I would have spent the last couple of hours laying in bed trying to get to sleep. My sweet husband, whose brain never ever seems to get away from him like mine does me is sleeping peacefully in our relatively comfortable motel bed just a few meters away yet sleep alludes me. So, in an attempt to perhaps slow down my brain enough for me to rest, here I am up instead to download my thoughts....
It's been a rough couple of days. Despite promises to the contrary I've been experiencing pretty severe pains in my stomach that prior to surgery I would have assumed were hunger pains. I have read in a couple of different places that this kind of thing is most likely due to acid reflux rather than any kind of real hunger, yet I am still highly concerned for a couple of reasons. Number one: I do NOT want to spend the next 12 months being in pain and feeling perpetually hungry and two: If this pain persists its likely I will not be able to read when I'm full, thus increasing my chances of stretching my new stomach and completely undoing all my good work tenfold. Yet unlike hunger, the feeling gets WORSE when I try to drink anything, making my fluid intake over the last couple of days drop to dangerously low levels. And my spirits right along with it despite my husband's best efforts.
Poor Brad. At one point during my despair and worries he exasperatedly said "I thought this surgery was going to INCREASE your confidence!!" We've come all this way, at great expense, to improve my chances of losing weight, feeling healthier, happier, and living a fuller life and all I can do is gripe about it. It's really not fair on him at all. I can't seem to find the words to tell him my fears in any intelligible way that he would understand because, lets face it, unless you've been there yourself you cannot possibly know what this is like. He tries, Lord love him, but I feel like I've already burdened him far more than I should have. I cannot ask him to understand something he's never experienced for himself.
The horrid psychologist I saw just before the surgery who made me feel AWFUL (see previous post for sordid details!) said something interesting to me. She pointed out that my putting on weight was a way of me abusing myself, which in itself is hardly a revelation, but she then went on to say that perhaps me having the surgery was just switching methods to a different form of abuse upon myself...I thought that was a preposterous concept until recently but now I wonder whether me having this surgery was like my own brand of self harm. But then I think to myself, perhaps not getting the surgery would have been more abusive - how can I ignore such a serious problem that will eventually kill me? Is having 80-90% of my stomach cut out my own personal brand of terrorism, or a way to spare myself from my own personal brand of terrorism?
Sometimes I feel like I wouldn't even need to physically visit a psychologist - all I need to do is send her the link to this blog in an email with the message "here's where to start" and let her have at it! Wouldn't she have a field day! I feel like it would be terribly remiss of me, nay a higher form of neglect, for me to not include the bad stuff along with the good. After all, this journey is not success only, and the hard stuff has only really just begun. I'm sure in the future there will be posts of successes, victories, smaller and smaller scale readings, new measurements, new outfits and all manner of good news. But at this stage of this very long journey I am feeling tired, and worn out, and disheartened. It's only been a week and I don't have that "hooray I've been sleeved" feeling at all. Instead I am wondering what the hell I have done to myself and I'm plagued with doubts as to whether this has been worth it at all.
Of course intellectually I know it is. In my head I am as determined as ever to succeed and I know I have the professional and personal support team behind me to make that happen. I've done everything right, just like I always do. I've put all my ducks in a row, I've crossed my t's and dotted my i's and I've sought the best of the best in terms of advice and research. I was READY for this. So why do I now feel so scared and so bloody unsure of myself. The fact of the matter is, it's done. There's nothing that can change that.
As usual, I've fooled myself into believing that by getting everything just so my emotions will catch up. But the bad and the ugly part of life is sometimes you just have to fake it til you make it. And so, tomorrow I'll get up, put on my bravest smile, ring the clinic to discuss my concerns, and try again.....
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