Balance

Like many people one of my biggest struggles is finding balance between my family, my work, and myself. Something that is super important for me to be doing is exercising on a daily basis. Finding the time to do so is a challenge for me.

My daughter, "S" has autism. She is 12 and while she is pretty high functioning, she struggles with communication. She has a modified school schedule, and does therapy four days a week for four hours, and then also has another program two nights a week. She sees a counselor twice a month for past trauma with her biological parents. She needs extensive help with understanding her homework, especially math, and reading. Reading which trickles down to every other area of her life.

Besides that she competes on a cheerleading team, and is involved with Special Olympics. Both of which I volunteer within different roles. Both are a lot of fun, but another thing she needs transport to.

Recently, we had a five year old girl "T" placed with us in an emergency situation. She also has a schedule, and fitting the two of their schedules, into my work schedule, and my husband's schedule, and trying to figure out times to exercise is extremely hard. The classes I love and that motivate me the most are in the mornings, while my daughter is in therapy, and I am driving "T" to school then racing to work.

Its hard to find balance in the chaos and I would be lying if I said I found it. I have not. So despite my plans, thoughts, goals, the last two months I have not lost anything. Which means I have not yet lost the required weight to be approved for my surgery. What this means is from now until January I need to be in constant beast mode and lose 30 pounds. I need to stop letting myself not work out at night when I am utterly exhausted. I need to reach down deep and do the work. I need to stop breaking the promises I made to myself.

This is huge, I am big on promises. I never break one.... unless its a promise to myself. This year I am going to lose weight, become rich, move into my dream home, learn guitar, how to knit, and travel to Scotland all while I write the world's greatest novel and be the world's best mom. I say this every single year. And every year I find myself breaking that promise to myself. I find myself justifying breaking the promises to myself so I can do for others.

So this next month I CAN NOT break this promise. I have to keep this promise to do my best, to try my best, to every day put good fuel into my body and not junk. To drink 150 oz of water each day. To work out every day. to get my steps in.

If I don't what will happen? If I don't meet this goal, I will lose out on surgery. I will have to leave the program and start over in another six months. No big deal right?  Wrong! I always put it off, I say "I will start my diet tomorrow.." "Next year I will lose the weight.." Meanwhile I am miserable in my own skin, I am sick, and tired, physically exhausted, I have no energy. I have Type 2 diabetes. The same disease that a good friend of my husband's just lost his foot for. Another friend lost their sight to. Yeah I am kind of attached to my feet, and to my eye sight. So I need to fix this now, and stop procrastinating.

I do not have a plan at this time, or a road map of how to achieve this thirty pound weight loss... I am kind of shell shocked that it has come to this, that I am this close to losing something I have worked so hard for the last 12 months. While I have already lost 30 pounds, I did so before starting this program officially with the Weight Loss Team, so I have another 30 to lose.

I am also feeling like sh*t tonight. I have a massive headache and I feel like if I could projectile vomit all over the room circa "The Exorcist" I would feel so much better.  So planning that road map to success is gruesome for me right now when every heartbeat my head feels like its going to explode. Counter to that rhythm, is the thought drumming away at me " I need to figure this out. I need to plan it out, map it out, write it out, and post it EVERYWHERE.

One thing I know... is it has to be one step at a time. One meal at a time. One cardio session at a time, one squat at a time. One foot in front of the other.

Today for breakfast I had a half cup of green beans, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, and six slices of hard salami washed down with 24 oz of water.  (Not shown is the hard salami) I put this on a small six inch plate, so that it looked like a ton of food, and tricked my mind into believing I was eating more than I was.

Lunch was 1/2 cup green beans. 4 hard boiled eggs, and six slices of hard salami. At this point in the day I had 124 oz of water. I was floating to the bathroom every 30-45 minutes.

As of 7:10 pm tonight, as I write this blog, I have not had supper. Around 2:30 pm this after I started feeling ishy. It has gotten worst since then, with the general feeling of if I could just do that vomit thing I would feel better...

I have 164 oz of water in at this point.


