The last 20 years

Well if you weren't bored by the last post, this will bring you up to date. When we last left, I was having fun learning to ride horses. I was also working as a social worker in the state mental hospital and passively smoking about 2 packs a day courtesy of my office mates. (for those of you who don't know it, people who work in psych and health care are among the worst offenders when it comes to smoking...and they smoke more around you when you complain...) I got really sick during a move to a new house and would up in the ER with a severe asthma attack (never had to go to the ER before, never for asthma) Riding went away, had to leave my job because my doctor told me to quit smoking (this is before all the stuff about second hand smoke - the state wasn't about to accomodate me) and it took several years for the breathing to stabilize. Got a new doctor who determined that several of the air sacs in my lungs had broken abruptly during the asthma attack, got on a new med regime and life resumed...

I began riding dressage and my hubby got me a horse so at age 38 I realized the dream of the 3 year old who sat on a horse for the first time....

This is Ari, who is now enjoying a well earned retirement on a farm near Rockford IL. He is a 30 year old Quarter Horse, a great grandson of Leo. He is a wonderful friend.

He has a chronic suspensory condition leaving him prone to lameness.

There really IS something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a person, don't you think?





The weight came on gradually but really piled on after 2003 and my mother's hip fracture and father's diagnosis with Lewy Body Dementia. They moved nearby from their home 150 miles away and I became more of a full time caregiver than I had planned on being - I have no brothers and sisters to share the responsibility, so RPM and I double teamed as caregivers of aging parents. I made an attempt on Atkins and lost 17 lbs a few years back but it came back. Seemed no matter how much I watched what I ate, it applied itself directly to my hips (and arms and butt and thighs!)


The chubby person in the photo is me - I've come along way from 88 lbs, don't you think? I sure thought so when I saw this picture...great one of the horse but what happened to me??

And would you believe this wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back? (It should have been!) See, someone really DID come in at night and steal my thighs, and my butt and my stomach and replaced them with somene else's!

Reality Check

This is my first attempt at a blog, so you readers out there forgive me if I ramble....I'm a post menopausal 50 something who was 5 feet 4 inches and packed 125 lbs on a small frame until about 10 years ago - then I started gradually gaining weight and have topped out at 165 lbs - just looking at that figure in print makes me upset! For those of you who have received the internet joke about someone coming in at night and stealing your thighs, I maintain that is what happened to me - only it was more of an exchange - they stole my thighs and left an extra body parts that I swear that weren't mine!

Jokes aside, weight gain after the change runs in my family as does Type II diabetes. The diabetes is a genetic thing and I have traced it back 4 generations. Several of my cousins have already developed diabetes and the unfortunate complications that it brings. So for me, losing the weight is not just vanity but a matter of my long term health.

Body image has been an issue of sorts but not for the usual "I'm too fat" reasons. I was always a runt...from the time I was a kid! - you know the type - smallest in the class, last picked for any kind of team sports, the klutz. I couldn't gain weight if my life depended on it - and believe me at one time it did! - I got the "gain weight or else" lecture from my doctor more then a few times. I had childhood asthma that wasn't treated properly so by the time I graduated high school I weighed 75 lbs soaking wet. For those of you who don't know about respiratory illnesses, when you are struggling to breathe, you burn a LOT of calories; so many so that in my state of health, I couldn't physically consume enough calories to gain weight.

Fast forward a few years and a few more complications - 2 lung collapses and a bronchoscopy later, it was determined that I needed to be on steroid treatment for the asthma. (How I managed to complete college and finish a graduate degree during all this still boggles my mind) IMHO, if there is anyone who deserves the Nobel prize in medicine, it is the person who invented spray steroids for asthma and COPD. Oh, and by this time I had married and weighed about 88 lbs.

My life really began after that point. With the changes in medications I actually began to sleep restfully though the night instead of sleeping through asthma attacks and waking up exhausted. I remember going to Washington DC with hubby and taking a deep breath and actually feeling dizzy from all the extra oxygen I was getting! By the time I was 29, I finally reached 100 lbs - and according to people who know me now, I still looked "ill" (but they hadn't seen me before!)




So my life settled into some normalcy and I started doing the thing I had dreamed about as a kid - learning to ride horses. No, I wasn't any kind of expert rider - I just wanted to have some fun - and I did.