Maharet

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Today is April 24th and yesterday I had surgery.. I am sitting in a recliner here in the hospital. I brought my labtop and some movies here to watch since the rooms just basic cable in it. I had to be there at 6 AM and the prep work went by so fast. Everyone from te nurses, student interns, the sleep doctor and then Dr Richards came in and talked to me and my family. They  took urine and started me on an iv and they put a nausea patch behind my ear to prevent nausea. I was in a lot of pain for the first couple of hrs. I was given morphine at first but it wasn't working so Dr. Richards gave me something stronger with toradol every couple of hrs. I was so mad yesterday because  when I woke up my mouth was very dry and sore and I couldnt have anything to drink untill day. Today I started my diet and I had my first dnner about 2 hrs ago. I had gotten up at two different times and walked the halls in a circle about 6 times each. I am just so determined to make this work. The staff here has been so nice and friendly. I love it. Well thats all for now.

Well, it has already became the last night that I'll look like this. For the last 2 weeks I have been working myself silly trying to lose as much as I can before I went into surgery. I started at 256 which is my highest weight and I am now at 243.  I am truly amazed at how quick this has happened. What i'm really surprised at is how much support I have had today. I certainly never expected it. My dad actually told me that he was proud of me just out of the blue the other day because he was amazed at how displined I was on my liquid diet and I think that for the first time he may have seen how determine that I have been to lose weight and how i've struggled with it all these years. I am so glad that I am fortunate enough to have this done while I am young. These are the best years of my life and by God I want to enjoy them to the fullest. I want to be the belle of the ball for a change.  Everyone who made fun of me for being big I want them to eat their words, and all the loser men who turned me away because of my size I want them to feel regret and a sense of loss if they ever see me again.  Most of all I want my old active self back who was in excellent health and could get out there and do anything with the greatest confidence. A time like this most people expected me to be nervous but this is the happiest day of my life. I couldn't have wanted more. I'm very confident and I'm not nervous because I have carefully selected the best team to work on me and I am ready for a major change.  This truly is a new birthday to me and this is a life changing experience that will secretly stay with me for the rest of my life.

Its Thursday night and yesterday I went to my last pre op nutrition appointment. They were shocked to see that I had lost 11 lbs in the last week and a half.  When I went to the doc on the 11th. I had ballooned to 256 lbs. That is what I weighed last year. I was so sad because just back in Jan I was still at 233 and by March I was at 245 then by the time I went to my pre-op appt I was at 256! So now I'm at 244, just 3 days ago I was at 248. I started my liquid diet early along with calorie counting. The first week of the diet was a weaning week. I would drink liquids all day and then eat regular food for dinner. But for some odd reason I just because less interested in regular food and started my a full liquid diet 2 days before I was scheduled for it. At first I had head hunger but about 2 days later it was hard for me to drink a lot like I should because I don't really have hunger anymore. I think i'm too excited about surgery!!!  I am determined to be very close to 240 by Monday. I try to lose as much as possible because several months post op it becomes harder and harder to lose that extra 5-10 lbs and I would have wished that I lost it before I went into surgery. It seems like most people who are in the mid 200's range end up losing 100-110 lbs. Usually only those who had to have plastics lose an extra 10 lbs which brings them at the 120's range.  I don't wanna be that thin, just a nice 130- 137 will do.  Tommorrow I will make arrangements for my pets and this weekend I look foward to cleaning and packing. 

Well, I'm now a week away from having surgery. I have already started my liquid diet as instructed by my doctor. They require that I start 8 days before surgery but I because I have blown up like a blimp I have started my liquid diet early. I've been on one before but when you first start it isn't easy. I have my cabinets full now of Crystal light, sugar free jello, profect, and protein powders. I bought more soup and some sugar free pudding over the weekend. It seems like I can't get full off of this liquid diet, I'm drinking stuff all the time. But I guess its kinda hard to try filling an 8 cup capacity stomach. On Wednesday I have to go to my last nutrition appointment before surgery, and then I will go to another support group meeting on Friday and then on the operating table on Monday. This month is really flying by. 

Well this very rainy morning I went to my pre-op appointment. It was really exciting. I got to meet with Dr. Richards but for some odd reason I really didn't have anything to ask and I was nervous. I had seen him at the seminar as he was the main speaker and I even asked him questions at the seminar but for some odd reason I was just nervous. They ran blood work of course and took a urinanalysis and they did a fasting lipids test, so thank God I didn't eat anything or go pee before I came in that morning. The doctor was very nice and it really seemed like everyone was excited for me. I got to see how much is being charged to my insurance company and my goodness, it is a whopping estimated $49,000. Talk about feeling special. 26k is the charge for the surgery and then an additonal 13k is the hospitals staffing charges, and additional services. This is so cool.. I'm having 50K spent on me to look good and then if I have to have plastics done that'll be more money. My insurance pays 100 percent of this. When this is over with I will have not a penny to pay. Its only a week and a half away. I have already started my liquid diet.

