I’ve had my heart broken starting this process before so I’ve been “gun shy” on this whole thing. I told my wife I won’t believe it’s happening until I wake up from the surgery. Honestly at the rate everything has been moving I thought it’d be sometime next year before the surgery would happen, even though we were shooting to do it in this calendar year (it’s currently early September).
I’ve had 2 visits to the bariatric doctor. My initial visit, and most recently my nutritionist visit. In the process of all of this I have several things, outside of doc visits I need to get done and I’ve been working through that list.
- Lose 25 pounds before surgery – This shouldn’t be a problem. Between my first visit and my nutrition visit I had already lost 11 pounds without making hardly any changes. I’ve since started making tweaks to my diet (upped water intake, tracking food including protein, calories and carbs, etc.) The couple of weeks before the surgery my diet gets radically changed so I don’t see any problem there.
- Bariatric specific bloodwork – I completed this one last week and hopefully the results are already back with the bariatric doc.
- Videos – I’ve been required to watch some videos and do some workbooks. I’ve done the pre-nutritionist half of those and about to start on the other half.
- Endoscopy – Because I deal with heartburn my doc wants me to have an endoscopy. I had a colonoscopy last year so thankfully I don’t have to do that again right now! My endoscopy is coming up next week.
- Coming up with the money – Insurance isn’t covering this at all unfortunately. We’ve got a little bit saved and I’m pretty confident I can get a personal loan for the rest. It’s very daunting but you gotta do what you gotta do.
- Counseling – This was where I was currently stuck.
There are only 2 docs in our town they can refer to for pre-bariatric counseling. It is completely up to that doctor as to how many sessions you have to have. I had my first doc appointment with one of them a couple of weeks ago and I basically sat in his office for an hour while he retyped out everything from my chart (which I had filled out electronically). Other than a couple of questions here and there, that was the whole of the visit.
Then at the end I learned 2 disheartening facts: First that was the visit number one of FOUR. Four one hour visits. UGH! And number two, he is so booked that the next visit was two months out. At the rate of a visit every two months that would be EIGHT MONTHS to finish counseling. Double UGH!
I reached out to my contact at the bariatric doctor and she said she would try for the other counselor. I was supposed to hear from them within a couple of days but I did not. I reached back out to my contact and she tried again. This time the counselor’s office called me.
Not only do they have an appointment for a week and a half out, it’s the ONLY appointment I have to go to with them!
By the time I get that appointment over, that should be my last major hurdle before getting a surgery date!
Guys, this just got a bit more real!