Hello insomnia my old friend!

Ah, insomnia my old friend! I shouldn’t be surprised I can’t sleep – realising that I am now in single digits until scheduled surgery date was bound to catch me. I’m sat here, cuddled up with Dmi, trying to figure out how I feel so that I can get some sleep.

I put through an order for 24 slimfast, concentrating on cafe au lait, cookies and cream and chocolate. Stripes made me a ready made chocolate with added water and some sf flavourings and it was really nice. And my stomach isn’t feeling too bubbly so I figure I might be safe to aim for a full week of just shakes in the final week. It would help if I wasn’t getting myself all confused about dates, etc. I know I started on 31st October, so I’m always one day ahead – so Monday 18th November is my 19th day following the pre-op diet plan. Hopefully I can keep on top of that, although it doesn’t really matter as long as I do it long enough to drop the 8.5kg and shrink my liver.

My head is a strange place to be sometimes. I’m not feeling sad, depressed, scared – none of those things. But I’m also not feeling particularly positive. Ennui maybe? I know quite a few people who used ozempic and semaglutides struggled with that and worse. Maybe part of it is that the ozempic is leaving my system and I am beginning to fear that I can’t stick to the plan without it as a crutch. It’s been over a week since I had my last jab and the effects must be wearing off by now. I’m not struggling too much – I don’t have any issues with the girls eating with me although occasionally I would happily lock Book (formerly Gidget – long story short, I stole the nickname from her because I thought it was epic but that was quite possibly a dickhead thing to do as I didn’t realise how attached she was to it, so I’m going to try to make sure I use it for her in future and change any reference to myself to something else) into a closet so I could steal her snacks but that feeling does tend to pass once the wrapper sounds have ceased. But Mom keeps sending me pictures of her food – today was apple pie and custard and I was slightly tempted to lick the screen. I have asked her why she keeps torturing me with pictures of food that I can’t eat and she apologise, yet the next day she did exactly the same thing. It’s weird.

I want to make an effort to visit Marmee sometime this week – most likely Saturday if she’s going to be around. I have an appointment to have my blood pressure taken and we could leave straight after that I guess. The thing is, I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know if the surgery is going to be a big topic of conversation or whether we’re going to avoid talking about it; if she’s going to say things that I find triggering – I have zero clue. And should I make a point of visiting my sisters too so that I see them all before the surgery? Does that seem morbid or like I’m never expecting to see them again? Maybe I should ask Marmee if she could invite them around, or we all pile around to my brother’s place?

I’ll speak to Stripes tomorrow, get her opinion. I need to put some details into the surgery tracking spreadsheet – packing suitcase, list of items to go into it. I think possibly part of the problem is that I am very much in a hurry up and wait place. There’s nothing I can do now apart from stick to the diet plan and hope that (a) the weight comes off and (b) the surgery doesn’t get rescheduled for any reason. There’s nothing to do which leaves me feeling twitchy.

I am meant to be calling the bariatric dietetic team tomorrow to ask about the struggles I’ve been having with the plan but I find myself thinking is there any point? I mean, if they had got back to me during the week there might have been time to implement some changes but with only 10 days until the surgery, is there any time or point? Again that feeling of being abandoned and feeling a little lonely. It’s a strange place to be.

And after the surgery – is it just protein shakes like the slimfast or should I be on something else? Sometimes I feel like I’ve got a handle on what needs to happen and then other times I feel like I’m just blagging it and am going to mess up horribly. It’s nearly 5 am so I really need to get to bed. Stripes has an ED meeting and Bookgrim has a telephone counselling appointment so tomorrow is going to be a bit high-octane emotion-wise. If I can’t find anything concrete to put my finger on, I need to shelve this and just go to bed.