Post-Surgery Postponement

Hey there, friends!

I know that I promised I'd have my first paid subscriber newsletter out last week, but I got caught up in making sure certain things in my life were taken care of before going for gastric bypass surgery this past Friday.

That's right! I had gastric bypass surgery on the 17th, having started a clear liquid diet on the 16th. After an excruciatingly boring overnight hospital stay, I came home Saturday evening, and yesterday was my first full day back at home. I've been posting about this on TikTok, so go ahead and follow me there if you're interested in the play-by-play.

When I planned my newsletter launch, I knew I had surgery coming up, but mistakenly thought I'd have any sort of writing bandwidth during my recovery. However, there's a reason I was told that I should take the two weeks of recommended recovery seriously after my surgery and that "if [I] didn't have to work, don't." It's not just a matter of physical recovery--I actually don't feel any pain from the incisions, and I've started to get used to my change purse-sized stomach--but I'll be on a liquid diet until the beginning of next month while I heal, and as I try to increase the amount of liquid I can drink, I'm slowly drinking more and more water and getting my nutrition from a daily multivitamin, protein shakes, broth, and...that's basically it. So, I'm running on minimum fuel.

While I feel upbeat and have just enough energy to get through the basics of the day, I don't have the bandwidth to do things like "work on career," or "write coherent pieces." It's taking most of my spoons for the day to summon the energy to write this just to let you know what's going on!

So, my goal now is to skip the weekly newsletters this month, and write my monthly update in March. After that, we'll see. I've poked around other platforms and am also considering moving from here (still not considering Substack for reasons, but a lot of writers I respect--in addition to moving here to Buttondown--have also gone to Ghost, which seems like a more all-inclusive platform that might make more sense for what I truly want to do). We'll see about that when I have the energy to really think about it.

So I wanted to give you the basic update: I'm doing well, but I don't have the bandwidth to recover and write at the same time. I'll see y'all in March! And if you wanna see my impromptu video updates, they're only a TikTok away.

Lots of love,

Teresa