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Had my psych eval today... and it was a breeze.

So now... I guess I'll be calling Dr. P's office soon. When I talked to someone in the Bariatric clinic yesterday I was tickled to find that she remembered how to spell my name. (It's common, but has a very unusual spelling.) She asked about my info for the missing years and I told her I'd provided pics. So she said she'd get on it and make sure it was straightened out, then went all bubbly and said they'll be seeing me soon.

Again, I must say WOO-HOO! I am so excited right now-- OMG, I'm finally on the road to WLS. Really and truly getting there. I have officially done everything required and now it's just a matter of waiting on the insurance.

So... my only goals right now are to start keeping a food diary and get in exercise every day. Well, that and chewing 30x, as per the lecture I got today. Nothing too major. I've conquered most of my bigger probs, so I can do this.

Oh yeah, the pysch did tell me something crazy: there's a WLS support group in my city... and it meets at Western Sizzlin'! Yes, an actual buffet!

Yeah, that's me. Regretfully.

Even more regretfully, it showed up on the scale last week. Yeah... was back at 292 again and feeling wretched about it. Would like to think I was just bloated, but whatever. So I kicked things up a notch, got back to eating enough protein and getting off m'bum. The result? At 287.8 tonight! Which puts me at a BMI of exactly 51. If I really work at it, I'm sure I can get it down to 49. Keeping on it is the major prob, of course. Have been working on my willpower and making progress as far as the right food choices, but... well, getting in exercise as often as I should still beats me sometimes. Too busy.

What have I been doing? Well, I finished summer school and kept my 4.0, which thrills me to no end. Then there's work, which is about to get seriously hectic. Plus fall classes started today. Bleh.

Went to this AWESOME kids' library called Imaginon the other day, got to spend the night in Charlotte on a lovely expense account. Super high-tech and just plain amazing, some wonderful speakers.  So now... I get to do a write-up and try to push some ideas on our director, not to mention presenting them at an upcoming meeting. No pressure, right?

So... yeah. Tonight I plan to do absolutely nothing. Will go on and order my books, then... veggin' out.

I think I'm gonna have to kill my sister. She was on the phone last night chirping about how in exactly one week she'll have her psych eval. *hmph* I'm set for a full week after her.

It's funny really, we've talked so much about WLS and made so many little changes... that it's become a part of my life already. The nervousness and doubt I felt in the beginning has been replaced with fierce determination. I'm ready to get this show on the road!

When I look at how much progress others have made and how much weight they lose-- how their lives and heatlh changes so completely from one year to the next-- it's exciting!

Haven't had time to post lately. Heh, last night I sat here in the wee hours and read like 5-6 days worth of Q&A forum emails that had piled up. Spent the weekend mostly cleaning my house-- massive overhaul with Duck's help. She's a whip-cracker, which is a good thing. Otherwise... I'm stressed.

OMG, I'm wondering how the heck I wound up taking two summer classes at once. A month is not long enough to learn aboujt cataloging and stuff. Bleh. Major projects due for both classes in the next week and I've got nothing done on one of them. The other... I'm winging it. Can feel my 4.0 going down the drain...

Of course, aside from hardcore cleaning/moving stuff around I haven't worked out the past few days. That really makes me unhappy with myself, but I honestly can't help it. There's just too much going on, and it will end soon.

On the up side, I'm doing better with food. I have pretty much cut out snacks completely most days. Lunch this week is a can of fat-free tuna salad w/ crackers, an adorable babybel lite cheese wheel, and a bag of animal crackers. totals 19g of protein, very low in fat, and the animal crackers don't have much sugar. tomorrow thinking about skipping those and having yogurt instead.

Also picked up more protein-packed, low-fat breakfast stuff. I am determined to make up for this slack time next week.

After starving myself from midnight until, I spent this past Thursday in Greenville, getting a number of things done. I have 3 appointments in the morning and 1 in the afternoon.

First, I had my ultrasound. It was not comfortable, but not bad. I might have gallstones though, which means Dr. P. will take out my gall bladder during my surgery. Then... the Upper GI. The dreaded, wretched, made-by-Satan thing. OMG, if i NEVER have one again it'll be too soon! It was absolutely horrible, even worse than my sis made it sound. (The hussy is still about a week or so ahead of me!) I won't even talk about what drinking all the crap they gave me did to my delicate system.  It helped some that I ran into a lady who was in our info session. In fact, I ran across several WLS hopefuls throughout the day.

