The small town rumor mill in my neck of the woods is insane.  One year I was pink slipped when I walked into work.  My husband who works as a teacher 40 miles away from my job knew before lunch, and not from me.  Another teacher emailed a teacher who happened to know the teacher who worked across the hall from him and she told him.  Unbelievable.  The one thing I am VERY good at is shutting people down when they start to pry, no worries about that.  I don't care what they say, but I do care if they are upset/concerned that it is cancer when it really isn't.  That can be a drain on the building and morale in and of itself. I already have a few people afraid to talk to me about anything other than very routine stuff, they must think it is contagious!

 Hr is not an option.  i work in a small town and he is part of the community.  There are also NO jobs in the state of Michigan, especially for teachers.  He is not a bad guy overall, I just have to be careful in this area. 

 Just looking for some advice on telling people or not...

At this time I do not plan on telling a soul, other then the husband.  Even with my kids I am planning on saying that I am at a conference for work.  It's not that I care if they know, I just don't think they would keep it to themselves.  

My other concern is at work.  My boss already thinks that I am dying from cancer  (had a bout with skin cancer, no big deal) and it has impacted his views of my performance.  To put it bluntly, he is very sexist and if you don't do exactly what he says he manufactures reasons why you are not doing it... one coworker has "mental health issues" after stopping him from using our records time for staff meetings.  In my case, I was routinely working over 80 hours a week and dropped a bit of the extra curricular to make it more reasonable- he gives me a hard time about it regularly and it quite certain it is because of cancer.  It's not, I just think it is unreasonable to work 80 hours and still not be able to keep up.  Anyway, to make a long story short I feel pretty certain it will be held against me.  

I also don't want to have to constantly explain, defend, or other such nonsense.  This is a personal choice to me and not for others to diagnose or comment on.  When I was first diagnosed with cancer and a bit freaked out I found it a little overwhelming to have everybody tell me about a friend, cousin, etc and demand constant updates, so lesson learned.  

My question is though- is this a reasonable approach?  Is it possible to go through this surgery without it being obvious?  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  

My appointment with the sugeon is coming up in a few days and I expect that the sugery date will be within the month, and hopefully before Xmas to allow for recovery time over the holiday break.  I need to sort this out before then.

 I have never heard of this one, but I will try to track down a sample.  thanks for the advice!

 I will look for those and try too.  I am sure like most, i am looking for the most cost effective and tolerable option.  I appreciate the suggestion!

 So I am working toward my surgery date and am excited that I am closing in on this.  Today at the pre-op appointment they cleared me to see the surgeon to get the date set.  I am looking to continue to lose weight between  now and then and found that the HMR 70 shakes were pretty good and really helps me to moderate calories over the day without feeling half starved.  The down side was the cost.  I went out today and bought a costco size jug of Muscle Milk, as I read that it is far more cost effective and not half bad.  I disagree.  It is terrible.  I am going to make myself work though the darn jug, but I thought I would just put this out there that the HMR 70 shake was worth the difference in price.  The shakes run about $40 for 18 of them compared to $40 of Muscle milk mix that will make 52 shakes.  I found if I add cocoa powder it helps the MM and I need to mix one up without ice to see if that helps.  I just assumed that because I like the HMR better with ice that this would hold true for Muscle Milk.  

Here is the nutrion info on HMR:

110	Calories
14g	14g	Protein
0g	0.5g	Fat
0g	0g	Trans Fat
13g	13g	Carbohydrate
220mg	260mg	Sodium
300mg	280mg	Calcium

Muscle milk clocked in at 
16 grams protein
9 grams carb
2 grams fiber
150 calories
3 gram saturated fat
0 trans fat
2 grams sugar
150 mg sodium
calcium was at 25% daily value

If anyone has any suggestion on how to make my enourmous jug of muscle milk more palateable I would much appreicate the advice!