Hello everyone, I’m sorry to start with some shocking news but in August 2016 I Nearly Died. It’s not something that I like to talk about and until now I’ve been keeping it quiet. However I do feel that my story is an important one so I am putting aside my desire for anonymity and trying to overcome my natural shyness in order to tell you about what happens when you Nearly Die, just in case it ever nearly happens to you.
So far I’ve written 5 brilliantly entertaining blog posts that narrate the saga of my Near Death (and subsequent near life) experiences and if you haven’t read them yet I suggest you do so immediately. And tell all your friends to read them too. And then share them with distant relatives, random tradesmen and your hairdresser. I have a mortgage to pay and I’m relying on this blog to bring in advertising revenue. Although God only knows what sort of products I’d be asked to advertise, (no)tit tape? Half price lingerie? Bean bags? I think my blog may be a bit niche…
Anyway, as you will know (if you’ve read my previous blog posts), back in September 2016 I’d been Hanniballed by my dishy consultant and was told by him then that he was going to reconstruct me to within an inch of my nearly life and that he’d see me again in December to book me in.
In the mean time I had to go back every couple of weeks for an outpatients plastics clinic to change my crispy dressings and to check that the skin graft was all healing up ok. I didn’t see my dishy consultant at all during these appointments and instead I had to deal with his minions. I was slightly heartbroken about this but his minions treated me like the celebrity patient that I was and I still had loads of fun gawping at the human horror show in the waiting room so on the whole I wasn’t too put out by the laziness, non-professionalism and downright rudeness of my dishy consultant who didn’t actually consult (as per his job description) with me at all during this period.
By the time he did finally stop pandering to the whims of lesser patients and turn up to see me, it was after Christmas at the very end of December 2016 and the Baldy Rats were nearly one (years in age- they hadn’t morphed into each other sadly). It was five months since I had Nearly Died and I think I must have subconsciously celebrated not actually dying by pretty much eating everything on the planet. My flammable bagett had to be packed with more and more foam to mimic the increasing girth of my enormous right tit and I had to accept that I had gone from being a bit fat to being well fat.
I knew I was a bit fat as far back as September when I had been Hanniballed, and if you look at the picture in my previous entertaining blog post you’ll see that despite the fact that I am posing with a flammable bagett and doing my best Daily Mail sad face, it’s my stomach that steals the show. I’d been through a helluva lot, what with Nearly Dying and that, plus the fact that I’m a greedy pig and was still on maternity leave (which means it is a legal requirement to only wear maternity clothes), meant that I’d swelled up like that kid in the chocolate factory- the one that turns into a blueberry. Except unlike her I hadn’t turned blue or been carted off by a horde of Oompah Loompahs. I’d stayed an anaemic shade of marshmallow pink and only had three Oompah Loompahs (although they made the same amount of noise as a horde).
And so by the time it got to the end of December and I saw my dishy consultant again I was over 4 stone heavier than I should have been. I’d not done any exercise in a year besides riding my puffing and panting horse and doing some of my own puffing and panting whilst waddling along behind Charlie dog, and now I was paying the price.
I was a Weeble. A pea-on-a-football. I was the woman they couldn’t hang. And I needed to do something about it before I had to have the windows of my house removed by the fire brigade.
When I was preggers with Frog I’d put on a lot of weight, about two stone I think, but I’d lost it gradually over about two years and quite naturally. I can tell you for definite that life with one baby is a bloody doddle compared to life with twin babies. Fuck only knows how dogs manage with six or seven of the bloody things. Massive respect to all you hairy bitches out there, and also to the mummy dogs of course.
I found that with only one baby in tow I could still spend whole days at the yard with the horses and burn off a ton of calories by mucking out, chucking bales of hay around and dragging horses in and out of fields. Because I carried Frog everywhere in a sling I stayed strong and could do a lot of walking. I could also leave him in a creche for an hour and go to exercise classes and do Pilates and I did that once or twice a week from when he was about two months old. So by the time I did the act of filth that left me preggers with the Baldy Rats, Frog was two and I was pretty much the same size I was before I did the act of filth that left me preggers with him. And I hadn’t had to diet or go crazy with the exercise, the weight loss had just happened because I’d been able to continue doing all the activities I had done before I was pregnant.
With the Baldy Rats however, it was a different teapot of trout entirely. I put on a LOT more weight during the pregnancy and wasn’t able to be as active. When I was preggers with Frog I had ridden until I was six months pregnant but with the twins I had to stop after two months because my balance was all off and even tacking up was impossible.(For my non horsey friends ‘tacking up’ is when you accessorise the horse with bits of leather). I couldn’t carry the saddle or even lift it, hell, I couldn’t even pull my riding boots on without falling over! I couldn’t walk much either- even at two months pregnant I was pretty big and I couldn’t bend down so even Pilates (which I had done every week for about 4 years) was out of the question. It was a tough old pregnancy but one thing I WAS able to do was eat. So I did a lot of that.