My next thing was meeting with the anesthesiologist. He told me that he generally deals with people twice my size and made some crack about how I'm "not ripe yet and they need to leave me on the vine a little longer." Yeah, funny... Anyway, he asked me questions, measured my neck, blah, blah, then said he doesn't know why the surgeons make them see every patient. He doesn't foresee any probs with me, nor does he with a lot of the people they send him. Good to know.

On to the lab, with a stop by the office where I met with my surgeon. I left my insurance pics with the receptionist and went off to be bled half to death. Oh, and do the cup thing. You know what I mean.

Went off and had lunch, did a bit of shopping-- Target had kid-sized fork/spoon sets for $1 in the cheapo section. They're not exactly stylish, but they work.

Then... I met with my nutritionist, Jenny Biggs. My session was one-on-one and lasted all of 40 mins, to my sister's 2 hr class. Which was fine by me. The lady that I had was awesome! I really liked her and loved how open and helpful she was. I told her my sis and I are doing this together and she said we're both welcome to email her with questions or for info at any time. We talked about a typical day for me and the changes I've already made.

She said I'm on the right track and the only "red flag" she sees is my grazing habit-- continuous munching of my fave snackies when I have them on hand. So I'm working on cutting that out this week. I've cleaned the junk out of my cabinets already, don't drink sodas, and take a women's daily vitamin.

Now I am also getting in my protein. That part is kinda rough for me. Since going veg a year and a half ago I've sort of worked my way around it. Now that I'm a "recovering vegetarian," as she put it, I have more to choose from. I still don't eat beef or pork really, but I love fish and will probably live off that for the most part. The really hard part is getting protein at breakfast, when I usualy grab an energy bar. I do have one I picked up that has like 2g of carbs and 20g of protein, so might try that tomorrow.

Well, all that's left now is my pysch eval, still scheduled for August 20th, almost a month away. Once that's done, it's just a matter of waiting for my insurance to get approved. I'm SO excited I can hardly stand it!

Ooh, and to top things off, my parents and I visited a cousin's place today. She showed me pics of her granddaughter in high school, when she was very obese. Then she pointed out pics of her now that she's had WLS and lost a TON of weight. It was awesome and I think even my parents are getting excited now!

As weekends go, this was a pretty good one. Went up for my friend Duck's b-day. She'll be 30 tomorrow and is a year behind the rest of our crew... so I made plenty of jokes about her "coming of age." We celebrated by visiting an awesome tattoo parlor. Her younger brother and mother went along, and now even her mom wants one.

Duck did express some concerns about my WLS though. She's lost more than 20 lbs doing WW and keeps begging me to try that again. She is such a worrier, and is particularly unhappy because I want the RNY as opposed to the band. So we have this ongoing debate. Kind of rough because I'm so bloody excited and just about want to babble to the few people that know my plans. On the plus side, my mother seems to be just as excited about it as I am.

My sister and I are both stocking up on things we'll need, as per our surgeons instructions. We have measuring cups, child-sized plates, and bento forks (w/cases, very kawaii!), plus some 1c Pyrex bowls and even smaller bento "snack boxes" for storing food and taking lunch to work. Last week my mom and sis went to GNC with a lady they know who had the bypass and is doing very well. She introduced them to a few different products of note.

So... planning and plotting continues. I have ALL of my remaining appointments (except for the Pysch exam) this Thursday. No worries, of course. I also need to fax the clinic 3 years' worth of weight proof tomorrow. They said that pics are acceptable, so pics they will get.

I have been insanely busy of late. This week I started two summer classes which only run for a month, you can imagine how much stuff they're cramming in.

My sister (the hussy) had her Upper GI and all that done today. I'm not going in until the 17th so have a full week to whine and grumble. Might give her a few dirty looks, too.

Hm, too tired to write a lot tonight, but... the basics:

Have been diligent about working out. Doing more at work, getting off my rump and walking around a lot. Am also doing 30 mins a day, whether on the CardioFit or walking the dogs. Today was an exception because of massive homework, but I plan to get it done tomorrow, maybe put in some extra time. As a result... I have now lost about five more pounds and am 190.8 by my scale-- which is probably about 192-193 by Dr. P's.

