crosswind

Ha. Awesome.

Yeah, not sure I'm buying it. Could be another case of "Pilates and Portion Control".

. I'm 46. I keep thinking about my ex-husband -- the one who I was married to when I got to Mexicali but our divorce was finalized the day of my surgery. He was *such* an asshole to me about my weight. He used to fly into rages going -- " There's a RIGHT way to eat and a WRONG way to eat" and I finally decided I couldn't live with him because he'd lose his mind if I ate an extra bagel. We still talk a lot on the phone. I was actually talking to him in Mexicali and he didn't know I was there. I talked to him every day before and after surgery and he still doesn't know. I keep thinking about it because the game with him was actually to make me feel like shit about myself every single day of my life and if it wasn't being overweight it was going to be something else. He just needed to be superior, especially over his wife. Anyway, I keep being tempted to tell him but I think it would just be one more thing I did absolutely and totally wrong in his opinion. It's so weird that you care so much about what people who secretly hate you think. Like anything is going to change their mind about you.

. Great post! Unlike you....quite honestly I barely researched anything. When I went I knew two things -- that I wanted to do this and it was reasonably safe and that in the four months I was pondering the sleeve I had not seen ONE bad review of Dr. Aceves, or even a report of extreme discomfort after surgery. Everyone who comes back from there comes back serene and confident in what they've done, so I basically just booked a date and got tickets and went. I was that sick of living the same way. I am really thinking of going back there for my three month checkup if I can get a cheap flight. To be honest I'd rather talk to him than some of these nutball surgeons I've been hearing about in the states.

At the Mexican surgeon, their recommendation is to avoid caffeine except for decaf -- which does, btw, have some caffeine in it -- and wait until after the solid food stage to drink alcohol. They're just not really all that concerned with alcohol especially after the stomach starts working properly which takes a while. That said, one thing you should be aware of is that there are reports of leaks and other problems much later in the story, at nine months or near one year.

. I love this announcement. Congratulations!

I've wondered that too. Stranger stil, Oprah is a lot of good things but also obviously obsessed with her looks. In fact I finally had the thought when she gained her weight back and said she was "ashamed" and did this whole confessional to the press -- Oprah, first of all you're a billionaire, you could live at at Elizabeth Arden if you wanted to. Second of all, truly, I've got a lot of stuff to do today, is it okay if I'm truly disintereted in how *you* look? It's clear she's had massive amounts of plastic surgery. While I was taking the plunge for this surgery I tended to notice her quite a bit in the media -- her skincolor is different, she's had a serious eyelift if not a whole facelift and total body recontouring ( or so it seems to me) -- just not WLS. I don't care really. It just seems weird to get all that other stuff done to yourself, just not *that*.

. Just googled. He looks fantastic. He looks *well*. Roseanne did it, why not John? Why not anyone? It seems to me that beyond not wanting to admit your gut so outranks the rest of you that it is showing up to engagements without your knowledge, there has to be something about people not wanting to admit they were that overweight to begin with. And I bet they're all getting it. In like Thailand or something.

