sleepy times

I met with the dietician today.  It was... strange. I was excited for this meeting because this is the key to the whole thing, right? Bodies are made in the kitchen, success depends on what I'm putting in my mouth, etc. etc.

Well, the dietician I met with was having a problem staying awake. She kept nodding off, while she was talking to me! and while she was talking to me, she wasn't making much sense. I was like this the whole time:

In telling my sister about it later, I was like, I don't blame her. Her office was hot, and there were no windows or oxygen. Or maybe she had narcolepsy. And my sister said, "NOT YOUR PROBLEM!" Then she said she thinks I'm too understanding and take too much b.s. and make too many excuses for other people. Maybe. But I've felt that horrible sleepiness before.  Never when I'm actually meeting with a client or talking to someone though.  She could've said she was sick and rescheduled me, or passed me off to one of the other dieticians since this is my only appointment regarding food and diet.   

I kept asking her if I should measure and how much exactly. And she would mumble, "You could do that." I kept asking about specific calories.  She kept saying to eat until I feel satisfied. Lady, if I could stop when I was satisfied I wouldn't be needing surgery!  And she kept mentioning rice and how to eat only one cup of rice. It was my understanding, that after being sleeved, I most likely will not be eating a lot of rice.  I was so confused!

Anyway, I don't want to be too negative about her.  She is probably very good, just not at her best during our meeting. It just reinforces the fact that this is all going to be my responsibility. I will just have to do some more research on my own. Maybe I should find another dietician. There's supposedly a pretty good one at my gym.  I just don't want anyone trying to talk me out of surgery, which people have been doing lately. 

Tomorrow at my surgeon's office there is a sleeve/bypass support group, followed by one of the behavioral change classes. I'm not required to go to any of those, but I kind of wanted to. Unfortunately, it starts at 8am and here it is already 3:30am. I stayed up trying to catch up on work that's due Sunday. I don't know if I'll be able to get up in four hours, but I'm going to try.

Supercat

Today I handed over payment for the surgeon's costs.  I still have to pay several thousand to the hospital, and I found out the pulmonologist is going to be "roughly $500 for the initial appointment."  Initial?!  At $500 a pop, that better be the only pulmonary appointment I have.  Ugh.

Anyway, when I handed over the check at the surgeon's office, I wanted there to be bells ringing, or some kind of fireworks display; something signifying THIS IS IT!  I'M DOING IT!  This is a big freaking deal for me.  I'm not rich.  I'm a full-time student who has struggled to pay rent my whole life, and this surgery is costing me every penny I've saved.  Plus a little more which is going to come from somewhere yet to be determined... the heavens, maybe?  This is the most expensive thing I've ever purchased, but I'm looking at it like this:

I'm buying my life.  I'm buying my happiness (or getting closer to it).  I'm buying my health, and I'm buying energy so I can make those other things happen.  I'd rather have any single one of those things instead of a new car, or my own place, or a trip to Italy, or a trip to the moon, etc. etc.

So when I handed over this check I wanted it to be a momentous occasion.  I wanted to have deep profound thoughts about it, and everyone in the doctor's office to look at me with reverence.  Instead, we were all distracted by this story on the news of this amazing little cat who was lost but walked 200 miles to get home.  She followed the Interstate and kept the ocean to her left!!  AMAZING LITTLE CAT!  I don't even remember giving them the check.  All I could think about was this poor cat's blistered paws, and if this Supercat could walk 200 for her life, I could go to the gym everyday and be happy about it.

January 18, 2013

Today is my birthday.  I kept thinking, next year is going to be different.

I haven't let myself be in any pictures in a long time, but I let it happen tonight.  I'm going to have something to compare a year from now.

It was only my parents, sister and her fiance at my dinner.  I've really lost contact/pushed people away as I've gained this final weight.  I don't want people to see me.  I don't think it's that they would judge me or like me any less... but the way I feel, and the way I feel about the way I look, has really had an effect on the way I deal with the world.  My world.  I've checked out.  I've isolated myself.

