Photo Journal - Josie Boettcher

This recovery has been really hard. I had these lofty expectations of feeling almost back to normal after 2 days, but here I am on day 3 still feeling terrible. Getting up and sitting down are both incredibly painful, I've had terrible neck pain and headaches every day, I'm having very sharp, burning pain on the right side of my stomach at my incision sites, and I'm not sleeping well because of discomfort all night long. I'm pretty discouraged about it. I know it won't last forever. I know it'll be over before I know it. Oh, I also am blessed enough to be having my period right now. So much pain and discomfort and BLEEDING! Anyway, I'm not to the point where I would have done something different, had I known about the recovery. I just wish that recovery hadn't been so easy for everyone else I talked to about it but so hard for me. I was told that because it was also my gallbladder removal and the hernia repair that I should expect more time for healing, ...

Well, tomorrow is the big day. I'm having my bariatric surgery at 7:10 a.m. I'm excited to see what direction this launches my health into and looking forward to the future very much. It has been a tough two weeks of liquid dieting with a lot of stress, anger, and frustration. It has been six months of anticipation, and appointments, and testing to get here. It has been five years of wondering what it would be like and if I could ever bring myself to do it. And here I am...about to do it!  Self-acceptance is really tough. I've worked hard over the years to see my body and say, hey, it's fine with me. And I feel like I did achieve that for a while. I was okay with myself for a long time. Yeah, not the perfect size. No, not a model. But, still, just fine. After having Ollie though, my feelings towards myself took a negative turn again. My plantar fasciitis got worse, my energy level dropped, and I couldn't look in the mirror without being upset. I stopped being physic...

  Oh my gosh, these two were on my nerves SO BAD today! I was just trying to have one relaxing hour, watching Fixer to Fabulous , and they would not be quiet. They just kept fighting and yelling and kicking and screaming.  Two more days until surgery. I'm planning to write a longer post tomorrow to type through my feelings on it. Dad and MJ are here now and we're sitting here visiting. But I took a picture today! Yay!

The rain held off for a little while this morning, so we were able to go to the playground with Melis and Naz. It was so nice to see them after two weeks of no hanging out at all! It was a good time. Selby Park is a great playground, but unfortunately has no bathrooms...which, with four kids, presents a bit of an issue. Despite a couple of worrisome moments, the kids got a big game of tag going with all the kids at the playground. Even Jonas was actively playing the whole time!  My mood has been INCREDIBLY bad these last few days. Like, embarrassingly bad. I am so grateful that I'm going to be able to have this surgery and so optimistic about my future health, BUT. I'm so hungry right now. 😅 It's bad. I can't seem to pull myself out of my anger about being hungry! Not fun for anyone. I feel awful about it.  I didn't take any pictures today, because my mood seems to be preventing me from doing anything that is good or useful in any way. I am posting last year's ...

I think the bad mood from being hungry is really starting to settle in now. When I stepped onto the scale today, I was 8 pounds lighter than 10 days ago...which is just crazy. At first, I was kind of pissed. I don't need to lose that kind of weight before I even have the surgery. I shouldn't be super hungry, getting headaches, feeling like crap, being in a bad mood leading up to the surgery! But then, after some reflection, I think my body would go through this change whether it is pre or post surgery. My body will get tired easily, I will get headaches, etc. no matter if I'm hungry when I'm changing my diet or not. Does that make any sense? My body is used to getting a certain number of calories, sugars, carbs, fats in a day and whether I make that cut now or later, it is going to happen and my body is going to rebel. Granted, it would be nice to not be hungry while it's happening, but it will also be nice to have the worst of it out of the way when I'm recover...

We did get out to Quarry Trails Metro Park this afternoon. It was raining when we got there and we had no idea where the entrance was that we were looking for, but we eventually found it and got parked. We got out of the van and suddenly every single kid had to pee (I did too, honestly)! So we hung out at the porto potty for a while, got the wagon loaded up and almost immediately encountered a long set of stairs. 😅 Not exactly the start we were hoping for, but the rain stopped and we got the wagon down the steps and enjoyed the rest of our walk. They had a little play area with ziplines that the kids loved and a fun water walkway. It was nice to get out after so long being trapped inside.  Ollie is still having coughing fits but seems to be doing a lot better already. She's been less feverish and is actually coughing less than before. I'm feeling almost completely better now too. Hoping for a good sleep tonight! 

