{"id":7891,"date":"2012-01-17T11:13:49","date_gmt":"2012-01-17T10:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/?p=7891"},"modified":"2012-01-17T13:19:47","modified_gmt":"2012-01-17T12:19:47","slug":"learning-to-dance-in-the-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/7891","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Dance in the Rain…"},"content":{"rendered":"

So tomorrow is my big day, and I can\u2019t believe how quickly the time has passed!\u00a0 It feels like just yesterday that I was in the process of making the decision to have weight loss surgery<\/a>, and now here I am.\u00a0 Tonight Xander and I leave for Brugge, Belgium and tomorrow morning at 10:30am I check into the hospital to await my operation later in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

We just spent the past week and a half in the south of France<\/a> visiting my in-laws, where we were pretty busy most of the time.\u00a0 They needed some trees cut down on their property and we were put to work.\u00a0 It was wonderful!\u00a0 We spent a fair bit of time outdoors, we were active and busy and spent a lot of time hanging out and chatting with the family.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t really have a lot of time to think about what was coming up. It was the perfect distraction.<\/p>\n

Now that has all changed.\u00a0 I am back in the Netherlands, finishing up a few last minute things before we leave, and the nerves have crept up on me.\u00a0 Over the course of this morning I\u2019ve felt my heart starting to beat in my throat, my stomach is doing flip flops and I feel dizzy from all of the thoughts that are fighting for attention in my head at the moment.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m nervous, and even though I\u2019ve done my best to be prepared, it just never feels like enough<\/em>.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid.\u00a0 I\u2019m so incredibly afraid I can hardly think.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid of the pain I\u2019m going to feel when I wake up from surgery, I\u2019m afraid of the pain I\u2019m going to feel mentally when the thing I\u2019ve been trying to prepare myself for for months finally becomes a reality.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid of the changes I\u2019ll need to make, of the learning curve that comes along with a surgery like this and of those moments that I know are inevitable where I will eat something that seems harmless and then suffer for it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid that I will be the one freak of nature who has surgery like this and then somehow just doesn\u2019t lose weight.\u00a0 That the wall that I\u2019ve built up in my mind is real. The one that tells me that I\u2019ll never know what it\u2019s like to weigh less than 200 lbs, that even with the surgery, I\u2019ll never know what it feels like to be NORMAL.<\/p>\n

There are so many things I\u2019m afraid of at the moment, I couldn\u2019t even list them all.\u00a0 It\u2019s a giant tangle up there, in my brain, and I know it\u2019s normal and I just have to work through it, but that doesn\u2019t make it any less stressful.<\/p>\n

One thing I\u2019ve vowed to do is to try to stay positive through all of this.\u00a0 I believe that if I can just stay positive, remember all the reasons I\u2019m doing this and try to look forward to the positive changes, that I will recover more quickly and feel more peace during this process.\u00a0 Of course, this goes totally against my nature as I\u2019m a worrier and a glass is half empty type, but Rome wasn\u2019t built in a day, right?<\/p>\n

\"storm2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So this saying is going to be my mantra for the next while.<\/p>\n

Life isn\u2019t about waiting for the storm to pass, it\u2019s learning to dance in the rain.<\/p>\n

What does that mean for me?\u00a0 Well\u2026 it means that I can\u2019t just sit here and be nervous and let it take over me, I need to remind myself of why I\u2019m doing this, all the benefits I hope to get out of it and what a positive change this is going to be in my life.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t just lay in the hospital and wait for the pain to pass, I need to remind myself that the pain is just temporary, that in the grand scheme of things it will be nothing but a tiny blip in this entire journey.<\/p>\n

I need to remember that there will be a day when this weight is gone\u2026 there may also be a day when I finally have a baby in my arms and if not, that I will maybe finally come out from under this cloud that being overweight has kept hanging over me.<\/p>\n

A day or two of pain is worth it, right?\u00a0 A small price to pay to get a second chance.\u00a0 It\u2019s a price I\u2019m certainly willing to pay if it means getting a new start in a healthier and more energetic body.\u00a0 A body that may be able to get pregnant, carry a child and give me the chance to be a mother.\u00a0 If not a mother than someone who is active and ready to get out there and LIVE life rather than watching it pass me by.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s why I\u2019m here, my first step in killing these nerves with kindness, if you will.\u00a0 Instead of thinking about all of the things I\u2019m afraid of, I want to think about what I\u2019m looking forward to.\u00a0 The positive changes I\u2019m hoping this surgery will help me achieve.<\/p>\n