cowboy4life

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No junk food, so far.  Y'all pray for me.  Came close today, my darling daughter packed my lunch for work today in a bowl that wasn't microwave safe.  Two minutes in the microwave while I was working, my lunch and bowl melted, contorted, and just looked like someone stepped on it.  Good thing I had an apple and a granola bar in my kit.

Next week, we really kick it in gear as my second nutritionist visit is on the 24th.  I also have my Upper GI, chest X-ray, EKG, and all of the blood work wrapped around the nutritionist appointment.  I'll be spending the whole morning at Ochsner Hospital.  The only thing before submitting for insurance approval will be my third and final nutritionist visit next month.  My follow up sleep study is necessary but not mandatory for insurance approval for my RNY.  It is more for the surgery prep as far as how close they will have to monitor me as far as my oxygen levels and such.  From some of the research about sleep apnea, wearing the CPAP gives you a more restful, normal sleep.  We'll see. 

I'd like to be able to have my surgery in April, before the 21st.  Reason being, I can cancel a scheduled vacation that I took for the NFL Draft that weekend.  As the name goes, I am a football junkie.  I'd like to be well on the loser's bench before training camp.  Hopefully my son and I can take a trip to Cowboys Stadium this summer.  Also, I want to be able to see him play football this year.

For Lent this year, I am giving up junk food.  I've kind of slipped since the Super Bowl so this will put me back on track.  I'm still four pounds down since January 24

Well, haven't posted in a while, but here goes.  Found out from the bariatric nurse that I do have sleep apnea.  She gave me some numbers that were kind of sobering.  I slept on my back for 4 hours and had 50 some odd occurances of my breathing stopping while in the hour that I slept on my side, I had 27 instances of not breathing.  My sleep apnea is not that bad, but bad enough that this country boy is concerned.  I have a follow up sleep study on March 2nd, this time it'll be for fitting a CPAP mask for me.  The sleep lab was supposed to contact my insurance company about getting a machine for the home.

I kind of have some mixed emotions about having sleep apnea, but this is just another co-morbidity to have for insurance approval.

Well, I had my sleep study last night and all things considered, it went well.  I arrived at 7:00pm at Ochsner Hospital and it took me about 30 minutes to find the sleep lab.  Once I did, I was shown my room and the nurse there, Helena, gave me some questionairres to fill out.  Around 9:00, I changed clothes and the study started at 10.  The room was almost like a small hotel room, but the bed was very uncomfortable.  The room was a little too cold, but bearable.  She hook me up with all kinds of wires and probes.  Once the test started, I had to do some movement tests for the camera.  That camera was pretty good, cause it was pitch black in there and they were able to see my eyes open and closed. 

Didn't sleep bad, but not great.  It appears that I don't have sleep apnea, as they never had to hook up the CPAC mask to me.  The first part of the study determined wheather or not I needed the mask which would have started the second series of tests.  I didn't think I did have it as I rarely snore.  But one thing I did have was a feeling while I was sleeping that I was being watched, which I was as per the test.  But have you ever had a feeling that someone was trying to get in bed with you, but no one was there.  I was afraid to open my eyes because I didn't want the tech to think that I couldn' t sleep. 

I also had some weird dreams, some naughty nurse dreams.  Use your imagination there. 

I do have some pictures that I took with my cell phone.  I'll upload them later for anyone wondering what a sleep study guinea pig looks like.

Well, yesterday was my first of three visits to the Nutritionist at Ochsner Hospital.  Unfortunately, the visit was not covered by my insurance so I had to pay $140 out of pocket.  I hope that comes off my out of pocket cap cost of $2000 for the year.  I'll have to ask Ms. Litoff in Bariatric Finance about that next week.  Anyway, I got a lot of questions answered.  We briefly reviewed the notes that the surgeon's PA took on my last visit and went through the expectations pre-surgery.  The surgeon's expectations for a successful surgery for me is to lose 124 pounds.  Their goal weight for me is 214 lb.  I can't even remember the last time I was at that weight.  Probably when I was in the Navy, almost 17 years ago.  My goal weight is 175 lb. but I'll probably settle for 185-190.  Two weeks prior to my surgery date will start my liquid diet.  Between the booklet I got from her and everyone at OH, I think I'll probably have an encyclopedia of protein drinks to choose from.

