My sister

If you haven't picked up on this yet, I'm very proud of my sister.  Like everyone else, she's faced a lot of challenges from getting married at 18, first child 15 months later and a second 17 months after that, dealing with a divorce, a suicide, becoming a grandmother (although that's the twins are the light of her life I'm sure), losing various pets over the years, especially Riley (think Odie ... Garfield's pal), moving, moving, forever moving.  And she's trying to move again if she can ever sell her house.  I'm not sure what the problem is 'cause it's a nice house ... not huge but a decent size on 1.2 acres of land in the Georgian Bay area, losing important people in her life.  She was diagnosed about 10 years ago with HOCM (hypertropic obstructive cardiomyopathy - say that 5 times fast after a few beverages) LOL and recently with diabetes.  Then there was the fight with the insurance company.....

As you probably know, she's just had surgery.  She was in desperate need of having her gall bladder removed and she fought it for a long time until she couldn't any more.  Her doctor suggested weight loss surgery since they were going to be in there anyway.  So she embarked on this journey.  It's been a frustrating, difficult rollercoaster of a journey over the past 7 months.  I think the gall bladder helped speed things along.  Given her health challenges, do you wonder why I was so agitated about her surgery?   

Now the hard part starts for her ... re-training her attitude and habits to healthier ones.  Gone are the days of just "grabbing a bite" of whatever ... although she won't be eating much more than a bite ... 1/2 c. of food per meal.   OMG ... I don't think I could do that.  Gone are the days of stopping at the local drive-thru for something totally laden in fat and sodium ... and totally devoid of nutrition.  There's a downside to this??  Seriously, I don't think I could do that.

I know the past decade or so has been really tough on her.  Because of the HOCM she's can't exercise like you and I can.  And the weight just kept going on.  I was surprised when I saw her at Easter.  It had been 3 years and I thought, from the way she was talking, that she was much bigger than she is.  But it's more the health implications that had me concerned.  HOCM isn't caused by carrying excess weight ... but I'm sure the extra weight makes it harder. 

A friend of ours  asked me if I was ok with this.  I mean, she's going to lose a lot of weight very quickly.  She lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks on the liquid diet she had to be on prior to the surgery.  I suspect it will continue to be very rapid.  I, on the other hand, will take a while.  I have to be more diligent, but it's still going to take me a lot longer to lose what I need to compared to her.  But I'm totally cool with that.  She needs to get the weight off quickly.  It'll help her heart, her diabetes, and did I mention severe sleep apnea.  I'm amazed (and extremely happy) that's she's still with us with all her challenges.

But she has dealt with all of this, and retained a wicked, warped, crazy sense of humour and I'm so very proud of her.  She's home now from the hospital but still really tired.  It'll take a few days but I'm sure not having the constant pain from the gall bladder alone will make her feel better.

So here's to a thinner, and more importantly, healthier sister ... I love her very much.