Pre-Op Diet Day 23 and insomnia got me again

SW⟫ 207.7 | CW⟫ 165 |

Pre-op Diet⟫ Day 23

Surgery Countdown⟫ 05 days

So what’s got me so agitated that not only have I not slept yet, but I’m still up at 9.15 having written just under 2000 words for a fic? Some of it is simply that I didn’t wake up until late afternoon yesterday, so it’s no wonder I didn’t have an early night.

But some of it is that I am feeling so much banked rage. It’s hard to describe and I’m struggling to figure out where it’s all coming from. Some of it is justifiably aimed at NewYou and their lack-lustre service. I have booked a redelivery of my stuff (again) and I really and truly hope it turns up today because otherwise I might find myself going apeshit on someone. The fact that they allegedly escalated it with Parcelforce and ‘expedited’ the redelivery and it still hasn’t turned up just makes me so freaking angry. If I hadn’t found a way around things, I would have been so up shit-creek because of their delivery shenanigans, not even considering the cost of all of this – money I could do with not being out of my hands whilst I struggle to buy alternatives.

Some of it just seems to be about life – choices, opportunities. If GLP1 medication had been around and readily available when I was younger, how much different might my life be? Would I have had the stroke? The heart attack? Would I have already beaten this battle before it reached this stage – where I’m a home-bound hermit, scared to walk around outside in case I fall over? Would my life have been that different or was I going to end up here regardless? Would I have made the choices I wonder?

More rage when I see that the scales are moving upwards. Even though J has reassured me that they are looking for my liver to have shrunk and the scales going down is just a bonus, I still feel like such a failure with regard to the medical goal they gave me. I even said it at the time, that I am crap at deadlines and goals like this and that I would probably find a way to mess it up. And here we are, five days away from surgery and I have 3.5kg to go. And I know it’s possible to achieve it – the beginning of the pre-op diet has shown me that. But it’s yet another stressor that I don’t need – I had high hopes that I might hit the goal early and be able to relax, but obviously my body doesn’t agree.

Right, something positive. J has sent me some recipes she used when she had her RNY surgery and they look more than doable. I’ve forwarded them to Stripes so she can have a look and then maybe we can get a shopping list together to get all of the stuff that we need. I have begun a basket at Amazon with Protein water and other things that I see mentioned in the YouTube videos I’ve been watching – I won’t buy it until after next week, but it’s good to be able to start putting this stuff together.

I’m going to take my meds and settle down, see if I can get to sleep. Book_grim is at work tonight, so it should just be me and Stripes, watching trash on TV and working on finishing my beanie. Not that it looks much like a beanie – serves me right for not using a pattern. It looks more like a fruit bowl, or being generous, a beret as the shape is just a wee bit strange. It’s a pretty colour though! Look at that, I found something positive to say!

I might come back and write more after I’ve made it through the day – the current plan is four slimfast (I only managed three yesterday) and as much water as I can sink. Maybe tomorrow I’ll see a drop on the scales?

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.

High Thoughts - Prime Effectiveness?

Yes, this is the second post of the night! I don’t know if these would be classed high thoughts – more than likely since it’s nearly 6 am, I haven’t been to sleep yet, and my brain is running like a hamster on a wheel but.

What if I’m making things harder for myself by doing my jab last thing on a Friday night? Like, part of the reason for doing that was to combat the fatigue, but what if it’s partly responsible for me not sleeping? And what if by taking the jab when I do, I’m sleeping through the most effective times? Like – I take the jab and it kicks in and I’m not hungry and not prone to snacking. Not much use of that if it’s the middle of the night and I should be asleep. And then I’ve set myself up for the rest of the week because of when I’ve taken the jab. So my 24 hour cycles are all messed up because I take the jab last thing at night.

What might help – if I’m not talking out of my butt – is if I take my jab on Saturday morning and keep note/track of side effects, food noise, hunger pangs. Obviously I can’t do it now (wish I’d had this idea before I stabbed myself this evening) but if I make a note to myself saying not to do my jab until Saturday morning, I might find that it proves more effective.

