...14...

Oh boy- I am STRESSED to the MAX right now! My loan for the rest of my medical bills for this surgery was declined :( I'm so frustrated I can't even explain it. I had AWESOME credit less than a year ago. Divorce really does screw everything up :(

***SSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH***

Anyway, I have a couple more things to try, I WILL get the money, I just am trying to figure out the fastest, cheapest, least painful way to go about it.

I know that it will be worth it in the end. But right now it just sucks rocks. Sorry for being so negative and all that- once this money garbage is out of the way I'll be back to my cheery sweet self!

....15....

I've decided that I'm not going to blog about the negative aspects of my day. I'm trying to be positive and so I'll just focus on the fun parts!


My most exciting part of today was that I got my Vita Lady order! I love getting packages in general, but my VitaLady package was even MORE exciting!!

First let me point out how NICE it was to open my box and see this:




















they put a rose in the box for me to open up to! :D That was so nice! It completely made my day better.

Below you'll see all the many many samples I got! Sooooooo many! Haha. I'll be reviewing each and every one of those in the upcoming months. Now after I'm done with this blog I am going to start the sorting and dividing :D I know a lot of people don't like this part but I seriously love sorting and organizing! So excited!



Then at my pre-op classes (which I will just say- at first I was in a murderous rage, but it got better and I'm more calm now) were today and went alright once the girl I was supposed to meet got there. Omg- I can't not tell you so I just will. I was raging! I was supposed to meet with "Girl A" and she wasn't available for whatever reason. So "Girl B" walks out and says that she'll be giving me the classes instead. OH HEEEEEEEEEEELLLL NO! "Girl B" was the same- the very same- girl that gave the original class that I vented about previously! But I decided that I was already there so I may as well give her another chance. Big mistake. She started up the slide show and it was the same thing I saw at the 101. So I told her that and she's like "well I have to show it to you again for you to get credit for the class." OK first of all this is not college...what "credit" am I earning here? Anyway, sorry, just rubbed me the wrong way. So anyway, I had to explain to her for like 10 minutes that I already took the 101 class, I signed in last time, I sat RIGHT there, and she was the one giving the class, I reminded her about 2 other people there and so she FINALLY went and checked my records and and then saw that I wasn't lying. So she then felt like it was ok to MOVE the hell ON to 201. And then I asked her if the 201 slide show is going to be anything like the 101 because that wasn't helpful at all! She said it would be the same thing so I tried to explain WHY I'm doing the 1 on 1 classes. I'm not joking, she goes "well the bypass, sleeve, and DS are included in the same slides because it's pretty much the same thing." OMG OMG OMG-- I was looking around for the nearest wall to smash my own head through. I was like "no, actually they aren't. They are completely different." and she goes "well the surgeries are different but the pre-op, post-op, and nutrition requirements are all the same."
Me- "Umm, no, they really aren't. The DS has MUCH different dietary requirements than the RNY. I mean completely different."
Her- "No they're very similar, you'll really be following pretty much the same diet."
Me- "Where are you getting your information from? Dr. Husted himself told me how different the diet was, not that I needed him to tell me because I taught myself on OH, but I'm just curious if everyone will be trained on how the DS actually works."
Her- "Well those are things you should probably ask Dr. Husted yourself, I can only show you what we have on the slides."
Me- "OK, I understand that, but my entire point is that if you're just showing me what is on the slides then there's no point in me being here since it doesn't apply to me at all."
Her- "Yes it does apply to you, it's the same thing."

I was about to lose it, I really was and despite my venting I do NOT lose my temper in person ever. It takes a lot to really piss me off, but she was doing such a good job at it. Thank GOD "Girl A" walked in- finally- and took over and she was amazing! She knew what she was talking about, she took her time and let me ask as many questions as I wanted. She had actually spent a long time talking to Dr. Husted about the DS and learning about it so she does know a lot. Anything I asked that she wasn't 100% sure on, she wrote down to ask Dr. Husted and research herself so she can add it into the slides. I felt so much better after she finally got there. "Girl B" should just NOT work in a center that does the DS.

Anyway, sorry- I do feel a bit better for venting :) I DID get a cool little backpack/goody bag! I LOVE goody bags!!! Mine had the standard watter bottle, a little photo album, a journal with a pen, a little case with small utensils (for bite proportions), and then the cool backpack it came in. I also bought 4 samples of the Geriatric Advantage protein shake bottles. They're kinda cool that they come in the bottles and you just add milk or water. It's no Blender Ball, but still good for on the go! I'll review those too when I try them.



Oh, and I owe you goodies from last night's 1am treck to wal-mart.



