Damn You Cancer Sticks

I had my consultation with the surgeon today and it went relatively well. I really liked the surgeon. One of the things I was nervous about is that they just started doing these surgeries here last month, He assured me that he has been doing them for years, so although they're new to the hospital they're not new to him.

The good news is that he said physically I'm an ideal candidate and my Bi-Polar will not prevent me from getting the surgery done as long as I keep up with my mental health and continue to follow my plan of care. There's a course that the hospital requires that I take before the surgery that teaches about the surgery, about the eating habits afterwards, what exercises you should do, how to cope emotionally, etc. He said it depends on the patient but surgery can be scheduled after the courses are complete, which if you're dedicated and working on it could be as soon as a month after starting them. This is all good news.

The bad news is I've been a pack a day smoker for almost seven years. Because of this he told me he won't touch me with a scalpel until I have been nicotine free for six months. Six. Months. You read that correctly. He said that smoking increases the risk of a hernia 20%, and it increases the likelihood of an infection or the stomach not healing properly. From what I understood when you smoke it basically suffocates your veins and doesn't allow as much oxygen to get to them, when you have the surgery you have 60-80% less stomach to be able to absorb the oxygen that it's used to. Without that oxygen the staples won't heal as quickly and there are chances for complications. I've attempted to quit smoking multiple times before, and always failed. I think a big part of that was because I was trying to quit because other people wanted me to. I decided at the appointment that I have one pack of cigarettes left and once those are gone, they're gone and I'm done. I want this surgery more than I want another pack of cigarettes, so this will be a good thing. I am pretty bummed that because of smoking I'm now seven months out from surgery instead of one month, but most people have to wait six months to get it anyways so I kind of expected some form of wait.

Although I wish I could get it sooner, I'm slightly okay with the wait because, well, I'm a fatty. There's a chance I will be going to California in May to watch my younger siblings while my parents go on vacation, and not having the surgery done yet will allow me to enjoy some real Mexican food and eat one last Chipotle burrito before my stomach can't handle it anymore. #fatkidsoul

I'm not sure what waiting six months of not smoking will mean for the blog. I absolutely want to focus more on blogging about the surgery than anything else, but this is leaving a six month gap in my plan. I'm not comfortable sharing the inner workings of my marriage anymore as we're trying to focus on us and I don't feel right broadcasting it to the world. With that being said, I will still post between now and starting the classes. I have a book with about seven hundred idea topics to write about and I would like to get back into blogging a bit again. However, I don't want to write just to write. I've made countless numbers of posts in the past about absolutely nothing and that's not how I want to run this bitch anymore. I've decided I'm not going to put myself on a schedule. When I first started blogging I wanted to be a big blog with tons of readers, I'm not really interested in that any more. I'm not going to follow the rules of blog land. I don't care about the number of people my blog reaches, I care about the content I put out. I want to write when I want to, about what I want to write, and how I want to write it. If that means that you get a long post with no pictures, a bunch of curse words, or me shamelessly expressing my opinion with no fucks to give what anyone else will think, so be it. And while I'll be posting about my life some and I absolutely will still be wildly inappropriate at times, I also want to make sure that what I post either matters or is funny. Basically what I'm saying is don't expect me to come back with the four to five posts a week. Hell, there may be a couple of weeks that go by that I don't say anything at all. Just know that I'm around and I'll be posting when I want to, because it's my blog and as Cartman would say...

I'm Going To (Hopefully) Be Surgically Removing My Stomach

After a lot of consideration, thinking long and hard (like one of my favorite things in life is) I've decided I'm going to pursue weight loss surgery. I was leaning towards getting the lapband done because a friend and my cousin both had it done and have had success. I scheduled an appointment with my doctor and discussed wanting the referral for surgery with him. I explained that I saw a nutritionist about a eighteen months ago when I was considering getting gastric bypass done and that I lost over 50 lbs in 2013 with the diet changes that she suggested. I also explained that since I went on my crazy pills in May that I've gained 30 of those pounds back.

We discussed my options and he suggested I look into the gastric sleeve. With the lapband I would have to travel to Anchorage for the consultation and to get the surgery done, and that they do the gastric sleeving at our hospital here. He also said that the sleeve has the greatest overall weight loss. I've done some research on it and from what I gather the surgery entails them cutting out roughly 80% of my stomach and stapling it back together in a sleeve the size of the banana. With the lapband they leave a plastic contraction in me that's adjustable, with the gastric bypass they reroute my stomach, and although it sounds scary I think I like the idea of just removing part of my stomach and not leaving anything in me or rerouting anything the most. Another cool thing about the sleeve is part of the stomach that's removed is the part that produces the hormone that causes you to get hungry. I like that.