Today on my toddle through the cyberverse for some reason I came across a picture of Camryn Manheim. For people from other countries or people who don't give a rats ass what celebrities are doing, Camryn was once a "token" fat actress who was unapologetically fat in all her television roles. She has very long hair and is not bad looking, and once actually wrote a book entitled: "Wake up, I'm fat!" Well, Camryn is looking faboo these days. She must have lost 130 pounds at least and she attributes this, at the age of 50 ( !!!!!!!) to how much time she spends with her little boy of late, running around and riding bikes and walking their dog Flapjack whatever it is called. She says that the weight just dropped off in this healthy effortless fashion through the fulfilling miracle of childrearing. Buying it? Not me. I think she had weight loss surgery, is what I think. It's none of my business and I don't care particularly what internal organs people get rid of or keep. It is, if this is case -- the lying. I would not even care if Camryn was lying -- my question is why would *anybody* lie about it? What's the mechanism of shame and secrecy that would keep a person from admitting that instead of following the US Dietary Guidelines Ensuring Almost Certain Disease and doing 700 useless squat thrusts a day they went to the doctor and got serious medical assistance? Pondering this, I went on a tour of recent weight loss news and comments. Mo'Nique, whom I will adore for the rest of my natural life for going to a women's prison and doing a standup act called " I could have been your cellmate!" is rumored to have had a gastric bypass and the comments on that article are still smoldering with cybernapalm. I learned that WLS is "Deadly" and"Dangerous" and someone else said it was "plastic surgery" and for that reason somehow utterly despicable. It's confounding. I mean nobody is going to die from a boob job but then again nobody is going to cure their heart disease, diabetes and back, knee and hip problems in an afternoon getting one either. Obesity is a medical problem but there are no doctors who can treat for it except surgeons. And here's the other thing -- if you're overweight, I hate to break it to you but *people know this*. It's not like you're keeping it from anyone. It's not like some well-marketed pant-cut is somehow making a hundred extra pounds of you invisible. So why the buried body treatment? Why don't me and Camryn want to tell anybody what really happened? For years I heard that one could easily drop all one's excess weight with a combination of diet and exercise. Except it's not true and there are studies to back this up. Medically? The only treatment our massive modern labyrinth can offer is this. I've had the same problem for twenty years and finally I took it. Can't do nothing. Gotta do something. I still don't want to tell anybody I haven't told already but you know, eventually I think I will. It's not like you can hide the fact you actually look like a different person entirely, either. Anyway. I keep wanting to write one day forward. I want day 24 to be day 25, I wanted day 18 to be day 19 and so forth. I want out of the woods. I want my stomach to calm down and stop acting like a crabby badger. I want restriction without feeling like the contents of the fridge are trying to murder me. But I had better energy today, got out to the park for a walk and noticed just operating the whole apparatus of my body seemed easier. My Cereal did not go down but a chocolate Protein shake pepped me up and for dinner I got potato au gratin Soup and ate too much of it again. But this time it was in a cup and very liquid, so there was no sense that my organs in protest were actually trying to *leave*. I know I'm thinner but I feel like I'm getting that deflated look people get at the front end of WLS. Ah well. It's not like the thirty pounds I was just carrying didn' make me look fat.

Yesterday I decided not to weigh myself. I had been a little obsessive the past few weeks, kind of obsessive, and sort of endlessly disappointed the way I always am on the scale. You know there is that after-party feeling you get when you've just gotten weight loss surgery and even the loss of 30 pounds in three weeks somehow doesn't satisfy. It's the death of the fantasy-surgery in which you fly back from Mexico suddenly weighing 135 pounds. I mean it was weight loss *surgery*, right? Medical Magic? Where the hell *is* my flying car, by the way? I know there are people who give you this advice anyway. The Weight Watchers lady, the Jenny Craig lady and the Diet Center lady were all prone to the same advice and now thinking back on it they might have all been the same lady. Remember her? Skinny, size zero dress with a tiny waist and no sleeves, huge grin on her face and at least en years younger than you perkily dispensing dictums about how one should comport one's self in life. I swear she was always the same girl. And as far as I knew I was listening to a person who was subsisting on styrofoam and black tar heroin. Jenny Craig was probably the worst diet ripoff I ever encountered -- five hundred dollars "registration" fee and then I would come to get "my food", as they called the minsucule globules of prepackaged crap frozen dinners and "snacks" such as two thumbprint sized, elven lemon butter muffins. Jenny Craig is owned by Nestle Corporation. They are in the food business. The whole thing is designed to sell a vulnerable, aging and overweight population of females their crap food at an astronomical markup. It's all like this, all of it. All of it. What I keep thinking about still is all the lies and nonsense I paid for to try to lose a hundred pounds for the third time and I just knew I never would. I would just *keep buying products* as some sort of offering. Sure I was overweight. But I was doing something. I was spending thousands of dollars a year in extra shit I never used or got satisfaction from because those thousand dollars represented some kind of hope but then....after a while..it's just what you do. You're fat -- this is not a condition but a demographic, a role, a llifestyle. Your market speaks and your ears perk up right away. The salesman in your living room gets you to part with only six payments of 59.99 for some Chinese appliance wih moving parts you are supposed to press or move or kick; or some tape or "plan*. I will never regret the money I spent on weight loss surgery. What I regret is all that *other* goddamned money. Tangent, sorry. I decided to stop weighing myself because I am trying to save myself from the feedback loop I seem get sucked into with the scale. I know it's "stall week". I know I'm going to "stall". I would just rather not hear about it from that appliance. Because what it doesn't know is that I barely have a stomach anymore and I am eating less than six hundred calories a day on average so it's very *likely*, I mean one could *project* that I am losing a shit-ton of weight here. I'm sticking with that for the time being. For as long as I can stand it. It's very zen of me. And today was much better than yesterday. Special K went down with joy and peace in its heart; and then around 4 I went to Culvers and got a cup of bacon and potato Soup to dissect and pulverize. It also went down like a sleepy baby and gave me a nice, rounded, carby buzz. I had some juice in my veins today and did not cry, although I did get way too interested in mineral makeup products and at-home microdermabrasion which I had to force myself not to buy. I don't look all that great for a person who just lost thirty pounds. I look tired and kind of sucked-in and gray, which is what I hear happens to people who've . had surgery recently. But I decided it was not time to worry about that yet. It's really unlikely I'm going to look like Heather Locklear tomorrow no matter what I purchase online. A little more new normal today. And no scale, which to me should be the most normal thing of all.

