I'm scared

Jun 19, 2013

There, I said it.  My surgery is less than 2 weeks away and I'm starting to freak out.  I guess that's normal, at least from what everyone tells me, but that doesn't mean I like it.

What am I scared of?  How long do you have to read this?

1. This is going to hurt.  How do I know? My wife had RGB a few weeks ago. She's almost back up to full speed.  Granted, she had some complications that I will hopefully avoid, but clearly in the first week after surgery she was in immense pain.  I don't do pain well.  I've had arthritis in my knees for years, but somehow I don't think I have ever experienced anything like this before.
2. What if I do the surgery and have complications?  There are a myriad of possibilities: popped sutures, infection, stricture, bleeding, clotting, hernia..... Did I mention I'm not good with pain?  That is just going to be amplify anything I am feeling.
3. What if I do the surgery and don't lose weight?  Granted, in 6 weeks since starting my presurgery diet I am down nearly 10%, but what if I can't follow the plan?  What if the magic doesn't happen for me?  What then?  I see how little my wife eats.  I can't imagine ever being satisfied.  I know that with the bypass big changes happen on both the endocrine and neurological levels, but how can I go from eating a pizza to eating 1 slice and being happy?
4. What if I do the surgery and lose the weight and then regain it?  We've seen it happen to other people.  It doesn't seem impossible that it could happen to me.  After all, if I was that good at controlling my eating would I have grown to a BMI of 58 to begin with?

I suppose that there is not much I can do.  If I allow myself to be paralyzed by my fears I will never get to my goals.  Not the weight loss goal, but the other things

• shopping in a regular store for clothes. 
• Flying without needing a seatbelt extender or pannicing because I can't find a seat with an open seat next to it so that I don't crush the normal sized person next to me. 
• Going on roller coasters with my kids that I can't fit on now because I can't close the restraints.
• Getting off my CPAP so that I can snuggle close to my wife again when I sleep

So I guess that I have to believe: in myself, my surgeon, my nutritionist, my wife and kids, my friends.  I have lots of support and for that I am grateful.  Hopefully in a few more weeks I will be able to write in and tell you that everything went okay. 

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