God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change… And one of those things is the endless leakage from two of my laparoscopic incisions. So much for in one day and out the next surgery. I’m so freaking tired… Sequence of events.
Monday afternoon I presented at the hospital for an overnight admission to have my gastric lap band removed. I wasn’t thrilled but was coming to terms with it, and valiantly thinking of it as a turning point in recovery. Which may well be the case. Who knows?
In 2012, I became the very happy recipient of a a gastric lap band. In 2019, I’m having it removed. On Monday to be precise. I’m petrified.
Today I am afraid of recovery. I’ve been in this place before – where I’ve felt the beginnings of change and then become overwhelmed with the fear of that change and what it might herald. so I rush back to the safe and familiar.
I’ve spent a lifetime as a highly anxious person pretending it wasn’t so and secretly not coping. Nobody knew. I hid it. Very well. Now I don’t want to. I want to accept and manage it instead. It won’t solve all my problems but it will be a good start. I have no idea how to manage it…
Same old, same old. Neither better nor worse. I feel my depression has sunk pretty low and I spent a lot of today mapping out “exit” strategies. But I also communicated this with the registrar and have requested to have my dose of pristiq increased. She’s also modified my leave to “escorted” which is fine by me.
A friend of mine has encouraged me to share my private journals of inpatient. I hope it’s not triggering for anyone. It’s deeply personal. And I’ve made every effort to remove identifying information of the clinic, staff and patients. It’s a long read! But this is what life is like.
It’s a wild ride as an inpatient at a psychiatric facility. I can’t honestly say I’d recommend it. But then sometimes we have to do necessary things in life that aren’t necessarily enjoyable. I didn’t traipse all the way here for fun. I left behind all that was comfortable and familiar, to learn uncomfortable, unfamiliar ways of managing my emotional and eating behaviours. At this stage I am far from cured.
In April 2012 I was 46 years old. I’d battled weight my entire life and I was tired. All the weight I’d previously lost was back on – again. All the tricks I’d used before were failing. I tried eating less, exercising more, eating more, exercising less. Shakes and weird shit and anything I could think of. I was still fat and getting fatter. So in tears and desperation, I made an appointment to see an obesity surgeon on a Thursday. He had a cancellation the following Monday. I booked in, had a gastric lap band fitted, and changed my life.