It might not – it could simply be that I need to titrate up despite the fact that I’m loathe to move up levels if I don’t have to. But if I can stay on 1mg and keep losing weight, then I can put off titrating up until it’s absolutely necessary. I still have at least 80 – 90 kgs to lose so there’s time to run experiments, but also still a chance to help the Ozempic work for me. What if I’ve been putting a stumbling block in my way this whole time simply because I thought taking the jab at night meant that I wouldn’t have to handle the fatigue, as in it would help me go to sleep if I was exhausted. But maybe that’s not the way my brain – or body – works.

Now I just need to remember this for next week!

THC based cookie and a good night's sleep

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 179 | MGW ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic: ⟫ 0.5 mg

To be fair, I might not even post this one – mainly because I am under the influence of half of one of Stripes’ THC cookies. I have been struggling a lot with new pain in my knees. Previously, they have only been this bad during the winter – the cold makes them hurt like a motherf*cker and has sometimes made me cry with how bad it is. However, this past week or so I have been really feeling it. I haven’t been using the medicinal cannabis because I wasn’t in that much pain, and because it’s bloody expensive to buy. I had other things I needed to spend the money on, so if I didn’t need it, I wasn’t going to keep buying it. I have a decent stockpile and Stripes has cookie dough in the freezer that is THC-based.

Last night, I asked/she offered one of the cookies and I decided to give it a bash because this is going to be a stressful week and I need to get some sleep. Because I haven’t had any in such a long time, I decided to just eat half of one to see if there were any effects. Bear in mind that I was vaping THC for nearly nine months, practically every day so I wasn’t sure what effect the cookie would have on me. Within about forty minutes, I was feeling a bit giggly and tired, so I put on my CPAP mask and tried to go to sleep.

About two/three hours later, I woke up and was feeling on the ceiling. But there was absolutely zero pain in my knees. I barely remember what I did upon waking up, but Stripes was going to bed so I thought I might as well go back to sleep. As I said, I have been struggling with my sleep pattern lately and wanted to see if I could grab another couple of hours. 7.30 this morning (about five hours later), I’ve woken up to use the bathroom, am still feeling floaty as all heck but a lot better rested. And I’m going back to sleep! Well, I will be – once I’ve checked all of my social media and let my painkillers settle down. One of the worst things about using Ozempic is that I feel full all of the time, which means when I take my drugs they spend what feels like at least half an hour just sitting there. Makes it uncomfortable to lie down immediately after taking them – there just feels like there’s no room for them. A benefit when it comes to food, not so much when it comes to the drugs that keep me upright on daily basis!

Also, I’m deliberately trying to ignore the numbers that popped up on the scale this morning – bah humbug!

The Mind is a Scary Place

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 178.7 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

I did a chunk of work using some worksheets that Stripes gave me from here and I’m not sure how I feel about the work that I’ve done.

Quite a bit of it seems more skewed towards different eating disordered behaviour than I would recognise in myself, but at least some of it felt applicable to me. It made me do some thinking about how it has all affected my relationships with people and quality of life. I’m not sure if the monitoring things that they suggest will work for me, although Stripes did help me put a lot of that into perspective. The Ozempic is doing the heavy lifting in regard to losing the weight – removing much of the food noise, limiting my ability to overeat, etc – but I am still the one making the choices. I’m choosing the continue using the injections; I’m “listening” to my body with regard to not eating when I’m not hungry; trying to respect the things that I know I can’t eat unless I’m willing to experience adverse side effects. One of the things it says is that I shouldn’t weigh myself more than once a week so that I don’t allow the numbers on the scales to decide my mood, etc. It also states quite clearly that it’s not compatible with trying to lose weight, which I don’t think I can make the commitment at this point in time to say that I’m not going to have that as a goal. That’s the whole point of the Ozempic – I want and need to lose weight, so attempting to follow a programme like this seems counterproductive. I think it might be a good idea to look at the resources on the website that focus more on body image, depression and anxiety rather than focussing on the disordered eating aspect of things.

I was going to spend some time today working on spreadsheets and monitoring forms as per the advice given, but I’m not sure that’s the right way for me to go. I think I might give it a day to percolate and then consider.

