The Big Five-Oh

As I tiptoed onto the scales, stark naked, at 4:55 a.m. this morning I wasn't looking for anything spectacular. But then I looked down.

229 pounds, it read in it's ominous red lcd display.

My God. I've lost 51 pounds since August 11th.

Then I had a glass of orange juice (pulpless, no sugar added) and checked my weight again. 230. Crap. Only 50 pounds.

I'm amazed.

I ordered new belts and a new Meltonian jacket from Orvis yesterday. While I was there I ordered up some brass luggage tags, engraved with my name and address, on the outside chance that I might want to travel again -- now that I'm trim and svelte and lovely to look at once again.

Listen, all joking aside, if there is anyone out there who drops in here now and then (we used to call those folks "lurkers" back on Compuserve in the middle ages of the 90's) who suffers from even mild obesity and also has Type II Diabetes and Sleep Apnea, don't even think twice about this -- find a bariatric surgeon in your health plan and schedule a consultation regarding Roux en Y gastric bypass with her/him NOW. Yes, your insurance company will make you jump through endless hoops to have it done, but just do it.

It will transform your life as much as it's transformed mine.

Babies, I've gone from being a sick old man to being a hot middle-aged guy (again). And it was worth every single thing I went through to get here.

On to politics and the election.

Apparently Sarah Palin is as stupid as she sounds. I've been watching interviews with her on YouTube and if the question is too uncomfortable she falls right back onto her talking points. And she manages to mangle those, too.

Do YOU really want this woman to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency? I don't.

Meanwhile, I see that Senator McCain, at the White House shouting match yesterday, singlehandedly caused the financial sector bailout to fall apart, which is totally okay by me. Nobody except God came and bailed me out when I got into trouble starting 14 years ago. And with God's help, I dug my own way out. As far as I'm concerned, all those big institutions can do exactly the same thing. So they'd better hit their knees and start asking heaven for some heavy duty assistance.

No News...

Is possibly good news.

Id est, after PDF'ing the clearance letter from Dr. Assman to Dr. Gastric-Bypass yesterday, I haven't heard a word from Dr. G-B informing me that I had better let Dr. A have his way with me or else my insurance company won't pick up the tab for my impending surgery.

I'm assuming, therefore, that Dr. G-B is good, and that we're on track for me to have this surgery done on August 11th, come Hell or High Water.

Yeah, Hooray!

This might happen after all.

The Assman Cometh

Well I saw the assman yesterday afternoon. That's the technical term for their profession. Others refer to them as "gastroenterologists."

I prefer assman.

All I wanted was a lousy letter from him validating that I have a standard plumbing installation down there. He should know. Three years ago he shoved a 6' pipe up my ass and had a look around.

Instead, what I got, was a non-stop inquisition/bitch fest about his crazy-assed daughter, the law school maven, who informed daddy recently that she wants to practice entertainment law and didn't I agree with him that she was nuts and she should do something practical, like corporate law, instead?

Frankly, I don't give a crap if she graduates or not, works in entertainment law or takes up pole-dancing for a living.

All I want was a letter.

I got a sort of letter, the bottom-line of which is that although he clears me for the surgery, it is WITH THE UNDERSTANDING that he'd like to perform an endoscopy on me prior to the bariatric surgery.

Doctor's love to pile-on when they smell a few insurance bucks to be made in the process.

They love, even more, accusing lawyers of piling on when they go to them with their "simple, little, straightforward" malpractice suits.

Whatever.

I got the letter, such as it is, and faxed it over to my surgeon today. I put a note on it asking him to call me if he wants me to have the pipe up the butt... again.

As we say in my 12-Step Program... "more will be revealed."

But not, apparently, until I get home tonight and check my messages (doctors are also too cheap to call long distance from New Jersey to New York).

Doctors. Feh.

Here's the modern version of the Iron Maiden the assman wants to use on me.

Sh*t, P*ss, C*nt, F*ck, C*cksucker, Motherf*cker & T*ts

George Carlin died yesterday at the age of 71.

Judy Garland died in 1969 at the age of 40-something.

They didn't have much in common, but they did both choose to die on my birthday.

Judy on my 21st, George on my 60th.

I'm off to see my gastroenterologist now to get his blessing to have the bariatric surgery in August.

If he gives me any crap about it I swear I'll rip his friggin' head off and poop in the hole.

I am in NO mood for anybody's bullshit today.

Happy post solstice, everybody!

Gastric Bypass - Part Trois

But first... a message about Broadway! This piece, produced by Tony-Chasing wunderkind Cubby Bernstein (http://www.cubbybernstein.com/), takes place in the dressing room of "Xanadu" star Cheyenne Jackson. It's a fierce, hot, tranny mess! Enjoy!



