Thanks everyone for your comments on my desperate cry of frustration. You are right. I have to learn to put my foot down and just ignore Poss’s occasional forays into the passive/aggressive sulk.

Major day today: I visited the nurse, the physician and the dietician.

This whole gastric banding thing is all coming true on 20th of August.

Oh my.

I am very conscious of snoring and a lot of the nurse’s questions related to that. I don’t like it when Beloved does it, and it bothers me to know that I snore as well. It’s a health issue and it’s bloody irritating. I often wake myself up when I snore. Not that I snore a lot. But I lie in bed and I feel this great, thick scarf around my neck and it’s just a roll of fat. A bit roll of neck fat. And it stops me from breathing. Yeah, that’s a health issue right there. She didn’t have to ask the question about how supportive my family was, since Beloved was sitting right next to me.

The physician was a bit of a circus. Very funny man and I felt good chatting to him. He made it plain that we are pretty much going to be family from now on, with me making regular visits to have everything checked, and he’ll be liaising with GP as well. It’s exciting and scary. What scares me the most is the thought that I have to make serious changes. But that’s what I want. I want that thin body.

The dietician was a very straight, dapper guy. Will be seeing a bit of him in the coming weeks, too.

Starting next week I have to do Optifast

These are the ones I bought today. I do this for the 2 weeks leading up to the operation. The reason for that is apparently this stuff makes your liver shrink a bit and that helps keep it out of the way during the op. Who knew. Well, there’s nothing like a small liver to keep the family happy. And of course the bonus to that is I will lose a couple of kilos before the operation, and also get into the habit of the new eating style.

This is a commitment I’m making in order to make a difference to the rest of my life. I can’t do it alone, I’ve tried every trick in the book with pills and diets and exercise and deprivation and hypnosis and anger and restraint and even thinking that maybe I could just give up and learn to be fat and sassy.

But I don’t want chafing  thighs or haemmhorroids (or however you bloody spell it) or diverticular disease or diabetes. I don’t want to shop in the “big” section. I want my feet to stop hurting and I want nice clothes to fit me. I want to go bushwalking with Beloved and I want to ride my bike. I want to go for long motorbike rides with him, but at the moment he won’t let me because I don’t have any waterproofs to wear and you know why that is? Because they don’t make them wider than they are long. I want to be comforable at night when I sleep and I want to be that crone.

I want to be that wise, grey, thin old lady.