I’ve been watching a semaglutide diary on YouTube here called Journey with Wendi and she was doing a weekly check in where she answered questions, explained side effects she was going through and her progress. Very straight-forward, sometimes amusing, but one of the biggest things is seeing the difference in her each and every week. She is on a higher dosage than me – at the point in the diaries that I am in, she is using 1mg of Ozempic per week – and there is the fact that her start weight is somewhere I can only dream of. I decided to do something ‘brave’ and sent her an email just expressing my thanks for the content she is providing, especially since the videos I am watching are from 2 years ago. It’s weird to think that she could be in a completely different place now – that she might be at goal and maintaining, whilst I feel that sometimes I am at the very beginning of my journey.

This week is quiet – for me anyway. Stripes has a session with Jaime; Grim is getting her hair done here on Thursday – but apart from that, it should be quite peaceful.

I had a very upset stomach last night which to be honest is not a surprise. I had a weird eating day yesterday – I didn’t sleep at all Saturday night, then had leftover Chinese food early on Sunday. Later in the day, I had a major craving for tuna pasta with sweetcorn and mayonnaise. It tasted absolutely lovely but it was strange to have a second ‘large’ meal when I’ve pretty much been having one meal a day. Then I had a yoghurt and a kiwi fruit. I think I’m off kiwi fruit – whether it’s where we are getting them, if they’re in season or what, but they have either been all bruised and ‘off’, or the one last night had a really weird semi-solid white bit going all the way through it and I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I ended the evening in the bathroom with an ‘explosive’ episode. It wasn’t as bad as some of them have been, but it was pretty bad. The good part was that it left me so exhausted that I went to be just after midnight and slept through to just after 8 am – silver lining!

I’m going to do some reading, maybe play some Disney Dreamlight Valley and have a quiet day I think. And no doubt begin to panic about what I’m going to wear on Thursday when Tanya is here to do Grim’s hair – it sounds ridiculous but I’m wondering if it’s too weird to be in my pyjamas while she is here. I don’t even think she would judge me, or even notice. It’s all in my head which as we know, is a weird and scary place! Oh, and I need to do a food-shop because I want to try some non-dairy Greek-style yoghurt because I am enjoying having them but wonder if having the dairy-free version might sit better with my stomach!

Stop the world, I want to get off

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 179.5 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

Oh my poor brain! Seriously, like can I get a break!

Okay, so good note: no sitting down bawling for apparently no reason. So, a step up from last weekend.

Bad note: my head is still all over the place and the fucking scales are just not moving. I know that I’ve gone down into the 170s, which is a cause for celebration, but overall last week I barely lost a kilo. Like – I had some really bad upset stomachs in there, didn’t eat masses (including no take out all week) and I’ve tried to up my water. So what gives? Why haven’t the scales gone plummeting down? I feel like crap for not loving more than that – like, most of the reason this feels worthwhile with all of the side effects is because of the weight loss. So – no weight loss, do I want to carry on?

Actually, thinking about it, it seems like every entry to this is going on about whether or not I want to carry on taking Ozempic. What’s the reality? Well, I can’t see me going off of it any time soon – unless my surgery date comes through. Because this is the first time I have lost this amount of weight in so long and it seems to be staying off (generally) and who am I to turn my nose up at that kind of success? I’m nowhere near maintenance but I can see how staying on a low dosage of Ozempic would ensure the ability to keep the weight off and keep numbers balanced. So, no I’m not really planning on turning my back on the whole semaglutide thing.

I should be getting bloods done soon which will be interesting. My A1C numbers were around 53 – 56 last time I had them checked, so borderline rather than in the ‘red’, and Violet was happy with the numbers so that’s a good thing. It would be amazing if the numbers went down this year even if it’s just in reaction to me losing some weight.

New mini goal: 30 kilos off. No idea when I want that to be, although obviously next week would be absolutely amazing! But yeah – that seems like a sensible mini goal – I can’t quite remember what I said I wanted as my newest mini goal last time so this will supersede that I guess!

I have two ARCs that I have to read today as the reviews are due tomorrow and I’m just not feeling it. It’s not even as if I’m not looking forward to reading them – well, one of them at least – I just feel wrung out and fed up and just fucking tired of all of it. My head is jammed full of stuff, I feel over-sensitive and almost angsty, and I just want to say stop the world and let me get off. Let me have a night off from food worries, stomach upsets and concerns about weight, life, the girls – all of it. I just want to STOP. But the world doesn’t work like that, so instead I shall settle down with the two books I need to read and get them done and write the reviews, try to choose well when it comes to food, and remember that this too shall pass – I can cope with this, I will survive. And if I kill someone, all of this stuff I’ve written here might be used as mitigating circumstances!