Well, today I got in the mail another wedding catalog and I just now started to realize how much this country really emphasizes on being in shape. I honestly never really paid it much attention except when it came to clothes. All of these models in these books are thin and the guys are just buff and in shape. It disgusts me because it gives the image that women are supposed to be smaller than the man and helpless looking and ready to serve Mr. Man. Its contradictory because in a society where food is constantly in our face in a very competitive food market unless you are blessed with darn good genetics and a high metabolism that allows you to eat anything and not gain weight looking like those women in the mag is not gonna happen. I wanted to be thin because when i was a teen I used to wish I was big because I hated this perverted old men who keep looking at me like  I was a piece of meat. I had a beautiful shape and I was cursed with very large breasts and the women in my family made me feel bad and out of place for looking like that because they were all very obese and some of it may have been jealousy. So I figured that if I was big then it would go away and indeed it did, but it cost me. My weight got way out of hand, more than what I bargained for, and as a result my hormones went out of whack, I developed a metabolism problem, became borderline diabetic and I lost my fertility.  A 5'1 frame can only stand so much.  

Now i'm grown and  I could care less who looks at me because when I got big I really became the center of attention just in a bad way. When I saw myself on video I looked like a penguin waddling around. I felt so bad. So I dont know if these advertisements encourage those who are big to lose weight or is it just the image trend that is set out on how american women should look because if it is then that is unrealistic and perhaps they should model food advertisements a little better than what they do. Instead of some nasty deep fried hamburger put some wholesome wheat product or good old fruit and veggies on TV instead. That triangle that shows how much food one should eat in a day is ridiculous because a darn farmer developed it for crying out loud. He taught us how to eat like a darn dairy cow. President Bush started a campain a couple of years ago for the fat country  to lose weight and that only lasted for 10 seconds. Companies were selling low fat foods at fair cheap prices. I knew then that they were only doing this as a write off for taxes they could care less about our health.  Anyway sorry for nagging. I just had to type this because I'm very excited as the days count down for surgery but at the same time I'm starting to notice all kinds of stuff that I never really paid attention to. I was in my own little confort zone when it came to my weight so I never really paid attention to stereotypes. I'm getting so hyped up knowing that im about to be thin but I will never forget what it felt like looking like this and no matter how much prettier I get I'll never become this shallow person who turns their nose up at people who are obese.

Well, at 8:28 this morning I got a phone call with my surgery date. The date is set for 04/23/07. I have to see the doc for my pre op appointment on 04/11.

Well today is March 27th, 2007 and a lot has happened over the last 7 weeks.  I found out the other day that I gained 13 lbs since 1/25/07. I missed my first nutrition appt due to a wreck that I wasn't involved in so I had to be rescheduled. Thanks heavens for Mrs Ginnings because she was nice enough to get me closer dates to come back since this pain in the tail receptionionist tried to make me come back at the end of March. As a result I have been to two of my nutrition appointments and boy was it fun.  I am so glad that I hung in there with this hospital and I appreciate their throughness more than anything now. It was at 3:24 today that I found out that I was approved to have surgery. I could have fainted. I've been waiting to have this surgery done for the last 7 years.  I just can't believe that this is really happening. 

At the same time I cannot help but to feel a sense of loss. I've been in this condition for so long that its kinda sad letting it go.  I kinda get that scared of a new challenge and change feeling. Knowing that i'll never look like this again  feels strange and the things that i'll never eat again. I know that I have to have this done because if I never get it done then i'll never know all the possibilites I could have had and I'll never know how much healthier I could have been had I not been overweight. By the end of this week I'll have a date.

02-05-07- Today I found out that my insurance letter was prepared and mailed to my insurance company for approval. I was told that BCBS of Michigan is slow responding to other states and I could take roughly 4-6 weeks to hear back from them. So its in their hands now.

Boy did this super bowl weekend go by pretty quick.  On groundhog day I went to my first group meeting. I'm required to attend 2 of these before having surgery. It was pretty good. I met a woman who had surgery done at a different hospital and I met someone else who like me was looking forward to getting approved for surgery.  It was pretty fun, the hour had gone by so fast that I had kinda wished that there was more time other than that it was pretty good and I look foward to the next group meetings.