There's a Timeline To This, a Schedule.

I’m still going through the motions on the path towards my surgery. I am trying to keep up with my appointments and schedule everything in order to feel like I am getting closer. Because I live my life in spreadsheets, I created a surgical timeline in order to keep track of all of the requirements that my insurance company has before you can schedule your surgery. I think it's pretty cool and incredibly covenient. I'm thinking about sharing it with other people that are considering surgery that have the health insurance that I have after all is said and done. It's just really helpful in terms of remaining optimistic about the surgery and it helps visualize the six months passing by quickly. In fact, it might have even been more helpful to have scheduled all necessary doctor's appointments at the same time each month and then record that onto the timeline, if that's something that you can do. I know that there are people who have to schedule their time off around a lot of different factors, but for me, I have tried to schedule everything at the same time each month so that if I'm going to take off a whole day from work, I can really maximize that day. Here's my timeline: 

It’s August now and that means that at the end of the month, I’ll still have two (or three) months to go before the insurance company will clear the way for me to have my gastric bypass surgery. (I just got off the phone with my insurance company, finally, and they said that I might be able to get away with scheduling two visits in the same month so I'm going to schedule one visit the first week of October and then another the last week of October so that by mid-November I can have a surgery date.) My best friend had her surgery on 31 July 2013 and had to be readmitted because of a complication. I’m still really happy for her and I am anxious to see her results even though I’m jealous that she has somewhat of a head start on me. I can be happy for her and admit that I'm jealous at the same time, that doesn't mean that I don't want her to succeed and that I won't rejoice in her success. I just kinda idealized that we would be on the weight loss journey together, something like neck and neck motivating each other to work harder. I’m getting more and more excited just thinking about how little time there is between now and when I can finally have my surgery. The six month wait and all of the requirements for the surgery seemed so arbitrary, but at least the time is flying by relatively quickly. I really wish that I could have just had my surgery when I decided that it was my only option. Better yet, I wish that I had decided this for myself a long time ago. I would have been so devastating to people if I had decided this even three years ago as opposed to 27. The upside is that I am 27 and single, so once the weight is off, I will be a force to be reckoned with. It’s just going to be ridiculous. I am still wrestling with the fact that this will be a major life change. I have been researching all of the ways that my eating habits will need to change after surgery and it's pretty eye opening, nerve wracking, frightening, and it's almost a deterrent... almost. One thing that it does is make me really frustrated when people say, "you should work on changing your eating habits now." Well, from what I read, that's not exactly going to work, and I know myself. There has to be a pressing factor. Here's why changing my eating habits now might not necessarily be so smart. A very sudden diet change is going to make me sick. In the weeks leading up to the surgery I'll need to be on a liquid diet. While I have tried to incorporate more broth into my diet, and with success, that's going to be a huge adjustment for several weeks at a time; I'll be weak. It'll probably be a good idea to add a multivitamin in there during that period so that I don't wilt. After the surgery, more broths are required in addition to water and sugarfree juices. Then, for about three to four weeks after that, everything that I ingest will need to be pureed, it's going to be the most disgusting experience, SO...baby food it is. Ew. And then, finally, incorporating solid foods back into my diet making sure to chew my food to a puree lest I send myself straight to the toilet to vomit. So for about three months, I won't have eaten any solid food...that's going to equate to quite a bit of weight loss.  It's a scary life change and I feel a little insulted when people insist that I have no idea what I'm getting myself into. I know full well what I'm in store for and I ask myself every time I think about this surgery whether or not I'm willing to do this for the rest of my life. However, I'm a big advocate for the cost/benefit analysis being done on everything and the benefit outweighs the cost this time.