Someone's Considering the Surgery

I am just finishing up compiling a series of posts into a document to give to someone that are tagged with "bariatric surgery" from the blog.

I was recently stopped by a coworker and she asked me several questions about the surgery. Apparently she's been struggling with her weight for awhile and has lost a large amount of weight on two occasions; one, she had an aneurysm on her pancreas that went undiagnosed for a long period of time, and the second time was a brain tumor, and in the course of trying to remove the tumor the doctors apparently had to break her jaw and that put her on a liquid diet.

She's apparently contemplating the surgery because she'd like to find a way to lose the weight that doesn't involve a serious medical trauma. Can't say I'd blame her.

It did put me in a bit of a bind though. See, while I put this blog up to educate others considering the surgery in addition to acting as a bit of a soundboard and public "journal" of my life, I never really wanted to have people personally associate me with the blog. A few people I trust were made aware of the blog. But coworkers? What if they become ticked at something? Read too much into something? Take something personally?

The last thing I need is someone getting all ticked over something stupid. I edit the blog heavily and pass much of it through what "offensiveness" filters I have built over time in addition to having my wife read the entries so she can alert me to potentially "bad" things. I don't advertise the blog to people.

I guess it boils down to I don't mind people close to me knowing about the blog and perfect strangers knowing about the blog. I don't know how casual aquaintences and coworkers would react to some of the information here despite all the filtering and care I put into it so I don't let them know.

So when she started asking me questions, direct questions, about the surgery and my experiences I thought that the blog would be the best resource. At the same time...I didn't know her well enough to trust her with that information.

That left two options. Reveal the blog's details and let her in on my "dirty little online secret" or go through by hand and filter the entries listed for the surgery into a word processor and try cleaning it up a little bit and printing it for her.

The first was easy. The second takes time. I should know because I did the second one.

I wish I could trust everyone with knowledge of the blog but I just don't feel that I can risk it. I can't risk someone getting bent out of shape over something stupid.

The document was formatted with 1/2 inch margins on all four sides and came out to be 68 pages long with nearly 39,000 words. Wow. And that's not including this entry.

I also noticed the gradual dropoff in entry frequency regarding the surgery. That's a good thing, I think. That's why I listed this with a tag of "milestones". It's a reflection of my healing process, and the fact that my life shifted focus gradually towards something other than a bariatric patient. It means that even though I've gone through a life changing event I'm not completely defined by it.

I'm dealing with other issues; my bouts of depression, my Asperger's, my debts and everything that I put into the blog. I occasionally stick in updates to my bariatric progress but it's simply not an everyday concern for me.

I don't think I put anything in about the Walk from Obesity that I attended. That's when I realized that this truly was becoming a footnote in my life; my wife and I pledged some money for the Walk from Obesity charity event and we walked around a nearby park on a course that was a little over a mile. And I didn't blog about it.

It was a wonderful event. It had free health screenings and some fun swag, and I won a candle as a door prize. The weather held out nicely with a cool breeze and a little sun and we got t-shirts for registering. Best of all I saw my nutritionist and surgeon along with several other doctors I'd seen around the hospital during my consults and time in the hospital. The only one I noticed that was missing was the physician's assistant that had been so helpful with so many appointments after my surgery and during my recovery time.

And I didn't blog about it.

It was...a footnote. A few fun hours one day over the weekend. We had fun. But I didn't blog about it.

I have an appointment, my six month followup, coming up with my surgeon in less than a month. Another milestone. That one I will blog about.

So much has changed. I see it in my skimming of the material as I go through and change the arrangment of the entries (such a pain...the blog wanted to present everything in reverse-chronological order. Ugh.) It's amazing to me to see how things have shifted focus from the beginning to this point, and the things I've forgotten, the little details.

So while I'm handing over to her the virtual keys to finding this blog and blowing my own cover, at the same time I'm glad I've kept the records. I see it as an amazing journey chronicling events in the life of an otherwise unremarkable and insignificant person existing on the planet. I've had comments from people that five years ago I'd never have thought I could have had an exchange with; Mur Lafferty, Paula B, even John Robison have visited this site for a brief time and some continue to drop in. They have no idea how much they made my day and what impact they've had on some stranger with a blog. I look forward to hearing from Lee as I drop in on his own blog, as well as Lorraine with her Renewal blog.

I have blogged my progress with writing stories for The Writing Show, prompting me to continue with an effort to write a draft of a novel which while I'm not tracking progress here I have been making progress on. If you're curious I'm closing in on 22,000 words with it so far...far enough to not make it worth my while to simply quit now without crossing the finish line and then trying to edit it.

All the while I'm still trying to lose weight. I'll hopefully cross a milestone soon that will prompt another worthwhile update on that front too.

All of these things came from keeping a blog about getting my gut sliced open.

Simply amazing to me.