July 21st, 2011 - Just a touch of cold feet

July 2011 Mt Evans Colorado

There are several things that I needed to do before my surgery. First, I had to give up alcohol, but I kind of cheated with that one because I can't drink a drop with my liver cirrhosis. The last time I had some serious drink was my birthday on March 19th.

Second, I needed to quit caffeine. This is the first day I will be 100% caffeine free so it's still on my mind. As I said in the previous post, caffeine is so addictive that even the causal coffee drinker will get a massive headache if they miss more than one day without caffeine. I can go longer than that without side effects from my bipolar meds ~ Lamictal, lorazepam, Seroquel, hydroxyzine, and Oxycontin for my spleen pain.

July 2011 ~ Before surgery

If you were to wean yourself off of caffeine and then have a couple cups of coffee you would be so charged up it would be like you were on meth. Don't believe me. Try it, but wean slowly. It's taken me over a week of weaning down from modest consumption to the point where I only had one glass of caffeinated ice tea yesterday. I now have decaf tea so that is all I will be drinking. Even decaf has a trace of caffeine, but not enough to dehydrate me.

June 2011 ~ Country Boy Gold Mine

So, I was more excited than scared of the surgery, but now I occasionally think about the radical changes that are about to take place. After the surprisingly uncomfortable transvenous liver biopsy, I am a little wary of the surgery itself, but I have more anxiety about the full sedation. Nothing serious, just a bit of the pre-surgery jitters.