My brother sent me an email about Molly and I wanted to share her story with you.

Meet Molly. She’s a gray speckled pony who was abandoned by her owners when Katrina hit southern Louisiana, USA . She spent weeks on her own before finally being rescued and taken to a farm where abandoned animals were stockpiled. While there, she was attacked by a pit bull terrier, and almost died. Her gnawed right front leg became infected and her vet went to LSU for help. But LSU was overwhelmed, and this pony was a welfare case. You know how that goes.

But after surgeon Rustin Moore met Molly, he changed his mind. He saw how the pony was careful to lie down on different sides so she didn’t seem to get sores, and how she allowed people to handle her. She protected her injured leg. She constantly shifted her weight, and didn’t overload her good leg. She was a smart pony with a serious survival ethic.

Moore agreed to remove her leg below the knee and a temporary artificial limb was built. Molly walked out of the clinic and her story really begins there.

“This was the right horse and the right owner,” Moore insists.

Molly happened to be a one-in-a-million patient. She’s tough as nails, but sweet, and she was willing to cope with pain. She made it obvious she understood (that) she was in trouble. The other important factor, according to Moore , is having a truly committed and compliant owner who is dedicated to providing the daily care required over the lifetime of the horse.

Molly’s story turns into a parable for life in post-Katrina Louisiana . The little pony gained weight, her mane felt a comb. A human prosthesis designer built her a leg.

The prosthetic has given Molly a whole new life, Allison Barca DVM, Molly’s regular vet, reports. And she asks for it! She will put her little limb out, and come to you and let you know that she wants you to put it on. Sometimes she wants you to take it off too.” And sometimes, Molly gets away from Barca. “It can be pretty bad when you can’t catch a three-legged horse”, she laughs.

Most important of all, Molly has a job now. Kay, the rescue farm owner, started taking Molly to shelters, hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers. Anywhere she thought that people needed hope. Wherever Molly went, she showed people her pluck. She inspired people. And she had a good time doing it.

“It’s obvious to me that Molly had a bigger role to play in life”, Moore said, “She survived the hurricane, she survived a horrible injury, and now she is giving hope to others.

“She’s not back to normal,” Barca concluded, “but she’s going to be better. To me, she could be a symbol for New Orleans itself.”

This is Molly’s most recent prosthesis. The bottom photo shows the ground surface that she stands on, which has a smiley face embossed in it. Wherever Molly goes, she leaves a smiley hoof print behind!

Now when I complain that losing weight is too hard or I want a piece of cake or a pat of butter, I’ll think about Molly and smile. What I’m putting up with is nothing.

Regardless how you feel about the war in Iraq, you should have a look at this music video done by soldiers there. Personally I always felt that it was wrong to go to war when diplomacy still had a chance, but that’s my opinion, just like you have yours. However, for the young men and women deployed there from all the countries represented, I will always support them and be grateful for the sacrifices they and their families are making.

This video is worth viewing. “If I Die Before You Wake”

We got a new kitten today and we can’t come up with a good name. We’re really bad at naming animals. She’s a beautiful minky colored tonkinese cat with beautiful blue eyes. She’s spending her first night away from mom and her siblings and she’s decidedly unhappy at the moment. I’ve got scratch marks everywhere and she’d love to give me some more, “just try picking me up one more time. “  I can hear her saying that, I swear.

She’ll be fine in a few days. We’re keeping her separated from our puppy Charlie and his nose is out of joint all the way to Friday. He keeps coming to my outside office door and throwing himself at it hoping the glass will break and he’ll get that cat. He’s barely 3 months old and covered in curly fur and as cute as he can be but puppies are well.. puppies. We’ll keep the kids separated for a few more days until she gets more accustomed to her surroundings and being away from home. She’s been in an outside run so hasn’t been in the house before. She LOVES being by the heater so that’s a win.

Anyway, got any suggestions for a great kitty name for our little princess?

p.s. Yes, she was insulted at being given an old dog bed to sleep in. Her new igloo is on order.

