Abilene Stars
First meeting with surgeon
Feb 23, 2014
I had my first one-on-one meeting with my surgeon the other day. First I talked to the woman who does the insurance portion. She researches our coverage and lets us know exactly what hoops we have to jump through in order to get the surgery. Remember how I said that at the seminar I found out that they prefer you wait a year before trying to get pregnant? Add another six months onto that. My insurance requires that I go on a doctor supervised diet for 6 months before they'll approve the surgery. So I'm at least 18 months away from even being able to start trying to conceive, and then, assuming I get pregnant immediately (which there's no guarantee) there's another 9 months before I have the damn baby. I'll be lucky if I have a kid by the time I'm 40 at this rate.
One of the qualifications I have to meet is an appointment with a psychologist. I was in therapy for nine years, but had to quit when I moved out of state. I've been without a therapist for the last 3 years. I'm actually excited by the idea of getting to see a therapist again. Even if it's just one visit. I don't much care! Maybe they'll be able to give me recommendations for a therapist I can go see on a regular basis. I have some pretty killer mental health insurance. I'd be able to afford to see someone at least once a month, if not twice a month. So yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to that.
A few days later I have two appointments in the same day. The first one is with the diet & exercise people who are going to go over the actual diet I have to be on and all that fun stuff. They're also going to go over the various vitamins and supplements that I need to begin working into my daily life. I honestly can't remember what the second appointment that day is for, and my information is on the other end of the house (and I'm lazy right now).
Talking with the surgeon was good. My husband was with me so he got to absorb the information as well. It was especially nice to find out that my surgeon understands my motivation for doing something this drastic. He and his wife also struggled with infertility and had to use en vitro fertilization to have their children. He was sympathetic and empathized with me. That was a welcome surprise.
He was surprised that I had only decided to do this a few weeks ago. He said that normally the patients that he talks to have been considering bariatric surgery for years and they have tons of questions. We talked for maybe 30 minutes. Most of my questions were things that they'll answer when I go to the diet & exercise class/meeting/thing. He did say that the "one year post surgery before getting pregnant" is a guideline, not a hard and fast rule. He said if I'm healing well we might be able to try after 9 months post surgery. So we'll see.
I found out that the side effect of my antidepressant medication has been coming in handy. Normally I weigh in around 328-335lbs on my scale at home. I weighed in at 318.5 on the scale at the doctor's office. I've just been so completely bored by food lately that I haven't even wanted to eat... and the scale shows it. I still want to cook, I just don't have the desire to consume.
I thought I had more to say, but I guess not.