Who Needs Sleep?

I told two people that I am having weight-loss surgery.  Cart before the horse?  Yes, yes, yes.  But I just feel so sure about this.  I told two people that are very very close to me.  My aunt (who is basically a parent) and one of my oldest dearest friends.  I am the kind of person who can keep a secret as long as it's not mine. 

If I do have this surgery, I don't want every one to know about it. I wonder if I can get away with no one knowing about it.  Can I just take a two week vacation from work and go to Jamaica or something?  Let people think my shrinking and liquid diet is due to a horrible foreign virus?  Or tape worm?  I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but these are just things that I can't stop thinking about.

I have the weight loss seminar with my surgeon on Thursday night.  I have so many questions!  I have read on blogs from other people who have had VSG that sometimes surgeons "oversew" and sometimes they don't.  Also, I have read that the size of the sleeve varies by surgeon's preference.  I want to find out if my surgeon just does a standard size for everyone that he thinks is the best, and if so, how does it rate?  Small, average, large?  Or does he decide what size is best for me in particular?  I know that there are support groups for people who have had WLS and I really hope that I can get some info at the seminar so I can start going to those.  I would really like to hear about some real life experiences.

They say that people who have the sleeve usually lose 50-80% of their EXCESS body weight.  At first this kind of bummed me out.  I weigh 265 lb.  My "pie-in-the-sky-it's-never-gonna-actually-happyen-but-you-can-dream" weight has always been 150 lb.  So, in my book, I have 115 lb of excess weight.  Best case scenario if I lost 80% of that it would be 92 lb lost. That would bring me to 173.  Not bad.  But I was looking up what my "ideal body weight" is considered by medical professionals.  I'm 5'2" and 32 years old.  I should weigh 104-130 lbs to be considered a "healthy weight".

With those numbers in mind, if 130 lb is the highest "healthy weight" for, me then my excess weight is 135 lb making 80% loss of excess weight 108 lb.  That means that I could be down to 157 lb  (if you go by the 104 as my ideal weight, then with an 80% loss of excess weight, I would end up losing 129 lb and be 136).  HA!!!  That would take more than VSG.....I'm pretty sure it would take pixie dust!

Every day that goes by convinces me more and more and more that this is the RIGHT move.  This weekend was so typical and so awful. I am really embarrassed to even put this in print, but here goes.  Friday at work I was just so exhausted.  I spend all week just thinking "only X more days til the weekend".  I spend all day at work thinking "only a few more hours and you can go home and go to sleep".  I get home from work at 6:30 pm and I am asleep by 8:30 pm.  I throw food together, eat dinner, lay on the couch and watch TV until I go to sleep, so that I can wake up the next day and do it again.  What kind of life is that??  This week was particularly bad because on Friday we had a Baby Shower for a girl at work, which I organized.  At the end of the day there was a ton of cake left. A LOT of cake.  And I really did try to have other people take it home....it didn't work. It was either me take it home or throw it away.  Since you already know that I'm 5'2" and weigh 265 lbs, I'm sure you already know what happened.

It did not get thrown away.  I ate the rest of the cake by myself.  We went to a friend's house on Saturday night, so that was "active" but the rest of the time was spent in exhaustion.  Dreading taking a shower because there are no clean clothes because I have no energy to clean!  All Sunday I slept.  I woke up at 10am, could not stay awake so I napped from 11-1pm.  Then at around 2pm I was still so tired I felt drugged.  So I slept again from 2-5pm.  I woke up and watched TV, went grocery shopping, came home, had some canned clam chowder for dinner and....fell asleep at 10pm watching TV. 

Great life, huh?  I don't care what any one says.  This is because of my weight.  I am too tired and too discouraged to do anything.  I'm so scared of surgery because I'm terrified of anesthesia.  I'm scared I won't wake up.  But am I really awake right now???  This is the right decision.  It will at least give me a fighting chance.

Why WLS?

I am one of those girls who look at people who have had weight-loss surgery as cheaters, imposters, easy-way-outers.  When they post photos of their weight-loss, to me it feels like a student drawing an extra line on an “F” paper to make it look like an “A”.  Not real.  I may smile and tell them they look great, and in my head I’m thinking, “You’re going to stretch that sucker out and gain it all back.”  And “This is why you’re fat in the first place, because you won’t just eat right and exercise!” I am not proud of this, but it’s the truth. 

So why am I getting it done?  Because I can’t do this anymore.  

Every other time I thought of getting bariatric surgery, it was no more than a fleeting thought.  I am a big wimp when it comes to anything medical.  I hate getting my teeth cleaned.  I pass out when I get my blood drawn.  So the thought of signing up to have someone cut me open didn’t really appeal to me.  And really for what?  So you can’t eat so much….well, how about you skip the surgery and just don’t eat so much??  So that’s what I would do.  And it would work great! Every time!  I can drop 30 pounds no problem.  Almost as easily as I gain it back.  Which I do. Every time. Every.Time. 

I don’t mind eating healthy.  But I have a problem with food.  An addiction.  And that is truly the scariest part of this whole thing for me.  Will I have this surgery and just do what I have done all along?  Lose and then gain?  Only this time instead of 30 pounds, it will be 130 pounds?  Will I stretch that sucker right out?  What’s to stop me from doing just that?  Right now I know I’m full and I tell myself to stop eating…but I don’t.  So what makes me think I will stop eating when I’m full after the surgery?  Or worse than stretching it, what if I bust the staples because I won’t stop eating?  

What scares me even more is not having the chance to bust the staples…because what if I don’t even make it out of surgery?  What if something horrible happens during or after and I die?  That’s a huge fear of mine.  And even though the chances are slim….there is still a chance.  

So why am I getting it done?  Because I can’t do this anymore.

This is not a life.  I am truly miserable.  I am so miserable that I push every other wonderful thing (and there are a lot of them) into the background.  I am so sad and depressed.  I am not a good wife because I have zero energy to clean, cook, play.  I am not a mother because I have obesity related health problems.  Sometimes I look at the life I have created and want to erase myself from it.  I want a do-over.  So if I die in this surgery or because of it, then at least I died in an attempt to be a better wife, mother, friend, human. 

Right now I don’t have health insurance but we are enrolling in it so it will be effective in January.  It’s going to be so expensive.  About $550 a month total for both of us.  About $350 of that is just for me. That comes out to $4200 a year.  So as long as I get the surgery, that is really a bargain.  (I will still have at least another $1000 in copays I’m sure, but that’s still not bad.)  I just hope I can get it done this year and don’t run into any road blocks.  

I am taking the first step next Thursday, November 21^st and going to a seminar.  I am really lucky that one of the BEST surgeons in the world for bariatric surgery is in my area.  He has been on Oprah and teaches other surgeons all around the world how to improve their methods.  So, really I have the best person to do the surgery.  That also played a huge role in my decision to do it.  My plan is to try to schedule an appointment for January 2^nd (the first day they are open in 2014 when my insurance will be active).  I want to get the ball rolling.  

In the meantime, I am going to make sure I have the best chances for a safe surgery by being in the best health possible.  I have been exercising.  I want to have a strong heart and lungs.  Well, here we go.  I can’t wait!  For the first time in a long time, I feel HOPE…hope that I have a chance at something better than THIS.