March rolls on by. . .

March has come and gone. Nothing major has changed with this surgical process, just a bunch of WAITING that is driving me CRAZY!! (good thing I've already had my psych consult huh?) Only a few minor details are still left to iron out.

I got all of the bills from my consults. The ensuing arguments about insurance co-pays and what is covered and what goes towards my deductible has been exhausting. And the fact that I changed insurance carriers halfway through this process didn't make things any easier for me either. But, all's well that ends well right? As of March 25, I was completely settled with my consults and the surgeons office for my first visits. It doesn't sound like much, but I'm really glad that its all over with.

I've been continuing to work out at the gym on a fairly regular basis. I try for every other day, taking Fridays and Saturdays off. That's 3 days a week, concentrating on at least 25 minutes of cardio with my heart rate over 165 bpm (yes I know its crazy, but its just how it is for now) and another 25 minutes or so on the weight machines. The weather has also gotten nice, so I've also been trying to walk on my off days at the park or forest preserve that are near my house.

I've also began eliminating things from my diet and habits that I can't have around the time of or after surgery. I started by giving up caffeine, which I can't have for a few weeks before surgery and several months after. I will admit it was difficult, especially the first week. I was seriously wishing there was a group meeting that I could attend called Starbucks Anonymous. But I have done really really well with the no caffeine rule, I've cheated only twice in the last 8 weeks (which anyone who has ever dieted before knows is pretty decent. And I still claim having to be at church before 7am on a Sunday morning deserves a little jolt first). Included in that no caf thing is chocolate. I understand there is minimal caffeine in chocolate, but I'm doing my best to stay away from it, too. The next thing I gave up was alcohol. I have problems talking about giving up the booze, because it makes me sound like an alcoholic, which I am NOT. But I LIKE martinis and wine, and every now and then a cold Blue Moon. But I did give it all up about 3 weeks ago and its been going fine. Its just hard to watch the other people around you enjoying things you KNOW taste good. (But I get the feeling that might be a recurring theme in my future, so I guess it good to practice now)

I will admit the hardest part of this whole process has been telling people. I don't think the fear that I have of telling people goes any farther than openly admitting to having a problem that I can't handle on my own. But the fear is still there and the last 6 weeks or so, I've started to tell some people and each time I tell someone it seems to get easier and easier. I feel pretty good that basically all of my family and all of my friends know. (And it makes life smoother when people aren't thinking I'm pregnant when I pass on the cocktails-which someone did ask me). The strange part of telling people are the few random people that tell me "I know someone that had that done and it didn't go well for them." I would like to ask these people (but didn't because I'm apparently too polite) what the hell they're thinking? If someone says to you, "Hey I bought new car,' you don't say, 'I know someone who almost died in car accident a few years ago.'

Anyway, (I'm gonna move on from that because I could really call some people out on that one. Like my boss) this week on Thursday I have my April weigh in. As you probably remember, I have to lose 6 pounds over a 3 month period. When I weighed in at the beginning of March, I was down about 6 pounds, so all I had to do was maintain it for another month, as of this morning, I'm unofficially down 12.5 lbs, so as long as I can stay where I'm at, I will be a happy camper :)

If all goes according to plan, my full insurance application will be sent out at the end of the week. I'm told it usually takes the insurance company about 3 weeks to respond (but lets be more realistic and say a month?). After the insurance approval goes through, the surgeons office is scheduling surgeries about 3 weeks out. So I'm still shooting for mid-May for surgery, but only time will tell (but seriously, I think all this waiting is going to KILL me soon!).

