Pre-op Prep

Day 4 of the liquid diet. I grow crankier and dumber by the minute, it seems. The weird thing is, I don't feel particularly upset at any given moment. But, whenever I am interacted with, my responses all seem to come out of the "annoyed" section of my vocabulary. Lor has been very tolerant, and has not cut my head off and buried me in the backyard.

Yet.

In the midst of this not-so-great emotional adjustment, I got to travel across town for my pre-operative appointment yesterday. This was a new experience for me - during Lor's pre-op appointment I was in a nutritional appointment, so I missed the whole thing. I imagined tons of highly technical information that I was going to completely misunderstand due to my current brain fog.

Luckily, the appointment was nothing more than a re-hash of all the experiences we just went through with Lor's surgery. On the day of the surgery, I will consult with the anesthesiologist and my surgeon. They will roll me back to a surgical suite and inject me with something that will put me to sleep. They will then inflate my abdomen like a beach ball so the surgeon has lots of room to work in. They will punch a hole in me to correct my hiatal hernia, then punch 5 more holes in me to perform to the removal of the "greater curvature of my stomach." I will then be returned to the hospital room to recover for 48 hours.

I was struck by how much the pre-surgical briefing minimizes the actual trauma they will be inflicting on you. True, they will not be slicing me open like a dissected frog in biology class. But they will still be leaving me with the equivalent of 5 shank wounds and a puncture from a belt knife. I have read many testimonials of people who say they were back at work immediately after their surgeries. Quite frankly, I don't understand how. Lor is only now getting back to where she can bend or flex at the abdomen comfortably, and she is 4 weeks out from her surgery as of yesterday.

Speaking of 4 weeks out, Lor got to have her 4-week post op appointment yesterday while I was having my pre-op appointment. (That is how closely we scheduled these surgeries.) She has been returned to the land of Those Who Can Eat Real Food. Her visit to Trader Joe's yesterday was a lot like a child being taken to a candy store. I have never seen someone so excited about the prospect of eating salmon, bananas, and kale chips.

After my 6 weeks without real food, I am sure I will have a whole different perspective on that too.

Ready To Have My Brain Turned Back On,

- Hawkwind

The Recipe Downshift

Photo Credit: thevintagegoose via Compfight cc

Yesterday was my first "dietary" appointment - the one where a Dietitian takes you under her wing and explains all the things you are currently doing wrong when eating. It is one thing to know that your diet for the next few months is going to be limited to 105 grams of carbs each day. It is something else again to see exactly how much that is. (Hint: Not Much)

I, of course, got to cheat - I've been going down this road with Lor since her initial dietary appointment 6 weeks ago. So information that might have shocked or dismayed anyone else in the classroom just rolled off of me like water off a duck - I got over my shock a month and a half ago. I felt like the kid back in Elementary who already knew all the answers. I just didn't keep my hand raised all the time, trying to attract the teacher's attention like that annoying little brat did. (Full disclosure: I was that annoying little brat in Elementary school. No wonder I never had any friends.)

However, with both of us now "officially" on the same meal plan, there is even less room to wiggle now - it falls on each of us to keep the other on the straight and narrow from here on out. And now I, too, am going to have to get fully on board with the "no water at meals" thing that I have not been maintaining as diligently as Lor has. All the slack that I have allowed myself during the last few weeks has been officially removed from my diet plan.

The most sobering part of the whole thing? The information that weight gain from here on out will result in cancellation of the surgery. This was not something Lor mentioned to me at the end of her first meeting - she probably wanted me to get the full force of it during the class or something. (Treacherous wife!) We even got a lovely example of a patient who had a few too many "food funerals" and gained 15 pounds during the last month before surgery. The end result was a canceled surgery.

My weight at check in was 295. I didn't think I was wearing 15 pounds of clothes, but there you have it. 295 at the office/280 at home is my "fat ceiling" - the number I can not cross again. A really sobering reminder that I am in this for the long haul - a lifetime of change is ahead of me. I hope I am up to it! The idea of having to explain to everyone how I got my surgery canceled because of my addiction to Girl Scout Thin Mints is too much to bear.

Not Thinking About Cookies,

- Hawkwind