Happy New Year!!!

Is it possible you're even HALF as excited as I am about the amazing possibilities that lie ahead in 2010??

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not only possible ~ but very likely!!!!

Just a little over thirty days into a new way of life I'm headed to my first fill appointment on Monday. I'm headed to class on Tuesday night. I'm headed to Atlanta for a market show on Wednesday. As I flip the pages of the calendar I'm amazed how many dates are already noted with travel, appointments and occasions. In other words ~ this year is going to FLY by and I can't wait to see where I'll be on New Years Eve next year.

What's my big project for the year?

Completing grad school and walking across the stage to get my masters? Well yeah....

Learning to use my new band buddy as the most effective tool possible to get myself into the best physical shape of my adult life? Well yeah, that too........

And there are lots of auxiliary dreams and goals and ambitions related to both of those accomplishments.

But I have a bigger goal and it's really simple:

My goal for 2010 is to do one random act of kindness every day for a full year. I figure the only way to keep this goal is to write it down. So I've got a journal all set up next to my bed to keep track. The daily random act is a pretty big commitment, I'll admit. It's not that it is so difficult to do something randomly kind for someone every day. I try and just be nice to people all the time. But it's difficult to REMEMBER to do it and to keep track, to write it down. You know how it is.We just get so busy. That's what got me into big trouble with my weight ~ MINDLESS eating when I was bored or stressed or so busy that I skipped meals and then gorged myself later.

So that's it.

(At least) one random act of kindness per day.

Later on this year maybe I'll tell you what made me decide to do this. It's a bit of a story and I won't take time tonight. There are balloons to drop and horns to blow. For some of you anyway.....as for me and my 2009, it's about to come to an end just a wee bit before 11 PM.

Happy New Year everyone!!

God bless you, thank you for your inspiration and my best wishes to you

for bountiful blessings and amazing success in the year to come.

Honestly, I think it will be the BEST year ever. 

Love, Nessa

Christmas Eve alone

Christmas was nice. Very quiet, but very nice. This, in stark contrast to the years and years of bustling Christmases when I was growing up and when I was raising my kids. My father had five siblings so the holidays always meant a frenzy of cousins packed into my grandparents farm house. My three kids are grown now and not everyone could make it home this year. I divorced their Dad right after my youngest graduated high school and I'll admit those first couple of Christmases in a small apartment after years of commanding Mission Control of the busy family starship were quite different!! Didn't take long to learn though....change isn't bad.......it can be fun, it's challenging, sometimes it's exciting.....and sometimes it's just....different.

I spent Christmas Eve by myself. I had some favorite holiday DVD's stacked up, made some phone calls to friends and family, wrapped presents for the kids visit the next day and cooked up a storm. I was alone but not lonely ~ have my new band to keep me company and the 24th is my one-month BANDIVERSARY!!!!! So there was plenty of reason to celebrate!

My first fill is scheduled for January 5 and none too soon. I feel very little restriction and can eat just about anything. My big holiday victory: I had ONE frosted Christmas cookie. Total. I just focused on cooking and sending treats out and delivering them to other people and didn't touch them. Christmas Day I enjoyed one cookie with my kids. That's it!! That's one heck of a big victory for me. I LOVE frosted cookies and could easily eat an entire batch myself (and have, I am sure!)

The only loneliness I feel this weekend is loneliness for the lovely restriction I had from my band-buddy right after surgery. It's pretty much gone. I have been trying to only eat when hungry and I'm hungry all the time. I haven't lost a pound in the past 10 days. Kinda bummed about that but I spent the day reminding myself this is just the beginning, I'm just learning.

Small steps. They'll add up. Next Christmas my best gift will still be what I did for myself on November 24, 2009 when I walked into surgery and hopped up on that table.

Replacing Bad Habits with Better Habits

An important step in the process of lifestyle change for me has been to identify strategies for replacing my former companion and buddy ~ food ~ with alternatives that don't have calories.

Most of us know first hand that food is often a substitute, an inappropriate crutch, we've learned to rely on ~ and even enjoy ~ rather than address the real need that is gnawing away at us. Some of us are lonely, some of us are just bored. Others of us have more serious psychological wounds that we soothe with food.

I think for many of us, such as in my case, it's a combination of these things. Over a period of years beginning way back when we were children, we learned to use a food as the balm that soothes whatever ails us.

