Hitting another milestone

This morning I hit 220, 219.6 to be exact. I had set 220 as the goal for the surgery once I knew it would be in the fall instead of February, so I'm pretty excited. I hope it's enough. I have done a lot of reading on incisional hernia repairs, and all the articles say a person should be of normal weight. Even though I've now lost 102 pounds, I am nowhere near the normal weight for my 5'2" frame. I hope it's enough. I'm sure it was the best I could do in the amount of time I had.

I am missing my morning coffee right now, that's for sure! Nothing to eat or drink after midnight on the day of surgery is standard procedure.

I have packed two bags. One little plastic bag contains a long-sleeved, mid-calf length stretchy lounger in a pretty red and black pattern that I bought at Kohl's. It looks enough like a dress and has enough thickness and warmth to it that I think I can wear it home this evening if indeed they do send me home. I don't want to try to put anything with an elastic waistband over the incision site today. The other bag contains things in case they keep me overnight: a new, pale blue, long-sleeved, floor length, flannel nightgown; a new zip-up soft, fuzzy bathrobe; a puzzle book courtesy of one of my co-workers; a pen; a book on the building of the Panama Canal courtesy of my school's library; a paperback mystery novel; a ziplok bag of my usual night time pills; and a ziplok with my toothbrush and toothpaste. I plan to leave this bag in the car. If they move me to the hospital, Mark can go out and get it.

I was very happy that my son came to have dinner with us last night. He brought his camera so we could see the pictures he took last summer when he drove across country and back. He had many beautiful pictures of the Outer Banks in North Carolina, Smokey Mountains, deserts, the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, Southern California, the Pacific Ocean, Sequoia National Park, San Francisco, salt flats and the Great Salt Lake, Nebraska plains, etc. What an incredible drive!! I give him a lot of credit. I would never have the courage to attempt a trip that long on my own. I am always so proud of him.

We ended up staying home and eating the delicious vegetarian chili that Mark cooked from the Hungry Girl cookbook. I only ate one cup of it and two large plates of salad with grated, fat-free parmesan cheese sprinkled on it. I also allowed myself to eat an entire challah roll with fat-free margarine. Yummy! Lowell had his chili over spaghetti, but Mark and I ate it straight from a bowl. It was very spicy! Later we had coffee and Hungry Girl Peach pie, 80 calories for one-eighth of the pie. It was really, really delicious. At 10:30 I ate my usual banana, took my nighttime pills, drank a little water, and called it a day. My total calories for yesterday were 1530. I think that was a very good number considering I did walk 5k after all.

I do not expect to be blogging anymore today or maybe even tomorrow. If all goes according to plan, I should be ready to think about blogging again by Wednesday. I have enjoyed writing these posts for the last few weeks. I'll be looking forward to getting back to it. It's a nice release for me to write about my weight loss and my fear of this surgery. After today, the surgery will be behind me and I can write about the recovery from it. I'll need to find the strength to stay focused on losing another 50 pounds and on getting back to walking. This time my motivation will be the Cabaret Showcase at the synagogue on January 30, 2010 and leaving for the big vacation on March 2. I hope those events are as motivating as this surgery has been.

Time to close down now for awhile. Thanks to everyone who called and emailed to wish me well. It's wonderful knowing that I have so much love and support in my corner.