I got:
* The last 2 Blender Bottles in the entire store ($6.50 each!)
* Matches (just in case for the bathroom)
* Gauze pads
* Skin tape (to go w/the pads for my wounds)
* Spongebob Square Pants Band-Aids! (because when we have owies we all want to feel like a little kid being taken care of! Last time I got Disney Princesses and it DID make me feel better!)
* A new blender (for protein shakes and what not)
* Spongebob Square Pants sippy cups! (someone on OH suggested this to help slow down your water if you tend to be a gulper, which I am! )
* Baby wipes to help keep clean
* baby size utensils
* pink crates to hold my protein samples and stuff
* mini loaf pan to make proportionate size meat loaf
* a blank notebook for organizing

Ok I think that's all :) And I am falling asleep as I'm typing this so i'm off to take a nap. I heart you all!

...16...

As I'm laying here typing this, I am annoyed. Today wasn't near as good as I had hoped it would be. To start my day out, I had to go ask my soon-t0-be ex-husband to loan me some of the money I'll need to pay for the self-pay portion of my surgery. I just don't have it and since we are going through a divorce and our house just foreclosed, I am not going to be able to get a loan through any bank. Plus I don't want the interest charges :/ Luckily, my STB-X is in over all good standing with me and we are still friends. He graciously lent me the money so that I can get going with my new life- starting with my new guts. But regardless, it was humiliating, stressful, and one of the lowest points of this entire process.

Next I drove 2 hours to visit my younger sister since I haven't seen her since March when she got married. And it's not like we had a ton of time to spend then, because of all the wedding stuff going on. So I decided to go visit her today and when I got there her and her new hubby were fighting the entire time! It was kind of uncomfortable and made me re-think if I ever put people in that situation when things started going bad with my STB-X and me. I sure hope not. It was nice to see my sister, but it really wasn't the best visit. However she DID make me her amazing home-made cheesecake!! Since I'm starting my liquid diet next week sometime, I decided I need some cheesecake before I'm cut off from real food for a while.

Then on my way home I stopped at Chipotle to grab a burrito bowl to bring home for dinner. The little girl working there gave me such attitude! I never get rice in my bowl, and she was making it UBER fast, like it was a race or something, and so the second I told her I wanted a burrito bowl, but BEFORE I could spit out "with no rice" she had already globbed a heaping pile of rice in my bowl. So I said "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't want rice." And she huffed, dumped it out all aggressively and was like "ok what DO you want in it?" and so I said "both black and pinto beans" and she looked at me like I had just ordered peanut butter and garlic sauce or something...come on, it's beans! I seriously doubt I'm the only person who has ever ordered that. Then I told her I wanted steak...now let me mention, they were about 10 minutes from closing, no one was behind me, and their steak tub was FILLED. She gave me the tiniest little scoop of steak, so I asked if I could get a bit more. OMG. I'm not exaggerating, she scooped up a tiny bit in the spoon, shook a few of those pieces back out, and added maybe...around 8 little tiny cubes of steak to my bowl. COME ON! Give me a freaking break! Really???? Like I asked for ALL the steak or something, my god! And she was doing this all SO fast that food was flying everywhere. After the cheese and sour cream the outside of the bowl was covered in food. Then I had the audacity to ask for chips and guacamole too. You seriously would have thought I asked her to drive to Mexico and buy me fresh made chips and guac, the look she gave me. I was so mad but at the same time I almost started crying. When I got home and took my food out of the bag it had leaked everywhere because she didn't take the time to drain the beans so they were really liquidy, and she just literally slopped everything in the bowl. I just decided that I'm offended enough by this that I'll be calling the manager in the morning to get a free lunch/dinner next time I go in. This really is un-called for when I see it typed out! It tasted awesome, but yummy dinner shouldn't come with a side of attitude. Sorry you work at Chipotle, if you don't like it then finish school and get a better job that doesn't require you to interact with other people!

By the time I was done with dinner I was feeling all sorry for myself and being all mopey, so I took my new baby lizard out of his cage and cuddled with him for a while and watched one of my favorite movies. That seriously cheered me up. I felt a lot better. Then my mind, being free from thinking about the day's events, started working double time thinking about surgery stuff and what I still need to do and prep for. I'm HIGHLY OCD about prep stuff and I will ALWAYS be way over prepared. When I go out of town for one night, I usually have two suitcases. There is almost always an entire new outfit in my car--just in case. And when I plan for surgery, I buy WAY more than I will probably use and/or don't even need. It's just how I plan and prepare. If I didn't go over-board, I would be stressed that I'm forgetting something or panicking that I might need something I don't have. I can always return things (and do frequently) if I end up not needing them, but my mind won't relax until I am overstocked. So even though I should have gone to bed (since my pre-op classes are in...let's see...oh great! 7 hours) I went to wal-mart instead. I bought all kinds of things to help in my pre- and post- op. Since I just realized how late it was, I will post a picture and go into more details about my goodies in tomorrow's post...or later today's post- rather.

Thanks for the vent- tomorrow will be better and all of this negativity will pass. I have people who love me more than words can say and for them I am so grateful. <3

....17....