I was frightened or sad as a child: Grandma gave me a cookie.
I was disappointed in junior high: Mom took me out for pizza.
I was frazzled as a young mom: I baked for the children and tasted my way into size 24 jeans.
I was distraught when my son was in Iraq: I cooked and cooked and cooked. I ate and I ate and I ate.
I was lonely after my divorce: Somehow the hours of the quiet, lonely evening are easier when you have a big bowl of pasta in your lap.


So there you have it. A lifetime of nurturing a relationship, one of the longest relationships of my life. And it's not like I can banish my old friend from my life forever. I have to eat to stay alive so it's all about reconstructing the relationship into one that is healthy. We all face a similar challenge but we each have to meet it in ways that suit our lives and personalities.

Reframing my relationship with food means getting back to nurturing my creative side. I moved my paints into the living room where I spend most of my time. I created a list of projects I've wanted to tackle for a long time but never found time to start. I've accepted projects from friends and family.

This week my newly-banded, creative self has been dancing around the house with paintbrushes in hand, playing Santa's elf. My niece is a huge Twilight fan and all she wanted for Christmas this year was a pair of hand-painted Chuck Taylor's. I haven't read the books, haven't seen the movies. I checked them out online. Whoaaa!!!! Over $100 bucks!!!! Ahhh-hem!!!!!! So Auntie Nessie tackled the project. They're finished! I painted a hoodie for her too. I can't wait until she sees them on Christmas morning!!!



What a great time I've been having and do you know what????




When I'm painting I don't even think about food.

Oh the weather outside is frightful !!

After lunch yesterday I noticed the snow falling outside my office

windows was starting to pile up a bit in the woods.

Hmmm......maybe the weather guy was right when he said all sorts of

winter hell was about to break loose.

Noticing everyone in the building had headed out to their cars I left a bit early to find everyone scraping windshields. My car was under a thick blanket of snow already. Scraper and snow brush still in the garage at home, my sleeve and an old file folder worked pretty good since it was still pretty warm outside.....well, compared to how cold it's going to get tonight. It's going to be about 5. Yeah. Degrees. Brrrr baby, brrrrrrrrrr.




This morning it was pretty clear....snow has stopped but the winds are wicked and plans for the lunch on the patio will have to be postponed until ohhh, maybe late April??



Y'know, I really truly did intend to get the Christmas lights strung this next weekend. I believe it's going to be an un-lit Christmas at my place this year, neighbors will just have to enjoy the sparklies by looking in through my windows.


Perfect and deep for the traditional snow ice cream I used to make with the kids.


Considering all the online Christmas shopping I did this season, looks like the FedEx guy is going to get the opportunity to prove he really DOES deliver. I can't even open my front door. That drift is pushed right up against it and the wind just keeps piling it higher.



Meanwhile inside where it is nice and warm, the snow-day baking continues as the cinnamon roll dough is rising nicely! How about the snow-day EATING? How is THAT going?? Honestly, I love baking so I can take goodies to work and give treats as gifts. This year I just don't feel tempted or even have the inclination to taste. It's a new wrinkle. Normally I'm a taste-tester and I'd be face-deep into the goodies from the moment I first started to melt the butter and add the sugar. Haven't even licked the beaters.




This new lease on life I'm experiencing thanks to my band buddy is helping me in ways I honestly didn't expect. I feel great about how things are going. I don't feel a great deal of restriction now as the swelling from surgery has gone and I haven't had my first fill yet. But I DO feel physically different inside. I'm getting used to small meals. I'm getting used to eating slower. I don't drink any liquids with my meals and I have at least one protein shake a day.

It's working. I'm down another couple of pounds this week. And my room mate honestly.............


....could care less about any of it as long as he's got his blankie and a nice, soft spot on the couch right under the furnace vent.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!!!

Getting into the Holiday Spirit

Couldn't resist posting, even though it's a blurry picture. Took a spin last night down through a part of town that is festively decorated for the season and had to pull out my camera and snap a few moving pictures. The colors are just so pretty. Better pictures to come and they'll look more seasonal because tonight.....snow!!!!

It was unseasonably warm last weekend. In the 60's. All my smarter neighbors put out their Christmas lights last weekend. No, I did not. I waited until today. Now the hours are ticking away. IF I want lovely, twinkly holiday lights to glisten under a blanket of snow in my shrubberies......I must get outside in the 20 degree morning and string them along.

