Thursday Thirteen #64-4 WLS Joys

Now that I'm online from home, I can actually get my Thirteen up ON TIME. Very cool!
I mentioned last week that I wanted to do a T.T. on the Joys of being smaller by 185 lb.s So here goes...

1. Riding a horse! Promised myself when I hit 250 that I would go ride a horse. My landlady (who is also a good friend) has some and she let me ride their stallion around the field. It was quite the fiasco getting UP there onto the horse because I don't have the leg strength I wish I did. Climbed on a hay bale, tried a tree stump, eventually made it by hoisting myself up on a flatbed trailer first. By the time I made it into the saddle, I had their entire family of five and some Hay-buying customers and the hay truck driver for an audience. Aaargh! Oh well, it was pretty funny. But it was nice to know I hadn't forgotten how. And he was definitely "spirited" to put it nicely. As long as I was heading for the barn, he was "HEY let's GO!" but when I made the turn, we danced around sideways, head tossing. I was only on him for an hour in a flat field and he was lathered from fighting me so hard.
2. Swinging at the park. I wrote about that one already. http://douglassmom.blogspot.com/2006/09/flying.html
3. Swimming at the public pool with my kids. They had NEVER been swimming with me before. Needless to say, we are trying to make this one a habit. :D
4. Riding a carnival ride. Went to a local street fair in July and just HAD to get on the sizzler...and the teacups...and the spider...and the sizzler again...Last time I was on a carnival ride was when I was 16! 24 years is a long time to be trapped in a body that can hardly move. MG told me I look like a big kid with a huge grin on my face!
5. Jeans! Wearing jeans for the first time since 1989 was a major trip. Fit into some size 16's the other day. Fitting the extra skin in is sometimes a challenge. Hope that goes away soon.
6. Wearing a dress. Bought a skirt back in August. Don't really like the way dresses look on me and I always wear tights to cover up my scarred, ugly, varicose vein legs. But it was the principle of the thing, ya' know.
7. Running into someone I haven't seen in about a year. And watching their eyes pop. And their jaw hit the floor. That's ASSUMING they even recognize me. hee heee.
8. Actually feeling halfway comfortable with my appearance. Like leading praise on Sunday mornings and not worrying about whether or not my fat is hanging out from under the front of my shirt.
9. Crossing my legs! DON'T laugh. It's been at least ten years or more since I have been able to cross my legs. When I discovered I could, I got up on the stage at church to share the blessing, ran and got a chair and showed everyone. Got a standing ovation. :D
10. Getting into my Dad's boat without needing a ladder and two stout people shoving from behind.
11. Riding my son's bike. First bike ride since 1992!! http://douglassmom.blogspot.com/2006/10/naive-or-not-and-bicycle-adventure.html
12. Running and playing with my kids. And climb a ladder and take a shower without feeling faint and walk and walk without feeling tired and wear a hat without looking like a pinhead. (OK, OK, I crammed several in here, but you get my drift!)
13. BONES! Did you know I have bones? I must have had them all along, but they have only recently made an appearance. The first ones to show up were my cheekbones. WOW! and then the clavicle rose to the surface. That one still amazes me. People ask me why I have my hand at my neck alot...it's just so cool to feel that bone! OK, I'm weird. Then I noticed my hands and wrists look like skeletons.

Then I'm laying on my back and there are these things sticking out of my chest (get your mind out of the gutter...those don't stick out anymore. They slide around and hide in my armpits). And this pointy thing right in the middle...YIKES! It's a RIBCAGE. I can't remember the last time I felt mine. And the hipbones! My goodness! When I lay on my side and all the extra skin flows forward, those things really stick out. It's just incredible and amazing and such a BIG HUGE BLESSING!

And there are SO many more things I want to try and do and be and see now that I can fit into one airplane seat and fit under the steering wheel of my car and fit into normal clothes and fit into a movie theater seat.

Thank God for Dr. Read! Thank God for my family who encouraged and supported me. Thank God for Corvallis Samaritan Medical Center. Thank God for the technology of Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass that allowed this miracle.

Just THANK GOD, THANK GOD, THANK GOD!! :D