February's Work

FEB 2, 2010
This is the day of my first 'group meeting' through the surgeons office. I'll admit I was a little nervous going into this. I wasn't exactly sure what a 'group meeting' involved and since I rarely consider myself a joiner, that kind of meeting seemed a little much for me. But as its all part of the process, I conjured up my bravery and set off to the meeting. I checked in at the surgeons office and was weighed in (actually GAINING weight from my last appointment). Then I was sent off to a conference room, where my fellow surgery patients awaited the start of this meeting. Promptly 45 minutes after the designated start time, the nurse began to talk. (By the way, have I ever told you how much late people bug me? If I'm on time, shouldn't you be too? Just saying. . .) The one thing that strikes me about the surgeon's staff is that most, if not all of them, are former bariatric patients. I guess that is a good way to be able to relate to your patients and it definitely gives them an understanding of whats going on. In my experience, it also gives them an attitude of "been there, done that," which I'm not exactly appreciating right now. It was during the nurses not so rousing pep talk, that I realized that this meeting was more like a lecture on the insurance process and how we should all be on a 1200 calorie diet starting now. Yeah right. A nutritionist came in to talk about our diet over the next 3 months. I don't care what anybody else says, if you're overweight, you NEVER want to hear a size 2 lecture you on eating habits. As soon as she walked in the door I completely zoned out. Like she has ANY idea about eating habits of an obese person (and no, she wasn't one of the former surgical patients- THAT would have been an advertisement). So basically what I took away from that meeting was, for my insurance to pay for my surgery, I have to show a good faith effort and lose 6 pounds over a 3 month medically supervised weight loss period. 6 pounds total? Sounds easy enough to me. Now, can the ultra thin, anorexic looking nutritionist PLEASE SHUT UP?!? (Actually after the insurance talk, she did shut up. And the silence was the best thing I'd heard all day).

FEB 11 & 12, 2010
11 days into the month and I finally got my new insurance card for my new insurance carrier. I quickly faxed it over to my favorite insurance specialist at the surgeons office. The next day, I received a call from her that I finally have confirmation that I am DEFINITELY covered by insurance for some form of bariatric surgery. I still don't know which ones, but according to the insurance specialist, my new carrier is very good about covering whatever the doctor requests. So that was a VERY good day.

FEB 16, 2010
Its echo day! I'm mostly excited about this test, but I have NO idea why. Why would I be excited about getting pictures taken of my heart? I don't know, but I am. I was also excited that I took the whole day off for this test, but I didn't have to be there until the afternoon, so I spent the morning watching Olympic curling. I still don't fully understand that sport, but I like watching it! Anyway, I got to the office, met my echo tech and we got right to work. She started by taking the regular echo pictures. Mostly that didn't really involve anything major for me other than laying on the exam table quietly, but there were some times I felt like she was really jamming that wand in to my chest. And I don't care how hard you push, my ribs aren't going anywhere. Then, she hooked me up to a 10 lead EKG (which doesn't sound like much but that's a lot of wires hanging off your chest!) and called in a nurse for my stress echo. Now, I'm going to try to make this next part seem as dramatic as it actually was, but I will warn you that it seemed like a really BIG deal at the time. So, they put me on a treadmill and asked me to walk. The first 3 minutes were nice and slow. Then the treadmill jumped speeds and it was a little faster. At some point I asked how long I would be on the treadmill and the answer was until my heart rate reach 190 bmp. Are you F-ing kidding me? 190?!?!? So I walked for the next 3 minutes until the treadmill jumped speeds again. I'm not a runner and probably hadn't been on a treadmill since high school gym class! This was getting WAY out of control and I could hardly keep up! I made it about 8 minutes and my heart rate hit 185bmp when the nurse called it. And when I say she called it, I mean: she hit a red PANIC button on the treadmill which DEAD STOPPED while I was walking/running on it. Not cool. Then the echo tech was yelling for me to get on the table for the echo because apparently she only had 1 minute to get all the pictures of my heart she needed OR, I'D HAVE TO DO THIS ALL OVER. NO THANK YOU! (Note: This is still stressful for me and I'm typing this part SO fast. . .time to slow it down. . .) But everything worked out well and she got all pictures she needed. Start to finish, I was only in the doctors office for about 45 minutes. Well, I'm glad a took an ENTIRE day of vacation for this, but I did glimpse my Cardio-god on the way out. Also on the positive side, before my echo, my blood pressure was pretty high. After it was over, it had dropped back to a normal level, which the tech said was a side effect of the exercise.
Now doesn't that just open a brand new can of worms?

So I'm still awaiting my echo results. I have an appointment tomorrow for those. And I've made some progress on the side effects of exercise, and that will be my next post.