I love snow.
LOVE SNOW!!!
I used to be a mail carrier, delivering mail and packages to over 500 families out in the country three times a week. My route was about 75 miles, half of which was gravel roads. Many, many snowy mornings it was just me and the deer and the foxes. I carried a little black book in my jeep.......farmers phone numbers.
Can't tell you how many times I've been nose-first and deep into a roadside ditch. I'd dial up the nearest farmer and they'd come pull me out with a tractor or pick-up. On the snowiest days I always carried little bags of homemade chocolate chip cookies with me. I knew before the end of the day I'd need to hand them out.......thank-you gifts to my farmer buddies for pulling me out of yet another snowy ditch.

These days I leave the snow challenges to heartier folks. Nice fellas show up at my front door to plow my drive, walks and streets before I leave for work in the morning. When I hear their tractors outside my windows at 4 or 5 AM I just smile and bury myself deeper in my quilts. I no longer pass bundles of letters and bills from my car into frozen mailboxes with cold, gloved fingers. I'm a sales rep at an art studio with 20-foot floor-to-ceiling windows that look out through the twisted trunks and sculpted branches of a forest of old oak trees. Deer bed down beneath their branches in the night. Mornings when I arrive before the sun comes up I stand inside, watching them awaken and paw at the crusted snow, looking for shoots of breakfast grass.It's pretty amazing.

Yeah, I love the snow.
And here it comes.

Back to Real Life....

It's back to real life for everyone after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Back to real life for me after a week off for surgery.

Real life for me is a full-time day job as a manufacturers sales rep. At night I magically transform myself into Full-Time Student. I'm wrapping up my masters degree and will graduate in June 2010. Weekends for me usually are given over to homework and I'm behind. Two weeks worth of it lay on the table before me.

I don't usually study at home.
This is why:

That's Binks, my 24-pound roommate who loves to be next to me every moment I am home. If we're watching tv, he's sleeping on my chest. If I'm in bed, he's asleep in the crook of my arm. If I'm trying to study..........well, as you can see, his favorite place to "share" that activity with me is right on top of the book or kayboard where I'm working.

That's why I study at the library. At the book store. At a coffee shop.
Pretty much anywhere I can find WiFi works better than home. Yeah, I could throw him down off the table or lock him up in another room. But he's my best pal and I just can't bring myself to do it.

Sundays Binks pretty much has the place to himself.
While off I go to study.....

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Thanksgiving leftovers............

 

.....look pretty much like this years Thanksgiving dinner!!!

It's ok by me. I've enjoyed over 50 years of traditional Thanksgiving dinners cooked and hosted by some of the best cooks on the planet. This year I've changed my focus. For the first time since I can remember, I didn't push away from a table, stuffed to the point of discomfort.

So how's it going? Four days post-surgery and I feel like I've turned the corner.
I stopped taking the hospital pain-meds and am down to a light dose of the liquid Tylenol, just to take the edge off. I got out and drove around a bit in the car today. I threw open the sun roof and the sunshine and fresh air surely did me a world of good.

I've noticed everyone's doctors seem to have their own plan for their patients.
My doc has me on liquids for 2 weeks post-op. I'm anxious to add some substance back into my diet but I don't mind waiting. I haven't had any nausea at all. No gas pains. They even gave me a flu shot while I was in the hospital.

What do I look forward to the most?
Thanksgiving next year.....when I can give thanks as I look back and realize how far I have come.

SURGERY DAY

Surgery is over. I'm banded and home recovering after one night in the hospital. I might mention, this was a BRAND NEW hospital. Everything totally state-of-the-art, all private rooms each of which include a kitchenette and monstrous flatscreen television with wireless internet and a wireless keyboard on the bedside table. The room was twice as big as many hotel rooms I have stayed in. Amazing. I kinda didn't want to leave!!

I walked myself into the operating room and climbed up on to the operating table. Very shorty thereafter things went a bit fuzzy as the anesthesiologist gave me a sedative through my IV......and that's the last I remember until waking up in recovery. Within a couple of hours I was tucked into my hospital room, playing a word game on the big screen and sucking on ice chips.

I have five small incisions.The nurses were in my room, checking vitals every two hours so it wasn't a great nights sleep, but I was warm and very comfortable through most of the night.

