1/12/10 – Tuesday

Yesterday, I had to leave the house at the crack of dawn, practically, to make it to my 8:00 appointment with the nutritionist. I’m coming up on four years since I had weight loss surgery and so it’s time to make the rounds of meeting with the nutritionist and having blood drawn and meeting with the surgeon.

It’s a round of appointments that I loathe – not because the nutritionist isn’t perfectly pleasant, but because it’s so goddamn boring and pointless and I have never learned anything that I didn’t already know, even at the very first appointment.

I got my imaginary degree as a nutritionist from, well, years of weighing over 300 pounds (don’t even try to fucking tell me that any fat woman doesn’t know more about nutrition – and I’m not talking FAD nutrition, okay? I’m not talking the fucking “Blood Type Diet”, for instance – than your average doctor) and from my stint at Google University.

I loathe my appointment with my surgeon because there’s a definite lack of personality on his part, a long wait no matter what time my appointment, and some resentment on my part. Last year when I spoke of eating fewer processed carbs, he scoffed and said “So you’re going to eat more UNPROCESSED carbs?” and I am SO VERY easily flustered when I’m under the gun that I always lose my words, so I just sputtered and don’t even remember what I said. If I had a time machine, I’d go back to that exact moment and say “I guess they didn’t teach you at Self-Important Douchebag Surgeon school that fruits and vegetables are carbs, huh? BOY I GUESS IT’S A GOOD GODDAMN THING YOU’RE NOT A NUTRITIONIST, YOU DOUCHEBAG.” I hope when he pulls that shit at home, his wife KICKS HIS ASS ALL OVER THE PLACE.

So, not a fan.

The only reasons I don’t blow off the appointments with the nutritionist and the surgeon are because (1) the nutritionist has this handy-dandy machine that supposedly tests your body fat and muscle distribution, and I like looking at the printout. Of course, this year I’ve fucking lost muscle since last year, and the test tells me that I need to lose 25 pounds, and may I just say my ASS do I need to lose 25 pounds given that I am very happy with where I’m at at the moment, thanks stupid machine WHO IS NOT THE BOSS OF ME. I also have some doubts as to just how accurate the machine is, but like I said, I like to look at the printout. (Note to myself: start lifting weights LIKE YOU SAID YOU WERE GONNA LAST YEAR.) and because (2) I feel a responsibility to help provide long-term numbers as a member of the weight loss surgery community (gag), and I assume that there’s some magical central location that collects the information of surgical weight loss patients and collates them and then sends them out to media outlets so that on a slow news day the media can be all ” (Cue scary music) WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY! DOES IT WORK, LONG-TERM?! MORE AFTER THESE MESSAGES! (Cue Burger King commercial, cue Wendy’s commercial, cue Hardee’s commercial, cue scary music, cue pictures of fat people from the neck down.)”

I live to serve, is what I’m saying.

The appointment with the nutritionist went fine (he’s a very nice guy) and then I stopped at the surgeon’s office (which is just down the hall) to ask for lab orders because I have to have lab work done before I see the surgeon so he can poke at the numbers and APPARENTLY completely miss the fact that my iron levels are completely whacked (which they MUST have been last year, surely they weren’t perfectly fine in January and then I desperately needed an iron infusion in… whenever the hell they did the iron infusion. September? Yes, September, ’cause that’s the day I got the Wonkas!) given that along with NOT being a nutritionist, he’s apparently also NOT a hematologist PLEASE GOD GIVE ME THE BALLS TO BRING THAT UP AT MY APPOINTMENT.

Do not depend on your surgeon to do anything but cut, is what I’m saying, people. But try to find one with personality. If there is such a thing.

Anyway. Where the hell was I going with this? Oh, right, asked for the lab orders, and they looked up my appointment, which was for the 28th, and noticed that I was the only one on the schedule. Which I’m assuming means he won’t be there that day (or maybe that I’m so super-snowflake special that after dealing with my fabulousness he has to go home and lay down for the rest of the day), so rescheduled for the 19th, got my lab orders, had my blood drawn, and headed for home.

I stopped at Sam’s because I used up the very last bucket of cat litter for the new fosters on Saturday, and I never EVER run out of litter, and being out of litter makes me nervous, because I know it’s just asking for trouble.

I bought 10 40-pound buckets of litter, which means that I lifted 400 pounds of litter three times – from the shelf to the cart, cart to the car, car to the garage. Can I count that as weight lifting? (I was CAREFUL, I used my legs, don’t lecture!)

And then I made and canned quart jars of spaghetti meat sauce.

It was a full day, let me tell you.

Today, I have my pre-op appointment with my gynecologist (hysterectomy next week, don’t tell Fred I told you!), tomorrow I have an appointment at the hematologist’s office to have more lab work done, Thursday a hair appointment and eye appointment. Next Tuesday, appointment with the hematologist’s nurse, and then the appointment with my weight loss surgeon.