So I must be doing something right! Seriously, have totally given up sugary drinks (exception yesterday when a co-worker bought me Starbucks), cut down on portion sizes, stopped grazing late at night, and try to work out before I eat dinner. If I can keep going at this rate, I'll be more than ready when I finally see my surgeon again.

Yesterday I finally met Dr. Pender. The day was pretty nuts. First of all, I spent most of the time with his intern... who managed to scare me a bit. It was more like attending a lecture than anything else. He said that they'll look to see if I have gall stones, and if so they'll go on and take my gall bladder out. *thud* Yeah, news to me. He also said that they do blood thinners a week before and after surgery... but that since my BMI is over 50 I'd be giving myself the shots for two weeks after.

I was like, "Dude. Shots?" Not that I'm afraid of needles, but ick. My sister wasn't told that when she had her appointment! Or the bit about the gall bladder. What matters most is that he felt my organs and all and told me that I'M AN EXCELLENT CANDIDATE FOR EITHER SURGERY!!!  Anywho, after the intern left Dr. Pender came in for like two minutes. Literally. Still, in that couple of minutes I got a pretty good impression of him and I liked him.

What I didn't like was having my blood gases done.  They drew blood from the vein in my wrist and it hurt horribly. Took the guy two tries, but he was so nice about it-- warned me that it would help and apologized profusely the whole time-- that I didn't express my agony. He told me I was the perfect patient. Heh. Also had my chest x-rays and an EKG. Not that I know muct about the latter, but it looked fine to me. *lol*

Found out my insurance won't accept letters for proof, but will take pics. So now I have my family and friends scrambling to find some of me. Have been assured they will be returned.

Oh, almost forgot... If I can lose at least 16 lbs it will put my BMI under 50-- which means I'll have the option of which surgery I want (my insurance doesn't cover lap band for 50+ BMI) and I won't have an extra week of blood thinners. So my friend Duck is coaching me and telling me to quit worrying because I shouldn't have a problem losing it. I do have until my "Decision Day" at the end of the process to get it done. So my actual pre-op goal will actually be to lose as much as possible, but... 5 lbs at a time.

Every year county employees have to get a wellness check (physical) and earn 2 wellness credits to keep our employers paying our health insurance. So this morning I went in for the annual thing. My BP is still a bit high but I have lost a few pounds.  Nothing major, but enough to encourage me to keep working out when I can.

Chose to hit the place I had one about 3 years back, but they have switched to a fully computerized system and didn't have my old records on file. Bleh. It will take up to 30 days for them to pull the archives and give me documented proof of my weight then. Double bleh.

On the up side, I had no trouble getting documentation from my (soon to be former) PCP, despite my rampant dislike for him. Popped in and spoke with the nurse, who typed it up and got him to initial it in under 5 minutes, the angel.

Two years of proof in the bag, with one more on the way. Hoping that write-ups from an MD and an RN that did not see me as a patient will suffice for the final year of proof for the insurance. If so, it's in the bag. Which means I can stop worrying about that and deal with everything else happening with my family.

The good news is that last week I got a call from ECU. I'd asked last month to be put on the call list for cancellations. So now I've been moved from July to seeing Dr. Pender a week from today. Working on getting my insurance proof together now.

The bad news... is that life is chaos right now. My grandmother is passing away and being at the hospital and now the hospice has wrought havoc on my sleeping and eating schedules. It has been a full week now since she was rushed to the emergency room, and first of all it put my workouts on hold. In addition to that, we're all eating fast food if and when we think about eating. Did buy some new protein bars and fresh veggies I plan to steam tomorrow.

Other somewhat interesting news-- the past two nights I have given up my recliner and tried sitting on an exercise ball. Was Googling chair exercises and found some interesting things about how using a ball promotes "active sitting" and helps burn calories. It is also supposed to be good for the back, plus during downtime it's easy to move into a mini-workout. So I've been sucking in my gut and doing some crunch-style moves along with other little things. If I keep at it I can feel something but how much good it will do remains to be seen.