Painful? Yes. Getting up out of bed was painful because I have to use all those abdominal muscles and they've had a bit of a trauma with all the laprascope stuff. But I also had a nice, steady flow of pain medication and on the scale of 1-10 with 10 being excruciating like if you got your hand slammed in the car door, honestly it was never over a 7 or so. When I walk around I can feel it in my tummy, too. Like it's tied up in little knifey knots in there. But it's not unbearable and every hour it gets a little bit better.

This morning I had the swallow test in front of the scope so they could make sure everything was flowing correctly and once passing that, was clear to go home.

And here I sit.
At home, in my jammies, under a blanket, sipping hot tea and waiting for my daughter to get back from the pharmacy with the pain meds. Coughing? No fun. Deep breathing? Very important and getting easier.

The required protocol from my surgeon is: 2 days of clear liquids followed by 2 weeks of a liquid diet, adding protein shakes, milk and soups. I'll be very excited to move out of the clear liquids as I've been "enjoying them" for 2 weeks already. Turkey broth for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

Oh well, at least I don't have to get up early to cook it!

And I am sooooooooo glad to be sleeping in my own bed tonight.

Thanksgiving Dinner

My granddaughter snagged the starring role in her Kindergarten play as the Thanksgiving Turkey. Grandma melts over these quick sent-by-cell phone pictures. Lord, but I do LOVE technology!!!

And this little turkey is one of the most important reasons I want to be a healthier Grandma.

So anyway, my Thanksgiving meal is all ready and tucked into the fridge for Thursday.

Yup!!!!! A big ol' turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and corn casserole..uh, ok not exactly...........

This year my Thanksgiving feast consists of:

That's right.

One big ol' can of turkey broth................

BECAUSE I GET BANDED TOMORROW MORNING!!!!!!!!!

I'll be sipping turkey broth and giving thanks, for sure.

Surgery???!!! Why????

What I notice more than the fact that she's 100 and smoking......

is the fact that she's skinny.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Today my new family practice physician finished up her pre-op physical checklist, got me all tucked back into the neato little hospital gown, stepped back, looked at me and asked..........why? Obviously you know the band is just a tool. For it to work you're going to have to live a completely different lifestyle. It's going to be hard work and it's going to last your whole life. Before I sign off on your surgery, just tell me.....why???

The same questions pop up for all of us.
Here is my answer. Sorry, it's not pretty.....but it's the truth.

One year ago my mom ended up in the hospital with a bacterial infection and breathing problems. She was immobile, incontinent and depressed. At the time mom weighed around 450 pounds. She lives alone with my step-dad who pretty much dotes on her. After she retired 15 years ago or so she slipped into a sedentary lifestyle. She's always been overweight. She's always had bad knees. The knees got worse so she slowed down. The more she slowed down, the more weight she gained. The more weight she gained, the worse the pain in her knees. Gradually her life slipped into a routine of my step-dad running to the grocery store and delivering packs of cookies and McDonalds take-out meals to her in the recliner to which she had become confined. She couldn't even get out of the chair to go to bed, her breathing was so bad. She clips on her C-Pap mask and sleeps sitting up. The paramedics were kind and professional when they came to get her from the house and take her to the hospital. I wasn't there but my sister says it was exponentially worse than any tabloid story you've ever seen. How do you remove a 450-pound woman who can't walk on her own from a tiny house? It was the beginning of the nightmare.


One year later, I once again visit mom at home. She spent months in a rehabilitation center where the goal was for her to be able to sit up in bed on her own and hang her feet over the side. Once accomplished, she went back home. Did she lose weight in the hospital and rehab center? I think so. But not much. How that works, I don't know but she's still a very large woman. So now I visit her in her living room. She is lying there, flat on her back in a hospital bed that has replaced the brocade sofa where she used to love to sit and read. Last week when I walked in she had her oxygen tubing pushed aside from her nose and face so she could get the chocolate-covered cinnamon bun to her mouth. Balancing on her stomach was a huge bag of popcorn, three times the size of anything they'd even sell at a theatre. 


She can't roll over on her own. Three times a week a home-healthcare nurse comes over, hooks her up with belts and bands to this massive machine and hydraulically lifts her out of bed. There are special bars she grips with her hands as the machine pulls her up and out of bed. I walked in during the process last week and got sick to my stomach. There was my mom, once a proud woman, helplessly hanging in the grips of this machine while the nurse changed her bed. I noticed an entire box of half-eaten full-size Hershey candy bars sitting on the bedside table.