I'm basically back at pictures two and three now after the weight gain. Boo. Faces.

My doctor told me that physically I am an ideal candidate for the surgery. I'm above the BMI requirement and I have a history of showing that I can lose weight. He said the only thing that may hold me up on getting it is my Bi-Polar diagnosis. He also said however that the fact that I had seen mental health before my appointment, that I'm stable on my medication, and that I'm already set up with a counselor (albeit a marriage one, but it's something) greatly increases my chances of being approved. It shows a history of me taking my mental health seriously and that I'm able to stick with my plan of treatment. He put in a referral to have a consultation with the surgeon to discuss if they think I'm a good candidate and what steps I'll need to take in order to get my approval. I discussed this with him on Friday, and I got a phone call on Tuesday scheduling my consultation for tomorrow. It's possible I'll have to wait six months to actually get the surgery if the surgeon chooses to move forward, but I like how quickly this has progressed so far.

I'm not going to lie, I'm really nervous. I do think this is the right decision for me though, I've tried and failed multiple times at losing the weight myself and think that I need the extra boost the surgery will give me. This surgery isn't something that I can quit, I can't ask them to put my stomach back in, once this commitment is made, it's made for life. I am in no way expecting this to be a miracle pill, I don't expect to wake up in the hospital a hundred pounds lighter. This is going to be taxing both physically and emotionally. I'm going to have to redefine my relationship with food. I'll have to be on a liquid diet the first two weeks after surgery, and that's a lot of protein shakes. I'm going to have to eat mush food (scrambled eggs, yogurt, refried beans) for another two to three weeks after that. I'm going to have to teach myself to eat because my body needs it for fuel and not because I'm having a bad day or it tastes good. I'm going to have to learn how to live without Dr Pepper. I'm going to have to come to terms that I may have setbacks, that the weight doesn't come off as quickly as I'd like, that there will be plateaus. I'm going to have to deal with a whole new set of insecurities when my body shrinks but my skin doesn't. I'm going to have to learn how to truly love myself again, which I think is going to be one of the most emotionally draining ones of all.

With all of these things that are hard, there will also be a lot of positives as well. I'm going to stop hurting my body by carrying around so much extra weight. I'm going to be healthy. I'm going to get to walk into a doctors office with an issue and have them not immediately blame it on my weight. I'm going to be able to sit in my husband's lap without worrying I'm going to break his legs. I'm going to be able to walk into a store and be able to buy an outfit that's cute, not one that's located in it's own small section with a few options that all scream "I LOVE ANIMAL PRINT" or "I HAVE TWELVE GRANDKIDS AND FIFTY TWO CATS." I'm going to be able to see what I'll look like thin for the first time since I was eleven. I'm going to be able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. I'm going to up my chances of both getting pregnant, and having a healthy pregnancy. I'm going to be able to play tag with my children, and be an (keyword) ACTIVE part of their lives instead of sitting on the sidelines.

It's scary, but it's also extremely exciting and I think this is going to be the best decision I've ever made for myself. With all of that being said, while I was doing my research I was looking for blogs that people chronicled their gastric sleeve journey from start on out and I couldn't find any. I wanted the candid, day to day, bare all this is how I truly feel account of getting the surgery done, and I couldn't find one. It occurred to me that if I wanted to be able to read something like this and couldn't find it, that there were probably other people that have and will search the same thing and also not be able to find one too. I decided to be that person for them, since I haven't had one for me. I'm going to chronicle my journey through this absolutely honestly and let anyone who's interested in the surgery get to know more  about it from my point of view. I'll be posting about what I need to do to qualify for it, the surgery, the healing, how the diets go, what I can and can't eat, how much I exercise, and how the weight loss is going. I plan do to a weigh in, take measurements, and take pictures once a week so that those who are interested can see the changes as they're happening. You can watch me both grow (emotionally) and shrink (physically). I plan on being candid. The great, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In preparation for the avenue that I'm taking my blog, I deleted a lot of the old posts. I was at nearly 500 and now I'm down to fifty. The majority of my posts didn't really say anything of substance anyways, and more than I'd care to admit were more along the lines "Welp, I suck at blogging, I haven't posted in a few weeks here's a general update and promises to post more" and then I didn't. I decided to keep posts that were meaningful to me, that I thought were extremely well written, or that I really enjoyed writing/make me laugh. In the next couple of days I'll also be redesigning the page and changing things up a bit. You can still expect me to be completely inappropriate, extremely candid, and absolutely hilarious as always, but it's going to have an actual direction now as well.

