It's the End of the World as We Know It... and I Feel Anything But Fine!

Okay, okay, fine. Maybe "end of the world" is a little dramatic. But the moment I've been waiting for for years is less than 18 hours away. To say I'm freaking out would be the understatement of the century.

I've been pretty silent on the blog front over the past week or so. No real reason other than I haven't really had much to say except the same thing I already said about the whole pre-op diet thing.

Now that it's just about over (I am NPO after midnight), I can confidently say that it hasn't been nearly as bad as I expected it to be. The first few days were the worst, by far. Day four was the point at which Derek and I both lost all our marbles and were cursing what we expected the remaining week and a half would be like. Poor Lucas picked those very days to be at his most "4-year-old" and he may have spent an inordinate amount of the day having "quiet time". On an absolutely unrelated note, I recently learned that four-year-olds talk. so. freaking. much. Jesus H. How can someone who has only lived four years have so much to say!!! (Haha, funny, but FWIW, I was a pretty shy, quiet kid - until much later anyway - so this is a little anathema to me.)

Anyway, in the time that has passed since, I haven't really been hungry much. I expected to basically be constantly hangry and bitter at any mention of food. But even with opening Lucas's Easter candy, presenting to County leadership while they nommed on pastries, and why are there SO MANY FOOD SMELLS OUTSIDE... ahem.. excuse me... I didn't really feel tempted.

Derek and I have talked about cravings at several points throughout the past two weeks and while I don't want to speak for him, it hasn't really made things difficult talking about all the foods I have missed. If you're curious, my biggest craving has been for apples with peanut butter. I have had a few sodas throughout, but my last one was several days ago and haven't really missed it.

I've had two primary challenges throughout the whole thing. #1 - I've actually had a problem drinking enough fluid throughout the day. The goal was to get at least 64 ounces per day and if I got that much on a daily basis, it was a fluke. I started noticing some symptoms of dehydration here towards the end so I've been focusing on essentially having a water bottle near my mouth at all times.

Challenge #2 -- I am so. effing. bored. The requirements I was given said that my clear liquids should have zero sugar, and no more than ten calories. You would be surprised at how few clear liquids meet that criteria. And the ones that do are essentially all within a small niche of beverages that claim to be "healthy" or at least "healthiER" than other drinks. Sparkling Ice, Crystal Light, Gatorade Zero, etc. I am so over fruity-flavored water-like drinks. I made several attempts at drinking broth but dear LORD, yuck. Do people really do this just, like, for funsies? Just crack open a box of Swanson with less sodium and start chugging/ Gross. I tried it plain, I tried it with my own doctoring, I tried it with Derek's doctoring, and I tried a store-bought broth that was supposed to specifically be for pho; all of them were vile. The only hot beverages I managed were a few bowls of noodle-less ramen and some strained cans of soup. To be honest, I would've liked to do more hot liquids because they were by far the most satisfying.

So there you have it, these are the things I will be keeping in mind if I ever have to go through this mess again.

But that's not what y'all are here for, right? It is currently about 10:15 pm on April 27th, the night before my life changes forever. No big deal.

I got my call around 4:00ish today that I should report to the hospital by 12:15 tomorrow for my 2:15 pm surgery. The gastric sleeve procedure takes about 2-3 hours, I'm told, but I am also having a hiatal hernia repair, and I don't actually know how that affects the timing. I'll be in recovery for a bit after that, and from my understanding, it'll be a total of 4-5 hours before Derek will be able to see me but he will hear from the surgeon once I'm in recovery.

(Side note: I've given Derek a list of people he needs to text message or send FB messages to once he gets an update. If you think you might not be on that list and you want to be -- the unmitigated gall of this chick for thinking anyone in FB-land wants personal updates on her surgical progress -- lemme know and I'll make sure you're in the loop)

As far as my brain-space right now, I'm kind of a hot mess. On one hand, I'm so effing stoked to finally be here after literal years of wanting this and working toward this goal. I'm pumped and I just want to hurry up and get there.

On the other hand, though, my anxiety and compulsive thinking are absolutely getting the best of me right now. I've never had surgery before, I've never been under full anesthesia and I've never been admitted to a hospital, much less stayed overnight. Many of you know me quite well and therefore know that the biggest trigger of my paralyzing anxiety is the unknown. Unfamiliar places or circumstances, questions I don't know the answers to, situations I've never experienced. All of it absolutely flummoxes me and I'm basically incapable of thinking of anything else.

Typically the best way I know of to cope with things like this is to devour every single iota of information about whatever it is I'm faced with. When I was faced with my first trip by airplane, Derek and I literally sat down and he walked me through every step of flying, from arriving at the airport to leaving the destination airport. It helped tremendously. I've done as much as I can to do the same for this surgery, but the difficulty here is that even though I can pick Derek's brain for hours about everything he went through with his surgeries. and I can read years worth of posts in bariatric surgery groups on Facebook, there's no telling how my own personal experience will go. So basically, my brain keeps telling me that even though I'm hearing all these stories from people who pulled through surgeries like this with no trouble at all, and I've absorbed all the data on surgical mortality rates (0.08%, thank you), I'll still never know if I'm in the 0.08% until it's over. And... well... let's just say that I may have had a complete breakdown earlier this afternoon thinking about how I could get on that table tomorrow thinking that it's the beginning of the rest of my life, but it ends up being the end. YES, I know, it's irrational and horrible and very morbid, but, well, welcome to life inside my brain.

So that's where I am right now. I'm exhausted. I'm terrified. I'm hungry. I'm nervous. I'm just really, really ready to be on the other side of this and get to work on the rest of my life.

If you'll recall, my surgeon gave me a goal to lose 15 pounds during the two-week pre-op diet. I went into it guns blazing, thinking 15 pounds would be challenging but ultimately no big deal. However... my body decided to give me one last FUCK YOU. I got about 8-9 pounds down and then stalled and hovered at the same place for the entire last week. It's depressing and infuriating, but another stark reminder that this is where I need to be; this is what I need to be doing. It shows that I can literally do everything I'm supposed to do, I can be on a medically supervised diet that's meant to essentially clean your body out and put you in starvation mode. I should've easily lost the 15 pounds, but as I've shown over the last 3 decades, it's never easy for me.

In my first post, I said that I would post my official "before" pictures before surgery, and I am a woman of my word. The plot twist is that my sweet, amazing friend (and photographer) Danielle offered to take some hi-res, pro photos of the last "before". I got to debut my newest t-shirt, and with any luck the last piece of clothing I will ever buy in a size 3x.

With no further ado, I present what I like to call "Sundown on Sarah 1.0." No further updates will be made and the old version will no longer be supported after tomorrow.

HW: 346

SW (program start): 308

SW (program end): 293.9

SW (pre-op diet): 282.8

CW: 273.6

GW: 199

Total Loss (since highest): 72.4

Total Loss (program): 28.4

Total Loss (pre-op diet): 8.7

Days left until surgery: Just under 15 hours.