It's coming out.......

......my gall bladder that is. The concensus of opinion is that this is the best option. The surgeon said that if it was just the adhesions he'd leave well alone but as the he suspects the gallstones are the main cause of my problems, and even if they were removed they could still reform in the gall bladder, he feels it would be prudent to remove the gall bladder and deal with the adhesions at the same time. He said the op could be done laparoscopally but it would be much safer to do open surgery. So, there you go! He's on holiday for the next 2 weeks and wanted to fit it in directly he got back on 6th September but I wrangled out of that one as it's only the day after Liz goes back to school and we also have a 'posh do' at John's company on the 7th which we didn't want to miss. So it looks as though I'll go in some time the following week.

I don't know, John's been on at me for ages and ages to get to the doctor's about health problems as he's got the private insurance and my comment to that has always been, 'Do you want me to get ill?' Well, he's getting his money's worth now!!!!

Ok, onto to the diet..... Mr Slater (my new consultant) asked if I needed any help with a fat-free diet. After I stopped laughing, I said, 'No, I think I'm OK on that score'. I'd already explained about how I'd put on all the weight, and how I'd lost it - LighterLife etc., and he was impressed that I'd lost so much weight (as of Wednesday morning.....2stone 10lb....38lb......so I'm getting nearer that 11stone something). He did ask that I not eat any chocolate before the operation - as if I would! And I'm to just have milk in drinks, so out goes my occasional glass of skimmed milk at bedtime - boohoo!

I told him that I was ashamed of having got to the weight I became and asked if I'd caused the gallstones by being overweight. His answer was a definite 'No!'. He said they could be hereditary and asked if any close family members suffered from them - my maternal grandmother (who wasn't overweight). Mum told me later that Dad also had them, but I didn't know about that as, a lot of what was wrong with him we (children), weren't told about - I only knew that what I thought was warts in the bladder was in fact cancer and that he wasn't going to pull through, just 2 weekls before he died.

We also discussed the gynae drug treatments I was on over the years and he said that it can be very, very hard to control your weight whilst taking these, just the same as for people on steroids. All this made me feel a lot less .....atogonistic (?) towards myself as even though I can't blame the drugs completely - I do neeed to take some of the blame, it's as I've suspected all along - total control was out of my hands. On the whole though, I don't feel it lets me off the hook over the amount of weight I've put on over the last 3 or 4 years. But in my defense, since the beginning of this century I've had a hysterectomy (well-known for weight gain afterwards - I know people who've gained 2 or 3 stone), lost my Dad, suffered depression, with the resultant Prosac prescription, and fought a losing battle (until now) with weight.

On the way home from the hospital John said he was going to give me something to read about getting into the right mindset for surgery. It was a piece he'd come across whilst doing research for a book he's writing. One of the comments was, 'Operations are fine, as long as you have the right attitude to them....just treat them as a great adventure.' The gist of this is that, rather than becoming stressed out about an upcoming operation, or procedure, look on it as a new begining. The writer said she couldn't wait to get on the operating table, that the problems she was experiencing were getting worse each day, and that the operation couldn't come quick enough. I think I'll try to keep this in mind. Maybe, by this time next year, I'll be a completely new woman. New weight, no pains, no bloated abdomen....new shape. Can't wait!!!