As I sit to write this I am 11 days away from surgery. I have held up my end of the bargain, lost
the required amount of weight and OH BOY can I feel it.
I have been off of my
pain meds for just over a week, this is so that I can have an optimal anesthesia
experience and not need a “deeper” sedation and I can feel every single pound
of redundant flesh that is hanging around my mid section. From between my
shoulder blades to my tailbone and yes even my knees are aching and pinching
and stabbing, but I have my eye on the prize and am doing my very best to
handle it with grace.
I went to visit some
friends of mine yesterday that I will not be seeing again until sometime after
I’ve been sliced and diced and when I walked in the door, took my coat off and went
to the kitchen my GF nearly dropped dead when she saw me. She told me I could
stop losing any second now; it made me smile because it just affirmed what I
knew was going on. It always feels good to know that someone is noticing, but
really, all in all, I’m actually a little concerned with how EASY it was to
drop the pounds this time. I am sort of hoping that I continue to lose at least
another 20 post surgery and as long as I keep doing what I have been doing with
my diet I don’t see why that wouldn’t be the case.
People are still asking me the silliest of things…like
Are you nervous yet? Nope not nervous… anxious is more the
word. I have a world renowned plastic surgeon that is just as cocky as the year
is long because he knows that he is good at what he does and has assured me
that I am going to look AWESOME on the other side of this operation. He has
some 35 years experience, pioneered a great many procedures, gets referrals
from all over the world and is blatant about the fact that in all of his years
of breast reconstruction he has never lost a nipple to necrosis or blood supply
death and in his exact words, “You WILL NOT be the one to break my streak.”
I think it’s hard for some people to accept that I am not
nervous, but I am truly, truly not. I am a believer in all things magic, the
man that is about to reshape my body is nothing less than a magician with
special skill, why would I be nervous putting my all into the hands of skill
and knowing that even if the outcome isn’t 100% of what he has planned for me I
am going to be at least 100% better than I am right now as I write this. How
can one be nervous over such a win-win situation?
Oh and I do feel blessed. I am blessed because the first
plastic surgeon I consulted with was a complete asshole. If he had not been I
would never have found my current plastic surgeon and I truly feel that the
Goddess showered me through this lesson with love because I could not ask for a
more skilled or talented surgeon to be on my side than the one I have now.
I am someone who lives her life big on gratitude. I am
thankful for the rays of sunshine that come into my life and I even do my very
best to turn negatives into some kind of positive by finding the lessons in
each. It’s not that hard to do.
I am so very thankful that this man, this skilled surgeon with healing hands
decided to live his life in Canada and continue to do public service work
through our socialized health care system and I am so very thankful that he saw
the hard work that I have done for me and that he told me that not only was I
worthy of having the body that pregnancy and weight gain robbed me of, but told
me because I have done such a good job of taking care of me in the past little
while that I am not even going to know what to do with the me on the other side
of the operation.
I will never be a supermodel, and that’s not what this
surgery is about, this surgery is about a woman who has had some severely hard
knocks in her life; most of which most people don’t know about because I refuse
to live in the past or in the land of what if, but nonetheless this surgery is
about THAT woman finding her grace and finding her way back to what it is that
she knows she has always been.
I am prepared, I have done my homework, I have taken every
single pre-surgical precaution that I should take. I am eating well, I am doing
what exercise I can, I have an aftercare plan in place, I am ready, OH LORD I
am SOOOO ready that all that is left to do is pack my bag and hurry up and
wait.
I know that as I heal I could have a bumpy ride… quite
literally NOTHING I currently have in my closet is going to fit me EVER, EVER,
EVER again. There will be some emotional roller coasters as I try to figure out
exactly what my “style” is going to be when I get back to buying clothes. For
the first time in my whole life I will be shopping for tops that FIT me
everywhere and not just fit me in a manner that accommodates my boobs; for the
first time I will be buying pants that accentuate my curves and don’t have to accommodate
for a belly pannus in the meantime.
Yeah, I think the only thing I’m nervous about is not even
knowing where to begin once I can go clothes and bra shopping in the after.
For the first time in a long, long time, my hair is long, my
skin is clear, my hope is at 1000% and I am OH SO READY…
Bring…it…on!