I was really looking foward to eating again but there are some drawbacks to coming off a liquid diet. First thing is your stomach wakes up and wants to have a long, serious talk with you,. I woke up today feeling a little sick. Just a little nauseated, a few cramps in my intestines. The tummy is pissed. The tummy wants to know what it ever did to me. And finally, the tummy is putting up with none of the shit I tried to lay on it before. Oh, no. It is in charge now. It is recovering from surgery and no way in hell is it parting with the TV remote. Eating was a little easier today mostly because I applied some of the principles I've read here on the board and also because I gave up trying to eyeball what I thought would go in my stomach and broke out the kitchen measuring implements. 1/2 cup Special K Protein Cereal. Out of the measuring cup and into the bowl. 1/2 cup milk. Slowly. 30/30/30. 1/2 cup Healthy Choice red Beans and rice Soup. Chew. Swallow. Slow slow slow. 1/2 cup cottage cheese. It all went down pretty well but the whole time I've felt guilty for eating at all, and also nervous that I had to measure. See the thing with me is I can either be hyper-undisciplined and just dive into the carb ocean, fall asleep inside a cherry pie. Or I can be like this. Obsessive compulsive. How many calories? How many carbs? If I get it into my head to eat according to the numbers no kitchen implement, measuring device or obsessive thought goes untouched. I was hoping that this surgery would free me of *both* things so I could be a normal person so really just the introduction of digestable food has given me a case of nerves. I caught myself thinking today that I might have gained weight because I ate a mashed potato yesterday and felt vanquished. Okay. So this is all stuff I've read people on the boards saying before. Learning how to eat again is weird and miserable and usually causes some kind of strange breakdown somewhere later in in the first month. I did not actually regret what I did to myself but there was a sudden realization that all the unconscious food assumptions i had made up to right now were no longer going to help. Because my stomach simply was not going to let me get away with a single bad choice. My son told me he thought the reason that WLS works so well is tha basically you're afraid your stomach with explode if you eat too much. It's actually not like that, it won't explode. It will *complain*, the way the villagers complain via pitchforks and barn burning. My stomach now reminds me of my mother, who I would rather kill me than *complain* at me. I allso went swimming yesterday and loved it. I've been looking forward to that for three weeks but a few hours after I got home I felt cold and squeezed out. I couldn't get warm for the rest of the night. I turned the thermostat up to almost eighty and snuggled a heating pad. And finally I realized I overdid it. An hour in the pool after recenly...well, recently...was just too much. Just because you can have a mashed potato does not mean you're fully recovered. On the contrary, it means you've got all this other crap to do like count the number of times you chew your oatmeal and figuring out how to not be so overcome with stupidity you don't even know it's time to get out of the pool. . Recovery is ongoing. Today I recovered from overdoing it in the pool yesterday, and overdoing my portions yesterday because when your stomach says NOT ONE MORE MOUTHFUL it is truly not kidding. And I am also recovering from my fear of food. I figured it was going to be stall week this week and I also figured one possible reason is the stomach's getting back to it's job of digesting stuff. The problem is I didn't figure on how I would feel about it. I am afraid I will never lose another pound now that I am eating again until I can get somebody to take the rest of my stomach out. But that is completely irrational and I know it. I ate 380 calories today and to do it right with no pitchforks it took a lot of attention and effort. Simultaneously I'm worried I am starving and/or gaining back the thirty pounds. This cannot be the new normal otherwise my stomach has just become my new career.

