Three weeks from today...right now...it'll all be over. Way over, in fact, as my surgery time is 7:30am and the procedure takes approximately an hour and a half.
One week from today, I start my two-weeks of liquids only diet. Doesn't that sound like fun?? The purpose is to shrink your liver as much as possible to make more room for the docs to work. Sounds fair enough but 2 weeks?? That's a long time. However it's probably a good thing since I'll be on the same liquid diet for a while after the surgery too.
I swing from being extremely excited to being scared out of my mind about this process. What I fear most (and this is probably normal) is failure. Because let's face it, I've failed at every diet I've ever tried or I wouldn't be where I am. I'm used to failing at this. So what I've been doing is Googling "Gastric Bypass Before and After Photos". Because I need to see what I can hope for - what people who have struggled like I have are achieving by going down this same path. And I joined an online forum for Bariatric patients and I'm reading their struggles and successes and helpful advice. They are succeeding. Hundreds of people who have had bariatric surgery are losing weight...and supporting each other. AND...AND...they're not losing a 'little weight' but losing 30 pounds in the first month?? 100 pounds in the first 8 months? It's amazing. And from what I'm reading, it's not going to be that bad. And if it is, I can post about it and someone will have been there and will help me thru it. Not that dissimilar to my Mommy forum I joined (ans still belong to) when I had my first son...when I was scared of pregnancy and newborn-hood. And guess what? I made it thru that...with flying colors...and I can do this too...
I'm also suddenly very conscience of food everywhere I go. How much of it is everywhere. How much everyone is centered on it. Being as my surgery is in the summer, and Minnesotans seem to come out of their shells in the summer, my calendar is already full of events post-surgery...and I'm already kind of nervous about how I'll handle them. Internal dialogue goes on like this "There's going to be food there. I can't eat food. How will I be social? What if I just stay home? That's no fun...I want to go....but I'm scared..." and I'm not even there yet. Maybe I'll be feeling so fabulous without XX lbs on my frame that it won't even be an issue. Like most things in my life, I'm really hoping that the fear of the unknown is why I'm anxious about this - that after the first event, I'll get over myself and they'll be no big deal.
I don't have any tattoos. I don't mind them - I have tattoo envy every now and again - but they're so PERMANENT. If you choose the wrong art or the wrong placement or the wrong colors or whatever, it's not nail polish. You can't go and scrub it off and re-do it. My RNY is my tattoo. It's forever. No reversing it. No re-doing it. And it's going to hurt, and it's going to take some getting used to but just like my tattooed friends, once it's there, it will just be a part of who I am. I won't think about it anymore. It will be absorbed into me. Cannot wait for THAT day to come.
-XO - Amy
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