Red Herring

It's been a bit since my last post, mainly due to a week-long family vacation to Myrtle Beach, SC that we booked and paid for over a year ago. The only way I was gonna miss this trip was if I was still in the hospital with at least three machines hooked up to me. I give a specific number like that because the missing this vacation due to just two machines was not gonna happen; I have two hands, one machine per hand... I'm going!

Luckily, I didn't have to resort to checking myself out of the hospital at the chagrin of the wonderful doctors and nurses that took such great care of me. Instead, I hopped in the family-mobile and we drove 10 hrs (including TONS of stops for me to get out and walk around) to Myrtle. We had friends that joined us down there, so we made a great time of it, despite the fact I had to sit in the hotel room most of the time, recuperating.

The term Red Herring is extremely applicable to the issues I've faced this past week.

Folks use Red Herring when referring to something that is ultimately discovered to be a diversion from the real truth. Magicians use their hands, face and voice to draw attention while performing complex slight-of-hand tricks, causing the audience to look one way, while the true trick is being done elsewhere. 

At a deeper level, though, the real falsehood is this: there is no such thing as a Red Herring. Herring fish are not red, nor is there a red variant. Rather, Red Herring refers to a fish (usually Herring, but not always) that has been soaked in a brine so long that it causes the flesh to turn a shade of red.

My physical recovery from the surgery has been fast and relatively painless. My laparoscopic incisions are healing nicely, and I no longer have the searing pain in my abdominal muscles when I sneeze or get out of a chair. I report all of this with a slight air of disbelief, even though the evidence is right in front of me. I expected much more pain for a longer time, with the physical recovery taking a significantly longer time than it has.

More surprisingly though is the amount of difficulty I am having getting my head around my new eating schedule and requirements for water intake.  I've mentioned about the water intake in a previous post. It's gotten slightly better, but it hasn't yet progressed to the point where it's easy to get 64oz of fluids into me, 2oz at a time.

As everyone knows, I'm a serious research hound. I spend dozens of hours a week researching everything that interests me, so imagine the time I put into researching Gastric Bypass Surgery!

All the things I read about prolonged physical recovery from the surgery were a Red Herring indeed. But at a deeper level, even while chastising myself for not seeing through the ruse of that Red Herring, I have found there is no Red Herring at all, because there simply is no easy path from Morbidly Obese to Healthy.