The Stuff is starting to come in.

Violet, Michael Myers, and my new panties

TW: weight loss, weight gain, weight loss medication.

The problem with learning you need surgery in five weeks on literal Black Friday is that shipping isn’t any “two days” like it usually is. This is why we order early! As long as it’s here by January 4th, we’re good.

I’m getting an anterior hip replacement, so my surgeon will be going in from the front… and I need Hi-Cut panties that won’t sit the leg seam right on the incision.

But I need new panties in general right now. Buckle in, this one’s a story…

The only thing I can think of that would ruin one hip, the left one in particular, is that days, literally an amount of days you can count on one hand, after graduating from my local rehab hospital’s outpatient Fibromyalgia Pain Program at the very end of 2017, my left piriformis muscle spasmed so hard, it triggered about 30 more muscle spasms down my left leg, that all had to be released in sequence before the piriformis muscle would relax. That took nine months, and one more go-around through the rehab hospital’s program.

The program is a lot of strength training, and I started taking it really seriously as I started healing my muscles after that flare. The result was a 50lbs and 29” total loss, and me being in the best physical health of my life. Of course, that was until the ruptured discs in 2021, at spine levels T10-11 and L5-S1.

Between not being able to exercise two hours per day like I had in my strength training days, and comfort eating, I gained that 50lbs back pretty easily after all those surgeries and nerve/spinal cord injuries. Until the food allergies were diagnosed in early 2024, after I went on the AIP diet in late 2023.

I’m allergic to both dairy, and all nuts, two of the fattiest foods in the American diet. Cutting those out of my diet, along with basically every pre-packaged convenience food out there meant I dropped 30lbs with very little effort. Here’s where the panties start to come in.

At the time, in the pre-tariff days, I had a bit of a dopamine issue with the Shein app. And since I fully expected to drop the other 20lb, I bought a bunch of panty sets in what is my current size. Thing is, I was a lingerie model at the time, so there’s a lot of flesh colored thongs…

But then, the migraines and the comfort eating set in, just as the cortisol and perimenopause started to work together to pack a bunch of fat around my organs, and my weight went right back up again.

My doctor decided that the solution was Wegovy in late 2024, I was one of the early users. The solution was not Wegovy. I have been in a gastrointestinal nightmare that shows no sign of ending since taking Wegovy.

So, I tried Contrave in early 2025, which is a combo of Naltrexone and Bupropion, which, when powers combined, work on addiction in the brain. It’s like the dopamine handed the “I’m hungry” button back to my body, and I’m actually eating for the calories and nutrients now. I’m naturally eating small portion sizes, not snacking, and intermittent fasting.

But now, down that 50lbs again, we are in the days of tariffs, and I cannot believe the price of women’s panties! I remember being able to get a 12 pack of cotton panties on sale for $8, that 6 pack was $9 on sale marked down from $20! WHAT THEE ACTUAL FUCK??

So, I now have two panty drawers (heh, two drawers for my drawers), one for “highly polyester but cute enough to wear to the doctor’s appointment where multiple people will see them” and “two sizes too big and getting holes but I have a moral objection to buying more at the prices right now.”

Getting a new hip and new panties, what a day! I’ll keep them boxed (as they may be) until I do the surgery laundry, and after that I guess I can finally dump the old ones…

Funnily enough, a big reason I wanted to lose the weight this go-around is because you won’t be considered a candidate for a breast reduction unless you’re at a 29 BMI or under. I just got the referral to plastic surgery for a reduction mastectomy about a month before I got the referral to orthopedics… but unlike orthopedics, it takes a full year to get in for a consult, and another year after that to get in for the surgery. That puts me firmly into Medicaid work requirements I’m not physically capable of meeting, so we’ll see if I ever get to ditch my literal Barbie doll proportions.

Meanwhile, my Total Joint Replacement Handbook recommends aiming for a BMI 30 or lower by surgery date. Already there, baby! And so, so grateful for being so, this is already pure agony, I can’t even comprehend what carrying another 50lbs around on this hip would be like. And I’m very glad I don’t have to.