And be sure to watch this year's Tony broadcast on CBS, Sunday, June 15, 2008 starting at 8:00 p.m. (EDT)

Now, about yesterday. Another day off visiting doctors. 9:00 a.m. with the surgeon. Actually with his nurse. I'm good to go. I'm scheduled for surgery on Monday, August 11th. In the afternoon I saw the shrink who grilled me for 45 minutes about my addiction(s), recovery, past, present and hopes for the future.

Net-net, he's happy to sign off for the insurance company and attest to the fact that I'm doing this for all the right reasons.

This leaves me with another visit to the nutritionist, an office visit with a gastroenterologist followed a week later by an upper-sigmoidoscopy, lab work for the hospital, one final consult with the surgeon and then, finally, I'll be good to go.

Now I can almost enjoy my summer vacation.

Have a great weekend everyone! Love to Aunt Lou and Uncle Fred and all the cousins!

JoyZeeBoy

Gastric Bypass - The Saga Continues

I'm leaving work early today to attend my second session of the Bariatric Surgery Support Group down home. I have to attend these things, once a month, for a couple of months as part of my pre-certification process for having my gastric bypass done (still hoping for an August date).

The holiday weekend coming up is almost an afterthought. On Tuesday I'll be taking the day off to visit the nutritionist in the morning (9:00 a.m.) and my internist/pulmonologist in the afternoon (2:00).

Somewhere in there I need to get an oil change, drop the laundry off, spend Saturday afternoon, evening and Sunday morning with some friends of mine who live in Queens and try to get some rest.

And rest EASIER I shall. My brother and his neighbor did, indeed, show up last night to pick up the 10-Ton Sony TV from Hell. After much "oomping" and "ouching" it was down the stairs, out the door and loaded onto the neighbor's truck.

It's their headache now. I just hope they have a piece of furniture that'll hold it.

It does weigh 160 pounds, after all. About what I weighed in my junior year of high school.

I'm told that I may count on losing up to 85 pounds after the surgery. It might not be quite what I weighed in high school... but it's awfully close to what I weighed in college.

And wouldn't that be loverly?

Gastric Bypass - My Saga Begins

Okay, it's official. Barring any unforeseen circumstances (such as me turning into a big wimp between now and then), I'm going to have gastric bypass surgery, hopefully in August.

I've lined up all the initial consultations I need to have over the next few months.

Insurance companies, rightfully, want to make sure you're serious about the surgery before they waste 100's of thousands of their other client's premiums paying for something you're promptly going to sabotage because you have unresolved addiction issues.

I don't blame 'em.

So over the next month I'll be seeing my internist, a pulmonologist, a nutritionist, my cardiologist and a shrink. Meanwhile I'll have continuing consultations with the surgeon and attend monthly meetings of his bariatric support group (more like a cult - but if he can turn off my diabetes, gout, rheumatoid arthritis, joint pain and artheriosclerosis I'll happily join the other worshippers at his shrine).

Oh, and the reason for the shrink is to make sure I'm not doing this for vanity's sake.

Anybody who knows me will tell you... vanity has never been my long suit. Fear and self-loathing are more my forte.

I just want to stop taking medicines. That would be very, very nice.

Oh, and I don't want to wind up in my old age strapped into a wheelchair in a nursing home, blind and footless, like so many of my relatives on the Irish side of the family did.

That would be even nicer.

You'll be hearing lots more about this over the next couple of months. So brace yourselves.

Paging Doctor Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!

I met with the gastric-bypass surgeon yesterday. Here's a picture of him with his associates, the doctors Howard.



It's official. I qualify for a roux-en-y gastric bypass. I just have a little "legwork" to do in advance. Such as getting clearance letters from my Internist and Cardiologist. Seeing a shrink and a nutritionist. Have a sleep apnea study done.

But all things considered, it's probably a done deal. We're shooting for a surgery date sometime in August.

Today I am up to my eyeballs in all the hubbub associated with seeing doctors and getting things in writing -- all in a timely fashion.

This brings back lots of memories of my quadruple bypass in 2004, and my bilateral endarectomies (or, as I call them, "Mz. August and Mz. October") in 2005.

Because the bypass will, at the very least, cure my diabetes (I hope) and cause me to lose about 75 pounds (going from pleasingly plump to skinny-as-a-rail), I am really looking forward to it.

Other beneficial side-effects include curing my gout, alleviating my burgeoning rheumatoid arthritis and generally fixing up various aches and pains (especially joint pain as the pounds melt away).

But it's the diabetes I'm after. I'm long past the point of actually caring about the cosmetic effects of surgery. I was never particularly vain and I have no intention of starting now.

