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I know nobody reads this but I have to post about this somewhere. Went in for the sleeve surgery today. Had everything going for me. Did the liver shrinking diet. Liquid diet, no fluids the night before. Did the showers with the soap. Had an advance directive, durable power of attorney. Went into surgery. Anesthesia was easy. Next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery being told the surgery wasn't done because they found a 8 cm mass on my liver. They biopsied it but didn't remove it and halted the surgery. It was the first thing they told me. I cried. The entire point of today was to reduce my stomach to lose weight. I'm not even concerned about what the results from pathology will be. Now I feel like I'm screwed. They said that no matter what the results come out as they will still have to remove the mass. I start nursing school in June and I won't be able to have the weight loss surgery on time. Now instead of having 1 surgery I'm having 3. I know that I'm being a huge negative nancy right now, but I just need to vent since everybody wants me to be ok with it. I feel like all of my dreams are on the line. I can't afford 3 surgeries,. Since today was technically elective but there was a complication will the still bill me as elective? If the pathology comes back as benign but they need to remove it to do an elective surgery, will THAT then be considered elective? Because if it is... then I can never get it. I can't afford to pay 50% of 3 surgeries. I have another 157 pounds to lose and I don't think I can do it all on my own. IF for whatever reason it comes back as cancer, then WONDERFUL I'm 23 years old, drink much less than most people my age and I have liver cancer. And if that's the case, say goodbye to everything.

So for now this is my new "plan" if I can even make any plans anymore that ever work. Now I wait for pathology. Make ANOTHER consult with a surgeon. Assuming I can even afford surgery, then I have to do ANOTHER pre-op, and then the mass removal. THEN if that all goes well and the timing works, then I can get the sleeve surgery in my break between July and August.

Sorry to be so negative just... give me a couple of days.

Right now I'm feeling pretty good physically. Since they didn't do much internally I just have some soreness from the incisions, 4 of them. Have some pain meds to get me through. I don't blame anybody. All of the staff were GREAT. I just wish they could have done the removal since they were in there anyway so they could move forward. I completely understand why, that doesn't mean I don't wish it though.

So my surgery is on Friday... less than 48 hours away. Seems unreal. I'm sure I'll be a lot more anxious this time tomorrow. Everybody asks me if I'm nervous about it, but mostly I'm excited! I did my pre-op yesterday. The NP was really great, when I told her I was going into nursing school in June she perked right up. She really gave me a boost, saying that I was more mature than most 23 year olds and that I will be a great nurse. The biggiest anxiety I've had through the process so far is the timing of the sugery compared to when I am starting school. They messed up the various aspects of scheduling several times and bumped me out a little bit. Luckily out of the 3 bariactric surgeons here at Denver Kaiser I was scheduled with the new one whos schedule is more open. Hopefully by the time I start school my eating will be fairly normal and I will have some habits already formed. The finances of the surgery have been stressfull as well. I have a 50% coinsurance so I have to pay for half of it out of pocket. The only numbers that anyone has given me so far have been rough estimations, which I understand they can only guess. I knew I had to pay a deposit (which I did today... bye money) so I saved my tax returns and bonus from work. But I wasn't told how much it was going to be until yesterday, the day they wanted it. 2,800. Nope, didn't have that much, but they did accept what I had saved. They told me to call the finance department after surgery to get the payments set up. That might be hard, I know it will take more than 2 years. And what I can pay is limited because of starting school. I had no idea that I would be in nursing school so soon when I started down this road. But I sure am glad. I feel as if my life is coming together in only 2 months.

I'm nervous about the anesthesia. My mind tends to fight losing clarity, and I've never been under. Only local nitrous oxide for dental procedures. I know the pain will catch me off guard. I've been lucky in that I've had very little pain in my life. I just hope that everything goes well and the hospital stay is short. I'm looking forward to the 2 weeks I have off of work for this. It's kind of like a vacation... the most time I've had off in over a year. The most I've had are 3 day weekends up until now. I have almost enough PTO time to cover the time I have to take off though, so it kinda paid off.

Sooooo close!!!!