Playing the Odds

I recently made a video (I posted it below) about how, although I am afraid of the vertical sleeve gastrectomy surgery, I am more afraid of diverticulitis. Bettie Lou Hoo made a comment, in which she said:

Now whenever I get an extreme anger/fear/panic-inducing thought in my head, I stop and ask myself: Is this a feeling or a fact? "I'm going to die from surgery" is not a fact. The fact is that less than 1% of people die from surgery (0.06%, in fact) and of those, about 80% were high-risk. It's also a fact that I was low risk. Which made it a fact that there was more than a 99% chance I would not die of surgery. See? Like that.

In contrast, perforated diverticulitis has a mortality rate of 6% for purulent peritonitis and 35% for fecal peritonitis, according to the American Society of Colon & Rectal Surgeons. (Well, you said you wanted us to remind you - so there you go.)

You know, she's right. Dead on right. I need to stop worrying about the sleeve and get my ass in gear to stay as healthy as possible, lose as much as I can as quickly as I can, so that I can get my bowel resection and get past the danger zone of this diverticular disease.

And, as Fatkings Phil said in his recent awesomecast:

Don't let the What If's haunt you!

 I have to stop thinking of this as an elective procedure and remember the pain and the fear of the last four bouts of Diverticulitis in September, November, January and June and know that the Fucker can strike me out of the blue.


As an aside, my CPAP is now second nature. I love it. Sleeping MUCH better. I get a solid eight hours before I have to get up and I have not had a headache once since I have had it. I love it. I am also not having nightmares every night anymore. Wow. Did you know that people with untreated apnea have a threefold increase in death rates from surgery in general? Yes.