Tonight my sister wore a cute outfit and did her hair and makeup.  She made an effort.  She makes an effort every day.  I contemplated getting up from my evening nap to take a shower, decided against it, put on the jeans and hoodie that I've worn every day for the the last year and fell into the car.  I stopped bothering or making an effort a while ago.

That's why I can't let myself think for one possible second that I'm not getting this surgery.  Yes, it's scary.  But it's scary because I'm going to have a new life.  This sick, unhappy person that I am now, is going to change.  And that's scary, because I have been this person for so long and I'm used to her.

I know I'm not magically going to be an extrovert throwing myself huge parties when I weigh less.  I'm never going to be that girl and I don't think I'll want to be.  I know I'm not going to magically be happy.  But I am going to change direction from where I'm headed if I don't get the surgery.  Without surgery, I'm headed nowhere good.  With surgery, I will have possibility and no excuses.

things are starting to happen

I feel like everything is happening really fast.  Or, the fact it's happening at all, after thinking about this so long, is freaking me out a little.  I met with the patient liason today.  I have my psych eval and ultrasound next week.  I'm supposed to set up my pulmonary appointment and and nutrition class myself.

I'm supposed to bring in the surgeon's portion of the payment next week.  It's when I think about the money, actually giving them a check for thousands of dollars that it all feels crazy to me.  Am I really going to do this?  I mean, of course I am.  But, really?!

After the appointment I went to potbelly for lunch.  I do not feel mentally ready to have gastric sleeve.  I don't know what I'm supposed to eat.  Maybe I haven't recovered from that fateful trip to Minnesota, because I WANT to eat sandwiches and soda.  Usually I eat them because they are easy, right now they feel like the only food in the world. 

At least after potbelly I went to the gym.  I wasn't going to because I got a late start today, I'm two days behind in school work, and I already took a shower today (it is true that I sometimes base whether or not I work out that day on if I can bear to shower and do my hair again).  But I thought JUST DO IT! and I drove to the gym.  And for the first time ever, I did two miles in a row.  One kicking and one water walking.  The walking part took a long time because sometimes in the deeper end I lose my footing and float away.

The last week has been quite the ordeal and I've fallen back on my old habits.  I had to go to western Minnesota with my mom to see some really sick relatives.  It's hard to get fresh food up there.  I brought my own snacks, but the second night I just couldn't eat cheese and crackers for dinner and after seeing how my cousin was preparing dinner, I didn't eat that either.  Good thing, because my mom ended up with food poisoning and was sick in the car 12 hours back to Chicago.

We didn't know it was food poisoning though.  We thought it was the flu everyone else had, and I was feeling a little ill myself, my stomach was cramping and I was really feverish.  Maybe it was stress, or maybe a touch of food poisoning myself, but I wanted soda.  I wanted it more than anything I've ever wanted in the world! So I drank 7Up on the way back to Chicago.  It really did make my stomach feel better.  It also calmed my nerves.

Watching my mom be so violently ill I was thinking, if I get WLS surgery, how could my new stomach possibly handle the trauma of that level of retching?  I don't think it could.  I think it would explode or be ripped apart.  And I had to put surgery out of my mind for a few days, and even though there were two calls from my surgeon's office on my voicemail.  I didn't check them.  I couldn't deal.  I don't think I deal with stress very well.

But no one has the flu, thank God.  And now I'm home, back in my safety zone and I can go off soda again and go back to the gym.  I returned the calls to the surgeon's office and they were just calling to tell me my Vitamin D levels were good.

I get to join the club!

