Are you excited yet?

(Yeah I know. I'm writing twice in one day. I'm long-winded. So sue me.)

To answer the question in my header, well, umm, actually . . . . No.

Does this mean that I will be kicked out of the WLS Club because I'm not all bouncy-excited about my upcoming surgery? I hope not, but you never know with these things it seems.

I guess my problem is why does everyone have to ask me this question. I mean, I understand being asked that kind of a question when, say, you're going to be having a baby for the first time (SHOUT OUT to two of my friends, one of whom I hope will be reading this blog soon - love you, Lys!), or if you're getting married or something like that. But having weight loss surgery? That gets a big "Meh!" from me.

Maybe I'm just missing a sensitivity gene somewhere. Honestly, I oftentimes feel deficient in the "female" department of things because I just don't "get" a lot of the things females are supposed to think and feel and do.

For example: Why do friendships have to be "work"? You either are friends, or you are not. You go about your daily lives, you interact with other people, and you either are friends with them or you are not. Why is there work involved in this? Yes, sometimes you and a particular friend may not see or speak to each other for a time for whatever reason - say, physical distance. This does not mean that you are not friends anymore, now does it?

Now I have one friend in particular. She and I have known each other since, well, since I was born. She's older than me by 28 days. She moved away from where we lived when she was five years old. Five, people. I don't think we were even in kindergarden yet. As we were children, occasionally we would see each other once a year when she came back here to visit relatives during the summer. As we got older, those visits got more infrequent - a couple of years would go by without us talking to each other or seeing each other. Somehow, one of us always managed to find the other and we get back in touch and gush about each other's lives and care about each other and all that sort of good stuff. I still consider her to be one of my very best friends, and I love her to death. I think about her at least once a month, if not more often for whatever reason. We are both admittedly bad correspondants, and it usually takes large life-changes for us to find one another. But we always do.

Can somebody please tell me where the "work" part enters a friendship? Yes, we could both be more proactive in keeping in touch with each other, but dammit, I'm not going to dump her because we both suck at it. She's my friend, for crying out loud. I will ALWAYS be there for her.

Why do we, as women, have to be so high maintenance about this? So you happen to be the one who wants to keep in touch with someone else. Okay. No big deal. Like Nike says, Just Do It for crying out loud. Don't go and complain that the other party just isn't putting the same amount of effort into the friendship as you are. Maybe they're just a crappy communicator. It doesn't mean that they don't care about you or don't like you anymore. They just suck at communication and making contact with their friends. We all suck at something, so what's the big deal with them sucking at this? They put up with you and your suckiness - so shut up and put up with theirs if you really are a friend!

Sorry. I really got off on a tangent there, now didn't I? This has been a subject that's been bugging me for quite some time. I see it so often on some of the message boards that I frequent and to me it's just utterly ridicockulous that I am left stunned everytime I see it.

Anyway, back to this damned surgery.

No, I'm not excited about it. I am, however, utterly impatient to be thinner than I am now. I'm going to be one of those people who wakes up in recovery and blurts out, "Am I thin yet?" And I'll probably be very female at that moment and burst into tears when they tell me that I'm not, because dammit, this surgery is supposed to be MAGICAL, I tell you! MAGICAL! Just kidding.

I am also utterly fed up with having to explain this particular surgery every. single. time. somebody asks about it. I know it's my own fault for picking a surgery that is not as well known or performed as often as the RNY or even the Lap-Band, but I have about reached the point that I want to make up little cards with the salient points about the DS and just hand them to people to get them to understand what's going on. I cannot even BEGIN to count how many times I've had to draw how the stomach is going to be re-sected and the bowels re-routed. (As a side note, do you realize how many full-grown adults with college degrees have absolutely positively no idea of any portion of their inside anatomy? The ignorance is astounding!)

And another thing: Why is it that everybody is an expert about WLS? Even when they've never had it or never even looked into it? They always say something along the lines of "Well, I knew someone who knew someone who had it and they, well they DIED." Thanks. Thanks a lot, buddy. Thank you ever so much for your brilliantly genius and constructive statement. Now please go stand in the corner. Because dying? Is pretty much guaranteed for all of us. Last time we checked the death rate on life was right up there at 100%. I will bring your dunce cap to you immediately.

What I really am is reflective about having the DS. Reflective on how this is going to change not only my life, but the life of my entire family. How this is going to effect The Husband. How this is going to effect my precious children. How this is going to effect my friends and how this is going to effect how the whole world percieves me at first glance and afterwards.

Yeah, I know that there are going to be drastic changes around the corner. And this tempers any excitement I may be feeling over having the DS. But I think that that's a good thing, don't you?