Category: weight loss surgery

It All Starts Tomorrow

Yup. I’m starting to freak out.

Tonight at midnight I officially switch to a liquid diet. I can still have protein shakes with fat free milk, so that will likely substitute for my meals. The hospital gave me a couple of bottles of something that should help with nausea. I will drink one at 6:00pm and another at 9:00pm. There is a third bottle but I don’t know exactly when to have that yet. I will get a call sometime tomorrow afternoon giving me the scheduled time for the surgery and what time I should arrive and all that. The third bottle of stuff will be taken three hours before the surgery.

Then on Wednesday the shit will hit the fan and everything I do will be different from then on. The thing that I currently refer to as my stomach will be referred to as the pouch, and my goal in life will be to protect the pouch. Also my goals for the first week or two will be to stay hydrated and to avoid blood clots.

I can do that. I just don’t know what it’s going to feel like yet.

Yup. I’m starting to freak out.

No Prep Left

Jen and I are sitting in the living room (the old one, not the new one) and I’m letting my mind wander.

Where is it wandering to?

Where do you think?

I went for my pre-surgery Covid PCR test today. I got an email saying that I had a new entry in my patient portal. I don’t speak hospital but I think it says the results were negative.

So what’s the significance of that? Apart from not having Covid, of course.

That was the last thing I had to do before the surgery. The next step is literally getting a call from the hospital telling me what time to show up.

I’m not freaking out per se. Well… not exactly. I am, but I’m okay with it. Really it’s just getting hard to focus on anything else. I’ll be doing one thing and about a third of my thought process is on my weight and the surgery instead of what I’m doing. I think that counts as a minor freak out.

Overall I feel like I’m keeping my shit together, but I’m pretty sure the next two days at work are going to be a struggle.

Covid Test

I’m at a walk in clinic for my pre-surgery Covid test.

At least I thought it was going to be a walk in clinic. This place is huge, and there are 17 people in the waiting room. There are only 22 seats, so social distance is a fucking joke here.

Oh good, person number 18 just walked in.

Ring

At my pre-surgery class today they told us not to wear any jewelry to the hospital. That means I can’t wear my wedding ring.

I asked Jen if she can bring it to me once I’m in my post-op room. I said I don’t want any of those hospital staff folks getting the idea that I’m single and ready to mingle my way out of my anesthesia fog.

Goodness no!

Five days to go.

10 Minutes to Go

10 minutes until quittin’ time on this chilly, cloudy Thursday in April.

I really need a haircut. We’re talkin’ desperately need a haircut. I should really go and take care of it on the way home tonight, but guess what I am not going to do. I’ve been in the office all day and I just want to get home and see my brilliant, beautiful wife.

I could try to go tomorrow before my doctors appointment, but I think we can all agree that isn’t happening either. Depending on how long the “class” takes, I might be able to squeeze one in before I have to punch into work. That’s a definite possibility.

I don’t want to go over the weekend because Covid-19 is still a thing even though no one acts like it anymore. Well, no one but me and Jen at least. Maybe not no one, but you dig what I’m saying. If I have to I could probably do it before work on Monday. Not Tuesday though. On Tuesday I’ll be on my clear liquids only diet and I’ll be freaking out.

So I’ll have it done by Monday.

The other big question coming up… if my Surgery is on Wednesday, when am I going to get a chance to see the season finale of MoonKnight? I might watch it when Disney+ posts it at 3:00am Eastern time because I sure as shit am not going to be sleeping much. We’ll see. They are going to call me on Tuesday to tell me what time the surgery is booked. I won’t know before then. Just a little tiny thing adding to the little tiny (Himalayas sized) stress.

Yippee!

Lunch Break

I’ve been eating too much at lunch. I’ve been eating too much at dinner. I’ve been eating too much after dinner. The rest of the day is generally aces.

We’re six days away from the surgery. Gastric Bypass. It sounds like road construction and to a degree it is. I’ve probably said this a few times before, but as scared as I am of having my guts chopped up I am more afraid of what comes after. This isn’t just a cosmetic surgery thing where you loose tons of weight and then carry on with your life. The surgery itself is just one small part of the process. You need to follow it up by completely changing everything. That’s what’s stressing me out today. Well… that’s part of it.

I have an appointment tomorrow morning. It’s the first of a series of classes where they will teach me what to do when I get home. I have to relearn how to eat and drink. I have to relearn how to prepare food. I have to relearn how to react when my guts talk to me. Miss a hint from your insides and end up praying to the porcelain god for an hour. that sort of thing. The first class covers living through the first couple of weeks. The second class is the second couple of weeks, and so on and so forth.

I’m doing my best to stay optimistic about the whole thing, but it’s getting hard to focus on the positive. It’s getting hard to focus on anything. I’ll let you know how tomorrow goes. Until then…

Back to work.

Weigh In

I weighed myself this morning. I thought I was down something like 240 pounds. Wow! Incredible! I stepped off the scale and stepped back on and it was the same number. Holy cow, I haven’t been this light since Junior High!

That’s when I noticed I accidentally hit the English/Metric switch. Oops.

I weighed myself a third time and I was exactly at my pre-surgery goal weight. Exactly. Precisely.

I guess they can chop me up now.

Note: This was my bathroom scale. I am guessing the number would have been like five pounds higher on the hospital’s scale. I mean, I will be wearing my watch and stuff when I weigh in on the hospital scale, right?

Forecast

I am not a superstitious person. I promise you that. Occasionally I talk about karma, but it’s always from the point of view of someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The reason for that is that I don’t believe in karma. Makes sense, right?

I don’t believe in any of that stuff. Why then, when I look at the long term weather forecast and see that it’s supposed to rain on the day of my surgery do I see it as a bad omen? Knock that shit off, red head. It’s not raining because it’s foretelling bad news. It’s raining because it’s Spring in New England.

You’re not that important, asshole.

One Week and One Day

Okay. The weight loss surgery date is one week from tomorrow. It’s hitting me. Or at least it’s starting to, and it’s coming from directions I did not expect.

I’m putting together notes for co-workers so they can cover some of my regular responsibilities while I’m out for a whole month. The result is feelings of guilt. Big time feelings of guilt. Not the soul destroying guilt I was buried under a year ago when things were going really bad at my parents house, but a new, fresh, form of guilt.

Guilt over all of the things I won’t be able to do at home until after I recover. Guilt for the burden I am going to be on Jen and Harry and (eventually) Bellana. Even guilt over needing to finish the cellar before the surgery date and therefore putting the contractor into a position where he felt he needed to stay at our house working until 10:00 last night, and 9:30 one night last week.

I did not see this coming, but here it is.

Shit.