Today was my first consultation with the surgeon.  I woke up super early because I was so nervous/excited and wrote out all the questions I had.  Then on the way to the surgical center I started getting shaky and cranky. I realized I'd forgotten to eat breakfast.  Normally I would just power through it, but I didn't know how long it was going to take and I didn't want to rush the meeting or start getting spacy, so we pulled over at McDonalds. I ate a cheeseburger because they'd stopped serving breakfast.  I haven't had a McDonalds cheeseburger since all that news on pink slime came out a couple years ago.  That cheeseburger tasted soo freaking good!  I didn't even think about pink slime.  I felt kind of weird eating a fast food cheeseburger for breakfast on my way to get approved for bariatric surgery. In retrospect I could've stopped at the gas station or Walgreens and gotten a banana or granola bar, and I totally forgot there was a Panera near the doctor's office.  I would've much preferred Panera.  But in the future, I will try to not forget to eat breakfast in the first place.

Anyway, the appointment was great.  They took my blood which I was not prepared for but I didn't let it freak me out.  Usually I need some mental self-talking before I get stuck with needles.  They have to test it for Vitamin D deficiency.  While I was sitting in the waiting room I was thinking the chairs were kind of funny.  They were bigger than regular chairs, but not quite big enough to be actual love seats.  Then I realized they were for people who are maybe too big for regular chairs.  That made my heart fill with love for the surgical center.

The actual consultation was awesome.  He put all my fears about getting 80% of my stomach cut out to rest.  Unlike the surgeon that ran the seminar I was in, he's still very pro lap-band but I decided to go with the sleeve anyway.  He also said I don't have dyspepsia. That crazy feeling I get sometimes is low blood sugar.

The most exciting things!

- Because I'm self-pay he thinks that I can probably have surgery in about a month.  A month!!

-I can eat sushi til the cows come home.  Or sashimi if I can't deal with the rice.  This is huge because I really don't think I could give up salmon sashimi.

- He can do the surgery with one incision because I'm under 5'8" and have never had a surgery before.  

- I don't have to have a catheter! This was giving me nightmares.  And while he is going to stick two things down my throat, I will be completely asleep and won't even know about it.

- He doesn't think I will have an excess skin problem because I have "youth on my side," I already exercise, and (this made me laugh inside),  I'm "very small."  I swear no one has ever used those words to describe me before, and after he said it he said "I mean, I mean" but compared to many of the patients he operates on I don't have as much weight to lose.  But, he said it wouldn't hurt to start strength training since I've always focused on cardio.

- One last thing!  I still have to talk to the self-pay lady to figure out any hidden costs and she's on vacation until the 5th, but it's going to be less expensive than I thought.  I was terrified it was going to be a lot LOT more than lap-band since I have to stay overnight in the hospital, but this center has a self-pay, cash up-front package, and the only thing I have to pay for that's extra is the pulmonary test.

 So, yay!  I get to join the WLS club!  To think within a year I could weigh a lot less and have more energy to LIVE and not be in so much pain.

hot knives and sushi rolls

I've been laid up in bed with sciatic pain.  This is pretty annoying since I've recommitted to exercising and excited to go to the pool everyday.  I've experienced this pain, to a much lesser degree, in the back of my leg for years, but I always thought it was a pulled muscle from yoga. A yoga injury! And it would just act up from time to time.  Then within the last year I've had trouble getting in and out of the car, and sitting for long periods of time becomes excruciating.  I thought it was just the evils of having to sit for work.  Also, the pain was just in my leg, and I always thought sciatic was in the back/hip so it never occurred to me.  But this past week it's definitely made itself known in my back and hip.

I read that exercise is better for it than laying around, so I did my regular swim yesterday.  But then last night and today it felt like a hot knife was slicing the back of my thigh, so I decided to lay in bed today and not move and give it a little rest. 

I've been compiling questions to ask Dr. G on Monday.  Three more full days until I meet with him!  I was going to post my questions, but as I read over them, they seem kind of dumb and self-explanatory.  For example: Will I be able to eat the rice on my beloved salmon sushi roll?  Does miso soup count as a clear broth? 

Maybe I won't ask those questions after all.