Finding Myself Again…

I woke up as cold sweat slowly trickled its way down the bridge of my nose. It reached the tip it and welled up into a droplet before falling to down to my lip. My eyes struggled to open still heavy from the anesthetic. There were muffled flutters of activity just beyond the privacy curtain draped around my bed. I could hear feet shuffling around on the cold sterile floor of the recovery room. The muted rhythmic breathing of respirators blended with the subtle sounds of heart monitors. My nostrils burned from the cold, dry oxygen being forced into my lungs by the nasal cannula. Still groggy, I could feel the irritated area where the breathing tube had been laid in my trachea while I was unconscious during the procedure. I swallowed hard and took a deep breath through my mouth. Pain seared through my abdomen revealing where the incisions had been made. I moaned in agony and before falling back asleep I reminded myself why I was here.

Six months before I received approval from my insurance company to have the laparoscopic gastric bypass performed I was required to meet with a psychiatrist to discuss how my life will change and the steps I needed to take to make sure this change took the right path. We discussed in length the changes that would take place physically and how to deal with it on both an emotional and mental level. We went over how I might experience slight changes in the way I tasted things. After a number of sessions with her the reality that my relationship with food, while I still loved it, was more like a drug addiction than a passion.

Something happened a couple months after the surgery that I never expected. I was at a party, still adhering to a rigid post-op diet, when a friend persuaded me to try his wife’s homemade garden salsa. My eyes lit up and I found myself tasting it in an almost three-dimensional way. Textures I would have previously missed came to the forefront. Flavors mixed and blended as I savored each bite instead of just chewing and swallowing. I went home that night and began to remember why I wanted to be a chef in my teens and early twenties. It was that thrill that comes from helping someone see and taste a dish in a whole new way. I had a new direction fueling my passion. I know now that I want to create food that is as natural and three-dimensional as that salsa that helped reawakened my passion was for me.

July 1st? Where the hell has this year gone? For that matter where the hell have the last thirty-five gone? I remember the years before I graduated high school feeling like they were going to drag on for an eternity. The ironic thing is as much I say I wouldn’t want to experience those years again I seem to find myself wishing for the simplicity of childhood more and more these days.

Okay, so I was about to use the ole’ Ben Franklin Method and create a list of the Pros and Cons with the hope of figuring out whether or not being an adult was all it supposed to cracked up to be, but honestly the process seemed far more complicated than I remembered it being. That combined with the fact that I am lacking in the whole energy – slash – haven’t had enough coffee this morning – slash – not sleeping as good as I should be these days department to actually merit trying something that would require an honest to goodness level of effort and concentration to even stumble through let alone complete, I am, as usual, going to just proceed with my mindless rambling(s) until I find the point I was trying to get at.  I know I saw it lying around here somewhere?

I recently finished Michael Moorcock’s, The Sailor on the Seas of Fate: Book Two of the Elric Saga. If we haven’t established it already I am card carrying geek, deal with it. I have had these surprisingly short, tasty little novels sitting on my shelf for longer than I care to think about but never finished reading the series. I also recently started taking the train again and not driving into the Loop which has given me time to get back to reading, at least when I am not fiddling with my iPhone (more on this addiction soon). So, I am ripping through this Elric book and early on there is a ton of philosophical mumbo – jumbo, at least as I interpreted it, bouncing around between the characters about being the captain of your own ship versus letting the ship steer you. This really got me thinking about not just the paths we choose but also the influences pushing us in those directions.  Alright so I know this isn’t a revolutionary concept but it is something I used to think about quite a bit and feel pretty sure I might just get lost in the idea again (God help us all). Perhaps we find meaning, or rather superimpose it, in things when we are seeking out answers. So does that mean we find the answers where we aren’t looking because we already have them floating around inside our mixed up gooey noggins, or are there outside influences dropping hints to shift our attention one way or another? This brings me to the fact that I have also recently been thinking a lot about higher powers, both the positive and negative ones. I have never been an overly religious person, however I have always felt I am a pretty spiritual person (I know it is sort of a copout excuse for those too lazy to get out bed on a Sunday morning and go to church). So I guess my reason for bringing up the whole higher power point is to interject the idea that perhaps we aren’t always in control or at least not completely. The question is whether we the helmsman or the captain? Who is issuing the orders? Or are we both and at the same time expected to be responsible for both steering the ship and deciding which direction we should go?

Okay so I have sucessfully acomplished my meanderings here and I still don’t really think I found an answer. Perhaps there is some to be said about that as well?

By the time I got home yesterday it had been raining pretty consistently for about five hours. The kind of rain that comes in waves and doesn’t allow you the opportunity to duck for cover because it seems to zig when you go to zag. I generally don’t mind it. Growing up in New Orleans you had to learn pretty quick that you either got wet from the rain or ended up getting drenched from the humidity. So dealing with a little Chicago rain isn’t a huge nuisance, and honestly I am usually the guy running out into the rain and jumping through the puddles while everyone else is whipping out umbrellas and dashing for cover. Needless to say I was sick a lot as a kid, but I can honestly say it is so much more fun getting your feet wet than hiding from it only to end up complaining when the inevitable splash happens.