This morning was a great reminder for how excited I am to have this piece of garbage taken out of me in 17 days! I had a toasted bagel with whipped cream cheese for breakfast. I got almost all of one half of it down before I was running to the bathroom throwing it up. Never mind the fact that I had this same thing the night before with NO problems at all. I'm just tired of the inconsistency of it. I can eat a full rack of ribs with all the fries one day, and the next I'm choking on apple sauce! It just makes no sense. If it were all the same then at least there'd be some understanding that I'm too tight or something, but with this constant back and forth...UGH! I am soooooo excited for it to be 17 days from now so that I won't have to worry about the PBs and the foaming and the throwing up and the pain in my chest that makes it hard to breath when something gets stuck!

In other news, I discovered I'm allergic to bananas. I love them, and whenever I eat them my inner ear itches like crazy. Sometimes the roof of my mouth does too. When I looked these symptoms up online I discovered they are allergic reactions. Interesting! It's not bad enough to make me not want to eat bananas ever again, hell no! But still, good to know :) If you couldn't tell from my tone in the above topic, I like knowing what to expect!

I hope everyone is having a GREAT weekend! I'm going to be doing some pre-op shopping (blender balls, soups, diet power aids- that sort of stuff) and then hitting the drive-in to see a double feature. I am not even going to attempt to see Harry Potter this weekend, I'll wait for a week day when it won't be as congested.

Until tomorrow...

....18....

I will be posting every single day until my surgery, so the count down is officially on!

As you may notice I am making some changes to my blog...just felt like updating it and got some good inspiration from my friend over on Vanishing Mom's blog. I have to keep up with the times and trends :)

So I got some slightly bad news today- not in the long run, but for the short run definitely. I was originally told that the self pay amount for me to have my band removed (since my insurance isn't covering it!) would be $2500 so that's what I was saving for and planning on. Well today I was told that it would be closer to $4000!! :/ yikes! I'm kind of stressing about it to be honest, but thanks to my wonderful OH family I have some good advice to try out. First I'm going to make sure that they are charging me the BC/BS contracted price, not the full self pay price. Second, when my surgeon is inside my guts I'm going to have him take special note of ANYTHING he sees that might be the cause of why this lap-band has failed me. Then I can take that info and re-appeal the insurance company's decision to deny coverage for non-medical reasons. They might approve my appeal with actual surgeon notes saying "this" is why it was medically necessary. I'm not going to hold my breath, but it's worth a shot. And as one person said, in a couple years I won't even miss that money. I knew this would be expensive, but at least it's not as bad as being a full self pay.

Well back to trying to spruce up the ol' blog! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Ok NOW it's official! (t-minus 19)

I thought I'd be having my surgery on August 1st but it got moved back to August 3rd. Not a big deal, but still...that's two whole days!!!!!!! I'll be sitting around on Monday thinking "well by now I'd be in surgery" and "I should be coming out of surgery right now!" and "instead of working today I could have been in a hospital bed recovering!"

So on Monday the 18th I have my private pre-op classes. Then I have some pre-op testing and labs to do. Then I have a pre-op appointment with someone else...geesh, it's hard to keep track. I would like it if they could just call me the morning of the days that they need me for something and just say "be here by this time today." That'd be easier.

My vita-lady order should be here on Monday, so I'm very excited about that! And I do have a lot of things to do still, so I'm sure I'll actually realize I'm grateful for an extra two days to prep.

19 days and counting!!

That hurt a little- not gonna lie!

I just made my first super important purchase toward my DS...the vitamins!

I ordered through VitaLady, of course. For anyone who isn't familiar with her, she is a regular on Obesity Help and she is a constant support to anyone who has questions about their blood labs or vitamins in general. She is, herself, a weight loss patient and very successful. Vitalady is passionate about what she does and it's obvious. She never pushes sales or advertises for herself. She's so awesome that everyone advertises for her--like I'm doing now, lol.

I ordered a 3 month supply of all the vitamins I'll need to start with, as well as MULTIPLE protein shake samples. Honestly about $100 of my order was just samples. I am very super sensitive to the smell of protein powders and I am really worried how I'll tolerate them, so I ordered a whole bunch of different flavors and brands so that I can experiment and hopefully find some that I like enough to order tubs of. I will be posting review blogs for them as I try them.

I've been putting this order off for a while because it is expensive, and it hurt my wallet quite a bit today, but it is 100% necessary and is not in any way, shape, or form negotiable. Vitamins and supplements are going to be my new #1 priority post op, as well as healthy high protein foods. New shoes can wait, new clothes can wait (I'll out grow them too fast anyway), nights out can wait. Vitamins first!



I am really excited to get my order. I love getting stuff in the mail to begin with, but this is going to be super fun for me. I'm slightly OCD when it comes to organizing and compartmentalizing things. I already have my vitamin organizer which I SUPER love, and I really cannot wait to start sorting out my pills and setting up! A lot of people hate doing that, I seriously love it. It makes me feel accomplished, organized, and ready to go.



Okay so I just placed the order 10 minutes ago...I wonder if they've shipped it yet?!? I'd better go check! ;)