Version 2.0

Happy Monday, and welcome to version 2.0 of Misdirected! I had a lot of time to look over the site this weekend (all better now, thanks for asking), and decided a few changes should happen, to make us look a little less like we were stuck in the 1990s. Let me know what you think!

I am aware that I still need to come up with a more graceful transition back to our first Gastric Sleeve post, back on March 2nd for the sake of our (many) new visitors. I just spent the weekend going all the way through The World According to Eggface, from back in 2006 to present day, and was so impressed by the flow of the blog - everything had something to do with weight loss, surgery, new recipes, etc. My poor readers will try to go back to the beginning and will be dumped into stories about World of Warcraft characters and League of Legends strategies. I have not come up with an elegant solution yet. Suggestions, anyone?

By the way - if you are at all interested in bariatric surgery, weight loss, dietary changes, etc - you need to go check out TWATE for yourself - Shelly's prose is awesome, and her recipes are going to be absolute lifesavers for us after we go under the...scope. (Was going to say knife, but that is not really how Gastric Sleeve is done.) I can only hope 10 years after my surgery I am still providing readers with excellent, relevant content like she is.

Next up on the pre-surgical agenda is today's Barium Test. It doesn't sound all that bad to me, and others that have done it tell me it is no big deal. Basically, I swallow some barium, then have a series of X-Rays taken. No idea how long it will take, what they are looking for, etc. I should've paid more attention during the initial consult, but I was just being buried under info at the time, and this procedure seemed relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. Hope it turns out that way. I will keep everyone posted.

Thanks to everyone that is stopping in and sharing the blog with those that might be interested - we started growing by leaps and bounds after March 2 and haven't slowed down yet. I've  had the chance to answer LOTS of questions about the surgery and the reasoning behind it, and love getting the info out there that this is not a shortcut - this is merely adding an additional tool to the diet and lifestyle changes that need to happen to combat obesity. 

We'll talk to you all again post-barium!

Preparing To Drink Radioactive Chalk,

- Hawkwind

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