It’s a busy week and a half, let me tell you. I’m going to need surgery just to force me to recover from all this running around.

 

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Oh, speaking of surgery and running around and lifting, the other night Fred and I were laying in bed talking, and I was making plans for meals to make ahead that Fred could just pop in the oven, since I won’t be lifting for a little while after surgery.

(I will have an incision in my abdomen – the scar tissue from my c-section/ lower body lift requires the hysterectomy be done that way rather than laparascopically or vaginally.)

I said something about him needing to get groceries occasionally, since I couldn’t be lifting stuff, and he said “Well, nothing we get for groceries is that heavy. You can’t lift a bag of salad?”

“I’m sure I can lift a bag of salad,” I said. “The problem will be lifting a grocery bag that has salad and apples and milk and whatever else in it.”

“Oh,” Fred p’shawed. “They have baggers who will be happy to carry your bags out to the car!”

“And how am I supposed to get them into the house?”

“I’ll come out and get them and bring them into the house,” he said.

“You,” I said. “Are an asshole. I’m recovering from surgery and you’re LOUNGING YOUR FUCKING ASS AT HOME because you hate to get groceries?! You wouldn’t come WITH me to lift stuff?”

He had no defense – though he did say that rather than accompany me, he’d just go get groceries himself so I wouldn’t slow him down.

Fucker.

 

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I’m late in saying this, by the way, but thanks you guys for your birthday wishes! (And I know even those of you who didn’t say anything were well aware of it, it being a national holiday and all. I hope you celebrated appropriately.)

We didn’t really do much to mark the occasion, since Fred was gone part of the day and I was breaking my own heart by dropping off the Cookies (then healing my own heart by picking up the new guys and hearing that two Cookies had already been adopted!) and getting the new fosters settled and doing laundry and such.

Fred kept asking me (in the days leading up to my birthday) what I wanted, and I couldn’t really think of anything specific, so I finally told him that as long as he promised we could go shopping for a new console for the TV (THIS WEEKEND, FRED. I am not kidding!), I’d consider that gift enough. We went out to eat – I’ve been craving Olive Garden for a while, but since both of us had been into Huntsville and back again, neither of us wanted to make the drive, so we settled for a new diner in Closeville that I do believe is going to become our new favorite place to eat (on the rare occasion we actually eat out, that is).

We came home, had cake, and watched movies.

Not a bad birthday, all in all.

 

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Steely Dan and Fagen are making progress, slowly. Well, slowly in my opinion, since there’s nothing I’d like more than to walk into the room and have them run over and climb into my lap. So far, I’ve gotten to the point where when I walk into the room and they’re in their bed, they’ll stay there (well, sometimes Fagen will run into the closet and hide, but he comes back out after a few minutes). I sit in the chair (on the opposite side of the room) for a few minutes, then slowly get down on the floor on my stomach and kind of slither across the floor. They let me pet them, and we play with a straw (me holding it out, them batting at it), and that’s about as far as I’ve gotten. I don’t want to rush them.

Fred, on the other hand, goes into the room, picks one of them up, and settles in the chair. They purr and let him hold them (usually it’s Steely Dan), and eventually jump down and run away. Well, until last night that’s how it was going for him. Last night, Fred walked into the room, picked up Steely Dan and sat down in the chair and petted him. Then Fagen dithered for several minutes before jumping up in the chair with Fred to be petted.

Hmph.

He’s always better with the skittish ones, because he’s more patient than I am. And more willing to pick them up. I’d rather they come to me (like I said, I don’t want to rush them), and will bribe them (hellooooo, baby food!), and both ways work; just apparently his way works better with these two.

Ah well. I’m not jealous. (Much.)

Steely Dan looks a lot like Mister Boogers here.

Fagen looks especially like Mr. Fancypants in this picture.

 

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Lots and lots of finches around here lately.

Miz Poo, Joe Bob, and Sugarbutt, enthralled with the birds who are SO close and yet so far away. (Please to be ignoring the mess in that corner of the room. I’m in the process of organizing. Story of my life.)

 

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Previously
2009: My mother and Nance are all about feeding the addiction, obviously.
2008: No entry.
2007: I don’t know what it is about Lowe’s that makes me so gassy.
2006: Right now, Fred’s thanking his lucky stars that I don’t have this much Christmas stuff, because it would drive him NUTS.
2005: (YES, GODDAMNIT! I HAVE CONFIRMED THAT YOU CAN, IN FACT, BEGIN WRITING THE FUCKING CHECK BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY HEAR WHAT THE TOTAL IS, YOU IN-MY-WAY MOTHERFUCKER!)
2004: I need to go crack open a beer, watch the game, scratch my balls, and think about what this means.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: “Yeah, so you‘ll be the one with the big head blocking everyone else’s view.”
2000: No, I’m not on any drugs, why do you ask?