04/08/10: Wow

I have to laugh.  Somehow I've conveyed patience.  It makes me laugh.  It makes my husband laugh, too.  We both wish that I had more patience.  I don't have much.  I got that from my mom.  Ironically, I always thought she was the most patient person on the planet, I mean, she put up with me and kept a smile on her face doing so.  But she knew she had none and I realized later in our time together that she was right.  :)  At the same time I realized that, I realized I had none either, and I was ok with that.  By the by, she was fine with being impatient herself.

Calling the insurance co every other day is not patience.  Calling to complain to someone who is essentially a beauracrat, is not patience (even though said "essentially a beauracrat" is employed by a corporation, not the government, still identical in theory when they have to give "standard answers" that are scripted by "those in charge").

I am not patient.  I pulled off the calm phone call on Tuesday because I know that anger won't get me an answer - and that if it does garner an answer, that answer would probably be negative.  Anger doesn't inspire people to give you what you want.  I learned that when my mom was dieing.  I was not angry at anyone, I was just angry.  And sometimes that came out in how I treated people.  Especially when it was over the phone and I was "safe".  At the end of the day, that anger did not save my mom nor did it make me feel any better.  I had about six weeks that this lasted after the cancer came back a third time but had not yet been diagnosed as terminal.  Somehow, once the terminal diagnosis was given, I knew anger was not going to help me enjoy the last bit of time with mom and I let it go.

I do still get angry, we all do, it's a human emotion that is very real and has very real uses and purposes.  Getting angry at this situation is not going to make it better.

However, I am not patient.  If I were, I would be ok, not be blogging about it endlessly, would not be talking about it endlessly to my sweet hubby or to any of my friends who I feel I can talk to - or who ask.  If I were patient, I would not be consumed by this.  My life would be going on, pleasantly, nicely, easily and when I got my approval, I would switch gears then.  If I were patient, I would not have started the pre-op diet over three weeks ago in hopes that I can get on the schedule "that much faster".

But thank you all for thinking I am patient.  What that means to me is that while I am consumed and bothered and irritated by all this, somehow I have not lost sight of myself.  And that's good. 

So the pre-op diet.  I am following it well now.  I took the morning smoothie out of the picture because it was yuck and because it was competing with coffee and water drinking - both of which I much prefer to a "yuck" smoothie.  I have learned that I do not like berrie smoothies.  So I do not want berrie smoothies.  Once I took that smoothie out of my diet, I started getting more than enough water.

Right now, I should be getting ~120 oz of water a day.  I realized yesterday that right now, I am averaging ~150 oz of fluid intake.  ~110 oz is nothing but plain ol' good yummy water.  Another 24 oz is coffee.  You could say coffee is a diuretic and bad bad bad but I am of the camp that believes that you do get some fluid from coffee.  And finally, the remainder is in the form of chicken broth that I am putting my protein powder in.

It was quite a shock to realize I get enough water.  I don't think I was before I quit the smoothies.

I normally love my smoothies for the taste and for what it does for my colon.  But the fruit that I am getting is particularly low in fiber and with the taste being "yuck", well, it just didn't seem worth it to get those "extra" calories.  However, now that I cut that out, my calorie intake is hovering between 500-800 a day.

Not nearly enough.  Not even remotely nearly enough.  So the scale is responding.  How do you gain weight on 500 calories a day?  Ask Lori, she'll tell you how!

Dangit.

Oh well.

I do know that when my surgeon sees my food log he's going to think I'm lieing because I should be down down down given this intake.  But I'm not.  I haven't lost a pound now in over a week and a half.  That SUCKS!

In other news...

I have learned, in this process, that I was stupid.  :)  Still am, it's an inherent flaw in my person.  I can usually deal with it.  But my stupidity might have adversely affected some people and I am sorry for being stupid.  I have left some know-it-all comments all over the place on various people's blogs and how can I be a know-it-all?  I'm not even banded yet!  I am not a part of the ranks yet and here I was thinking I had great ideas that might help.  They didn't help, I now see, in fact, they just made me look stupid.

This is a learning process for all.  And I think that in thinking that I had good ideas, I was selling myself short on some of what I need to learn.  I might have some ideas.  But, if I haven't had a chance to test them out for myself, why in the world would I think suggesting it to someone else is good?

I think I've been reading banded people for so long that it's become like I'm living banded vicariously through others.  But it doesn't work.  I think I know how I will approach this because of what I've read and what I've learned thus far - but I haven't been able to test it out on myself.  Most of what I think is based on what I've read in other blogs.  But some of it is, well, if you take this bit from this blog and this bit from this blog and mix this with what I like, then this should work.  Now here, see if this works for you.  But I can't impose that on anyone.  I need to see it for myself and if it works, I can blog it and then YOU can decide if YOU like it.  Or, if it doesn't work, I can blog that and then people may decide for themselves they want to try and see if it works for them.

But here I am, this newbie, almost preaching sometimes, what 1) others already know or 2) what no one is interested in save me.  And I may or may not be interested myself after I test it on myself.

So all this to say, I'm sorry.  I'm not going to pretend like I'm not a know-it-all.  I do tend to be one of those.  And I don't do that to show you what I know and what you don't.  I do it because I know a little bit about a lot. I am no expert in anything.  But I love to research and learn and explore and take things apart.  And, in the process, what I learn, I love to share.  But I have realized that I think I have alienated some people that were/are a great support system.  I think my know-it-all'ness just manifested itself in a way and a place that it truly just bit me in the arse.

I suspect that some people that need to see this won't ever and that makes me sad, as well.

I think this no-approval process is really making me think outside of my own box of safety.  And that, to me, is a very welcome notion.  Like I said, I love to learn!!