Yup! But it was actually this stuff: http://mybrands.com/product/Kitchens_of_India,Palak_Paneer-Spinach_w/Cottage_Cheese,10oz They have it at the grocery store and it's 170 calories per serving and nine carbs. There's not much food in the box really but it's nice and light.

If it's really killing you and you can't function, take two tylenol. Has just a touch of caffeine in it.

When I first found out about dietary restrictions after VSG they didn't sound so bad to me. Couple of weeks of liquids -- fine -- my innards would have been shredded, probably wouldn't be a good idea to order a pepperoni pizza after that anyway. Ten days of "full" liquids...hm. Challenging. But doable. At the end of all this would be "mushies" and then solids which in my head seemed like "eating normally." Restrictions like only eating three meals a day seemed ludicrous and something to simply ignore -- I ate *alot*, there was nothing that was going to stop me from having a latenight chipfest. Mashed potatoes at the start of the fourth week? All *rriiiiigght*...that's what I'm talking about. No problem! Just a couple of weeks of a liquid diet and then back to plate-juggling ala Crosswind. I imagined myself bolting through a single serving of cottage cheese and making sugarfree butterscotch pudding and then maybe some lowcarb Protein Peanut Butter Cookies and so forth. None of that has gone according to plan at all. Today I tried eating and failed the team. For Breakfast I tried two scrambled eggs with a spoonful of chili Beans, salsa seasoning and a dollop of yogurt. This was inedible. After looking forward to eating for so long what was on my plate was as appealing as whatever you'd find in the corner of a dormitory elevator on Sunday morning. I got half in me, left the rest on the counter and left the building so I would not have to think about it anymore. Did you ever read a novel in which some limpid, winsome petunia was trying to "choke down her food" because her fragile nerves were on edge? I'd think, how feminine, I never had to choke down anything in my whole life, I learned how to eat when I was three months old and I have never had one single problem with the whole procedure. So that was breakfast. Then I tried another experiment -- yogurt with my favorite supercharged nutriion shake, which would make it thicker and more foodlike. No luck. chocolate glue. I ate barely a quarter and left it on the bedroom dresser and again left the building. Palak Paneer for dinner was easier and I got down a whole serving, but slowly. And then I got it into my head try mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes, forbidden pommes, I hadn[t had any probably since Star Trek Voyager was on TV. But t was on the list of allowed foods and while this statement in most contexts is an exaggeration, I had not eaten in three weeks. I made a whole pot of the Betty Crocker kind out of the box and served myself 2/3s of a cup. Now this was the worst part. I'm wired for dumplings. I've got peirogi running through my veins. I wanted that Betty Crocker starchbomb BAD. I took one bite and it was already too much. I made it through half of that until I was, alas, defeated. They didn't even taste that great, anyway. I think I ate no more than six hundred calories and even with the potatoes maybe 35 carbs. And I felt so stuffed after dinner I was quite sure I was doing something wrong and had somehow concealed an extra three thousand calories from myself. So that was food, on my first day of food. I can see now why people forget to eat after the sleeve. It's kind of...well, a drag. I can't imagine trying to put away a cheeseburger. I am getting the feeling that one day I'll be amazed I ever could. My incision looks okay so I swam for an hour, just paddled around and did ten laps or so. In the locker room is the all-weights, all-ages, wheelchair-friendly scale I got on a month ago when it told me I weighed 289 pounds. Not today. 260. Wow.

. Oh listen, chiquita, it's all jake. We'reall just a bunch of carb deprived maniacs without stomachs. Yike. That sounds a bit ghoulish don't it? As far as having a life, Meggie was most excellently wrong on that count. First couple weeks afer surgery as far as I can tell what you do is sit around thinking about what you can't eat. can't do and should not buy just because you're bored and cranky and also newly broke. Thanks for sticking up for fair play and justice everywhere though. You may just be our ten thousandth maniac

Thanks all and YOU GO Virginia S! You know, every time I post I keep wanting to mention that I think eventually this surgery is going to be as common, affordable and undramatic as a blepharoplasty. However brave and lucky we all feel, I betcha anything ten years from now people will just shrug and nod when they hear yet another person has divorced her stomach. People aren't getting any thinner, diabetes is not going away, and if some yahoo from nebraska can hop a plane and get this done over a weekend without a hitch for less than ten thousand bucks AND financing...Jenny Craig is freakin doomed.

