Courage Is Under-Rated

I finally finished viewing the online seminar, containing 6-7 videos with accompanying quizzes.

I finally printed out the "certificate of completion" to verify that I saw all the videos and took all the quizzes.

I printed out and filled out the "registration" form.

I photocopied my insurance card, front AND back.

I faxed all this shit to the surgeon's office, with the expectation that within 24-48 hours I would receive a call back to schedule a consultation, of which I would not meet with the surgeon but someone else, perhaps a "liaison" of sorts. Perhaps a physicians assistant or a nutritionist.

Amount of time which has now elapsed since I jumped through all these hoops and faxed out the necessary paperwork: One full week.

My mind was made up to go thru with this surgery last year. Then dad died, and I gave myself a year to cope with the loss. The topic is now front-and-center and needs to be addressed. Sure, I could have had all this done last year, so then when the year was up, I'd be "on deck" and ready for surgery. However, I was barely functioning last year. If I could not manage to get my act together and remember to re-up for the flexible spending account for my medical reimbursement for 2009, I doubt if I would have been salient enough to jump through all these hoops.

So yes. It's a mind fuck. The surgeon's time is too valuable to deal with me directly on this level, so I have to jump through hoops and wait for them to respond. And yet, my time has zero value at this point. If I think about this any longer, I will probably explode with rage due to the fact that their inaction, their devaluing MY time and my effort and the sheer CHUTZPAH it took to do all this, to attempt to get this process started, only furthers the agony of my obsessing on how horrible it all will be: all the ADDITIONAL pre-certification firey hoops I will have to jump through; all the pre-op firey hoops I will have to jump thru; and all the post-op firey hoops I will have to jump thru. A year's worth of shit for me to swim through personally before I even see a GLIMMER of a normal-ish life.

It's a Hobson's Choice really. What choice is there to have? To go in and have my stomach surgically mutilated on the off-chance it will change this legacy of shitty health I have been born into VS not doing a damned thing and being just as miserable.

Life is a never-ending stream of suffering. It's those few precious moments of joy that fool me into thinking that life could be anything other than suffering. Because even when I experience the rarity of joy, it is fleeting, and I revert back to suffering. All of this is in vain. Life is the ultimate vanity trip.

A Wasted Day

Fuck you to my husband’s snoring, leading to my sleep deprivation, and exacerbating my depression.

I had wonderful plans to go into NYC early today to check out the Spider Silk exhibit at a museum, then go to 1-2 yarn stores, then stock up on bath shit at Lush, then lunch at a Malaysian place before my appointment (which I thought was) at 3.

I woke up feeling like crap, dropped the husband off at the train, and thought I’d just go into NYC later just for my appointment.

So then I start constructing my “Plan B,” building a small itinerary after the therapist appointment. I scheduled a hair appointment at Aveda, and mapped out which bus to take to get to Lush in Herald Square.

I was in the process of IMing the husband about how shitty I felt, when my cell let me know I had a voicemail. Time: 11:45. It was my therapist wondering where I was, as our appt was at 11. FML.

So I had to go and reschedule my appointment for next week, and hope I’ll be able to get the time off as we’re running FOREVER short staffed it seems, then had to cancel the hair appointment I JUST ARRANGED, and will have to wait one more week until I get to go to Lush to stock up on my bath shit.

Husband’s response: Take a nap.

FUCK THAT! If I were getting good sleep, I’d be alert enough to salvage my day. Now I’m up and irritated at a perfectly HORRIBLY wasted day off (state holiday), and will have to dip into my sick time to take off to accommodate another appointment.

I’m incredibly fed up with the sleep situation here. And even in my sleep-deprived-addled state, when he wakes me up in the middle of the night due to his CONSTANT tossing and turning and OH MY GOD SNORING, I scream out, “WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK?”

On top of this, I've only seen about four of the videos of the online seminar the bariatric team demands I watch (and respond to the quizzes at the end) before even arranging a consultation with me.

I'm alone. I'm exhausted. I'm depressed. And the whole situation once that consultation is arranged will be nothing but six months to a year's worth of aggravation, depleting my sick and personal leave at work, and just inconvenience and irritability. No wonder why I'm procrastinating and meditating too long on this shit.

Three Out of Six

So I sat down and plodded through three (or maybe four) of the six videos of the online seminar which is required before scheduling a consult. In hindsight, I wish I weren't me. I wish I were more of a go-getter. Had that been the case, I no doubt would've been able to get in for a consult this Weds when I'd be in NYC anyway for another appointment.

I fear once I set this thing in motion, my life will be a flurry of doctor's appointments, requirements, and further reminder(s) that I am a failure.

On Diminishing Joy

I'm still menstruating at age 41. Increasingly intense pain from lower (left side) back straight through to front of body out the pelvis. Why should I still menstruate? It's a sick cosmic joke.

