A little slow on the uptake...

I've been on OH hundreds of times since I started researching surgery and I just found the "December Sleevers" board tonight.  I need to take more time to explore!  Good to see a lot of familiar faces here.  My " first day of the rest of my life" was December 4.  Going into the hospital at 5am was like an out-of-body experience for me.  I've worked in the medical field for many years, but that morning I was terrified.  I honestly came close to just bolting.  My last pre-op memory is scooting over onto the OR table, telling the anesthesiologist that he hadn't given me enough Versed.  A blink of an eye later I woke up in some serious fricking upper abdominal pain, and I was begging for meds again.  Now suddenly it's 5 1/2 weeks later, I've survived a 2 1/2 week stall (hard!), and am down 23 pounds from my day of surgery.  I'm not nearly as far along as a lot of you, but this still feels like a miracle to me.  I had fought an unending and unwinable battle against obesity for close to 40 years, and had very nearly just surrendered.  Not sure where this motivation came from, but thank God for it.  I'm still not convinced that I won't be the non-loser who gets left behind, but I finally believe that that MIGHT not happen.  What if I persevere, succeed, actually  lose a substantial body of weight?  What if I actually get to spend my plastic surgery savings on plastic surgery.  And if I can do those things, what is possibly to deter me from  me from success?  So carry on, December sleevers and fight the good fight!  We've already won the battle; we now must win the war!!