A New Journey-Part 2

With the new year approaching, I am looking forward to new beginnings.  As I shared in a previous blog, I will be having gastric bypass surgery on February 13^th.  There are some things that have to happen prior to surgery.  My liver needs to be healthy.  To accomplish this, I am required to go on a strict diet for the 2 weeks prior to surgery.  I will have 2 protein shakes (15-25 grams of protein, less than 7 grams of carbohydrates) and one meal of 4-6 ounces of protein and 1 cup of vegetables.  This should result in a loss of about 15 pounds. Finding protein shakes that meet the requirements and are palatable is somewhat challenging so I ventured out to Walmart today and bought each kind that they had that met the requirements.  I also ordered some protein broths to try out.  Over the next few weeks, I will test them out and hopefully find something that I like.  When the time comes for me to “have” to use the shakes, I should be prepared.

Another step that I took was to try to create a fail-proof environment.  After having 17 people living in the house over Christmas, there was quite a bit of food that was not weight-loss friendly.  I didn’t want it all to just go to waste, so my daughter-in-law Dani went through the cupboards, fridge, and freezer and took everything that I wasn’t supposed to eat.  There wasn’t much food left in the house, but I won’t be tempted to eat something I shouldn’t.  I also packed up my cookbook collection. There’s no sense in having them here tempting me to cook things that will interfere with me reaching my goal. 

My last step for this weekend was buying ingredients to make a couple of the recipes from the cookbook that Corey and Raissa gave me for Christmas.  It is written specifically for success after weight loss surgery.  Tomorrow I plan to prepare and puree the recipes, freeze them in ice cube trays, then store them in Ziploc bags so I have some ready meals when the time comes. 

This may seem like some drastic measures and I know that not everyone would need to do this much prep work to be successful, but I know the hard work now will pay off later.

This isn’t the end.  If you’ve read any of my blogs, you know that I try to find a lesson in everything.  When I was creating my fail-proof environment, I thought about how we need to make our spiritual environment fail-proof.  If you know that there are areas in your life that cause you to be tempted to sin, you need to do the work to remove those things when possible and have a game plan in place for when temptation arises.  Just as having food in the house that isn’t consistent with my successful weight loss, having things in my life that I know will cause me to sin doesn’t make any sense either.  Is it easy?  No.  Is it worth it?  Absolutely!!!

A New Journey

I have decided to embark on a new journey.  It won’t be an easy one.  I am hoping that as I chronicle the adventure that I will be able to provide hope for someone with the same struggles and find people that will be encouraging while holding me accountable. This wasn’t an easy decision to make and has been in the works for several years.  I first considered it over 5 years ago and had the support of my husband.  It didn’t feel like the right time then.  With health issues becoming a concern, recognizing the limits that my choices have created, and experiencing the rudeness of people who don’t know me, I decided that now was the right time. 

In July, I attended a meeting at MedCenter One in Bismarck to begin the process of getting a gastric bypass.  I chose MedCenter One because I felt that it would be too difficult to be hospitalized in the same place that my husband had been while he was fighting cancer.  I attended the meeting alone after doing some shopping.  I have crowd anxiety issues so getting this far was a boost of confidence.  I was feeling really good….until.  I sat down to look through the materials.  I glanced up at the screen and saw that the surgeon that performed three surgeries on Dan would also be my surgeon. He had switched hospitals. This rattled me a little, but I pulled myself together and made it through the meeting.  I came home and spent a considerable amount of time filling out paperwork and making the necessary appointments.  I met with and got a referral from my primary physician, met with the psychiatrist for the required evaluation, (I passed, by the way), and planned for my appointment with the surgeon.  Three days before my appointment, I received a call.  I was told that my surgeon was no longer employed by that hospital and the appointment was cancelled.  I decided to look at my options.  MedCenter One was working on getting another surgeon certified, but they didn’t know how long that would take.  I contacted MidDakota Clinic and started the process again.  More paperwork, more medical records to be released.  On October 16^th, I met with the nutritionist, nurse, financial department, and the surgeon.  I originally wanted the surgery to be in November, but everything would have to fall into place quickly.  As of today, my medical records still have not been sent to MidDakota.  In addition, because of some of the limitations following surgery, I would have to be very careful at Christmas.  I decided that I didn’t want to give up being able to play with and hold my grandchildren.  The surgery is tentatively set for February 13^th.  It won’t be set for sure until my medical records are received and insurance authorizes the surgery. 

So the journey begins. The journey to a longer and healthier life.