5000 steps, 100 squats, and 20 crunches. I am doing a 30 day "Butt and Gut" challenge that officially starts January 1st, but I started a little early.

So I sign off of the blog today with no plan, but a promise to myself that the next 30 days I am going to work the hardest I have ever worked in my life on me, myself and I. Fitting I believe because in 30 days is mine and Greg's 17th anniversary.  I plan on celebrating by getting my date with the surgeon.

Financing Surgery

One of the biggest road blocks to having Weight Loss Surgery is how to pay for it. People go to crazy lengths, such as taking out loans, borrowing from family, doing gofundme pages. Some people resort to flying to Mexico and having it done. Its about 10,000-20,000 cheaper there.

I know myself that is my worry. How will I pay for this. Due to how my insurance is, I have to be in the program six months, meet certain goals with appointments, and weight loss. Then all that documentation all gets sent into the insurance. At that time they decide if I have been approved or not. My documentation goes in after my visit in January. Which means my insurance restarts in January. Which means depending on how long it takes them to process the claims for my husband's doctors appointments, IV therapy, and his colonoscopy, I could have to pay anything for nothing to $3500.00.

That is a huge difference. I don't know about most people, but I certainly don't just have an extra $3500 laying around. Every dollar is carefully budgeted and earmarked for specific places. This much goes to rent, this much to the car and insurance... Every expense is carefully budgeted in, and the surprise factor of this is driving me nuts.

I don't want to do gofundme or other crowdfunding campaign... they take a large portion of the proceeds, and to be honest, I could never ask people for money for this.

A second job won't work, as I have a busy life being a mom and a wife, as well as trying to exercise.

I don't have a rich relative I can just ask for money from.

So I am kind of stuck at this point trying to figure out about an extra $4200. $3500 for my co-pay, and an extra $700 to purchase me some clothes to start off with as well as most the items on my wish list to help me succeed in surgery. Things like water bottles, an ice cube makers, an air fyer, a barbaric cook book, a fluffy bathrobe and matching socks. Not to mention the personal trainer that is recommended after weight loss surgery so you can learn how to exercise effectively and have accountability.

This is also not taking into account that many people have to have painful and costly skin removal surgery after they lose all this weight. This is often not paid for by insurance. I know something I want to do as soon as I am approved, is a breast reduction. I've wanted one since I was in fourth grade and standing in front of a mirror at the Fashion Bug unable to find an outfit I liked for Easter. It was solidified when at 18 my sister's then boyfriend told me  "anything more than a mouth full you are risking a sprained tongue." Well I definitely have more than a mouth full. I could suffocate someone with just one of my boobs. ( I am looking at you Gerard Butler)

I know I sound like I am whining with the cost. While it is something I am trying to work out, I know I need do this surgery. I know it is expensive, but it will be worth it.

I've been wanting to write this blog for a while, surely I am not the only one struggling to think of ways to pay for the massive co-pays, and medicine/vitamins.

One suggestion would be to reduce monthly cost. We have canceled our Netflix and our Audible accounts. Instead we are using Overdrive to rent books on tape, and we found out that with Sprint we get a free Hulu membership. How do I watch "Orange is the New Black", "Fuller House" and the "Santa Clarita Diet"  we watch them when we can over at my mom's house, or if one of my sister's comes over we watch it that way as well.  But let's be honest, with two kids, work, and trying to get in our exercise, lazily watching television is not real high up on our to do list. I am a season and half behind on "Lucifer" and did Amy and Sheldon ever get married?

Another suggestion is to give up your coffee. I see this on pretty much every money saving blog, fundraising blog, etc. However this assumes that you are spending $5 daily on coffee. Which is something we don't do. Never have, never will. I don't smoke, and I rarely drink alcohol, so those aren't costing me anything. I don't really have a daily habit or vise that cost me money. So while this might work for others, for my husband and I this piece of advice is a mute point.

There are the obvious fundraising choices such as a Bake Sale, Spaghetti Dinner, or car wash. Which would work for an adoption fundraiser. These are great options. I just did a bake sale with my daughter's cheer gym, every thing was a dollar and we made around 300. Which is great. However I need something bigger.