Too many years have been languished and complacency has settled in. First w/a (now ex) husband who wasted ten years of my life before PCOS took a foot hold. Second with a husband who isn't the same age as me, different thoughts on when to start a family despite my being six years older. And really now, it's too late. So why menstruate anymore?

I won't have a kid of my own flesh. Between all the risk factors (both for me and a fetus), plus this overriding fear that I'll fuck up an innocent life, coupled up with the overriding sense that I'll be in it alone, I'm paralyzed to even follow thru on this.

And now it seems I'll be on track for bariatric surgery, after which, vitamin and mineral deficiencies will be something I'll have to stay vigilant of, so post-op pregnancy I doubt it's even advised.

Just attempted to get aroused and tried to have sex, which just left me in a crying jag fueld by female impotence. I used to have a stellar and enjoyable sex life. I don't know if the increasing impotence I am suffering from is from the excess weight or my depression or what. It saddens me intensely that something I used to enjoy so much may be gone forever.

And sadly the last thing that brought me so much enjoyment, FOOD, will soon be taken from me too.

Though not suicidal, I am prone to intellectualize what is the point of living when two very essential things in my life are escaping my grasp.

Might Be IT

This weekend might be the weekend I finally break down and view the online seminar, which the surgeon I hope will do my bypass requires before scheduling a consultation.

I'm sick to my stomach.

I can't imagine living a life not controlled by this monstrous sense of hunger and emptiness. The uncertainty of the success of failure of the surgery scares the shit out of me.

Friday was the 52nd Friday since dad passed.
It was also my onset day for my period.
Vicodin works wonders for horrendous back spasms and menstrual cramps.

I had a full-on anxiety attack (honestly, I thought I'd need to go to the ER; I thought I was having a heart attack), due to my obtuse brother and his wife over-staying their welcome at mom's.

My mother cooked breakfast the morning after dad's memorial mass.

Bacon and vicodin, two of my favorite things.

Still haven't gotten up the moxie to go to the URL to watch the online seminar for the surgeon. Can't schedule a consult until I do.

My mind is reeling at what a monkey wrench this is going to cause to my vacation plans in 2010.

We're so incredibly short staffed at work, I get anxiety attacks thinking about scheduling time off for the plethora of appointments before, during, and after surgery.

I've been depressed for a good two weeks. Deep depression.

My monster of an appetite (seriously, it normally is fire breathing and has fangs, that kinda monster), has been MIA.

I just called the surgeon's office. Will take online seminar this week sometime. 24-48 hrs later will make arrangements for consult.

Public Service for the Gentlemen following my updates:

If your wife is considering bariatric surgery, and if you have a convo re: football players being “massive and aggressive,” DO NOT tell your wife you think she is massive. You will not get your “ticket punched for a trip thru Tuna Town” for a long, long time. Ask me how I know this. I dare you. Ask me.

Dread. I still haz it.

Appt w/the endo last week rendered me into a fit of sobs. Sobbed in the exam room in front of the doctor, "I'm tired of coming here and feeling like a failure." Don't know how I did it, but I gained 15 lbs in three months. I'm devastated. On an upnote, my triglycerides have lowered. Yay.

Appt w/the psychotherapist went well. I mean, how much should I anticipate from a meet-and-greet should be? 45 Minutes and three sheets of legal pad paper w/hand written notes later, the appointment was over. I am scheduled to see him again this Thursday (two days from now). Not thrilled with the idea of going into NYC for my appointments, but he did come highly recommended by a friend, and I figure I'd have a better shot at tackling my issues with someone highly recommended rather than just let my fingers do the walking and find someone local who happens to be in network or takes my insurance.

Last week was just a blur of dread, depression, failure, tears, aggravation... and what is the point of all this? Seriously?

Endo gave me the # of the bariatric guy to call; here I am eight days later and I have yet to call.

I do not WANT the surgery, but I can intellectualize it enough to know I NEED it. I am ceding surrender. I cannot slay this monster alone. However, the post-op liquid to mush intake plan for the first three months is enough to plummet me further into despair. How is life worth living like that?

Like I said to my therapist, "Most normal people do not cry when they think of food."
Drowned sorrows in one too many Bellinis and a meal that was so delicious it might as well have been the meal of a condemned person on death row.

Came home and fought with the husband, as I was trying to just SHOW him a cookie I bought for him at Eleni's, it was a teddy bear with a heart done in royal icing. As I was taking it out of the bag, I guess he thought I was going to eat it or force him to eat it, RUINING a perfectly sweet moment just to show him I was thinking of him, reducing me to shrieking at him, "Just fucking look at it will you? I was thinking of you when I bought this." I threw it back in the bag and went to bed.

I just want to die in my sleep. Why can't I just die in my sleep?

Dread.