Face it and embrace it folks!

Embrace the inner water fowl inside you!

I am officially 9-months out from surgery yet it feels like it has been more than a year. I have been fluctuating at around 145lbs down and this last 10lbs has without a doubt been the toughest. They call the first 6 months after surgery the “Honey-Moon” period because your body is basically doing all the work and your stomach can literally only tolerate a quantity of food equivilent to about a what you can cram into a thimble. Somewhere around this point the medical professionals tell you whether or not you are in clear and that it is time to start doing moderate exercise. This is where I have failed and I have to tell you the hardest part isn’t the exercise itself but rather finding the time to actually do it. Let’s not even talk about the gym membership siphoning off of my bank account for the past 8 months.

I actually made an honest attempt to go to the gym last night after choir practice **more on this later**. It figures that the one night I plan on getting to the gym, the board members of the choir I conduct decide to call an impromptu meeting. Of course they didn’t have anything big planned for the meeting, and while I suppose my input is always appreciated, the only reason I was there was because I am funny the guy that flails his arms about in front of them while they open their mouths to produce a choir-like sound. So we call this a meeting a “check in”. Before I sound like a completely unappreciative ass, some really positive things did come out of the meeting **again more on that later**.

Okay so, the gym closes at 10pm, choir was supposed to get out at 9pm, we ended up adjourning the board meeting at 9:35pm. The gym is 10 minutes away from the church and I was thinking I should be able to get in a good 15 minutes of heart-pounding cardio. This of course is coming from the guy that has been paying for his gym membership for a little over 8 months and been twice, once to sign up and a second time to walk for 30 minutes on the treadmill. Don’t say it, I know. I busted out of the church into a blast of cold rain, ran across the street, fired up the “Vue”, threw it in the drive and rocketed out of the parking lot. I remember thinking, “Kick ass, you are going to make it!”. Catherine called and asked what my ETA was and I announced proudly, “I think I am actually going to make it to the gym, I mean I am really doing this.” She congratulated me, although she sounded a little disappointed that I wasn’t going to be able to give her a foot massage because she was going to crash.

After the initial hang up of having the meeting delaying me everything started to flow like water down an unencumbered stream. Traffic parted in front of me like the Red Sea parting for Moses. I pulled into the parking lot at 20 minutes to 10. My tires were screeched on the wet pavement as I pressed hard on the break. In a single fluid motion I turned the car off, unhooked my seat belt, and grabbed my “exercise” bag. I marched, with my head high, into the gym and flashed my still crispy ID to the polite smile staring at me from behind the front counter. I pointed myself toward the locker room and started to change when it hit me. My stomach churned and gurgled stopping me dead in my tracks. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath and quietly said to myself, “Okay, Ryan this is not a problem, just a little hiccup. Just take five, get rid of some negative karma, finish changing and go sweat off the pounds big guy…” Yes I actually said that out loud to myself.

So there I was, sweating nervously, hoping I still had a few minutes before they kicked me out, when the bathroom goes dark followed by some giggling echoing from the hallway outside the locker room. I let out a pathetic “Hey…” and they flick the lights back on for me. By the time I make it out of the bathroom and into the gym the entire complex is dark and the staff is waiting to leave at the exit, for me!.

All in all I would say it went well?

After more than twenty years of struggling with my weight I am finally leaping off of the diving board head first into the deep end. On July 16, 2008 I am having gastric bypass surgery. I have spent the last three years fighting with medical complications that have worked against my trying to lose weight in “traditional sense”. 

I’m supposed to be really excited about this, right?  Everyone that goes through with this talks about how happy they are now that they have done it, and how much their life has changed.  So, why am I still a little apprehensive. Maybe its because I have lived with this body for so damned long that it is hard to imagine anything else. You know the horrible thing is I can’t even fathom what it is like to sit comfortably in a chair at the movie theater or even go shopping for clothes at a store without the words big or tall in the name. Not to mention the idea of buying only one seat for myself when I fly.

So how do you adjust? Someone told me I am going to see who my true friends have been. Then again, what if people react to who I was. Sure my hope is that I will still be the same person, just that I will have more confidence and actually be comfortable in my own skin. That’s the thought anyway.

So tomorrow I get to drink this lovely stuff that clears out my system. Needless to say I am taking the day off as I can’t imagine I am going to be all that productive when I am running back and forth to the bathroom, nuff said. 

Wednesday is D-Day. I have to be at Evanston Northwestern Hospital at 6am to check in. I am lucky to have an amazing surgeon, Dr. Constantine Frantzides, perform the procedure They are saying I will be out of the surgery and in recovery by noon.

I am going to try and update this as often as possible and hopefully post a few pics and videos along the way.

See you on the flip side…