18 months out!

I had my 18-month appointments last week, and everything is going well. It was a little surreal. My bloodwork numbers were awesome. I still haven't gotten below 200 pounds yet, which is somewhat frustrating; the scale has reflected every number and fraction between 205 and 200.9 in the last month. My nutritionist said, "It's only a number, remember how far you've come. Think about your progress." The surgeon had the same types of things to say, and it was a little surreal, hearing these kinds of phrases from several medical professionals all in the space of one day: "You're healthy." "You look good." "You're doing everything right." I had to keep shaking my head to remind myself it was real. (Where were these people when I weighed 150 twenty-five years ago and the doctors were all up in my grill? When I was torturing myself and being tortured about my weight all through my teen years? I can't even think about it very long or I go bonkers.)

I'm taking the supplements, I'm swimming, and I'm looking forward to getting plastic surgery. (not getting it per se, but the final result) I will probably try and get it when my temp job ends, working around any other job I may get and also my school schedule. It's amazing to feel this good and love silly things like buying clothes on Ebay. A lot of women my age could care less about that stuff and it does seem frivolous when you're 42, but you know what? I don't have kids so I'm not depriving anyone else, and I never got to feel young and pretty, whether I was or not. I didn't get to enjoy being young, period. (Frankly, being 'young' was hell for me.) I'm not going to apologize for feeling younger and better than I've ever felt, or wanting to do 'young' things at midlife, cause I think it's amazing! It's this amazing GIFT that I've been given, but also one I feel that I've earned. I have worked for it and will have to continue to work for it, and it is so very worth it.

Bloodwork bill

I blogged previously about the bloodwork I had to do recently as a pre-op requirement by my bariatric surgeons. The bill arrived today. With the EKG, the total cost was over $800; my insurance billed me for more than $300 of this. The bill was actually itemized by each test they had to do, and on every test it reads: " Denial. Charges exceed your contracted and/or legislated fee arrangement."

FEE ARRANGEMENT? I'm not paying for a lap dance! At first I was just going to pay the bill without question--I'm tired, y'all--but the more I think about it, the more annoyed I am. This is mandatory pre-op bloodwork ordered by my surgeon, not a spa treatment. It also makes me wonder if it was coded wrong somewhere along the line, given the chaos that happened with the taking of my actual blood. Me being me, I have to find out what these people are thinking. Literally every single item on here has a denial in the detail, from the EKG to the lipid panel (note: I have high cholesterol) and all the flora and fauna in between. My understanding was this entire process was covered at 80%. Stay tuned.

EKG/bloodwork

In the middle of road trips and work hours--when it comes to work, I have suddenly become in demand--I fit in the pre-surgery EKG and bloodwork. It was a bit of a cluster, which I've learned to expect throughout this entire process. I was fasting, so I went to one lab, where the tech was filling in for someone else and didn't know how to do EKGs, so they sent me to another lab I had never been to. I got to that lab, and that tech knew how to do the EKG but had never seen orders the likes of mine. Ultimately, she had to call someone from the first lab I had gone to to come over and assist with the blood draw. They had to take FIVE vials of blood. I sat there for a good hour and a half while this all transpired--hadn't eaten in oh, sixteen hours--and feared I was going to have to choke a bitch, but fortunately, they had cookies and Diet Coke to keep me from dying. Five vials of blood, though. Damn!

The EKG was normal. The technology has improved drastically since my last one. Who knows about the bloodwork? I see the surgeons on the 21st, nutritionist on the 20th, and I'm sure all will be discussed ad nauseam.

Post-EKG/bloodwork debacle, I had this fun road trip to Portland with an old friend--meeting up with another old friend--which was so much fun. We went to Powell's--which is where I joke that I want my ashes when I die--and also hit one of the branches of the Book Bin in Salem. What can I say? I went on a major book bender. Here is a partial list of my goodies:

Scott Spencer—A Ship Made of Paper

Nick Hornby, ed.—Speaking With the Angel: Original Stories

Leo Tolstoy—Anna Karenina

Carson McCullers—The Member of the Wedding and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Elliot Perlman—The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming: Stories

Peter Terzian, ed.—Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives

Maile Meloy—A Family Daughter

Kim Addonizio and Cheryl Dumesnil, eds.—Dorothy Parker’s Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos

Tobias Wolff—Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories*

Laura Moriarty—The Rest of Her Life

Dorothy Parker—Stories (a collection of 24)

Joyce Carol Oates—The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense

Ann Charters, ed.—The Portable Beat Reader

Shawn McBride—Green Grass Grace

Mark Budman and Tom Hazuka, eds.—You Have Time For This: Contemporary American Short-Short Stories

John McNally, ed.—When I Was a Loser: True Tales of (Barely) Surviving High School

Mary Oliver—New and Selected Poems, Volume One*

Leslie Marshall—A Girl Could Stand Up

Tim O’Brien—July, July

Elissa Schappell—Use Me

Graham Roumieu—Bigfoot: I Not Dead

Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannessen, eds.—The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them

Amy Goldwasser, ed.—Red: Teenage Girls in America Write On What Fires Up Their Life Today

Lily Burana—Strip City: A Stripper’s Farewell Journey Across America

Doris Lessing—The Golden Notebook

Jonathan Lethem—You Don’t Love Me Yet

Franz Kafka—The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories

Joyce Carol Oates—My Sister, My Love

All were used except the ones marked with *.

Being with old friends after years and years, just talking about life, was SO cool. We were all once children together, and now we face a lot of what people our age our facing--aging parents/grandparents, etc., and our plans for the rest of our lives. We are all only children; it was really like spending time with two long-lost sisters. It even got me thinking about going back to graduate school...but I'm only thinking at this point. I've got to take care of this surgery stuff and my ankle is getting worse all the time, unfortunately, so I can't think much past the immediate future.

I'm still enjoying food and drinks in moderation, but am always mindful of the the looming expiration date on eating "normally". The 20th is when I see the nutritionist and the pre-surgery low-carb regime begins. One friend of mine--who is an RN--warned me I would feel hungry all the time, and possibly weak and/or sick as well. I hope the nutritionist gives me some guidance in terms of keeping my energy up for work. I also hope I don't have that gonna-have-to-choke-a-bitch feeling the whole time. Diets make me crabby. But not as crabby as taking five vials of blood when I haven't eaten in fourteen hours!