If you're wanting to follow along, by all means, join me on this journey. If not, ain't* no feelings going to be hurt by you clicking that unfollow button.




*Can we take a second here to discuss the absurdity in the fact that the internet accepts ain't is a word (no squiggly line) but refried beans (which is how they spell it on the cans, I CHECKED) is considered wrong?

How to Order a Magazine (Without Getting Fucked)

I know that I said I wasn't going to be posting again until I was back in Alaska, but this post has been circling in my head for days now and it's begging to get out, which lead to me stealing my dad's computer and whipping up this bad boy here.

As I mentioned I've been working for a company that orders magazines for people. We do all the data entry and take all of the customer service calls for some of the biggest magazines in the country. Now that I've been doing this for a few months I feel like I have a pretty good hand on how to not get taken advantage of and figured I'd be nice enough to share some of these tips with you. So without further ado, I present to you:

Tip #1: It's called a subscription, not a prescription.You would be astonished at how many people don't know the difference. I can't even begin to count the number of times that I've been asked to renew or cancel someone's prescription. I am not a pharmacist, that is outside of my power. My apologies.

Tip #2: Don't. It's as simple as that. Just don't order a magazine subscription. Keep your magazine reading to in the check out line as they were intended to be. Regardless of "what a good deal you got" I absolutely 120% guarantee  you that someone out there is getting a much better deal than you. You're getting twelve issues for $16.90 a year? Awesome. There's someone getting it for $10. You got that awesome preferred customer bonus of it being $7.97 to renew? Good for you, someone else just got it for buy one get a gift for free. You will always be over paying. But, if I can't talk you out of subscribing anyways and you just have to know what Kim Kardashian is doing this month, or what recipe Rachel Ray wants to teach you how to make, or what really interests the playmate of the year then make sure to pay attention to the following tips. You stubborn bunch you.

Tip #3: Don't be Canadian. I get that there's the exchange rate and all that jazz, but on average Canadians pay at least twice as much as citizens of the good ol' US of A. The US rate could go for $10 for 12 issues, while the Canadians are paying $28 for 12 issues.

Tip #4: If you really want to avoid being screwed, absolutely don't live anywhere outside of Canada or the US. While Canadians are paying that $28, someone in England is paying $40.

Tip #5: You will NEVER get a bill from a magazine for past products. You'll get an invoice for future products. I can not even begin to tell you the number of times that I've had to put on a payment for someone who just made a payment because they thought it was a bill. Or the number of times I've had to extend someone's subscription even though they sent in asking for it to be canceled because they sent in a check that they thought they owed. Think of it this way, when you buy something, anything really (things you finance excluded), you do not get the product until you have paid for it. You don't go to the grocery store, take the food, and then get a bill in the mail. You pay for it, and then you get to take it. Absolutely anything asking for money that comes to you from your magazine company is for future issues. You do not owe any money, you will not owe any money. They will not ship the magazines until they are paid for, so never fear. All that will happen if you don't pay your subscription fee is you won't get the magazine anymore.

Tip #6: Keep EXCELLENT records of when you paid for your subscription and how long you purchased the subscription for. Every invoice and renewal form that gets sent out looks like a bill, so people tend to pay them without realizing that they're buying another years worth. They also send renewal notices out multiple times a year, so make sure not to send it back with a payment unless you actually want to purchase another year. You would not believe the number of people I've put orders on for that have been rejected because they're subscribed until 2020 and have no idea they've paid that many times. You can find your expiration date on the address label. Here's a random picture I found online to show you what it will look like.

Tip #7: There are a few key words that you should write on your subscription when you sent it off to us little office fairies. I truly wish that I could set these up for everyone, but we're not allowed to do anything to them unless these key phrases are used. Are you ready?

• "Do not sell or rent my information."

You know how you sometimes order something from one place, and then end up getting all of that junk mail from people that you've never heard of and have no idea how they found you? We gave that information to them. Companies sell names and addresses of their customers to other companies, these companies buy them to build their client base. That simple phrase is the "Do Not Call" list for junk mail. When you say those magic words we are allowed to put a block on your account so they don't show up on any of those lists. Walah. Junk mail avoided. 

• "Do not auto renew for myself and/or gifts."