That’s right, it’s a post about my bra or better yet, my NEW bra. When I started my journey to thin last November I was wearing a size 42DD and I could fasten it on the last possible hook. I’ve lost more than 50 pounds but I’m still wearing the 42DD bras. I had a ton of them and I wasn’t going to throw them out. Ladies, we all know that industrial strength bras cost a fortune and I had 15 of them. You need good ones to wear to the doctor or when you go out because you might get sex when you get home or when you go to try on clothes, so you need some that you don’t wear every day.

I went to my doctor yesterday to have a mole removed and discuss some other health issues like my gall bladder operation or as we like to call it the operation that never happens. She gave me a prescription for pain killers in case I get another attack. I took it to the pharmacy but they were really busy so I decided to have a wander around town for 30 minutes while the pharmacist did her thing.

While strolling I passed a lingerie store that was closed and thought, ‘That’s what I need, a new bra.”

For any of you who’ve lost weight but haven’t lost it all, there’s this point between buying clothes in a fat lady store and buying clothes off the rack. I haven’t done much shopping because I still have 30 pounds to lose and I don’t want a lot of new clothes that won’t fit in 6 months, so I don’t really know what size I am now.

We live in a small town but there are two lingerie stores on the main street so I decided I’d go there for a laugh and see what the biggest size they sold was. My mindset is still fat, but it’s beginning to change.

I went to the store and asked for the largest size and she asked if it was for me and I said yes.

“What size are you wearing now?” she asked.

“42DD,” I replied.

“How much larger do you need?”

I looked at her funny and said, “Oh, I’ve lost a lot of weight and my bra is too big but I thought you only catered to normal sized women.”

She laughed and said, “You ARE normal sized.”

I can’t tell you what a fantastic feeling that was. I know I am still fat and 30 pounds is still a lot of weight to lose, but I’m more than half way so I know it will all come off. To hear her say I was a normal size was like winning the lottery, I swear.

Then we started trying on bras. 40DD was too big. I smiled. 38DD was a bit too big. I smiled even bigger. When she brought in a 36DD I thought it would never fit and to be honest, it didn’t. The saleslady left and came back with another size 36 bra but it was an E cup. (This old woman has always been well endowed!) It fit perfectly.

Imagine what I’m going to look like once I have the boob job down to a perfect C cup!

There is no stopping me now. I can see the goalposts and I’m going through them. How cool is this!

Honestly, I can’t believe I wrote that headline. I have never ever looked forward to exercise in my life and well, I’m old, so it’s been a long long time. But it’s true, I do look forward to my long daily walks in a way that I never did before. I always knew it was “good for me,” so I did it.

Now my daily walks are a time for reflection and inner searching for the goodness that I know is inside me. I know that sounds so sucky, but it’s how I feel. I’m not as good or as nice as I could be. I know there are times that I meet people who might need something from me and I don’t make any effort to help. Sometimes people only need an ear and if I don’t offer mine, then I’m not so nice, am I?

So that’s what my daily walks are. It’s a time for me to energize my body so I can live healthier for longer and a time for me to do the dusting and mopping on the inside of my mind so I can feel pleased with myself. I’m much happier when I like myself.

For me, it’s no more crabby old bitch because every day I’m getting just a little bit better. In about 300 years I should be really nice.

My friend Cheryl and I were about the same size – short and round – before I got my lapband. She wanted to do the same thing but because of the health insurance rules in the US, she was declined over and over again. She doesn’t have the cash to pay for it outright in the US, so she decided to go to a hospital in Mexico.

It’s costing her $7500 and that includes transport from the border to the hospital and one night in a hotel. She lives in San Diego and went to a highly recommended hospital. They picked her up at the border and took her to the hospital for tests on Friday and she had the surgery done on Saturday. I heard from her by email today that she’s just fine. She’s gone for two long walks and has done the vacuuming already!

I did remind her that she has a perfect opportunity to be a slacker but she’s so stoked about this that nothing will hold her back. She’s a writer and she’s going to write everything that’s happened to her in her blog. I hope she ends up writing a book about her experience. There are so many questions we all have before we start this journey to thin.

