I have to admit to having had a particularly crap week.

I didn’t even want to blog about it.

When the doc took my blood pressure on Wednesday, it was high. Systolic was over 200. Now, I have never ever had high blood pressure. In fact, a couple of weeks ago when I went to see GP, I got her to check it for me because it had been particularly low that morning. Something like 90/60. I tend towards low blood pressure. I remember, in a post general anaesthetic haze after my back operation, hearing the staff in a quiet panic as it went down to 60/40. Now blood pressure is not something to be proud of or anything stupid like that, but I kind of liked it that people would look at me and make an assumption. Fat, middle aged ladies have high blood pressure, right? Wrong. Not me. Not me, baby.

But mine was high on Wednesday. I got home and I checked it on my machine at home and it was still high. Not quite as bad as it had been with Doc, but way above normal.

I actually cried. I cried for the high blood pressure and the haemmorrhoids (how the hell do you spell that word? Dammit! The spellchecker’s died). I cried for the diverticular disease and the thought that maybe I do have type II diabetes. I cried because I’ve had this body for 50 years and I haven’t looked after it properly and now I’ve broken it.

Yesterday I went out and stuffed my face. Like an 18 year old who just goes to a party to get drunk, I was out for food. I hit the KFC and shoveled down that. Funnily enough, I didn’t enjoy it. Okay, so the chicken chips were good, they always are, but the potato and gravy were somewhat lacking, and when it came to the oily, salty, crispy skin which I so love, well, I didn’t eat it all.

Then I bought lollies. A bag of mixed lollies. I drove to where I was meeting Editor for afternoon tea, all the while dipping my hand into that bag and stuffing down the lollies. And when afternoon tea came, I had cake with my chai latte.

Beloved phoned me before he left work and said he was depressed and wanted something bad for dinner. There is NOTHING worse than fish and chips. So that was what we had for dinner. And I don’t even have fish with my fish and chips any more. I object to the way sharks are being fished out. So I had a bloody great hamburger with the lot.

Well, what the hell was that all about?

I figured it out, just as I was going to bed last night: I am in mourning.

In a couple of weeks I am going to lose a way of life, and, more than that, I’m going to lose the person I was.

Now, Doc promised me that in his experience I will be very changed by this operation and the subsequent weightloss. That I will become more outgoing, more confident, etc etc etc. Not that I’m exactly the shy type, I’ve been a performance poet for a while and I’m more than happy to get up in front of a crowd (large or small) of strangers and make an ass of myself, or read something that will touch them, or deliver a speech. That holds no particular threat for me.

But knowing that this body I’ve got will be going away, well, it’s a little bit like death. The old girl’s been with me for a long time and although it’s not exactly equivalent to amputating a limb, it’s a major change and half of me (ideally) is going to be going away.

And I feel sad about that.

But I want it to happen.

Tomorrow I’m having lunch with Evil Twin and we’re going to teach a workshop at a library. Looking forward to that, and of course the $$$. I wanted to look nice for the day and so I went out yesterday and between eating, I bought some new clothes. More black leggings (because leggings are my stretchy friends) and a lovely, lacy singlet to go under a very fabulous orange shirt. I bought a size 24 shirt because I wanted the biggest, longest, roomiest shirt. I wanted to feel nice and to feel good in it. And I bought a really nice denim waistcoat from City Chic – one of the big lady shops. It’s nice just getting something in size L instead of having to go XXL, and I told the lady in the shop about my operation. Funny, that. I haven’t even told Mum but I told a stranger in a shop.

After the workshop tomorrow, Beloved and I are having dinner at Ribs’s place and I can show off my new outfit to her. I hope she approves! Ribs is my fashion guru. I have learned to rely on her, and even when she’s not there with me at the shops, I can picture her, giving that little headshake as I hold up something ridiculous.

Lunch on Monday will be with Hanifa Deen (yeah, look at that! A real live actual name!) I do a bit of work for Hanifa from time to time and she’s another aspect of writing buddydom. It’s extremely cool, knowing a lady who had met so many famous people, and who has such a very different lifestyle from mine.

So this weekend will be like the final fling, kind of a wake for the old me as she folds herself away into quiet oblivion. I have the rest of my life to live and she is now superfluous.

This is to remind me that I have to drink 2 litres of water every day. I fill up my jug and it’s got to be empty by bedtime.