3:40 AM And Counting

3:40 A.M. A time seen in normal circumstances only by staff at the emergency room, OTR Truck Drivers, and waitstaff at the local Denny's. Yet, here I sit, listening to the sleeping house, banging out a few hundred words so I don't go two days in a row in silence.

The second round of medical visits preparing the way to the promised land of Gastric Sleeve has just begun. For the next two weeks, we will be poked, prodded, analyzed, folded, spindled and hopefully not mutilated. Nutritionist visits, Barium tests, and trips to a day surgery center nearly an hour away fill our days. And, somewhere in here, this whole thing passed from "might happen" to "this is happening".

It isn't that this wasn't "real" before, mind you. But the 45 grams of Carbohydrate meals and trying to down 64 ounces of water a day now feel like prologue. Drinking barium and getting a tube containing a camera shoved down the throat suddenly brings the whole thing into focus: this is really happening, isn't it? 

The changes are everywhere. We've started watching the clock before and after meals, timing our fluid intake (no fluids 30 minutes before or 1 hour after meals). We're trying to eat meals in order: protein, then produce, then starches. We've undergone a second round of getting rid of food in our pantry after some gentle correction from our nutritionist. We're even exercising every day, if not always for the recommended 30 minutes. Our lives are changing in every way, in preparation for living this way for the rest of our lives.

But, somehow, being up this early to get prepped for a 6:30 AM procedure at a hospital in a whole other county just brought it all crashing in - this is really happening to us. To ME. Before this week, despite all the changes, I still felt a curious sense of detachment, of disassociation. Not anymore. Somewhere in the appointments this week, a threshold was crossed.

This just got real, my friends.

Really Awake Now,

- Hawkwind