Consults, Part 1

JAN 21, 2010

Today, my surgical clearance consults began! I began my morning with a venti, non-fat, no whip white mocha at Starbucks and I was off to visit the psychologist for a written exam. As I entered the office I found the place to be comforting and quaint (which is probably good for that kind of office), but there were these weird machines all over the place making strange noises and the whole office smelled like oranges. I had trouble figuring the place out. The receptionist put me in a room with a laptop and a desk. As she was explaining to me the procedure, I learned that there was a questionnaire about eating habits and weight loss. Then there was an 'exam' of sorts on the computer that asked all sorts of questions about my personality that was about 180 questions long. Then, she said the final 'exam' on the computer was 500 questions long. Seriously?!? You want me to answer 680 questions about my personality? The thought running through my head was, "You're gonna fail, you're gonna fail, you're gonna fail." Great, where do I put THAT thought? (Again MSN, still waiting on that sarcasm font). But I sat down and got to it. Really most of the questions were true/false or yes/no and a good majority of them looked very similar, mostly like, "Do you hear voices?" "Is the man in your TV trying to tell you something?" "Do you feel like there is someone standing over your shoulder right now?" Ok, I'll have to admit, I did look behind me after that one. So how do I answer? For the long test, all questions were T/F so I kind of got in a rhythm to get them answered quickly and I think I missed about 4 questions. So all in all, not so bad.

JAN 22, 2010
The next day, I had to go back to the office with the strange machines on the floors that smelled like oranges to meet with my shrink. I've never seen a shrink, except when my parents divorced when I was about 7. But that really doesn't count because I distinctly remember lying to that guy. (Hmmm maybe shouldn't tell my new shrink about that one huh?) The first thing he did after introducing himself was explain to me that the machines on the floor were white noise so people couldn't hear conversations of the patients. Ahhh, light dawns on Marblehead. (50 bonus points if you get the 80s movie reference). Now, you have to understand that I felt like a was pretty messed up in the head and I wasn't exactly sure how this was going to go. I had made myself a promise that I would be completely honest, no matter how crazy it made me sound. But you know what? Some of you might disagree, but according to my shrink, I'm perfectly normal in my brain. Whoa! Seriously?!? The 3 issues that I thought for sure I'd get hung up on were my parents divorce, my grandmothers death, and a particularly painful breakup. Nope, my reactions and feelings were normal, normal, and slightly vengeful, but normal. All I can say is: ?!?!?!? He asked my about bariatric surgery and my ability to follow through. And I was surprised at how much I actually knew about the procedure and the recovery process (I HAD been doing a lot of research). At the end of my hour, he shook my hand and told me he'd write up my clearance and get it sent to the surgeon in about a week. Wow! This was the most painless process.

One down. 2 to go.

JAN 26, 2010
Its pulmonology day! I will admit that I was slightly annoyed that I had to take off work to go see this guy because "he only sees new patients during the day." I don't find that practice to be all that accommodating, but really what his office was telling me was, show up and I'll sign your permission slip. Basically my clearance procedure included a tech of some sort sticking me in a chamber and sealing it off and making me breathe oddly in a tube. That process took about an hour. Then I waited almost another hour to see the doctor. He and I spoke for exactly 6 minutes and he said, "Thanks for coming in. Good luck with surgery." I physically watched him write "CLEARED" in big sloppy handwriting on the jacket of my chart. As I walked up front to check out, he tossed my chart and the receptionist and said, we have a form letter in the file. Put her name on it and send it to the surgeon. Well thanks for your time, Doc. By the way, did you want to look at the chest Xray you requested? No, you think the radiologist had it under control? Oh yes, I feel super confident in your abilities.

Now I have 2 done and cleared. Just the cardiologist left and more on him in my next post!