I also have a pre-operative checklist of some changes that I can make now to help me get adjusted to life after WLS.  She asked me to pick three items on the list, the three items that it will be most difficult to do.  I'm practicing sippling liquids, mostly water.  I have always been a chugger.  The second is to change my diet to where I am eating protein first in my meals especially breakfast.  Usually, all I eat for breakfast is fruit or a bagel and not eat any meat until lunch.  And the third is to increase my activity.  I have to free my treadmill from my wife's vision of it being a storage dump, dust it off and start using it again.  She also recommended me to lose 17 pounds prior to surgery.  Clear goals to follow.  Here we go.

Sleep study Tuesday night.

Got a call from the hospital this afternoon to schedule my psychatric evaluation.  Unfortunately, they called on my cellphone while I was driving to work.  I'm not one of those people to talk and drive at the same time so I asked the nurse to call me back in the afternoon when I wake up. 

Just got a call from Ochsner Hospital today.  Scheduled my sleep study for next Tuesday, the 26th.  I have to be at the hospital before 7:30 pm and will be there until 6:30 am the next day.  With my first nutritionist visit on Friday, things are moving along.  I have 15 days off for vacation starting on Monday, so my goal is to get all of the pre-op stuff out of the way before I go back to work.  What does one need for a sleep study?  I have never gone to bed at 7:30 pm.

Yesterday, I went to Ochsner Hospital in New Orleans for my first consultation with my surgeon's PA, Amber Weydert.  I was a little nervous, and it was a good thing I wrote down all of the questions that I had.  Only three of them since OH has been a huge resource of knowledge and experience for me.  It is like a Wikipedia for the morbidly obese.  Anyway, Dr. Weydert actually was very familiar with the website when I brought it up.  She said a lot of Dr. Richardson's patients use it. 

Anyway, we talked about the process.  My insurance does require a 3 month medically supervised weight loss attempt, so we scheduled my first appointment with the nutritionist on the 22nd.  We went through my entire medical history, since my PCP is with Ochsner, all of my medical records for the last 10-15 years were easily accesible.  We talked about my surgery choice, the RNY, and basically went over all of the pre-surgery testing I have to do before everything is submitted to insurance for approval.  So just from my own thinking, the earliest I could look forward to surgery would be April-May timeframe.  Not bad.

I had some other questions, basically what could I expect on the surgery day itself.  Dr. Weydert went over the most common complications from the surgery that they see in their patients.  I brought up the fact that I have a hernia at my umbilical cord.  It will be up to the surgeon on removing it, Dr. Richardson calls hernias, " The gift that keeps on giving".  So what I will be looking forward to are all of the testing prior to surgery; X-ray, EKG, upper GI, and they also want to do a Sleep Study on me where I'll have to spend the night at the sleep lab.  Seems in my life the only times I ever spent the night in New Orleans are for hospital visits or Mardi Gras.  Maybe I can do both this year. 

I also met with the Financial Customer Service Specialist, Monique also.  I'll recap that later.

Well, tomorrow is a day that I have waited six months for; the day of my first consultation with Ocshner's Bariatric Department.  That may not seem like much to celebrate for a lot of you out there but for me it is an important first step to the new me.  My dear wife actually wanted to know if I wanted her to go with me, but I told her to get her sleep.  She works nights from 11pm to 7am and I know she wouldn't be able to stay away for a 10am appointment.  It did mean a lot to me that she wanted to come.  She seems excited about the surgery, that makes me pretty happy.  I will post tomorrow with all the details.  Wish me luck.

Sunday afternoon, I finally told my parents and my sister about my decision to have weight loss surgery.  Surprisingly, it went really well.  I don't know why I am so surprised, overall my parents have been pretty supportive of a lot of things I have done.  And they, like a lot of people, know someone who has had WLS.  And here I thought they were out of touch.