Nightmares are a bitch but insomnia is worse

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 180.8 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

God, it’s hard deciding what to eat. I seem to have gone through the cheesy beans stage which is a bit of a bummer as we have an assortment of tins of beans now resting in the cupboard. Maybe my body will revisit the craving? Anyway, I did a Tesco shop and ordered some soups with baguettes/sourdough rolls because now I have a craving for something hot that doesn’t involve lots of chewing! I don’t even know why – it’s just what my brain was suggesting!

Stripes is out this weekend with her big sister, so Saturday afternoon/early evening I am flying solo and I need to figure out what to do with myself. Of course, I may well end up sleeping the whole time as the insomnia is biting hard which is not being helped by the awful nightmares. They’re extremely vivid and a lot of them seem to be dragging me back to low points in my life, decisions I’ve made that I now regret, or even just situations where things went to shit. I struggle to shake them once I wake up and they seriously affect my mood because – well, who the heck wants to revisit their lifetime of mistakes every night? So, yeah, sleep has not been my friend. Not to say that I’m not tired – I’m freaking exhausted, but sleep isn’t restful and I generally end up feeling even worse when I do manage to grab a few hours.

I still haven’t really cracked open the new worksheets that Stripes found for me. I don’t know if it’s because my mood in general has been a bit low, or maybe just that I’m a coward, but I haven’t felt up to facing them. But I will because it’s important and because I can see a gigantic pothole looming up in front of me. The pothole that is really new territory and entering the 170s. The scale continues to move downwards which is, of course, absolutely brilliant but I (1) still haven’t heard from the surgeons about a surgery date, (2) still have not received my PIP renewal application form and (3) am absolutely bricking myself at the thought of these new numbers.

I guess there was still a part of me that thought the Ozempic would stop working and therefore the numbers wouldn’t keep going down. And I can’t see any difference in myself at all, despite many attempts to stand in front of a mirror and actually look at myself. I haven’t been out so I haven’t had to wear anything other than my pyjamas so it’s not like I can tell by the fit of my clothes. I don’t want to ask Stripes to look at the face photos she has been taking for me because they’re only a month apart, so how big of a difference could there be? I’m edging ever closer to having lost 60 lbs and it’s more than a little disheartening that I can’t see a difference. 

They say comparison is the thief of joy – seeing posts on Reddit with people having lost like 25 lbs and looking completely different, or reaching goal having lost 30 lbs sometimes makes me just feel like such a loser. Their start weight is more often than not my goal weight. It feels so far away, and even though I remind myself that the time will pass and if I stick to this, things will happen, I wish I could see something now. Instead, it just feels like I’m plodding along and the numbers on the scale are just some nebulous meaningless thing. I feel like such a whiney baby when there are also people posting on Reddit that they haven’t lost a single pound since starting months ago – at least I’m a responder which means that even at this low dose, Ozempic is working for me. I should be grateful – I AM grateful. I guess it’s just human nature to want things immediately. I need to be aware of that and work to get over it – it didn’t take just a few months to put the weight on so I can’t expect it to fall off just like that. 

Today is my writing day and I am going to have a look at some of the plot bunnies Meph has been putting into our chat. I don’t know if I’m in the mood to write something serious so Twisted Bonds and The Vamp’s Wolf are out because both of them are at serious points in the story. I’ve written a couple of drabbles and I have at least one ARC I need to read so maybe I’ll call it a day, try to get some sleep and try again later. 

In the meantime, I am grateful for the fact that the Ozempic is still working, enabling me to control my appetite better; I am grateful for the fact that I have been able to get another 4 weeks' supply so can continue; I am grateful for the fact that I am alive and able to look back at my life and see all of the learning moments; I am grateful for the love and affection in my life from my daughters, my friends and my cats; and I am grateful that I can write as a release from the stresses and strains of everyday life.

Shit, I am so tired – I wonder if any of this makes sense!