I did this: I called a lady in Mexicali Mexico who made an appointment for me to come to a Mexican Hospital I had never seen, by myself, and get my stomach cut out under anesthesia and then I came home and I am still not dead. I still can't quite get my head around my behavior. I spent from about January to March mulling it over but I can't say I really researched it. I didn't have insurance and was not going to get any and I was so fat, and I was truly at the end of something, some rope, some road. My normal non-desperate self is, first of all, terrified to fly. I was just recently married to someone who was very keen on outlining how Mexico was falling apart and becoming an anarchic apocalyptic state. I am the woman who spends money on everybody else and not herself because frankly what difference does it make in the end? We all end up in pineboxes feeding the ecosystem, right? So who cares if you're fat, you're just an average human borg-ant marching around, what kind of hideous, vain, self-centered, irresponsible, recklesss, banana are you anyway? So what I sort of had to do is not let the woman in the previous paragraph know what I was doing. I had to just shut the whole system down, all of it, anything and anyone who was going to tell me not to do it. This included: my family, the insurance borg, my ex-husband, and the rest of patriarchy and my own neurotic fear-stricken personality. I had to sneak around behind my own back. Because you know what the neurotic parts of your personality do with a thing like this. Hellfire. Volcanoes exploding. A crater appears in the hospital bed where you used to be. Your legs *fall off*. Etc. I knew I wasn't gonna die. Everybody: you are not going to die. Fine, this is the most momentous, earthshattering medical decision you have probably ever made, but look on the other side of the operating table: the guy who is going to cut you open is *not* afraid you're going to die. He would not be doing it if he thought you were going to die, just from the malpractice alone it's a bad idea to kill people. And I finally figured -- life is just not that easy. If I developed later complications no way in hell was I going to get off with just a checkout card from God, no way, I'd get *saved* and then be harnessed with a trillion dollar medical bill I'd running from for the rest of my life. And I also at one point looked all of this right in its smarmy, ratty little face and thought, can it really be worse than everything I've been through in the past five years? I think not. It's almost three weeks later and I am still amazed at myself. I am not sure if I was desperate or if I was finished or if I just wanted a vacation or what. But I really did this. It was almost like I was doing something I had forgotten to do years ago. Reorganize the hall closet. Reallocate the 401K. Steamclean the couch. Get your stomach cut out. One more week and I'll be a full human again who can eat food and order in restaurants. What a strange, strange, little known fact about myself.

You should absolutely call your doctor if you're concerned. Referring pain to your left shoulder could be a leak starting because that is where stomach pain refers to, but while you are CALLING YOUR DOCTOR I wouldn't be too worried. My back hurts because I'm not using my ab muscles, because I'm babying my stomach. I'm afraid to let a stiff wind blow on my left upper abs so I'm carrying my body all twisty. And a lowgrade fever is only medically significant over 101. 5 -- according to my surgeon anyway. From what I've read from leaky sleevesters, there was no mistaking what they were feeling for some otther milder problem. They felt like HELL. I felt sick, tired and rotten for about ten days too -- then I only felt semi-rotten and then I got an ear infection. You sound kind kind of like I did the first ten days and I'm pretty much okay so far. But...I'm just a chick on the internet so read this post while the phone is ringing as you CALL YOUR DOCTOR.

Thanks all I went to the store and bought some cottage cheese, refried Beans, mashed potatoes in a box, eggs, taco seasoning and salsa, and there this indian thing they sell prepackaged called Palak Paneer which is mild indian cottage cheese with spinach sauce. It's really good, nine carbs per serving and 170 cals. I can not *wait* for the mashed potatoes.

I was really not very prepared for the "diet" part of WLS -- in fact I sort of was not prepared for any of it -- I just picked Dr. Aceves and went because I knew if I thought about it too hard I just wouldn't do itt. But that leaves me in certain quandaries. Like I never "tested" Protein drink brands. I just ate whatever, and found myself wandering the grocery store aisles trying to figure out what to eat. I am certain this contributed to the Baby food Incident and Operation Isopure's complete failure. So it's day 21 tomorrow and I can have mushies. I have no idea what to try first. I was thinking a litttle bit of cottage cheese and maybe some mashed potatoes or Cereal. What would be your choice for this momentous occasion? What did you eat when you were on mushies, what were your favorites, what was too much for your stomach?