So — now I’m really focused about losing weight. I’ve only got 30 more pounds to go. I know I can do it. OK if you’re thin and you think that 30 pounds is a lot to lose – fuhgeddaboudit! 30 pounds is nuthin to worry about now.

For me it’s all about portion size. I won’t eat more than 3/4 cup at any meal, plus I’ll be drinking all the healthy veggie and fruit juice. Watch me melt before your very eyes.

Well, for all of you who’ve been waiting to hear what happened..   it’s been a pain in the ass, that’s what.  After being told to be careful what I ate, I left the hospital and then decided to go touring with my daughter while she was visiting from Florida.   We had a great time.

We went to Rotorua to see the boiling mud, geysers and the Maori villages.  We ate food cooked in a hangi and we shopped til we dropped.  It was great girly fun.  Then we went caving in Waitomo to see the glow worms.  It sounds wonderful but they’re really maggots that stick to the walls and ceilings of the caves and there’s something in their poo that is luminescent.  So glow worms it is because if they said, “come see our brightly colored, shit covered maggots,” I wouldn’t have gone.

Then we headed to Auckland and took the ferry to Devonport and browsed the trendy shops and galleries and had a lovely lunch at a sidewalk cafe.  We had a terrific time.

We were going home the next morning so we took the car back to the rental agency and I said, “why not eat at the airport and then get the shuttle to the hotel?”

This was not a good idea.  Even though I had vegetarian quiche, I had another gallstone attack and I was in a lot of pain.  After a couple of hours of squirming on the bed, I decided I needed something and called the ambulance.  There’s nothing quite like leaving a hotel in an ambulance.  Ugh..

I was in the emergency room at the hospital for a few hours and a doctor came to me and said they wanted to admit me and take out the gall bladder because it was obvious it wasn’t getting any better and this would continue to happen.  I was elated!  Not that I was in Auckland and having it done so far from home, but that it was going to finally happen.  I got to my room and they sent someone else to take even more blood and was told “nothing by mouth” until the surgery because they thought there was some pancreas problems too.  So drips in.

Next day – Thursday..  no surgery.

Next day – Friday.  Get all ready for surgery and wait.  And wait.  At 3pm a nurse comes in and says, “operation has been cancelled because the senior doctor thinks you might have a stone in your bile duct and that would be dangerous if you had surgery, so you’re scheduled for an MRI and then they’ll go down your mouth with a light to get out the stone before surgery.”

Ugh..

Later the doctor comes in and says that nothing will be done over the weekend but the MRI will happen on Monday.  I’m thinking.. sure it will, nothing happens in the hospital like they say it will.

Long boring weekend doing absolutely nothing.

Monday comes and guess what?  No MRI.. too busy down there I’m told.

Next day – Tuesday.  I have the MRI at 10am and at 3pm I’m told there are no stones in the duct and the surgery will be tomorrow morning for sure.

Next Day – Wednesday.  Doctor arrives at 8am and says, “This is a public hospital (socialized medicine) and I’m going to discharge you to go home and go on the waiting list at your local hospital (2 hours away from home) because there’s a junior doctors strike starting today and your surgery is elective and we’re not doing any elective surgery at this time.”

What???   Elective??  Well, yes, it turns out that in New Zealand, anything that doesn’t prevent imminent death is considered elective.  Since my problem is only painful, it’s not necessary for it to come out anytime soon.

So, in today’s mail I get my discharge papers from the hospital and it says something totally different than what I understood the doctor to tell me before I left.  The discharge says I can stay in the hospital and wait for surgery OR go home.  That’s not the impression I got at all.  I was taking up a much needed bed, my surgery was elective and I was at the bottom of the list, it could take a very long time to get on the schedule and I’d be better off waiting for Whangarei Hospital.  I certainly would have chosen to wait for surgery.  Now I am on a waiting list that could take years before surgery and in all that time, it’s gonna be lean chicken and vegetables for me.  No butter, beef – including hamburgers, no bacon, no sausages, no hot dogs, no milk, no cheese, no sour cream, no ice cream, no pastries, no cakes, no cookies – the list goes on but basically it’s no anything that tastes good.

Frustrated but feeling ok.