The End of the Beginning

She woke up, her abdomen was sore and she could barely move, but she was alive! Not being alive hadn't really been that much of a threat but 'every procedure carries risk' so it was still good to know she had in fact survived it. She had decided going in that the risk of not getting it done was far higher, and the Dr. had agreed, so it was done.

Now the fun part, this wasn't the end of the road to recovery, this was simply the end of being ill. There was so much to do now, starting with getting some food, because she hadn't eaten in 48 hours. The nurse busying around the machines finally noticed that she was awake. 'How are you feeling?' 'I'm sore' was the immediate reply. 'Well that is to be expected, do you want some medication for that?' She thought about it, was she that sore? Not yet actually more uncomfortable than in acute pain at the moment, maybe the stuff she was given in the procedure hadn't completely worn off yet. 'Not yet, I think I am ok for now. What's next? should I be trying to move, or holding very still?' The nurse indicated she should wait to speak to the Dr. and should just lay still for now.

She was sat up a using the mechanical bed and given her phone to futz around on while she waited. She decided to watch crafting videos not comedy since belly laughing seemed perhaps a bad idea at the moment.

The Dr. came in and checked her incision, and them commiserated about the condition of the abdominal wall. In the end, after much medical jargon and explanations that where important for the Dr. to give, not so much fort her to understand it seemed there was a decent chance that the muscles might recover now that the defective organs that had been irritating the crud out of them where removed from play.

The incisions where relatively small, as luck would have it technology no longer required that procedures like this always had to include laying the whole abdomen open, instead a few small arms where snaked in, leaving 3, 2 inch long cuts where once it required a foot or more flap being opened. She was happy to hear that the diastasis might heal on its own now, 3 years was a long time to have to be careful about sitting up wrong and having parts try to exit their body cavity. After a few days she was feeling pretty good, still sore but better, there seemed to be no unexpected side effects, her biometrics where stable, and she could go home.

She was instructed to lay still the majority of the time for the next 6 weeks, but 4 times a day to do a small set of exercises to start repairing the damage done and strengthening muscles that had been out of commission for 3 or more years. Once she got home she was ensconced in her chair and made comfortable, and now the fun part, she was going to have to win a battle not just with her body, it should do as it was told now, but with her mind, she had a task ahead of her, she had years, no a lifetime of mental training to deconstruct. Learned eating habits, learned movement or lack there of, maladaptive thought patterns that needed deconstructing. There really was no separating the mind from the body, what the body 'said' was interpreted in the mind, making the 2 inseparable, the whole idea of mind over matter tended to ignore the glaring fact that mind was in fact matter...

First the material she needed to loose a third of her body weight, and since she was the betting type person she had 5 months to do it because she had signed up for one of those programs where you bet you will loose such and such weight or they get to keep your money, and she was to damn poor to let them keep her money, and she wanted her prize dammit! Her caregiver came in wanting to know what she wanted to eat.....'Tea please' first skirmish, but the best laid plans by moonlight evaporate in the first rays of the sun she reminded herself. She drank her tea and slept. And so it went she fought this uphill battle one interaction at a time, sometimes she lost, most often she won.

After 4 weeks she was standing, after 6 she was unrestricted in movement, from the Dr. at least, her body screamed and cried when she bent, 'Muscles didn't move that way' it said. 'Yes they do you have just forgotten' she chided it like one talks to a petulant small child. She panted from exhaustion from walking to the mail box, but she did it every day, across the field and back, rain, snow or shine, at some point she wasn't panting any more. 'I want pizza!!' screamed her body, 'Your eating oatmeal' she replied and on they went, 'I want to sit down NOW' her legs screamed, 'One more lap' she replied, 'Soda?' 'No, Tea', and on they went. The weight fell off at first, as was the way of it for the incredibly over weight, the first few pounds often fell off with out much fuss, but then the body catches on 'I NEED that' the body screams 'No you don't you just think you do, we don't hunt and gather any more, there is food every where here, you will not fade away, trust me' 'I can't squat like that I'll fall' 'Maybe, but its ok the mats are soft if you do, but you are strong now, its safe to move, the part that hurt you is gone now. Now bend!' 'What if...?' 'Won't happen!'.

She had spent 25 years, since the first inklings of puberty, in and out of Dr. offices complaining about what she had dubbed 'shrug disease' when Dr. would just shrug and write you a pain med, or a psych med depending on the bent of the Dr. and usher you out of the office because they honestly have no idea what could be leading to this variable laundry list of symptoms.

Only 18 weeks after removing the faulty parts that had held body and mind hostage and her 5 foot frame was under 200 pounds, for the first time since her teens, She had won her bet!

The solution was at once so simple and yet so hard to define, she had hit bottom, sitting in her chair basically unable to move for fear if pain and emergency room visits, of which there had been many. Just eating to quiet the monster in her mind. Remove the faulty parts, and progress could begin.

She could now walk to the corner store with out feeling like her chest would explode, sweat no longer offended her...as bad. The body and and finally the mind had given up its belief that hunger was a personal affront that should be met with anger and violence.

Now she could just eat a meal, just eat until she had had enough and walk away unafraid. She could even miss a meal with no feelings of impending doom rising up to greet her. Best of all she could move and bend. If she was sitting in her chair its because she wanted to. If she was exhausted it was because she had done hard work.

As she squatted down to weed around the lettuce plants in the planter and check the chard next to it she thought with passing surprise, there was no screaming 'I don't bend that way', she rose back up in a smooth motion to see if any tomatoes where ripe, her knees did no scream and threaten to crumble. This was good!

But this wasn't the end, it was simply the end of the beginning ....