What am I good at? Photography and graphic design. I have an Etsy page selling greeting cards and announcements. I also have a Facebook Page as well. I need to get better about posting on there.

There are a hundred different ways to work at home, but I have found most of the fruitful ones, there are no positions available at this time, and the other ones you are getting paid pennies an hour.  I still continue to look into different opportunities with these. If I find something that I find works, and is more then a few cents an hour, I will be sure to post it.

Babysitting is a great option for those who can fit it in their schedule. For me personally it is not going to work as our schedules are pretty crazy. My husband works full time, I work part time to full time depending on the week. However I also have my daughter's schedule. She has in home therapy for her autism four mornings a week. I am required to be in the home for those hours. She also has two nights a week she goes to a second autism intervention program where I need to transport her to and from. She has cheer and Special Olympics. Both things I volunteer for. Which I feel is super important.

Dog walking- people in Wisconsin- or at least in Northeast Wisconsin tend to walk their own dogs. If they want a dog walker it is usually to Jonny or Suzie Teenager.  But for those of you reading this who live in a bigger city, this may be a great option for you.

Direct Sales- This is a great option for someone who has the personality to really push sales. I personally do not. I have tried Avon and Thirty- One Gifts, and while I love both companies. I ended up spending more money then I made. In my market, both are pretty saturated. They say if you take your population of your area, figure out 10% and that is how many consultants can successfully be in your area. While they do keep track of the number of consultants, they do not limit the amount of consultants. Some direct sales companies do. So if you find a company you like be sure to ask that. I know people with Thirty-One Gifts pulling down 4-5 figures a month selling.

I have also tried a health and wellness company. I LOVE the product, it really helped me stabilize my blood sugars, and while I lost inches on it, the weight was not coming off. It was also pretty expensive $180 a month, which they will tell you to give up your daily vise and you can pay for that. but as I stated above, I don't have a daily vise to give up. People are also really skeptical about anything health and wellness related. The way you are trained to sell the product was post in Facebook groups. Which some groups do not allow, some people get down right nasty, some moderators get down right rude. All the consultants are selling to Facebook groups, so again it gets really competitive. And one of their tricks is to go to your fellow consultants Facebook, see what groups they are in, and then post in that group. So its kind of sneaky to me as well. Again I love the company, and its a growing one. I know people giving up their day jobs and only selling the products who are making solid 5 figures a month.

Loans- people borrow against their home, their 401k, or take out massive credit card debt. I think this is completely irresponsible and not something I am willing to do. While I have faith in my surgeon and his team, and I have complete and other faith in the process and that it is safer then gallbladder surgery-which I have already had- you just never know what is going to happen. There are some patients who can't not work afterward, there are some who are in debilitating pain the rest of their life. I can't take a chance and borrow additional money, when there is that chance. Especially the 401k because retirement is so very important. I also want to make sure my daughter and any future kids I may have, are set up for good education, and that we can enjoy retirement eventually. I personally do not like this option, however there are several people who do find this option appealing. Be sure to read the fine print and watch your interest rates. Especially on Unsecured loans.

Host a garage sale. These are great money makers if you have things people want. In my area a lot of people are looking for kids clothes, baby items, and antiques that they can buy cheap and flip. If you are like me and do not have a garage or yard to have a sale in. You can post it in Facebook Market Place. There are also several apps available like LetGO that you can sell your stuff on. It is also a great time to declutter before your surgery. You are starting out fresh, and the idea of a decluttered house,  appeals to the neat freak in me. Imagine coming home to a clean and decluttered home, so you can just relax and recover. Sounds heavenly to me.

I am also creative. I love to paint and make mesh wreathes. If there is something you are good at try selling your goods. I believe I will be doing this so stay tuned for that update.

In any case, most people are going to need to pay something for their bariatric surgery, whether its the actual surgery, the co-pays, or just the after care from it. Vitamins are a life long commitment after surgery.  With little to no regulations on insurance and what they are required to cover for surgery, creative ways to come up with money to help pay for surgery are important.