GOAL!!

This morning an amazing thing happened...I reached my goal weight--officially on the scale at the doctor's office! This means that I am approved for gastric bypass surgery and have my surgery date, a little over a month from now!

It still feels a bit surreal. I feel like it has been so long that I have been thinking about this surgery, considering it, researching it, preparing for it... I can hardly believe it's actually going to happen in just a few weeks.

I got a new digital scale to use at home last week. From the beginning I was sceptical, because the weights it was telling me seemed too good to be true. But it kept going down, day by day, so I figured that even if the actual number wasn't correct, it would be able to tell if I had lost anything.

Last Wednesday at the support group I was weighed and had just 4 lbs left to lose, so I decided I would try to lose that in a week and go in for a morning weigh-in. Well, the goal set by my surgeon was 301 lbs, and this morning I weighed in at 298.5. That means I lost almost 6 lbs in a week. And lest you think I was crash dieting, let me assure you, I was not. I got my daily exercise, and I stuck to my eating plan for the most part (I may have tripped up and had some sugar once or twice), I drank my water and prayed that I would make goal, and it worked.

So, I got an EKG, some blood work, and was able to meet with the consulting nurse (she squeezed me in instead of making me come back next week--thank goodness!). She scheduled me for my surgery and the rest of my pre-op appointments, after grilling me about my diet and "bariatric lifestyle changes."

I really wanted my surgery for the last week in August, so I would have Labor Day weekend to recover before school starts up again (did I mention I'm a grad student?). Amazingly, I was able to get the last appointment left for my Surgeon for August, on the last Tuesday, which gives me a full 7 days to recover before classes begin. I was also able to get all my pre-op appointments scheduled on the same day. It will suck to be at the hospital all day long, but great to only have to make one trip and one day off work.

I got the referral to the bariatric surgery program from my primary doctor last November. When we talked about it, she said it could be a year before I could actually have the surgery. At that point a year seemed so long to wait, especially after I had spent so long on my own researching the surgery and considering my options. Now, it won't be a year, more like 9 months from start to finish, and it has gone by so freaking fast!

I know that some of the people at the support group or on the email list I belong to are right at the beginning of the process, where I was in November, and they are feeling discouraged and impatient, just like I was, but I feel so much hope for them, because once they make the decision to do this, the time and hard work really does fly by. Perhaps someone is reading this blog and is at that stage. To you I say, you can do it. you really can. Just make the decision that this is what you want for your life, and it will be easier than you think.

And if anyone is reading this, leave me a comment, OK? Just so I know you're out there.