As I said before you'll never get a bill for something from the past, but saying to not auto renew makes it to where you don't have that "unpaid balance" on your account. When the subscription is coming close to an end they'll send you a renewal notice, letting you know that it's about to expire and asking if you'd like to renew. This is just nicer and less scary than getting something in the mail that makes you think you owe them money. 

Tip #8: If at any point in your adult life anyone has ever looked at anything you've written and asked "What does that say?" for the love of all things holy please, for the sake of all of us data entry techs, type out your order. It's easier for everyone involved. People write out their names and addresses for themselves and their gifts and sometimes we have absolutely no idea where we're supposed to send them, or who we're supposed to send them to because they're so hard to read. If you've ever ordered a gift subscription for someone and it ended up at your house with their name on it I can 110% promise you it's because one of us lowly peons couldn't figure out where it was going to. Also, don't write in cursive. I know, I know. It's pretty and you learned how to do it in elementary school and have to be able to use it somewhere, I get it I do. But don't. A) Sometimes your cursive isn't as pretty as you think it is and just looks like someone scribbled on the paper leading to more "what the hell are they saying?" and 2) Surprisingly enough, not everyone knows how to read cursive. I have a friend who never learned. I asked her what she did for a signature then and her response was "I dunno... I scribble?" Which is exactly what your cursive looks like to people that can't read it. 

Tip #9: Before you send it off, especially with gift subscriptions double check all of the addresses. Did you include a street number? The apartment number? Is the zip code right? Are all names spelled correctly? We go by what is written (or when the handwriting is awful what we think is written) for where we're sending that magazine to. If you said it went to Detroit but you really meant that it went to Delta, guess what? That sucks for you you're not going to get it until you realize the mistake because it's going to Delta. 

Tip #10a: This one is a two parter in regards to gift subscriptions. First, if you're canceling a gift and there is shipping, make sure to take that into consideration. If the shipping is a dollar and you're only canceling one subscription but keeping the other, that shipping cost goes down to fifty cents. These companies make thousands a year from nickle and diming people that don't realize they've over paid by a quarter here and there. They add up quickly on their end. I put on at least a hundred dollars a day on excess shipping fees because people forget to take that into consideration. Say you have two subscriptions, and each subscription costs 16.97. How it will show up on the invoice is:

Gift subscription: $33.94

Shipping: $1.00

Total: $34.94

People tend to divide the gift subscription and still pay the full shipping. Don't. Also, if you do cancel a subscription, just know that we wonder what happened. Why are you still giving to this person and not that person? Is the reason it went from Mr-Mrs John Smith to Jane Smith on your account the hussy Sally Something that you just stopped giving the magazine to? It totally is in my head. You absolutely don't have to, but you'd absolutely make someones day if you wrote something next to the cancel, even if it's not true. "Cancel, she slept with my brother." "Cancel, we had a falling out because he smells weird." Anything, it's a boring job and my favorites are getting the random funny messages people sometimes send in. 

Tip #10b: If your gift renewal has the option to put add another gift and you don't see anything on the paper about how much the new gift is do not send in money for it. Chances are very high that they'll be less than the gift that you're paying now. You don't want to pay $16.97 for a subscription that only should have cost you $10. You'll get an invoice back after the order is put on. It's worth the wait to save the money. 

Tip #11:  If you decide to not listen to those math tips and still want to try and do your own math, please show your work. The number of times I sit at my cubicle wanting to beat my monitor with my keyboard out of frustration over peoples math skills are troublesome. I'll look at the check amount and be like WHERE DID THEY GET THESE NUMBERS FROM?! So if you want to try and do your own math, please give some indication of how you got to the number on your check. Please. It saves us a lot of time and Advil. 

Tip #12: Ready for a secret? If you send in a check and it's not the amount of the invoice, but it's close enough, we'll take it. Don't feel like you should have to pay the shipping? Then don't. The system will still accept it. The systems will accept payments up to a couple dollars short as paid in full. If you have a ten dollar order and send in seven, it'll take it. But if you go down too far you'll get a bill for a weird small amount, so keep that in mind. 

Tip #13: This seems like a good tip to end on because of Halloween and superstition and all that jazz. If you have decided that you no longer want to receive anything from the magazine anymore, no issues, no renewals, no correspondence at all just tell them that you died. Send in a statement that was sent to you with "deceased" or "she died" written on it and we get to black out your record. You won't get anything from the company anymore.

And, if you ever resort to tip #13, I'd like to remind you that tip #2 would have saved you all of that trouble.