Ollie was diagnosed with pneumonia today, which explains why everything has gotten so much worse for her lately. I'm hoping and praying that this is the last night that she coughs for 10 hours straight. Man, I wish antibiotics were immediate symptom relievers! And I wish that me being over all the sickness meant that all the sickness would actually be over. It's been a long almost two weeks. I've missed out on a lot of fun and so has Ollie. It's been such a bummer. By the way, a little sick girl like her has no right to be so cute and happy while coughing her head off at the doctor's office. 💓 Personally though, I am feeling better today. I still felt pretty awful this morning, but throughout the day I was doing better and now that it's evening I'm almost close to feeling kind of normal! Woohoo!  Here are some ideas for our spring break (if we're healthy enough): Quarry Trails MetroPark, Zoo, COSI, Black Hand Gorge, Highbanks?, fun in downtown Columbus....

  I just want to take a minute to appreciate my Clementine for a minute. This girl is SO impressive to me. She LOVES learning new things. She is fearless about going out and trying, trying, trying until she succeeds. She goes outside to roller-skate every chance that she gets, and every time she falls down (which is nearly once a minute) she GETS BACK UP. Time after time. Bruise after bruise. Scrape after scrape. She just keeps getting up and trying again. I'm so proud of her. I didn't have any of that drive in me growing up and I still don't have much. I hate to say I'm a quitter, but....I'm a quitter. If things are hard, I usually stop doing them. The end. But not this girl and I love that about her.  I felt so terrible last night and today. Fever, chills, body aches, and COUGHING SO MUCH. But it's not just coughing, because when you've had four kids come out of your body you can't just have violent coughing fits and that be it. Nope. I also get to pe...

It's my mama's birthday today. She would have been 59. Thankfully, I don't feel more sad than usual about this. Birthdays used to be so hard for me, and I don't know if it's time, distance, or just the busy-ness of life, but they aren't anymore. Evie would think I'm turning my back on mom, but I loved her as well as I could while she was alive, and she isn't concerned with any of that kind of nonsense now that she's not. I have no regrets.  I thought my cold was getting better, but I started and ended the day feeling feverish, achy, and having chills. Something is changing, but not in a good way! Screw being sick. This sucks. 

Today was Day 1 of the liquid diet and, honestly, it didn't go great. My head was KILLING me. Like, constant, severe pain. But I did pretty much stick to what I was supposed to and I have one day down. The doc admitted that the liquid diet is more for mental reasons than physical, which I think is kind of bs. What is it supposed to be preparing us for? I know we have a liquid diet for two weeks after the surgery, but do we really need two weeks of liquid diet to prepare us for two weeks of liquid diet? 😅 It's nonsense. It's fine and I think it will be nice to have a jump start of 10ish pounds lost, but acting like it's necessary isn't cool, IMO.  We got into the hot tub with the kids today for a bit. Since we never get in alone anymore, I'm glad we're getting in there with them! It's not relaxing or anything like the hot tub vibe anyone is looking for though. 😆 Other than that, it was a slow, boring day. Ruby stayed home today to heal a little more and...

It has been a sick weekend, so we had to cancel Ollie's party again. We're going to try again next weekend and if it doesn't work then, we're just going to cancel. Or maybe just have the Arikoks over to celebrate, rather than having a big thing.  I start my liquid diet tomorrow morning. I'm kind of dreading it and also kind of excited about it. It means that my surgery is only two weeks away, but I know that being hungry and having only liquids could make it a very long two weeks. We'll see how it goes!  Ben's step sister-in-law died yesterday. It's very sad and it was pretty sudden. A week ago, Alice posted on Facebook that she was going to the ER because she has been feeling bad for a while. She never posted for herself again. She had a massive heart attack in the hospital and her heart stopped beating for over 15 minutes. They resuscitated her, but she never woke up again. Yesterday, her body just stopped. She was a mom to 3 adult boys, 1 teenage girl...

I am so tired of us being sick. SO TIRED OF IT. A simple cold shuts down my entire life now. No hanging out with friends, no getting Ollie out of the house, no church. It's like I'm on quarantine again. So in addition to feeling kind of crappy physically, I'm also emotionally deprived. I'm bored/overwhelmed. I'm grateful/pissed. I'm tired/anxious to do something.  I took Ruby to the doctor today for her cough, which is just LOUD and scary. The doc thinks maybe bronchitis? She wasn't sure (which is so reassuring!), but prescribed some things for her that will hopefully help and will at least make her not contagious anymore. Ollie seems to be doing A LOT better today. She's coughing a little, but no fever and she's back to 100% energy. She's not sneezing and her nose isn't running much anymore either. Jonas and Clem both seem to be doing a lot better too. Ben is doing good still. I'm just still stuck in this same place cold-wise. It's v...

