jbutterfly9

Some of you I’ve known for awhile, others I’ve just met.  I’ve had long conversations with some of you, others I’ve not yet talked to.  Some of you have sent me wonderful booster notes and did not get any in return (and I am so sorry for not being a good buddy).  Some of you wonder why I dropped off the map.  Some of you are former teammates and others are not.  But you all have this in common: I care about you and want to see you succeed, and I’m glad you’re my buddies.

I joined this site a little over four months ago, made many friends and acquaintances here, lost 20 pounds (and recently another pound), and was briefly part of a wonderful team that I loved dearly.

Unfortunately I am no longer part of a team, and there are several reasons for that but the main one is that I need to get my health back in order.  Until that happens, I don’t have anything to offer anyone.

A few months ago, I started to have a lot of pain and went for a CT scan.  What I always thought was an abdominal fatty tumor turned out to be an incisional hernia from my old gallbladder surgery.  I didn’t say much at the time but I was pretty horrified.  I mean, I had been really getting into Pilates.  What could be a worse choice for someone with an abdominal hernia?!

So the doctors told me not to exercise, not even the treadmill.  Needless to say, my motivation took a nosedive and I was very frustrated about being relegated to the sidelines.

At the same time all this was going on with my health, my little boy started having behavioral problems.  (He’s 5 and has autism.) He went from being a happy and affectionate little guy who loved school, to not wanting to go to school and having sudden angry outbursts and even yelling and hitting me - so totally not like him.  I was obviously concerned and worried.  There was a communication breakdown between me and the school, and I was basically on my own trying to figure out what was happening (never did) and how to help him.

To make a long story short, I looked at 5 different school programs and he is in a different school now and loves it, I have been doing a lot of home therapy with him despite my pain and health issues, and he is back to his happy and sweet little self with no signs of whatever was going on before that caused all those problems.

Then a few weeks ago I found myself in the hospital with severe anemia, along with dehydration.  I’ve struggled with chronic anemia for years, but my numbers had been better until recently and so they were convinced I was bleeding internally somewhere, but all the tests were okay.  I managed to narrowly avoid a blood transfusion and have been doing all right with iron supplements.

So next week I will be having surgery to repair the hernia.  I’ve had this hernia for over six years without knowing what it was, I was always too busy taking care of my little boy and putting myself and my health on the back burner.

I’m hoping to restart my diet and exercise plan when I’ve recovered and my health is back in order.  I love this site and I love you guys, thanks for reading this.