Category: weight loss surgery

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.

The Next Appointment

Are you folks up for another somewhat obnoxious post about doctors appointments and irrational fear?

Good, cause here it comes.

This afternoon I have a pre-screening for the surgery, which is two weeks from today. I guess that means I am going to meet with the anesthesiologist and he/she’s going to calculate how much knock out juice it’s going to take to put my gigantic king-kong sized ass out for 90 minutes or so. I’m guessing whatever it is they’ll use, it’s going to take a lot.

The timing is going to be funky. The hospital is 24 minutes away and they had to reschedule the appointment for 30 minutes after I get out of work. I’m going to have to split the second after my sick time kicks off. We’re going to be cutting it close.

After that I think I need to get my haircut because if I don’t I’m going to look like Cousin It come surgery day.

On the cellar front, fingers crossed the floor is wrapped up today. We have some furniture being delivered over the weekend. We don’t need everything to be finished by then, but it would make things easier. If everything works out, I may have an office to work from down there by next week. Just in time to go away for a month.

Am I freaking out? Maybe a little. I would say on a scale from 1-100 my freak out level is about a 33 and slowly but steadily increasing.

Duck and cover, kids.

Woops

I got up early this morning to put the trash out on the street. When I came back inside Jen reminded me that yesterday was a state holiday, Patriots Day, and trash pick up will be tomorrow.

Sonofa…

Did you see those pictures of the cellar floor last night? We’re coming to the end, aren’t we. A few more days to finish the floor and all the baseboards and finishing touches. We have a couple of pieces of furniture coming this weekend. Soon enough we’re going to have us a nice little living room down there.

What else is going on? I have another doctors appointment tomorrow. A pre-screening at the hospital. I don’t know what that means, but it has something to do with anesthesia. Prep work.

Two weeks and one day until surgery. Two weeks after that Harry comes home for the summer. The month of May is going to be a busy one, right?

Stressing

Surgery is in 16 days and I am stressing a little. Not about the surgery itself, but about some things that go along with it.

I need to book a Covid-19 test three days before the surgery. They gave me a few clinics I can go to. I spent a lot of time on the phone with two of them today, trying to schedule a test, and never spoke to a human. Jen reminded me that today is a state holiday in Massachusetts, so that might be why. Still… if you’re not home today, add that to your voice message.

I haven’t had caffeine since February 3rd (I think). I haven’t missed it. Even last Wednesday when I did my 38 hour sleep-free stretch, I was never wishing I could have some caffeine. I am today though. I am jonzing go-juice in a big way. I’m exhausted and I could really use a little help staying focused. I can’t though. I can never have caffeine again.

I do have one little piece of good news, surgically speaking. I checked the documentation they gave me to see what restrictions there are on lifting things immediately post-op. It says not to lift anything over 25 pounds for six weeks after the surgery. Why is that important to me? The average weight of a Gibson Les Paul is around 10 pounds. That’s a ton in the guitar world, but it’s far below my limit. Sigh of musical relief.

Happy Lunch Hour

It’s the tail end of my lunch break and I have nothing to share. Hard to believe, I know.

The contractor is supposed to be getting here within the next 10 minutes or so. I would be stunned if he was able to prime the whole cellar (the cellar is kinda huge), but I am really looking forward to going downstairs after he leaves and seeing how far he gets. Color on the walls? It’s hard to picture it in my head.

I have a group meeting today at 2:30. I am planning on letting my staff know that I am going to be out for a while for the surgery. My boss has all the details, and so does his boss and likely his boss’ boss. The people who report directly to me have not been given even the smallest hint. I don’t know what I am going to say. I might just say I am going on medical leave and leave it at that. Fessing up to weight loss surgery is embarrassing. Well… at least fessing up to actual people rather than posting about it on the anonymous internet is embarrassing.

We’ll see how it goes.