Allecia

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I am feeling so out of control lately. Life has been pretty stressful, and I'm *really* feeling the need to eat, eat, eat, eat. I'm trying to moderate it, but I really don't want to! I keep hearing how once I have the surgery that that feeling of wanting to eat to solve all ills will go away. I sure hope so. I feel like such a whale lately. :-( Nothing feels like it fits right, all my clothes are falling apart (holes, rips, tears), and I can't afford to go out and buy a new wardrobe. Just feeling a bit down I guess. The weather is finally starting to get nicer, so I hope that will motivate me to get out there and MOVE. Me and my friend did not meet on Monday for our usual thing (that I mentioned earlier) and I think that affected me more than I thought it would. I really appreciate Michele's support and having someone to talk to. She has been such a rock for me. I have learned SO MUCH from her. I am so eternally grateful. She is such a good friend. We have started menu planning. That's something I've never done before. It's been pretty interesting. I'm trying different foods, and it's so neat knowing it's healthy for me as well. I'm not that great at the planning, but I'll get better with practice, I'm sure. I just need to stick it out; which is hard because sometimes it feels like all I'm doing is cooking and cleaning up afterwards!! :-( But I keep telling myself that the more I do it, the better I'll get at it and it will go faster. So I'm keeping on keeping on. :-) Don and I have been cooking some of it together, and that has been *really* cool. He has been so incredibly supportive of what I'm trying. Him and I will go on walks in the evening, and talk about how to cook (he's always been the cook in the family. He loves it and is very good at it) while we're making whatever it is that I've come up with. It's been neat. I just wish I was feeling happier. It's hard to motivate to get out there and MOVE if you're feeling yucky/depressed/whatever it is that I'm feeling. Just feeling my weight, I guess. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow.

I got all the paperwork (Medical Release forms) from my previous Dr's. I got them all filled out, but not sent yet. (My procrastination at work! I'll get them sent out soon...) Things are starting to come together. I'm really looking forward to meeting with Susan (Dr. Reads patient coordinator) and getting everything submitted to the insurance. Then I'll be waiting on the edge of my seat until I hear one way or another! But I just want to get all the preliminary stuff taken care of. I'll feel loads better once that's all done. So things are progressing and I'm feeling pretty good.

Well, I had my psych appointment. It went really well. She asked about my family, and my support system. What kind of person I am, what I liked to do. That sort of thing. I told her that I'd never been to a psychologist before, and she told me that I was lucky I had her because of how friendly and easy-going she is. Yay! :-) She also has lots of experience with Dr. Read & his office, so I'm quite pleased. She said everything looked good, and we scheduled a double appointment for the test and follow-up. (I think she can tell how excited I am to get all this started.) It's May 9th. I'm getting really excited about this all! It feels like it just might happen now.

Well, the fact I have a psych appointment gave me back my momentum, and I have called my prior Dr's to get the medical release paperwork mailed to me to sign and send back for them to fax my information in to Dr. Read's office. If I had to actually find time to drive there, I'd be months out! I hate running errands on my work days. So I had them mail me the information. It'll be much quicker that way. :-)

Okay, *NOW* the insurance stuff is right ( that it will really be right this time!), and I have a Psychologist appointment. Woo Hoo!!!! (Not where I wanted, but I just want to get it taken care of at this point!) I'm pretty excited about it. I wonder what she'll ask? I won't be taking the 'test' at this one. She said I'll have at least 2 appointments. So I'm cool with that. I'm ready to get all this under way, but my appointment is on the 18th, so that's plenty fast enough. Better than the first place I called (way back when), which was 5+ months out!! So things are looking up and I'm getting excited again.

Yeah, remember how excited I was just yesterday? Whatever! Insurance did another 180 degree on me. I mean, this is just for the psych evaluation. What's the surgery approval gonna do? My medical keeps saying it's my mental health who covers it, and my mental health keeps saying it's my medical who covers it (since it's for a medical procedure). So the mental health says today (after medical told me the same thing yesterday) that they do indeed cover it, and will even pay 100% (as opposed to a co-pay) and I can do it through EAP (employee assistance program). But the Psychologist who was going to give me the evaluation is out of network, so they (insurance) has to send me a list of Psychologists who are IN network. They said I would get an e-mail within 5 minutes, and it's several hours later and no list. So, the office manager of the Psychologist I wanted to see (oh man, they were SO GREAT! Even though she knew I probably wouldn't end up going there, she conference called with me a BUNCH of times to help me figure out all this insurance crap. She is so awesome, and I am so grateful to her! I wish I could just afford to go see her because her office has been so good to me...) had to cancel my appointment. So I have no appointment and no way to move forward at this time. I mean, I'll probably have the list on Monday, but my motivation for getting it all done as soon as possible has been compromised. So I'm bummed. Oh well. I'll just keep plugging forward. It'll happen. I just have to jump through all the right hoops in just the right ways. :-)

I FINALLY GOT THE INSURANCE RIGHT AND HAVE MY PSYCH APPOINTMENT! WOO HOO!!! And it's 8 days away! Yippee!! My journey has 'officially' started and I feel so good about it. I am so freaking excited. Can you tell? Man, I have been round and round with these people! I wish it wasn't so expensive; I'd just pay for it myself for pete's sake!!! But it's finally over and I'm on the path. Life is good. :-)

Well, it's been awhile since I've written anything. I wasn't sure if I would keep this as a diary or anything like that, but I see lots of others' as a diary, and I kind of like it, so I'll try that myself. I'm not so hot at it, so it probably won't get updated much! (But you never know... ) Anyway, it's been a bit of a roller coaster for me. While my DH is very supportive, he was worried, so we went round and round with that for awhile. I've tried to do a lot of research and reassure him. Then there's the money, but we've managed to get that figured out as well (not as easy as I just made it sound, but who wants to hear about that. ). So once he was fully on board (not just supportive (which he always was), but *actively* supportive) a wonderful friend of mine wanted to start helping me to get into better shape (I had been asking her about it since I knew she was in to nutrition and working out and stuff. She did not know that I was investigating Gastric Bypass surgery). Anyway, I was wondering if I should give this latest thing a try before I go the surgery route. I mean, I was 100% committed and knew I was doing the right thing with surgery. But then this comes along... So I thought really hard about it. (Poor DH, he felt like he was on a roller coaster!) So anyway, me and my friend have been meeting and discussing nutrition (all of which will come in HUGELY handy once I've had my surgery) and working on just *doing* more (we're walking so much farther than we used to!) I wondered if *this* time it would work. Then the rains came, the work got stressful, and I completely fell out of any good that I had accomplished. (I actually managed to lose 13 lbs if you can believe it!) I realized that I want this surgery for what it can do for me. I need this surgery. I feel even more now that it's the right thing for me to do. And with all of my wonderful beautiful friends (some of whom have been through this before me) I know I will be able to do this and be successful. I LOVE YOU ALL!! {{{HUGS}}}