This is about having 30 or so years of high-quality dotage ... unlike what happened to any number of people on my mom's side of the family -- many of whom wound up sightless and/or limbless in nursing homes in their old age(s). I really don't want to wind up like that.

So, today I am doing what we refer to in 12-Step programs as "the next right thing", calling doctors, making appointments, taking care of business.

So, before I start thinking that I am God (which I sometimes do),

and to keep me "right-sized" this morning

I spoke at a 12-Step meeting here in Manhattan at 7:30 a.m.

Because, you see, I need to be reminded, and often, that even though the monkey is no longer on my back ...

the circus, most definitely, is still in town.

High-Class Problems

I'm in agony right now. It's a week to my 12th-Step anniversary (10 years on March 8th, thankyewverymuch) and all I can think about is:

a) where are we going to vacation this summer?

and

b) when should I have my gastric bypass?

My life never used to be full of high-class problems like these. It used to be full of high-class problems like "when the fuck is the liquor store going to open?" and "how can I get rid of all these empty scotch bottles in the middle of the night so the garbage men won't suspect me a being a drunk?"

And no, I'm not kidding. My mind really did used to think of things like that.

I found myself thinking this morning (never a good idea), during the mind-numbing bus ride into the city, about how much money I'm saving versus how much money I am putting aside for my medical FSA (flexible spending account) versus how much I am withholding for my 401-K.

Those are awfully "adult" sorts of subjects for me to be pondering at 6:20 a.m. Time was, at that hour, I was just getting home from the after-hours clubs. And SAVING money was never on my mind, only spending it. There was plenty more where that came from!

This weekend I plan to have no problems whatsoever. I'm seeing the podiatrist tomorrow morning for my quarterly inspection (all diabetics should get... and SEE... a podiatrist.) After that I've got 2 or 3 12-Step meetings planned, maybe a movie. Perhaps something with Will Ferrell? Spare me the groans, I'm entitled to some cheap laughs now and then.

I want lots of "Easy Does It" and "One Day at a Time" this weekend. Not to project the wreckage of the future or anything, but next weekend I'm going to be a friggin' basket-case.

Viscious Queens & Gastric Bypasses

I had a lovely time in Rehoboth this past weekend. The hotel was full of nearly 400 viscious queens sober, friendly LGBTs from Maine to Virginia and westward to Illinois. They all hardly noticed my bad eye, sloppy jeans, flabby ass and sagging tits inner beauty, which glows brighter with every passing decade year.

Sunday afternoon finally sadly arrived and it was time to bid a fond go fuck yourselves farewell to my loving soulmates in recovery.

60 minutes later I was at my sisters house in Newark, Delaware, sponging a free meal out of her and my brother-in-law.

After mooching some leftovers "for later" I headed home to my own bed. Thank God. I did have a nice time, and my hotel room was faboo (I had an oceanfront room), but I do miss my nice, ultra-firm mattress when I travel.

Monday was a "no-stress" day for me which involved little more than a meeting, shopping and napping.

Tuesday was busy, although I was still off work. I had an appointment with Dr. Diabetes up at Robert Wood Johnson Hopsital in New Brunswick. I was armed with all the articles I'd been saving for the last six weeks about treatments for diabetes. He was over an hour late to see me. it turned out that all of his other patients had ALSO come armed for their visits and they were all demanding changes in their treatments.

"Look," I said to him, "I'm going to be 60 years old this summer. With any luck I'll have another 25 or 30 years... and I do NOT want to spend them, as so many members of my family did, blind and limbless in wheelchairs parked in state run institutional hellholes. If there's a snowballs chance in hell that having gastric bypass will help me avoid that, SIGN ME UP!"

He smiled and said that I was an ideal candidate and that he would have no problem whatsoever going to bat for me with the insurance goons, provided, however (I've been around lawyers too long), that I get my cardiologist to agree (that my heart can stand the strain of surgery). He added that it was likely that I would lose 50-75 pounds, that I would be able to go totally off my diabetes medications, that my cholesterol would drop like a rock, that I'd feel better, that there'd be certain other intangible (and tangible) benefits and that he wholeheartedly advocated me having it done.

I was floored. Needless to say I called my cardio guy's office as soon as I got home (gotta program all these guys into my cellphone!). He's out sick. WHAT? A DOCTOR GETS SICK? THE NERVE. But his nurse assured me that he'd have no problem going along with this because of the added benefits it would give my heart (less stress, lower cholesterol, etc.).

So, this gastric bypass is starting to look like a "win-win" situation for me.

Now I just have to a) find a surgical group that performs this kind of surgery and b) get the insurance company to agree to cough up for it.

Oh? Is that all?