Thoughts at 5am

Here I am wide awake for the 2nd day at 5am.  What the hell?  For those that know me, this is a complete oddity.  I am not a morning person, more like an 'awake until 5, sleep until 1pm' kind of person.

Mommy, go back to bed!

But my brain just won't shut off.  Well, today it was helped by the fact that the cats decided they would have a weekend and were wrecking havoc downstairs.  I could hear Touri chasing some invisible (or if it was visible, I don't want to know!) foe around on the hardwood floors, and then eventually Carter had to leave his nest cuddling with mommy to go check it out.  Then they were chasing one another around - up on counters and down the steps and...

By then I was pretty much wide awake.

*sigh*

I know I just need to turn my brain off, but it doesn't seem to have an auto-off switch, which is a pretty bad thing for me lately.  Or maybe it's a good thing.

If there's something no one can ever accuse me of, it's not thinking something through.  Nope.  Not me.  I'm the perpetual planner, always going through at least 3 different scenarios in my head to figure out if I'm doing the right thing and how it will turn out.

That's the thing that makes this decision to have GB surgery so difficult.  Too many unknowns.

Had to put this in because
when you put "doctor cartoon"
 in Google images,
Doctor Who is one
of the first results!

There are the probably not gonna happen things, but still have me worried - like what if something goes wrong with the actual surgery.  Oddly enough in all my thinking and planning and preparation, this is one thing that I have not spent much energy on. I chose a doctor I like and who has an excellent record with this procedure.  For WLS, 'leak' rates are the thing to watch and he has the lowest leak rate on the East Coast.  The hospital is a "Bariatric Center of Excellence," and when I compare to other programs, I like how conservative and cautionary they are.

In face, when I had my psych eval (yes, you cannot - or should not! - do this without a psych eval to make sure you can handle the changes), my doctor even commented on this.  At one point, she asked me what the risks were and I listed a bunch of them - not losing the weight, overeating after, dumping (ick!), vitamin deficiencies - and then she said I'd missed one.  Never one to like not getting a perfect score, I was annoyed by this.  What could I have missed?

Something could go wrong in surgery.

Oh... that little piece of the puzzle.

And I explained, that I didn't consider that a risk because it wasn't something I could control.  What happens on that operating room table is completely out of my hands, so why worry about it?  I'd rather obsess (and apparently I am good at that!) over things I can control and, therefore, berate myself for at 5am in the morning when I can't sleep!

Then there are the things I can totally control about this, but I still wish I had a crystal ball.  Unknowns like when I go on our annual winter cruise at the beginning of February, how much weight will I have lost?

I know... I know... I'm not doing this to just lose weight, but I have to admit that in my 5am moments, the idea of actually losing weight and being a smaller me does have me sort of giddy in side.  That is, when I  allow myself to think about it.  I usually try to banish those thoughts from my head.

Why?

Cruise 2011 - what will this
year's pictures look like?

Because I try not to be vain.  I try not to focus on the physical me, but on the new, healthier me.  Talking with Beth tonight, I was relaying stories from the WLS forum I have been obsessed with (www.thinnertimesforum.com). There are women there who are now size 2/4 or 6/8 and I can't even imagine that.  I know that result might not be typical (*cue any weight loss advertisement you have seen in the last year on television for the fine print down at the bottom of your screen*), but I don't even know if I want that.

I used to joke that if the entire world of women's clothing was opened up to me, I would be in trouble.  I have a hard enough time fitting clothes from the 2 stores I can shop at (Lane Bryant and Avenue) in my tiny closet as it is!  But now I wonder... what will that be like?  And if I do get there, will I still be me.

I don't think I will become one of those obsessed WLS survivors, but who knows.

Again, there's that unknown floating out and me having a hard time dealing with not being able to control it.

So where does that leave us?

6am now.  Still wide awake.  Zinc cold pills taken (still obsessed with getting this cold under control!).  Cats fed and watered, so they are going back to sleep.

And I'm still pondering... always pondering...