Sick, sick, sick! I'm so tired of everyone being sick. Runny noses, coughing, congestion...it's just a mess. I had to pick up Ruby early from school today because of her cough. I'm not surprised, honestly. But it's tough to know what to do for her, because every single time she gets a cold, she ends up with a bad cough. They typically never do anything special for it and we miss a bunch of school and pay for a bunch of doctor's appointments. But what else can we do? I'll take her to the doc in the morning and we'll see if there's anything they can do for her cough. I've been having her use her inhaler and giving her cough medicine, but maybe she needs an antibiotic?  I'm getting worried that we won't be healthy for Ollie's party on Sunday. I really hope we are! I just don't know if we can postpone it another week. We may end up having to cancel altogether. 😞 I have all my decorations and supplies ready and everything. Whatever. It...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLLIE!!!!! My littlest girl is 3 today! It has been a day of spoiling her rotten, even though we're mostly stuck at home because of our colds. We ran to Kroger to get some supplies for dinner and I ended up buying her a huge bag of gummy bears and a bag of "spicy chips", aka Doritos. Then we went to the cupcake shop, where she got to choose her own cupcake for tonight (which she did not eat at all). After that, we went to Target and she picked out a new pajama dress, princess frog (aka Tiana). Once we finally got home, I made her fruit dip (YUM!) to dip her strawberries in and we ate lunch. It seems like she doesn't have much of an appetite right now. She barely ate any breakfast and she just picked at lunch too. No snack. She had a fever this morning, but she seemed a tiny bit better by nap time. Oh, and we also took her into the hot tub after we ate! She was very excited about that. Once she gets up from nap, we'll make some sugar cookies, have a ...

I woke up with a terrible sore throat this morning and Ollie is coughing too. So sad to be feeling sick again! It's been a pretty relaxing day so far, though. Me and Ollie took a walk outside during a break in the rain and made it back *just* in time. When we were just a couple of houses away, the rain started back up and by the time we got into the garage, it was pouring!  I thought these pictures were funny. I couldn't find the small umbrella, and this is all I could see of Ollie as we walked. And the other one proves just how like her mama she is! We both LOVE the rain. 

I got everything crossed off of my to-do list for the week! Woohoo! It feels so nice to know that I don't have anything really pressing that has to be done right this minute. The last week has felt very pressure-y. I know that I put it all on myself, but there were a bunch of things that felt like they needed to be done and I wanted several of them done before Ollie's party. Some of the other things weren't party related but were connected to Ollie's birthday. Still others were like chain-reaction type projects: once I get this piece of furniture moved, then I need to get something else to put in its place, and while I'm doing that, I might as well do this type stuff. Because we didn't end up having the party today but did get prepped for it, there was barely anything that needed to be done. We spent a lot of time relaxing, and Ben spent lots of time playing with the kids. I did get some work done and got the last to-do checked off of my list, but it felt like a...

Today was a little busier than I would have liked, with a couple of stresses added into it. We went to class in the morning and class ran late. We were starving when we got out, so we went and took the family to Marino's for fish and chips afterward. Lunch was yummy, but it's always hectic taking all of the kids out to eat. Nobody likes anything. 🙄 We headed home and I took the kids straight outside to start yardwork. I was so motivated! An hour into it, I was exhausted. Like, literally, felt like I could barely move anymore. Ben finished everything up with that and we (Ben) decided to clean out the hot tub. 😔 Over an hour later, we were finally done outside, and Ben ran to the grocery store to get supplies for Ollie's party that was supposed to be tomorrow. While he did that, I hung coat hooks and a basket for mail on the backpack wall (FINALLY!), which seemed to take forever and was much more complicated than I expected. I fed the kids cereal for dinner and then Ben got...

Well, we're finally halfway through the week! And despite today being the anniversary of mom's death, it wasn't a bad day (although my temper got pretty short by the end of it). The highlight was getting to hang out with Melis and Naz at Fancyburg. The weather was perfect for an outside play date and the girls got along SO well. Me and Melis got to just sit and talk for two hours, pretty much. It was great. I got a little work done and made meatloaf for dinner. I got to shower and Ben did the dishes. Et voila.  I'm thinking a lot about my upcoming surgery. Mostly stressing about having gained a few pounds since that initial weigh in and wondering if that will negatively affect me at my first appointment next week. I'm going to eat healthier and cut out most sugars between now and then, but that will not equal four pounds! I hate stressing over weight. It is just the worst.