So, first I have to apologize for not having an update recently. I have been making process towards meeting the prerequisites for insurance and the surgery itself, I just kinda let the blog slip.
I have had a few different appointments recently, with a cardiologist, my dietitian and a psychiatrist. Between my appointments and my wife's that I am going to with her I am getting a little tired of doctors offices. We have 2 different offices that we have to go to in the same building at Rose Medical. I actually accidentally went to the wrong office the other day. Luckily I caught myself before walking in, I don't think they would have been able to help me much with my diet since it was my wife's OB/GYN.
I'll start with the Cardiologist. I had to get a cardiac stress test to make sure my heart was healthy enough for surgery. I also have come to the conclusion because of this one that I have an adhesive allergy. When I first got there a really nice lady got me set up with all the sensors on me for monitoring my heart rate, she was really nice but new and apparently needing some more training. All the sensors had to be redone and they had to shave part of my chest for some of them. I ended up with a bunch of red circles from the adhesive form all the sensors, those sensors stayed for about a week and a half.
So after getting that straightened out they got me up on the treadmill and had to get my heart rate up to 165 bpm, they made the treadmill pretty steep and a really fast walk so it didn't take me too long to get up to that point (that is about where I get most of the time when working out so I was tired but alright). The only part that kinda freaked me out is my blood pressure spiked to 200/100. I asked if that was normal for someone my size when working hard, they said that a spike is normal but that was somewhat higher than normal, however they said it returned to normal pretty quickly which set my mind at ease somewhat.
My next appointment was my psych eval. I had actually been looking somewhat forward to this one but it ended up being somewhat undramatic. That is unless you find tests consisting of a combined 800 true/false questions riveting, I do not. I spoke with the psychiatrist for about 20 minutes then took the tests.
I consider myself pretty well rounded and stable from a psychiatric standpoint, granted given enough time I am sure they could diagnose me with something (and my parent might object if they didn't find something wrong with my head), and I do have a history of depression (however that is completely gone now). I wasn't really expecting any surprises from the eval...and I was right, I am a bit like Mary Poppins mentally..."Practically perfect in every way".
They rate candidates on a high, medium and low risk scale. They can't say anyone is a no risk candidate but they said I was at the extreme edge of the low risk range.
My last appointment was my dietitian, this was my 4th appointment in a total of 6 that I have to have. This appointment went fine, no real surprises here. I am still sticking to my diet for the most part and while my weight loss has definitely slowed I am still loosing but the truth is I didn't really need to loose any before the surgery, it's more about making the necessary changes to my diet before surgery than loosing weight, especially since one of the reasons to have the surgery is that normal diets don't work for guys my size.
They have been having me integrate changes into my diet each month in preparation for life after surgery. Last month I supposed to start trying different protein shakes since that is what I will be on for a while immediately after surgery. I have tried a few and really don't have strong opinions on any of them other than I think I will primarily stick to vanilla and fruit ones, chocolate is good but gets old fast.
My change for this month is to stop drinking water with my meals. Actually they say to stop 15 minutes before and not start again until an hour after. Their reason is that with the new configuration of my stomach and the lack of capacity they need the food to stay in the stomach longer and water would wash it thru to quick. This one has actually been easier than I thought it would be.
I am still working on taking small bites, this one has definitely been the most challenging. I think it's because it's the most significant change. We develop our technique for how we eat a meal very early and it is definitely by adulthood an ingrained part of our behavior. Changing something this significant in behavior is hard. but I will master it...eventually.
So I am actually getting really close to having everything in place for the insurance and surgery qualification. I just have to finish out the mandatory 6 month diet (2 more months), take a nutrition class that the hospital does (which I am doing next week) and get everything submitted to insurance.
Hopefully, everything will go smoothly with insurance and I will be scheduled for surgery somewhere around Groundhog day (hopefully I wouldn't have to go thru that day over and over again).
As I mentioned in my last post my wife and I are going to be parents, our due date is May 23rd, needless to say 2012 is gonna be a watershed year for our family. I am hoping I will be able to hit the 40 pounds lost mark in the next month or so and post an updated progress picture, but for now I will post a picture of our little one, enjoy.
Once again thank you for the prayers and support.