Mom is one of six children. All of her living siblings are extremely obsese. Most of them are nearly as immobile as she, on oxygen. My sisters have both struggled with their weight as well. My baby sister changed her life's path by becoming a runner and now she's healthy and slim. My middle sister is obese. She is having both her knees replaced on December 1st, hoping she can become more active and break her cycle, so similar to our mother's.

I've got three wonderful, grown-up kids who live an active lifestyle and thank God, they don't struggle with weight problems.I have a beautiful granddaughter. I adore them all, they're my greatest joy and I want to be around a long, long time to hang out and have fun with them.

That's why.

I Do Declare!!!!!!!

Why I DO believe I have just experienced my very first............Non-Scale Victory!!!!!!!!!!

This afternoon a guy that sits near me in my office dropped by my desk. Approaching from behind I felt his arm reach over my shoulder. I smelled the trouble even before I saw it. KIT KAT !!!!! Dang!!!! No fork, no tail but this guy is Satan bearing chocolate and my favorite bar, at that.

I told him "no thanks, chocolate just isn't sitting very well with me lately...."

Truth be told, chocolate hasn't even entered the yard, let alone the house or the living room to have a good, old-fashioned sit-down like we used to enjoy on my couch. Nope.

I turned it down.

He'll be back.

That's okay. I'll be ready.

Pre-Ops

From what I read on other blogs there are a variety of pre-op tests required before lapband surgery, depending on your surgeon. There also seem to be a variety of pre-op diet restrictions required by various surgeos. Mine requires 2 weeks of liquid-only pre-op diet. So this morning, after a full week of liquids only and 12 hours of total fasting........I visited the hospital for my pre-op testing.

Blood work, chest x-rays and blood gases........smooth sailing. Until I had to drink the glucose for one of the blood tests. Yowsa!!! Pure, unadulterated thick and gooey sugar stuff after a full week of liquids and 12 hours of an empty stomach?? You could have peeled me off the walls of that hospital for a while there. I've long been a fan of sugar, we've had a lifetime affair...........but that was tooo, too much. Eeeks.

Came home to continue with one more week of liquids, a delightful evening of pre-op "cleansing" similar to the lovely stuff you have to drink prior to a colonoscopy. Ohh joy. (I know, lots of you out there are too young to have experienced your first colonoscopy yet. The procedure itself? No big deal. But the "prep" the night before......despite the fact you enjoy it in the privacy of your own home (more like in the privacy of your own bathroom with ten of your favorite magazines and prepare to read them cover to cover)..... isn't much fun.

Not complaining. I'm thankful my insurance company approved my lapband and can't wait to get to the hospital. Meanwhile, the stories of others who have gone before me..................well..............they simply inspire beyond description.

The BEST Thanksgiving ever!!!!

NOVEMBER 24 !!!!!!

My surgery date!!!!!!

Will I be sad this year when everyone else is stuffing down the big ol' dinner while I'm kicked back in the recliner sipping turkey broth?? HELLLLLLLLLLLL NO!!! I'll just be sooooooooooooooooo thankful!!!!!

To Share or Not to Share

My second grade teacher noted on a progress report to my parents that "she likes to visit with her neighbors." This was something of a demerit back in the day but 50-something years later, she had me pegged. I loved visiting with my neighbors as a kid and I've never stopped. I'm a social sort, pretty much an open book.

So why have I decided to keep my surgery quiet and not share it with the world?
Believe me, when I opened the letter last weekend and read the news, all I wanted to do was grab the nearest stranger and tell them all about it. I was so excited. I couldn't believe it. Fortunately, people tend to look away when they see someone sitting in the grass with a letter in their hands, tears rolling down their face.

Why the decision?

The marvelous blogs of other bandsters have convinced me ~ it's just in my best interest. I don't need the added pressure of everyone watching me when I eat. It's going to be a big enough adjustment as it is without having the world taking notes on all the changes. So I'm keeping it to myself and a few select people I know I can count on for support.

