Getting Ready for Surgery

Ok. So my surgery, if indeed I am one of the two in three people who actually GETS the procedure, is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov 18. I've gone through all the testing. I've had my psych evaluation (hope I passed...). I had a manometry (motility test), which was VERY unpleasant. They numb your nose and shove a catheter up your nose then down your throat and into your stomach. Ugh. I've had an EKG and blood work done. I've had an EGD. Everything looks good.

So, the surgery is interesting and part of a clinical trial. Hence the possibility of being part of the control group (one in three will NOT have the surgery). The only ones who will know if I actually have the procedure will be the two surgeons. Regardless of whether I have the surgery, I will have to go through the entire program, including following eating instructions and going to follow-up visits with the surgeon.

The procedure itself is pretty simple. Instead of making an incision, they enter the stomach through the mouth and make a small pouch in the stomach using a triple line of titanium staples. It's similar to gastric banding in results as it is NOT a BYPASS surgery like Roux-en-Y, but they expect better results than the banding. It's also somewhat better than Roux-en-Y because they don't reroute your system as they do with Roux-en-Y.

I am currently on a liquid only diet, which sucks. However, I can eat anything I can pour that is smooth, including thick and smooth soups like split pea soup, or any soup I can puree, like beef/barley soup. I'll be honest, it's VERY hard NOT to eat what I feed the rest of the family, especially when it comes to something like bread, but even just regular old protein.

On the plus side, I've lost fifteen pounds since the end of the Jewish holidays. When I first met with the surgeon, I weighed 351, clothed, no shoes. After the holidays, I weighed about 357, clothed. Today, when I weighed in, I weighed 342, clothed. I expect to weight between 330 and 335 pounds by the date of the surgery. If all goes well, I hope to be down to 300 pounds by the end of 2008.

In the meantime, I WILL continue blogging as I can, so please stay tuned (if you read this blog...). I'm working on what to focus on next, and I may turn back to focussing more on Judaism, my latest feelings on the subject, and my latest thoughts on concepts, ideas, halacha, midrash, and all the rest. I'm probably going to be what is considered "controversial" by the Chareidi/Yeshivish community, and maybe even, to a certain extent, to the Orthodox community as a whole, but that's how it is.