How to Lose 13 Pounds in a Week
by Sariah S. Wilson
1. Get gallstones.
2. Have doctors who are in no particular hurry to help remove said gallstones.
Voila! You will lose an astonishing amount of weight. Who knew that the secret to really fast weight loss was to be in so much pain that you just eat nothing for days on end?
Of course, if you have this condition there will be some side effects.
First - unbelievable pain. You must understand that I have an incredibly high tolerance for pain. I fell off an eight-foot stage when I was five and split my chin open. I walked around looking for my dad (this was during basketball practice) with a huge flap of skin hanging down and blood going everywhere. I wasn't crying. It didn't hurt. It didn't hurt later in the ER when they stitched me up without any meds. I've had my fingers caught in doors and calmly informed my mother of the situation, I once had a full shopping cart tipped over on me at three years old and politely asked my mother to remove it. With my first child I was having contractions that were literally off the monitoring scale and didn't feel a thing.
So when I say this is excruciating pain, you have to understand how bad it truly is. I've never felt anything like this. They gave me Vicodin for it, and it still hurt, like, a lot.
The second thing you may have to deal with is any complications. Apparently one of my gallstones has rebellion issues and decided to venture down a certain tube in order to block liver functions. This means I get to have not one, but two surgeries. One to find the rogue stone, the other to take the gallbladder out entirely in case any of the other stones go getting funny ideas.
So because of this little stuck sucker, I am now yellow. This just lends further credence to my idea that the Lamanite DNA did not change overnight, because I cannot begin to tell you how totally disconcerting it is to wake up in the morning and unexpectedly be a different color than the one you were the night before. The silver lining would be that before I had only two skin tones - fish white and bright red (I do not tan). Now we can add yellow to the palette. Unfortunately it's not a nice yellow, because I do sort of look like this now:
Okay, Oompa-Loompas are arguably more orange in nature, but they're the closest thing I can compare myself to. I am neon yellow. Including my eyeballs. It is so bizarre.
And if you get yellow, then you have to deal with the itching. Which has made it so that I haven't slept in three days. Chicken pox was not this bad. Apparently the increase in bilirubin gets bile salts right under your skin which makes you itch like you're covered in poison ivy from head to toe. Nothing's much helping with that, either.
The upside of all of this is how I am so doing this to a character in a book someday. They're definitely waking up yellow. And itchy.
Have you ever taken some un-fun event from your real life and used it in your writing?
1. Get gallstones.
2. Have doctors who are in no particular hurry to help remove said gallstones.
Voila! You will lose an astonishing amount of weight. Who knew that the secret to really fast weight loss was to be in so much pain that you just eat nothing for days on end?
Of course, if you have this condition there will be some side effects.
First - unbelievable pain. You must understand that I have an incredibly high tolerance for pain. I fell off an eight-foot stage when I was five and split my chin open. I walked around looking for my dad (this was during basketball practice) with a huge flap of skin hanging down and blood going everywhere. I wasn't crying. It didn't hurt. It didn't hurt later in the ER when they stitched me up without any meds. I've had my fingers caught in doors and calmly informed my mother of the situation, I once had a full shopping cart tipped over on me at three years old and politely asked my mother to remove it. With my first child I was having contractions that were literally off the monitoring scale and didn't feel a thing.
So when I say this is excruciating pain, you have to understand how bad it truly is. I've never felt anything like this. They gave me Vicodin for it, and it still hurt, like, a lot.
The second thing you may have to deal with is any complications. Apparently one of my gallstones has rebellion issues and decided to venture down a certain tube in order to block liver functions. This means I get to have not one, but two surgeries. One to find the rogue stone, the other to take the gallbladder out entirely in case any of the other stones go getting funny ideas.
So because of this little stuck sucker, I am now yellow. This just lends further credence to my idea that the Lamanite DNA did not change overnight, because I cannot begin to tell you how totally disconcerting it is to wake up in the morning and unexpectedly be a different color than the one you were the night before. The silver lining would be that before I had only two skin tones - fish white and bright red (I do not tan). Now we can add yellow to the palette. Unfortunately it's not a nice yellow, because I do sort of look like this now:
Okay, Oompa-Loompas are arguably more orange in nature, but they're the closest thing I can compare myself to. I am neon yellow. Including my eyeballs. It is so bizarre.
And if you get yellow, then you have to deal with the itching. Which has made it so that I haven't slept in three days. Chicken pox was not this bad. Apparently the increase in bilirubin gets bile salts right under your skin which makes you itch like you're covered in poison ivy from head to toe. Nothing's much helping with that, either.
The upside of all of this is how I am so doing this to a character in a book someday. They're definitely waking up yellow. And itchy.
Have you ever taken some un-fun event from your real life and used it in your writing?
Sariah Wilson — 3/29/2008 04:18:00 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
When I was around 8, I came down with a fever so high I was delirious in the time it took to drive home from the summer camp held at my elementary school.
I remember this mostly as an interesting anecdote; I suspect it's a bit more harrowing for my mom.
I based a scene in a story on that incident last year.
I have yet to find a literary use for the kidney stones I had last May. :)
I'm sorry to hear about your ordeal. I hope things go smoothly!
I'm so sorry about this, Sariah! But I bet you're the cutest little oompa loompa on the planet!
Sariah, I'm so sorry to hear that you have to go through this! Here's hoping and praying for a quick return to full health!
Sounds miserable. But you're thinking along the right track--nothing is ever lost on a writer. Last fall I broke my nose. My WIP has a character breaking hers. Not so much because I wanted to inflict pain on her, but because I could describe it so well!
I think most of us who have a bad case of ink in our veins instead of blood draw on everything good or bad that happens to us or around us to add reality and insight to our writing. We may not use a specific incident, but we use insights we gained, descriptions such as the ER, emotional responses, etc. I've used being stranded in a storm, thrown from a horse, feeling left out and alone, fighting cancer, sprained ankle, surrounded by fire, an out-of-control car spinning on ice and many other incidents. I've borrowed descriptions from friends, family, newspaper too. To be convincing, I think we must use all we learn and feel or our readers won't feel what we want them to.
I am so sorry and hope you feel better. Cute with the oompa-loompa thing- great attitude.
My gallstones came as a surprise. No pain. But kidney stones?? I so understand what you're saying. Every time I get a twinge in a certain part of my back, I panic because I think it's kidney stones again.
Hope you're on the mend very soon.
Oh, Sariah! I'm a little late reading this. I hope you're so much better now. Have you had either surgery yet? Do you need a guest blogger for Saturday? (I have a whole line-up I could share.) Shall I send Jell-O? I just feel terrible for you, girl!
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