I am so weird. One minute I'm so excited, and the next minute I'm chewing off my nails with nervous energy - which is the playing with the tail and crying scene from Oz, equivalent for me. When I started on the path of knowledge over this procedure (which was a while ago) I remember thinking, "I could never do that" and I graduated to "look at all these people having success with this", to "I could never do that", then on to, "can I get this done"?, and back to, "this will never work for me", and on and on and on... It's like I'm the coin in a coin toss, going from one thing to the next. I was fine making the decision to get this procedure, but not fine once I made the choice. Now I'm second guessing myself as a successful part of the equation in addition to an infinte number of unknown outcomes.

Why do I do that?!

And maybe that's why weight loss has never been really easy for me. It's as though I don't let myself get too excited because I know failure will arrive soon enough. And that is NOT who I am in my life. Why doesn't this part of me behave like the rest of me? I guess I'm trying to understand how getting this surgery will actually re-set my brain. And maybe it isn't the surgery that does that. Maybe afterward you still have to go up a road you don't recognize, and maybe everyone comes to that road at a different point in the process. I wish it came before this place I'm in now, though. I think that is the reason so many people have trouble with the brain hunger thing. I don't only NOT want to be one of those people, I CAN'T be one of them. I can't be 6 or 8 months post op and feeling like I'm starving to death and eating inappropriately and throwing up, or getting dehydrated or whatever. I can't sing and have all that trauma around my vocal folds. That would be a recipe for disaster for me. How do I cross that bridge beforehand so I can deal with it if/when it happens? And how much energy and effort should I spend trying to solve a problem I don't yet have?

I must sound like a crazy person asking how to cross a bridge before I get there. I don't like the unknown, so I'm always at the edge of a big decision asking, REALLY??? OMG! REALLY??? Or, I'll throw myself off without asking a single question, until it's over and done with and I end up saying, "what just happened"? So there's either no thinking or way too much thinking.

And now I just want to say that I am such a CHICKEN because of all of this ridiculous questioning! I can't possibly be this much of a coward, can I? What's *wrong* with me?!

With all I've overcome and acheived in my life, I can't imagine that something like this has turned me into such a total wuss. I gotta keep getting perspective and focusing on the positive and imagining a huge success. But if I don't find some courage, I'll never go through with it.

Thanks for reading. Sorry if I'm boring...