Tomorrow:
10 a.m. w/ReproEndo Guy.

I already know I've gained weight; so I know that the visit will leave me feeling like an utter failure.

2 p.m. Shrink.
Going to him because if I go thru the gastric bypass I sense that life won't be worth living (just one of the assortment of reasons I am driven to see him). I not-so-secretly hope that I'll just die on the table. Better to be mutilated and die than to continue on as if nothing is wrong.

High point of the day (I hope):

Catch some of the Columbus Day parade, and a burger and beer at Burger Joint @ Parker Le Meridien. Perhaps.

.

Onset 9/19
Done 9/24

Condomless sex on 9/24.

A Step Closer

Been thinking more and more about taking up a friend on her recommendation for her therapist in the city.

I'm poised, but not sure if I'm ready to pounce.

My fear of failure is preventing me from doing much of anything these days to get myself out of this destructive phase. All my best intentions amount to nothing. Why bother?

Two Months, Eleven Days: Riomet

Nothing out of the ordinary to report, regarding the Riomet.

Date of last draw of blood: 8/19 (I think!).
Date of next appt w/specialist: 10/12.

Still seriously considering WLS, not for vanity reasons, but out of concerns that if I don't do something drastic to change my current "trajectory," I will turn into my mother (medically).

I Don't Recommend...

Viewing "Then She Found Me," if you're in your early 40s struggling with either infertility or the existentialistic angst over if/when/whether or not you're able to have a child of your own.

Constipation, Thy Name is Riomet

Two words to summarize how I feel right about now, now that I am suffering the direct opposite effect I had w/the Metformin XR:



The non-Cliffnotes version:

Every day when I finally do "make," I feel as if I were forcibly birthing a big man's fist (replete w/extra pointy pinky ring) through my bungus. My poor O-ring is being TORN ASSunder!

Ravenous.

I don't get it. And by "it," I mean my appetite. Today I'm just ravenous.

Breakfast:

2 16 oz cups of coffee
1/2 pint milk
2 hard boiled eggs
Bagel w/buttah

Took Riomet after breakfast

Snack:

Cheese stick
10 black cherries

Lunch:

Trader Joes Caesar Chicken salad (w/avocado added by me)
Cheese stick
Ice tea

Took Actos after lunch

Snack:

3 Italian style cookies (the nice ones, w/the jelly in the middle)

Snack:

Banana

Snack:

Cheese stick

THEN WHY THE EFF AM I HUNGRY?

I have one more snackie packed, a nectarine. I'm afraid to eat it. It's only 4:39. I get out at 6. If I eat it now, and I continue to build this ravenousness, I don't know how I can be held responsible for my actions should I run out of snackables!

FUCK YOU, PANCREAS! FUCK YOU MALFUNCTIONING OVARIES! FUCK YOU, FUCKED UP GENES!! Shut the fuck up and get in mah belleh.

(This is what happens when I forego a hot lunch, I suppose. I SUPPOSE.)

Day 37

So far so good. I'm continuing to tolerate the Riomet well, with a minimum of gastric distress, in comparison to the sudden onset "explosivity" I suffered while on Metformin XR (2500 mg daily).

I'm up to 1500 mg for a daily dose of the Riomet (and 15 mg of Actos at lunch), and so far so good.

Last night I even noticed something different about my skin/flesh: it's warm to hot. Not regular body temp, but warm to the touch. Not feverish either. Like I've had some minor physical exertion.

I am planning on getting my blood drawn on the 19th; hopefully it'll register some microscopic change w/my androgens.

Four Days Later

Just an FYI, I did not take two sleeping pills and run a length of garden hose from my tailpipe to the cabin of my SUV, sealing up everything with duct tape.

I'm still here.

Four days later, and the fog has barely begun to lift. It's better than it was, but Thursday's unraveling took quite a physical toll on me.

Mood: Bleak

I am a big, fat, out-of-control, fucking failure.

I pray daily that someone will put a bullet in my head or that a chunk of SkyLab will land on me.

The day started with the reinforcement of the perception that I am a big, fat, out-of-control, pig-faced, fucking failure.

I sat in my car and sobbed. Wailed actually. Wailed to my father, "Why did you leave me? Why can't I go, too?"

A co-worker parked their car next to me. I buried my face in a paper towel and acted like I don't exist.

Honestly, I wish I didn't (exist).

And to be blunt, I'm tired of sticking around to make others happy, or to make others not have to deal with all the requisite unpleasantness my untimely exit would cause.

Fuck all of you.

New standard industry size: FAT

New standard industry size: FAT

Disclaimer: I, myself, have had dealings with the person spotlighted in that post. Though the unpleasantness I've encountered from her were not "size-ist," the unpleasantness would be defined as demanding, snarky, and patronizing. Couple that up with the woman-on-woman size-ism, I won't be patronizing that shop.