I realize I never gave an update regarding that hospital visit.
First off, we didn't go to the first one in January. Car-related problems made it so, unfortunately, but I did go there on the 6th of March together with my grandmother. It was a very awkward visit, but at the same time it offered a lot of insight into the procedures to come and put me at ease since many of my worst-case illusions about my future were shattered, completely and utterly. Did you know that once you've gone through with this surgery, you don't actually eat a lot of fruit and vegetables? You've got pills perscribed to you for the rest of your life to replace all the vitamins and minerals you should've gotten from a varied diet so that you can focus on eating meat, fish and dairy products. Lots of them, too. Protein, protein, protein.
They also said that hamburgers aren't that bad. Just the bread and dressing. That was a gem.
The best part about this informational meeting was the fact I had my grandmother with me. She's gone through overweight surgery in the past (gastric band, or whatever it's called; when you tie a band around the stomach sack to reduce the usable size of it--they never do that surgery on anyone today) and had her own ideas for what was right or wrong post-surgery. Even she was surprised by what the doctors were saying during the meeting since they popped a lot of bubbles formed by your formal beauty and health tips as well as experts on diets and the like. All in all, it was very enlightening for everyone present and it made me feel much more optimistic about the future.
We did find out that the process is going to be very long, however. They told us that we could count on a minimum of six months delay before we got to actually meet a surgeon who would tell us if we were clear for the surgery or not, going to meetings with nurses and psychologists in the meantime and working on piffying up our day-to-day habits between the meetings so we're prepared when the time comes (and provoke a bit of pre-surgery weight loss, for a variety of reasons).
Once the informational meeting was over, we got to eat a test-lunch that was about the size of what we would be able to eat after a gastric bypass surgery. A single small potato and beef with some tomato sauce. We were gathered around a few different tables and informed that we were supposed to take 20 minutes to chew and eat that potato and beef. ... See, if we go through with the surgery, we're supposed to learn to chew and eat our food very slowly. We'll be doing with our mouths what our stomach sacks did for us, before; process and portion the food before it proceeds down the bowels. After the surgery, most of the stomach sack will be completely removed from the system, which means many of its functions are lost to us and we have to make up for that in other ways.
One way to do that is to try to eat one potato and beef over the course of 20 minutes.
It was
extremely awkward, I'll tell you. We were seven women around a single table, chewing away quietly at our potatoes while occasionally glancing awkwardly at eachother or the clock on the wall above the door. The awkwardness built until we were all giggling away about five minutes in, and we figured out we could chat with eachother to make our slow eating easier, since it wasn't that important that we were chewing nonstop during those 20 minutes. The most important part was that we chewed every bite properly and swallowed a little at a time and took our sweet time finishing the meal since, post-surgery, eating too fast will clog up the system. It's extremely painful, or so I heard. There's also the phenomenon called "
dumping", which to some feels like you're about to have a heart attack except you're completely fine in reality.
Oh, yeah, I didn't last the full 20 minutes. I finished my plate after 15, but at least I wasn't first! ... I may or may not have made sure someone else finished first before I took that last bite of my beef. :'3
All in all, it turned out to be a pretty good day that I finished off on my grandmother's couch, snoozing to some random TV show.
PS.
As it turns out, my grandmother's nagging of the poor nurses at the hospital after the informational meeting saw to it that my first appointment with a nurse is on the 4th of April, halving my expected waiting time. She's frighteningly good at that.
Nagging, I mean.
But, well... I can't keep that many cats in my room, and dad's allergic so we can't have them in the main building. Now that they're leaving, we still have the two boys from the previous litter here. We're giving away the mother to the four fuzzballs above, too, so we only have the males. No more kittens for us. It's just as well, since we're due to have puppies around Christmas. 