This surgery is going to change my life, and I'm willing to put in the work for it. However, it's crazy that I'm doing this elective surgery where they're going to rearrange my perfectly good insides. I can hardly believe that I'm letting them do this to me. I mean, I'm only 31, and despite my weight, I'm in pretty good health, right? I feel more or less fine every day.
On the other hand, there are things happening to my body silently that will have a serious negative impact on my life in the future. For example, remember me talking about my fatty liver? I don't have any symptoms from that, but it's there, and it's a problem. What else is going on in my body that I don't know about, these silent diseases sneaking up on me? (Silent But Deadly, lol.)
I have to keep perspective. I've already written about the complications and risks for both morbid obesity and gastric bypass surgery. In my head it makes sense that I need to put myself at risk for certain terrifying things in order to prevent the other slightly more terrifying things.
It doesn't quite feel real that it's going to happen tomorrow. Today was a normal day, and tomorrow everything is going to be different. It mostly just feels like a dream to me. There's nothing else I can do to prepare; I've done everything that the doctor and nurses have told me to do. Maybe it won't feel real until I wake up from surgery, or maybe not until the reality of my food restrictions has settled in. I don't know.
There are a few things that I'm actually really scared of. I'm scared that this is a bad choice; that I could have, and should have, tried harder to lose weight on my own. I'm scared that I'll have depression (a possible complication of the surgery for lots of reasons); I've been super lucky in my life not to suffer from clinical depression, and the thought of it is worse than the surgery itself. And I'm obviously scared of the surgery itself.
I've posted some pictures on my Facebook to go along with this post, because for some reason both my phone and my computer are having issues right now. When I get the chance, I'll update this post to include those pictures. The pictures are my "before pictures" and some inspirational quotes that I've put up around my room so I remember to get out of my comfort zone every once in a while.
All fears aside, I'm excited for the future. Helen Keller said, "Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." Bring on the adventure!
Erin, how are you doing?? :)
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