Monday, November 23, 2009

Seachange

Something happened over the weekend that has been waiting to happen for a fair while. One of those events that you hope never comes round but really it was inevitable that it would. It was a completely emotional event (no humans or animals were physically damaged :-))

So from Saturday to Sunday things are completely different, priorities have suddenly shifted and the world has a whole new perspective.

Given two and a half hours in a car driving back from Auckland airport late last night husband and I started brainstorming about where this epiphany will lead us and how long it will take to get there. We didn't reach any conclusions but we came up with a lot of ideas that need following up. We did agree quite early in the piece to stay married for the forseeable future - which was never an issue in the first place but it is always good to establish the ground rules on life changes early in the discussion don't you think...

Somehow I think that we will be looking at some big changes in the next year or two. It feels a very positive outcome from the extremely negative event that precipated it.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Credit where credit is due please!

A long time ago - about March last year - I decided to lose the chemo weight I've been carrying round for far too long.

According to various people (mostly American hence the lack of metrics) taking a course of taxol is good for an 25 pound weight gain. I've never been an underachiever so I managed to put on 20 kilos. That made me just on clinically obese according to the height and weight charts. Clinically obese is not a pretty term... Also when I am clinically obese my knees hurt in the morning and I have difficulty getting on my horse (and I'm sure she wasn't that impressed with 20kg extra either).

I didn't make a big fuss about it - I just made a conscious effort to eat better and a bit less. And my weight has very slowly drifted down to where I wanted it to be, which I hit about three weeks ago.

I might add that that weight - while healthy - is still 10kg higher than my lightest adult weight and 6 kg higher than my pre-children average weight, so I hardly have bones sticking out here. Skinny wasn't something I was designed to be.

It took 12 months for anyone except my husband to notice I'd lost weight. That's okay I didn't feel any real need to talk about it.

Then my manager (who I don't see very often) rang "I hear you've got all skinny" she said. Apparently one of the other managers who I occasionally drop in for a chat with when time allows had noted my weight loss, and being aware I have cancer was a bit concerned that I was being overworked at a time when I wasn't well. Which was sweet of him but a trifle too PC... I reassured all involved that I'd worked darn hard at it.

The other person I can't convince is my mother. She believes come hell or high water that
1) I am too thin
2) This is entirely due to the cancer which must be taking hold and getting the better of me.
She's felt the need to discuss it with husband on the quiet because she doesn't believe me. He has assured her that I haven't eaten a potato chip for over a year and that he can see how I lost the weight. He doesn't think she believes him either.

*sigh*
So if I get fat it's my own fault
If I lose weight it's something else.