At the first appointment at the surgeons office I completed loads of paperwork and waited my turn. Which gave me plenty of time to people watch, one of my favorite things to do. As it turns out, all I needed to do was go to a weight loss surgeon’s office to suddenly NOT be the biggest person in the room. I mentally thought that we are all in this together and that I hoped all of the waiting patients would be successful.
When you first go to the back of the office you stand on a heavy duty scale and then your vitals are taken. You discuss the several weight loss surgery options and they ask which one you are considering. I went in to the office pretty set on the RNY procedure also known as the gastric bypass. They also offer the Lap Band and the Gastric Sleeve. The nurse discussed the different pros and cons and sent me home with literature. She agreed that the RNY would be the best procedure for me since I had more to lose and my PCOS.
For my insurance to pick up the majority of the tab I had to complete quite a few steps before surgery. I had to start a low carb diet, attend 2 nutritional group sessions, 2 psych evaluations, weigh in at the office 5x, a gall bladder ultrasound and an EKG.
Well, I put off the diet until that last possible moment, so much so that I was told that if I didn’t lose 5-7lbs by my surgery date that it would be cancelled. The importance of this loss was to shrink my liver to make the surgery safer. I managed to lose 9lbs just before surgery. The nurse was ecstatic. (I don’t include my 9lb loss in my total loss since that might skew the numbers. So any loss is strictly from surgery date.)
The nutritional counseling sessions were both in Wilmington in a group environment with about 20 other potential patients. Mom went with me both times and honestly I learned so much information but we both found it hard not to laugh out loud a couple of times. There were several patients that really gave fat people a bad reputation. They came across as ignorant, lazy, defensive, etc. I have no idea how the nutritionist kept her patience. One particular lady felt the need to crack open her giant Pepsi during the “Soda is the Devil, no soda, no carbonation” speech from the nutritionist. And of course it made this loud sound and everyone looked to see her guzzling this forbidden liquid. LOL Same lady then argued about how she wasn’t going to be able to give up sugar and the only reason she was doing this surgery was because of her knees. She was literally one Twinkie away from a wheelchair. I wonder if she actually completed the requirements and had the surgery? If so, I really hope she was able to give up the soda, and the bad attitude.
I enjoyed both of my psych evals which were in a private setting with a counselor. We talked about my goals, what got me to the point of surgery, triggers, others way to cope besides shoveling food into my pie hole. At the end of my two sessions I had to take an hour long test of yes, no or true/false. This test helps to determine if I would be a good candidate for surgery and my potential for success. Turns out I passed with flying colors. J
The EKG and gall bladder u/s were a breeze. They wanted to see if I had any stones in the gallbladder because if so, they would have removed that organ while they in there. It was squeaky clean so I get to keep it. The EKG showed a healthy heart with no leaks or abnormalities. This kind of surprised me because it has really had to work hard - so thankful for a healthy ticker.
On my last weigh in I was assigned a surgery date – July 16th, 2013. I chose to look at it as my new birthday. J
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