New Chapter

Wahooooo! The big day is upon me! I got a call first thing this morning from the hospital. My check-in time is 5:20 a.m. Gulp. O' Dark-Twenty. Will I be able to sleep tonight? Probably. Experience tells me that I will have a hard time falling asleep, but then will sleep soundly and the morning will come upon me very quickly.

Let me just say that any nerves I felt about the surgery were beaten down this morning. I had my daughter take my "before" pictures in my swimsuit. OH MY! Yes, in reviewing those pictures...I am doing the right thing by having surgery. Eep.

I would post them here, but for two things: 1) before pictures are just kind of scary without a "Happily Ever After" picture to chase it down with! and 2) I can't find the camera cord to transfer the pictures off my camera. I stopped at Radio Shack last night to see if they had a replacement, but they didn't. I will have to chase one down at a camera shop, or, heaven forbid, find the cable, which I *know* is in the house somewhere.

Note to self: buy a label maker. My happiest, never lost, cables are the ones that I have labeled as to what they go to. Anonymous cables just get lost in a sea of cable anonymity.

My weight today was 256, so down about seven pounds on the liquid diet. This is good. It's not great, but it's down about where I was when I started seeing the surgeon at the end of September, and before I quit smoking twelve weeks ago. I feel like this is a respectable way to go into the surgery: shrunken liver via weight loss, no "last meal syndrome" weight to be ashamed of. My "small evening meals" typically could have been smaller, but with the exception of cheating with a hard boiled egg, my days have been purely liquid diet. Oh, I did have a couple soy chai tea lattes during the couple weeks - I decided those were infrequent enough as to be okay.

Anyway, so excited! I will be in the hospital for two nights, then away at a friend's for a night or two. My mom is really haranguing me to come stay at their house for a few nights. She is my mommy and she is worried about me. :) I, on the other hand, like to live in a cave when I am sick, and the thought of being away from my own bed, my own stuff, when I am not feeling well --- well, that's just icky. We'll see. Unfortunately, it is supposed to snow in the next day or two, and the Seattle area completely shuts down in the snow. I am afraid if it does snow, my parents will convince me to stay with them in case I need anything. Even though I live five minutes from the hospital and they live 45 minutes from it, and they are in a more rural area and their power *always* goes out in the storms and mine *never* has...blah blah blah.

Hopefully, the surgery will go very well and my recovery will be quick enough to be clear to my parents that I can, in fact, be trusted home alone. ;) My ex will take the kiddos after work tonight and bring them to the hospital tomorrow or the next day. He'll keep them for a couple weeks, although my 11-year-old will continue to come home after school and be picked up later.

Oh! And it's my birthday! What a wonderful way to start a new year!! I am BEYOND EXCITED. :)