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So...  Since my last update... I had blood drawn at the surgeons office and my A1c came back at a 10.4.  My surgeon will not operate on anyone with a 9 or higher A1c.  So the last 7 weeks have been spent going to doctors trying to get my blood sugar down.  Starting an insulin & metformin combo has done the trick and my A1c is now at a 8.7.  PTL!!!  I was able to contact my surgeons office for a new date this week and a on the books for September 29.  Bathing suit shopping next year should be one of the best experiences of my life.  :-)

Well, I got the call this morning.  I am scheduled to have bypass on Monday, July 21!!!!  I will start my pre-op diet on Monday June 30.  I am so excited.  I cannot wait to be on the other side of this.

Well, I must say that the Psych consult went much differently than I expected.  Everyone who goes through Baptist here in Winston-Salem, must see Jeff Smith for your Psych Evaluation.  Jeff has been working with bariatric patients for nearly all of his career and delves much deeper than I was expecting.  I went in thinking that it would be a conversation about how I cope with stress and disappointing situations and what kind of support system I  have in place.  WRONG!  I like most people have had some pretty crappy things happen in my life.  I like to think I have moved past the majority of it and am at least a somewhat functional human being with a decent level of mental health.  I was totally unprepared to go in and talk about my parents divorce when I was 7 or bad crap that happened in High School.  That being said I went through a range of emotions in that session that I was not prepared for.  So for those of you who may be going through Baptist, beware that you will need to prepare yourself to discuss things that you may not really want to.  Everything ended fine.  He has cleared me for surgery so that is good.  That was my Saturday.

This Monday I had my first nutritional class and an Upper GI.  The Nutritional class was good.  In a group things can get a little out of control at times, but I was impressed that the nutritionist basically recommended a Paleo type lifestyle.  I have to leave the class a little early to make it to my upper GI appointment.  In the Nutrition class I learned that I will have 3 appointments in one day about 3 weeks from now (2 exercise physiologists appointments and 1 one on one nutrition appointment)  after those have been completed they will submit everything to insurance.  I will have to keep a food diary for the next 3 weeks to take back to that appointment.

The Upper GI was interesting.  I can't explain why, but I was really nervous about it.  It wasn't the greatest thing I ever done but not the worst either.  They said everything looked good and that I have a slight hiatial hernia.

That's all for now!

Blessings everyone!

Today I had my consult with Dr. Fernandez (Fuzz). It went really well.  The staff was great!  I guess I was hoping that he would tell me which surgery I should have but he said I would be a good candidate for either RNY or sleeve.  I still have some time to decide. They drew blood today to test for h-pylori.  I will need to schedule with radiology to have an endoscopy done for reflux. I was able to schedule my psych eval this evening for Saturday.  I will have my first nutrition class on Monday.  As far as I understand I will only have the exercise appointment and another nutrition appointment to do after that. I did have to sign a weight contract saying that I would not gain any weight between now and my surgery date.  I am so thankful that things seem to be coming together. I don't pretend to know the will of God, but just maybe this is finally His timing.  Praying that all continues to go well.

I am close to the end of my physician supervised diet.  Only have 2 more visits and will be finished at the end of April.  I did get a call from Dr. Fernandez's office yesterday saying that they had finally sent my packet to the scheduler.  I will finally get to meet with Dr. Fuzz for my first consult (for the 2nd time).  I don't expect there to be any reasons he would find me a poor candidate for the surgery.  I am hoping I can get in pretty soon and start getting my evaluations done for surgery.  We shall see.

Well, the news is good and discouraging, but mostly good.  I had my appointment with my primary care doctor yesterday.  First thing was the weigh in.  I was shocked when I got on the scale and it read 301.6.  WOWZA!  I was not expecting that.  I never thought I would break the 300 barrier, but here I am.  I asked my husband to go with me for support and he was amazing!  I am so very thankful for all the love he gives me even when I feel like I don't deserve it.  Anyway, Dr. Lantelme came in and said that he did not have a problem at all with helping me through this process and was so very encouraging.  He did have a word of caution in considering the r-n-y due to the malabsorbtion issues and getting the nutrients and vitamins to a healthy level after that, but was totally on board as a whole.  He also highly recommended Dr. Fuzz (Fernando) at Baptist.  WE went ahead and set up visits for me to comply with the insurance company guidelines.  He prayed with my husband and me before we left and I was so comforted by the whole process.

So I have 6 months to figure some things out.  At this point I would like to loose weight before surgery.  I am leaning towards the gastric sleeve at this point but that could change and I am fine with that.  I trust that by the time May gets here I will know exactly what will be best for me.  I am excited about how my life will change, but I also realize that this is going to be hard work too.  

Let the journey BEGIN!

Well I crashed the WLS seminar for NC Baptist Hospital on Tuesday night.  The time was well spent.  There haven't been very many changes since I was going through this process 4 years ago, but it was good to meet another of the surgeons at Baptist.  I did get some sad news in that BCBS-NC had covered the surgery with out any extra conditions up until September of this year.  Now they require a 6 month Dr. supervised diet.  Bahhhh!  That is really fine though.  I can use that time to feel sure about which procedure I want done, get some of this weight off before surgery and begin working out so that it won't be so hard on the other side of surgery.  

Today I have an appointment with my primary care Dr.  I am a little apprehensive about it.  He is an integrative health Dr. and I am not sure where he is going to come down on the WLS.  i hope that all will go well and he will agree to help me through this next 6 months and on the other side of surgery, but I have a back up plan if needed.  We will see.  

If anyone out there is reading this and prays, please pray for me.  I am afraid of what that scale will say.

Well.  here it is four years later and still no surgery.  I have been looking into this surgery off an on for 11 years.  Wow!  I now have insurance that covers weight loss surgery!  PTL!  So now I have to start all over getting the information needed and all the medical records, but I am determined.  In a perfect world I would like to have it done before the end of the year but that is probably not realistic since it's already November.  I will be crashing a seminar tomorrow night and will keep you posted.