Much as I hate to say it, I'm also choosing secrecy because of those people who, for whatever reason, do whatever they can to sabotage other people's success. They are out there and sadly, I've found they often bear a strong resemblance to well-meaning relatives and competitive dear friends. I learned this lesson the hard way when one of my dearest, oldest friends went to incredible lengths to sabotage my efforts when I was faithfully following Weight Watchers. Why does a person who loves me do that kind of thing? I realized she truly wasn't aware of what she was doing and how it hurt me. It was all about how badly she felt about herself.

This is all about me. I need to keep it that way. Lord knows I've spent a lifetime taking care of everyone else. This is my secret. And that's ok.

The Beginning: Just Another Day

I went to the introductory seminar about lapband surgery early this summer. It was hot and humid outside. I had to park a couple blocks away and I was winded by the time I reached the meeting room in the hospital. So was everyone else that walked in beside me, some in much worse shape even than I. Pulling oxygen tanks. Being pushed in wheelchairs. I recognized the painful, telltale signs of obesity we all share: slip on shoes, baggy pants, long shirts at which we tug in some sort of crazy effort to cover our substantial behinds.

It was like some sort of flashback to the old tent meeting alter-calls I remember from the pentacostal upbringing of my childhood. Like those old days, we're all hurting and it's a good bet we've all tried just about everything else to take care of our problem. We've come here looking for healing. But this time the savior is a surgeon.

I came home from that meeting with a fat packet full of paperwork to be filled out and pages and pages of information. I flopped on my bed, pulled out my insurance benefits booklet and began to read. Bariatric surgery was a covered benefit, however.........my heart sank just a little bit. There always seems to be a "however......"

I've been to Weight Watchers dozens of times starting wayyy back in the old days when you had to eat so many ounces of #2 vegetables a week or the program wouldn't work. Those days WW members ate a whole bunch of tuna and counted every dang pea.

Phen-phen came along after my kids were in school and it was AMAZING what that combination of two little pills did for me. I lost weight! (For a while.) I had energy. (Understatement. I was grocery shopping at WalMart at 3 AM because I didn't need much sleep.) Thankfully when I plateaued at about 40 pounds of weight loss and couldn't seem to budge, my Dr. told me my ride on the Phen-phen merry-go-round was over.

More Weight Watchers. And more. And more. Weight down.....weight up. Slim-Fast. Weight down....weight up. Vegetable soup diet....weight down...and weight up.
My story isn't unique. it's probably much like yours.

The "however...." in the lapband chapter of my story is my insurance company requiring a 6-month to 2-year physician supervised weight loss program prior to approval for lapband surgery. Everyone from my surgeon to the insurance specialists in his office warned me that my insurance company was well-known for this requirement. "Some of our patients get very discouraged by this," my surgeon explained. "My advice to you? Just start the program with your Dr. now, that way when they deny you, you'll already have a few weeks of the physician-supervised program under your belt...."

"When will I know for sure?" I asked the surgeon. "Will you call me when you hear from my insurance company?"

"Oh," he said, "you'll hear from them before we do. They will send out a letter to
let you know their decision. Just remember....don't be discouraged. A denial letter doesn't mean no forever, it just means there are some things you'll have to do."

As I left his office I took a deep breathe and resolved I would do whatever it takes to get my insurance company to approve lapband surgery. It took me a lifetime of poor eating habits to get here. I can keep walking toward this goal like I've walked toward all the others I've reached: one step at a time. Meanwhile, I took my required nutrition class, went for my psych evaluation (an insurance company hoop) and joined a fitness center. Honest? Joining is as far as I got. If carrying the membership card around in my pocket counts for anything, I'm doing great at this new fitness thing. But that is kinda like saying my clothes all smell springtime fresh because I bought a washing machine. Truth is, I'm still going to smell like an armpit if I don't throw them into the machine and add some soap.

This afternoon I unlocked my mailbox and pulled out a stack of letters. On top of the stack: a notice from my employer the entire company is taking an unpaid 3-week furlough over Christmas. HoHoHo. Halfway through the stack I pulled out an envelope from my insurance company. This is it, I thought. Just sit down and read it and don't let it get to you.



It was a beautiful day in Iowa today. Sunny and a balmy 75 degrees we rarely see in the first week of November. I sat down on the grass by the mailbox and cried, the letter from my insurance company in my hand. I must be reading this wrong......Medically Approved..........is that what it says?
Is that what it really, truly says?

Indeed.