Even if it is a leak, your surgeon knows what to do. Don't be afraid -- it completely sucks to have a schizophrenic stomach but as long as you're geting prompt, appropriate medical attention you'll be okay. You know if you feel too awful between now and then you can just go to the ER, tell them you were waiting for your appointment and something bad happened so you would like your attention NOW please. What a leak is is really a very bad, very fancy infection. Stomach contents leak into your body cavity and your body cavity does NOT LIKE THAT so it attacks the foriegn matter and makes you feel like you've been invaded by aliens. It can be fixed -- either through antibiotics if it's a small leak or a repeat surgery if it is not. Scary, I know, But you're gonna be okay. EGBOK.

I tried frozen lowcarb yogurt one day and it made me sick. I didn't feel guilty, it *tasted* great, but my sleeve did not like it one bit. I could never moralize at anyone for the stuff they put in their mouths and swallow. I've been so desperate for carbs before I've eaten like, a jar of frosting with a spoon; I could easily suck down a whole pizza I ordered for myself. I didn't even feel sick afterwards -- I didn't even feel *full* half the time. Since I was a kid I've had an Iron stomach and could basically eat like a goat. What I want to say though is that the soft diet isn't for weight loss, it's to protect your staple line since you just got your innards cut in half and stapled back together with a fancy gun. Let me say that another way; PROTECT YOUR STAPLE LINE. Think of it as like a seawall or a Maginot line that keeps you from having to get wheeled into an operating room with a raging fever of 105. I'm sure it was fine you ate that but you honestly, no bullshit shouldn't do it again until your doctor says its safe. Bread products agglutinize in the stomach and become little staple-eating starch balls. And starch balls lodging into the spaces between your staples -- this is not good. This is bad. Be careful out there, k?

Lol, Meggie, causing Utter Mayhem on Vertical Sleeve Talk again I see. I had to click on your recent posts to figure out what the heck you were talking about. . Nice to know that if I actually *was* passed out on the floor with a glass of Vicodin somebody would notice. And you know, I did kind of have a thought that if I never posted again after Day 17 somebody might freak out and call the FBI... So yeah, this is interesting.. I'm one of those adults who get "frequent ear infections" but that was about the last thing on my mind. I do feel better, I do feel more like myself ( sans stomach) so one has to imagine that anyone else going through the first month post-op is *very likely* to feel a little less like a crushed mouse. Good news for everyone I guess . I sort of do not have anyone to take care of me.or any insurance. Or a stomach. Little known fact: My divorce was finalized the day of my surgery. Now is that a coincidence or what? I know it's not climbing Kilimanjaro or anything but one reason I'm posting all this is because, look, if I can do this with my savings and no immediate family or any sanctions from the Borg, y'all have no excuse. I think the "offended" poster just hadn't read the Vicodin installment. I thought it was pretty funny .

. Okay I completely missed this post. THANK YOU Meggie for the compliment. It was nice to be missed. . Not offended, glad somebody cares I'm alive. Amber -- Meggie is an absolutely darling human and you should go to her vlog and see what an angel she is. She would never ever post with anything but the kindest of intentions. But actually the reason I didnt post yesterday was because I was sick as hell. My head felt like an old salami. . Back now and LOVE you Megs.

Thanks wellwishers! Funny thing is, I don't feel like I had major surgery. I imagine getting your stomach removed is pretty major, but since I had been so loaded with drugs and morphine my real memory was about how wild it was to just get punched out of the unverse via chemicals. I don't really *feel like* anything major happened at all. Except that I haven't been out of the country in twenty years and I got to go to Mexico. I remember the day after surgery in the hospital. I got "Black Swan" off of Amazon digital and watched it all the way through. About a week later, back home, I realized I didn' remember how it ended so I went to a spolier site and realized I didn't remember half the movie. Or actually like...any of the movie. I apparently *had not seen* the movie. So that was how drugged up I was through this .The first couple of days on clears are a blur. And then you're just waiting out your stomach. It doesn't feel that major, frankly. In fact if this is major surgery I'll never be scared of it again. Especially once I figured out that even before they wheel you into the operating room you're already in another dimension.