Bump in the road

It's a good ting I used to be a long distance runner.  The patience, strength and endurance I gained from that has been a great help through the WLS process. 

Let me start by saying that I know I am extremely lucky.  I work for a company that values my health, and provides me with the Cadillac of health insurances, for an extremely small co-pay.  When all is said and done, I will likely be out of packet less than $200 for the surgery and all the pre-op prep.  And there is a lot of pre-op prep -- 19 separate doctor's appointments: three with the surgeon, one psych, one nutritionist, one full physical with my GP, two appointments with the gastroenterologist, an endoscopy, an appointment with the pulmonologist, a breathing test, a sleep apnea test, a pre-op educational session, pre-admission testing, and four cardiology visits, including two for a nuclear stress test.  It was the latter where the most recent bump in the road arose.

After arriving at the appointment 30 minutes late due to road closures and a lack of detour signs, I waited another 45 minutes to see the cardiologist.  It was Friday, it had been a long week, I was tired and already on edge.  I just wanted this part over with, so I could have my ultrasound, do my preadmission testing, and get on with my surgery and my life.  Silly me for thinking it would be that easy.

After telling me that my heart muscle was very strong (likely due to all those years of running), the cardiologist told me that there was a "shadow" on my stress test that was if concern.  He explained something I already knew, but normal-sized people don't ever have to worry about.  Because of the excess fat I carry, it can be difficult to get clear pictures of internal organs.  That, coupled with the placement of my heart under my breast, which is also on the larger side, the images from the stress test were not clear, and showed a possible blockage in my coronary artery.  To know precisely what the issue is, I need to undergo cardiac catheterization.

During this process, the doctor will snake a thin, hollow tube from my wrist into my coronary artery.  He will inject a contrast dye through the catheter into my arteries, and take x-rays to determine if there are any blockages.  In the best case scenario, there is no blockage, the catheter comes out, and I go home.

If there is a blockage, the first step would be to insert a metal stent to open the artery, and put me on blood thinners for four weeks.  This would require pushing my surgery date back, at least five weeks from the date of the catheterization, to give time for the blood thinners to do their job, and then wean me off them so I don't bleed out during surgery. Of course, if there is a truly severe blockage, then the intervention would likely be more complex, and I would have other things to worry about.

While the doctor seems to think it is most likely that they will find this is just a shadow, and will not require stenting, we won't know until the procedure is actually done.

So now, I am waiting until the scheduler is back in the office on Monday, to see when we can get the procedure scheduled.  Then I need to try to get my pre-admission testing moved up as well, as it needs to be done to clear me for the catheterization.

Did I happen to mention that I work?  Full-time?  And I commute almost an hour each way to work?  And that my doctors, and the hospital, are all about an hour in the opposite direction?  What had been a very carefully orchestrated schedule, designed to minimize the disruption to my work schedule, has been blown to pieces.  I am trying frantically to get this latest procedure scheduled for next week, so that regardless of the outcome, I can be back to work by July 27, as I am running a major fundraising event on July 30.  My sleeve surgery was scheduled specifically so that I would be back to work in time for our October Casino Night -- the second biggest fundraiser on our calendar.  There is a real chance that I may not be able to get this all done before then, in which case I would likely need to start all over again from the beginning, as the pre-op testing cannot be more than 60 days old.

So I spent yesterday in bed, feeling sorry for myself.  I finally decided to do something about the situation I had gotten myself in, and there is a chance it might not happen.  So I am upset and emotional.  I do not want to be social.  I do not want to deal with food, and clothing that doesn't fit and in which I am uncomfortable.  

And I am so darn tired. I find driving absolutely exhausting, and seem to be in the car constantly. 

Bu today I am getting in the shower, shaving my legs, and going shopping.  I am going to get fruit, fish and fresh veggies, and I am going to plow on, in the belief that this will all work out.  Maybe if I believe hard enough, it will come true.

The Kindness of Friends

Perhaps it was serendipity.  My niece, my beloved god-daughter, just completed a major rite of passage -- she graduated from high school yesterday.  While the entire year has been full of milestones -- driver's license, college acceptance, prom, senior spring break -- these past two weeks seem to have magnified it all, and both my sister and I pulled out our own yearbooks to relive our own glory days.

There is barely a page in my year book that does not have some message of encouragement and congratulations written by someone who was so important to me that I knew we would be thiscloseforever.  Folded inside the pages are yellowed newspaper clippings documenting first our football team's march to victory in Nassau County Conference II-A, and then my exhausting track and field schedule.  I ran cross country in the fall (the absolute slowest member of the team, I wasn't even on the senior picture -- I must have still been on my way back from the circle), winter track, and then spring track, where my specialty was the 1 mile race walk, at which I was pretty good.  Our entire team was exceptional, winning championships and accolades tall year long.  That, however, was not the memorable part.  What I remember most was the fun we had. 

We were always laughing.  We were incredibly goofy. We traveled as a pack. We even went to senior prom as a team -- most of us not with dates, but with opposite-sex friends who traded running shorts for prom dressed and tuxes for one short night.  And of course, we promised we would stay in touch and always be friends.

But that didn't happen.  I am actually not a great long-distance friend (although social media has helped tremendously on that front).  I left Long Island for college, and pretty much never came back.  We all went our separate ways -- schools, jobs, marriage and kids for most.  It's not that we stopped caring about our earlier friendships, it was just that our everyday lives were more pressing, and a lack of proximity led those friendships to fade.  And for me, I guess, to forget how amazing the people I grew up with were, how kind and caring and accepting. 

As I grew heavier, I became more and more embarrassed about seeing my old friends. I was no longer the little runner I was in high school.  I had stopped running a long time ago.  As I watched them document their continued activity in local fun runs and national marathons, I was sure that they would look at me in horror, and wonder what had happened to me. 

Never one for being photographed, I did the best I could to avoid the camera lens, and rarely posted pictures of myself on Facebook, so unless they saw me in person, my friends wouldn't know how heavy I had become.  I thought I was protecting myself, when in fact, I was hurting myself by keeping away from the people who were so instrumental in my becoming the person I am today.

And then, after 25 years, one of my oldest and dearest friends reached out after reading my first post about this journey.  We've been in touch through Facebook for a few years now, and she has said before that we should get together, but I was always afraid.  This time, though, she knew what had become of me, knew of my struggle with my weight, and STILL WANTED TO SEE ME, to have me meet her family!!!!  So the next time I went to see Long Island, I messaged her, and she invited me for coffee.

I was terrified, and felt a little like a kid on Christmas Eve.  I couldn't wait to see her, and the high school classmate she married.  When I pulled up to her house, I took a deep breath, and opened the car door, at the same time she opened her front door.  We rushed to one another, through our arms around each other, and had the best friend hug I think I've ever had.  Once inside the house, her husband did the same.  It was as if the past 35 years had melted away, and we were high school seniors all over again.  I was that girl again, not the morbidly obese woman I had become.

We spent the next two plus hours catching up, telling stories, and remembering why we had been so close.  Two of their daughters joined us, and must have thought we were just the biggest goofs.  We laughed so much and so hard, and there were a few tears remembering friends who we had lost over the years.  And then, it was time to leave.  But this time, when we said good bye, we knew it wasn't forever.  Jill and Chris opened the door, and I intend to cross that threshold regularly. 

Next time, I hope some of our other friends will join us.  For now, I am curling up with my yearbook, reminiscing over great times and remembering great friends, thankful to Jill for not judging, and looking forward to getting together again.  What a great outcome of this crazy journey.