since I had that kidney stone, I got lucky and found it very very early.
So here's how I'm looking at things. This is a blessing in disguise...or at least there are some very good things surrounding this whole situation.
- Thank God for kidney stones! I celebrate their arrival because had it not been for them, we wouldn't have found this until I was pretty sick.
- The doctor said to me (before he knew I'd lost weight), "If you weighed 230 pounds, this would be a lot more complicated!" Whew! I mean what a blessing it is this wasn't a year ago.
- I am stronger and healthier than I've ever been so recovery should be shorter and easier.
- My husband can take some time off to care for me. My mother is coming. My sister has offered to come. My sister-in-law has offered to come clean my house. A friend is arranging meals. My mom is arranging other meals. Someone else has offered to loan me a bed for my mom to stay in. I mean come on? Could I be more blessed?
- My students are stepping right up to the plate. One is going to do all the lectures and organize labs in my A+ class. Networking 2 will teach Networking I in those classes. My teaching partner will take over the tech team. Could I ask for better students? Seriously? God bless 'em!
So hey, it isn't the best news in the world, but it isn't the worst either so I'll go with it.
Talk to you later!
One of those benefits of losing weight that you never thought you'd consider: the queen size bed is much bigger now and now the dogs can sleep with us in comfort.
Back from Vacation
Give me a Yee!
Give me a Ha!
YeeeeeeHaaaa!
Just got back last night and had a
wonderful time. (Details later.) I am proud to say that over two weeks of vacation that included Christmas Eve, Christmas, lots and lots of eating out, seven days in Disneyland, New Years Eve, and fun with family...I did not gain a single pound! I am so thrilled! I woke up this morning psyching myself up to get on the scale.
"Okay Tory, you probably gained a pound or two but that's okay. The scale is going to fluctuate sometimes and you know you can just lose it next week. It's okay! You can do it!"
Stepped on the scale...
128
Stepped off.
Stepped back on.
128
Wahooooooooooooooooo!
Now I will admit, it would have been even cooler if it had said 126, but that's not realistic. I have to take what I got and be pleased, and I am.
So how did I do it? Well, I don't look at vacation as a reason to go hog wild. I used to. I used to eat my way through every vacation. After all, it's fun to try the treats, eat out in restaurants every day, and splurge on little niceties, isn't it?
Well, again this is a "put your money where your mouth is" moment. Do I
- Abandon WW for two weeks and just have fun?
- Realize that fun is in the experience, not in the food and stay on program?
I chose the latter. That doesn't mean I didn't splurge. On Christmas Eve I split cookies with my husband. That way we could each taste the ones we wanted without going overboard. (My sister made some DAMN good cookies, too!) I also had a little bit of everything that my brother and Richie made, including Prime Rib (yumm), creamed spinach, macaroni and cheese (Craig's special recipe), creme brulee (made by his friend, David), spice cake (Kendra, again...so good), and a raspberry chocolate cake. Roy and I took small pieces of everything on the dessert table and split it. I then journaled it all.
The rest of the time I did my best to stay on my modified vacation plan. It works like this. I eat all my APs when I'm on vacation. I also try to earn LOTS of them by walking, taking advantage of hotel workout rooms, or doing other things to earn activity points. My brother had these great beachbody.com videos that we worked out to every morning. I also ran on his treadmill, walked from his house down to the Grove, and did some calesthenics in my room.
When I visited Tammy we went to the gym both days so I could earn my APs and I ate as lightely as possible there. That wasn't difficult as she is very health concious. However, she did make this killer dinner one night that was NOT point friendly at all. Fortunately I'd had very little to eat during the day and when I calculated it, I just ended up eating at the top of my range, my APs and going into the bank by one point, so it was still on program. Oh, and it was also really really really good. (It was this Italian dish...chicken breast wrapped around prosciutto, a really good cheese, and mortadella cooked with pasta and this amazing vodka sauce. Oh man, it makes my mouth water just to think about it.)
Disneyland was definitely a challenge! We'd go to a restaurant that we thought might have good choices, only to find there was literally nothing worthwhile on the menu. Fortunately they have fruit stands so we paid way too much for an apple snack every day. (The good thing is, it's expensive but really high quality fruit). We enjoyed the Chinese Chicken Salad at Redd Rocket's Pizza, the BBQ chicken sandwich (without fries, but with lots of veggies from the "fixin's bar") in California Adventure, the California Roll Sushi in CA, and passed up the chocolates, amazing pastries, ice cream, and other high fat treats for splurges of cotton candy (surprisingly low in points), frozen bananas (3 points), and rice krispy treats (we split it). We also had a Subway nearby (right across from Disneyland and down toward Katella) so we ate there a number of times, and we bought a box of Lucky Charms (1 cup is 2 points and is a great snack), some apples, and some carrot and celery sticks at the 7-11 on the corner of Harbor and Katella. Our biggest "splurge" was probably splitting a Monte Cristo sandwich at the Blue Bayou (he ordered the sandwich, I ordered a salad and we shared). It's turkey, ham, cheese on bread, dipped in batter and friend. You then dip it into raspberry jam. Sinfully delicious, but a once a year "treat". Yes, we still ate within points that day. We just wracked up extra APs and ate salad for dinner.
I actually didn't do the entire AP thing this time. I think it's because I just made goal and I hated the idea of gaining any weight. Normally on vacation if I earn 11 activity points (quite possible walking all day around Disneyland) I'd eat those points or bank them if I wanted a treat. This time I actually only ate up to 4 of the points. I just didn't want to gain. Also, I usually am only on vacation for one week and end up doing the modified plan 5 of those 7 days. I was gone 14 days and felt like that might be tempting the fates just a bit too much. So I ate all my points most days, I didn't bank anything if I ate low (in case I'd underestimates point values on restaurant foods), and still had a wonderful time.
So don't let vacations stress you out! It can be done!