And then of course the Baldy Rats were spawned and I exclusively breast fed them so I was hungry, REALLY hungry, all of the time. I couldn’t carry them in slings which meant I had to take a cumbersome tank of a double buggy with me every time we went out. This made the long walks I used to do with Charlie and the tadpole much more difficult- plus Frog wasn’t that great at walking long distances either (he was only two) so our walks became much shorter (sorry Charlie) and I had to stop going to the yard because having two babies and a toddler around overly affectionate, half-ton animals with metal feet was hair raising to say the least. All in all after the Baldy Rats were born I did a lot less moving and a lot more sitting and eating.
And then when the Baldy Rats were seven months old, I Nearly Died (not that I like to talk about it). Obviously Nearly Dying and being on bed rest for ages and being fed lots of strong drugs had messed with my general health (there’s nothing quite like Nearly Dying to mess with your general health) This, plus my natural greed and my joy at not being dead, plus Christmas, plus not doing any exercise meant that I was well fat. And unhealthy. I looked and felt AWFUL and had an exceptionally shiny plate face.
So when I went back to see my dishy consultant just after Christmas he was greeted by a Weeble. A Weeble with one tit, no nip and a shiny plate face. Mmmmm what a catch.
So anyway, back to the story. There I am waiting to see my dishy consultant, wearing my super stretch size 18-20 George joggers, my old faded grey maternity bra, a huge baggy maternity top and sporting a big shiny plate face and terrible hair (you try getting out to have a hair cut when you have baby Baldy Rats). My dishy consultant was very professional and did his best not to look too repulsed as I removed my top and waves and waves of flab cascaded to my knees. He just looked me up and down and said “well we’ve lost the nipple…. and we’ve somehow gained two other people” (he didn’t say the second part out loud though)
He then weighed up my right breast in one hand, grabbed my stomach flab in the other hand, shook his head, sucked in his teeth and told me that it was “gonna be a helluva job to fix”. He then squinted at my right nipple, measured it with a tiny measuring tape and (quite hurriedly I thought) told me to put my clothes back on.
As we sat down in his bare little office and discussed the reconstruction operation, I told him that I was about four stone heavier than I wanted to be and asked if this would impact on the reconstruction operation. He replied that he could do the reconstructive operation on me at my current weight with no problem and with no implications for my health or recovery; but that the closer I was to my natural weight the better the results would be.
Liposuction is not a weight loss operation- it is a sculpting procedure so if you are a big fat fucker when you have lipo you’re not going to see much difference in your size or shape. If you are a healthy size and have lipo then you should see a big difference in your shape because liposuction irons out all of the lumps and bumps (I learned this from Google). Also the reconstruction of my left breast and the uplift of my right breast would give me a fantastic result at first, but if I then went on to lose weight after I’d had the operation my boobs would have gone all saggy again. So it was a bit of a no-brainer really, I decided that I was going to have to lose the weight before the reconstruction operation to have any chance of pulling again.
My dishy consultant was giving me a once in a nearly-lifetime opportunity to get nearly-life enhancing plastic surgery, at no financial cost to me. I was going to receive top notch plastic surgery by a dishy and brilliant plastic surgeon. By now of course I had Googled my dishy consultant extensively so knew exactly how talented and well respected in his field he was. I also knew his address, the name of his wife and where he goes on holiday but he doesn’t know I know these things so don’t tell him, I want it to be a surprise. (There’s no such thing as stalking by the way- only selective walking- and I don’t care if the police say different).
A lot of women would give their eye teeth (not a procedure I was offered btw) to have this sort of surgery and it was a huge opportunity for me to look better than I ever could have done on my own, even with all the dieting and exercise in the world. The kids had pretty much destroyed my body (and my mind) even before I Nearly Died and lost a tit.
So at the end of our chat my dishy consultant told me that he’d book me in for the reconstruction and that the waiting list was three to four months. I asked if I could delay the operation to give me more time to lose the weight but that would have meant coming off the waiting list altogether and taking me out of the system. With Jeremy Hunt’s fine (non)funding strategies and the precariousness of NHS waiting lists I did not want to come off the list or worse be allocated to a not-so-dishy consultant so basically I had three to four months to lose four stone!! A stone or more a month. Fuck! That was going to be tough BUT I was going to give it my best shot and I can be VERY determined when I want something badly enough (as my dishy consultant will one day find out)
So, I went home, took some pictures of myself as a Weeble and vowed to do everything I could to lose the weight.
The Baldy Rats were now almost one and I could leave them and Frog for much longer periods and so I started up my long walks with Charlie dog again and rode and hung out at the yard a lot more. At the same time I downloaded the ‘My Fitness Pal’, ‘Monitor My Weight’, ‘Aqualert’ and pedometer apps and started to really go for it with the diet and exercise. Porl was also a bit fat (although not Weeble fat like me), so we did it together. We started drinking litres and litres of water every day, cut our Alan Partridge buffet plate sized portions in half and stopped buying carb heavy food and sweets. We also cut out alcohol and takeaways.
The effect of all of this was pretty awesome. We were bloody hungry and pissing like racehorses but we both lost half a stone in the first week. I celebrated by drinking more water and cutting out tea and coffee. The second week I put on three pounds. Mother fucker. I had to do more.
So I did. And I’ll tell you exactly what I did and how I got on in my next hugely entertaining blog post….