I have never mentioned it here before but my surgery was performed at Toronto Western Hospital on January 25th by the wonderful and talented Dr. Penner and his team of operating room folks.  Leading up to my surgery day I thought that I would feel like a big ball of nerves because let’s face it I cried like a baby the night before my c-section to have my daughter…but nope not one tear was shed.  In fact it was quite the opposite experience for me!  The night before my surgery I peacefully slept the entire night and woke up in time to see my son off to school and then we were off to the hospital to get all registered and ready for surgery!

It was when I learned who my surgeon would be at Toronto Western Hospital that I felt the only real nervous emotion of the day primarily because I didn’t know much about this particular doctor but in the end everything went off without a hitch.  Everything unfolded quite quickly and before I knew it I was in the operating room and drifting off to sleep!  I even joked as the doctors and I were walking down the long quiet hallway towards operating room #10 that if anybody shouted “dead woman walking” they were going to get it!  It felt like I had only just closed my eyes when they were opening up in the recovery room and I could hear voices all around me talking.  I don’t remember feeling any pain because as the doctor had promised he had given me the “good drugs” but I do remember hearing over and over again “sleeve gastrectomy” so much so that I was thinking they were talking about someone else!  It wasn’t until I heard my name followed by those words that I realized something had not gone right in the operating room!

After a good amount of time in the waiting room they finally wheeled me out and it was once I was in my room (a private room…score!) that I learned from the hubby and my mother that they could not perform the RNY surgery as expected because I had a non-rotation of my intestines that made it pretty much impossibly safe to perform.  I was totally sad and bummed to learn that I had received the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy and I was full of fear that this surgery was not the right surgery for me based on the fact that I had almost 200 pounds to lose from my start weight.  I am still coming to terms with this fact and I believe eventually I may be very happy about my surgery but it still makes me nervous and I had had a long difficult recovery thus far.

What I do know is that I am putting my best foot forward and I am going to give it every amount of effort that I can to make this surgery work in my favour.  I really hope I can rock this sleeve!

If you had asked me 26 days ago that I would be capable of going 26 days without eating food I would have thought it were an impossible task that I was likely incapable of.  The truth of the matter is I thought I would totally flake out and have a few cheats along the journey but aside from one accidental spoon taste of sauce when I was cooking spaghetti sauce for my family I have managed to make it here to-day freaking 16.  I feel invincible.  When I think that the good majority of people who do the Optifast diet only have to do it for two weeks it astounds me that I have managed to make it nearly four weeks so far.  I am a bloody rock star!!

So far depending on the scale and what type of mood it is in I have lost about 20-23 pounds so far during the Optifast phase which is awesome considering the fact that it’s only been 26 days!  I feel really happy to say that (even though Optifast isn’t about the weight loss but rather the liver fixin) because I had a horrible start out of the gate with Optifast.  It took me about 11 days of near starvation before I finally realized that I was allergic to the preservative in the vanilla Optifast and needed to stop it but so far with the chocolate I have managed to survive.  The saving grace for me was going against the advice of everyone and NOT blending the drinks!  The easiest way has been just 6 ice cubes, lots of cold water, chocolate optifast, and shake shake shake!! Optifast has been a hard swift kick in the ass for me and some days I have managed just 1 or 2 shakes plus broth and sugar-free jello but on other days I’ve been able to get three of them down and those have been the days that I feel the best.  My goal for the next three days is to get 3 shakes in a day for the next 3 days leading up to surgery so that I am all rejuvenated and full of calories going into my surgery!  Game on!!

Since I last blogged about my experiences I have visited the hospital and had my pre-operative assessment where I was poked and prodded and visited by three Christmas spirits…ummm I mean visited with the pharmacist, nurse, and anesthetist. I have to say the highlight of the 3.5 hour hospital visit was the wonderful test for MRSA that included arm pit, groin, and nasal swabs plus a swab down through the old butt crack.  Lovely!  Once the pre-op assessment was over I felt like this was finally it!  A year of waiting was finally coming to an end and in 4 days it is finally my turn at last!

Just got back from a trip to Costco where I picked up the last of my vitamins and some Premier Protein shakes!  Stocked the fridge with some post-surgery essentials like soups, applesauce, and greek yogurt and am now getting ready to make some dinner for the family!

Here is what my post-surgical vitamin is going to look like! Just adding this at the end in case anyone is interested!

Breakfast – 1 BA ADEK Multivitamin (this pill has no iron in it) & BA 500mg Chocolate Calcium with D3

Lunch -  1 BA ADEK Multivitamin (this pill has no iron in it) & BA 500mg Chocolate Calcium with D3

Dinner – 2 FeraMAX Polysaccharide-Iron Complex or 2 Proferrin Heme Iron Supplement.

I plan to take my B12 via a once monthly injection from my doctor.

In the Ontario program OHIP requires that patients undergoing gastric bypass surgery go on a pre-surgical diet designed to shrink their liver and lucky me I get to do this diet starting today!  While on this diet you are required to drink 4 Optifast (Chocolate or Vanilla) shakes per day and can have as much 10 cal per serving soup broth, jello, or sugar-free popscicles as your little heart desires.  In addition to this you can drink unlimited amounts of water and can also have straight up coffee, tea, and diet beverages such as pop or crystal light.

This morning was Day 1 for me on Optifast and it certainly had its ups and downs.   I had an opportunity to sample the Optfiast shakes at my Nutrition Class and it made me dry heave so it’s fair to say my anxiety levels were really high when I had to finally start the liquid diet.  The first shake of the morning went in very easily (It was chocolate) and I felt like I could totally do this!  Later in the afternoon I had another Chocolate shake and then some chicken broth which also went in perfectly well!  It wasn’t until around dinner time that I really started encountering a problem….VANILLA!  Ick…that stuff just does not settle well in my stomach at all!  I tried it first blended with ice and extra water as I had been doing with the chocolate but the taste was just too overwhelming and my gag reflex started battling against the drink.  I decided to follow some of the advice of friends from the Obesity Help community and added some Crystal Light to it but still no-go!  I only got about two-thirds of the way through it before I knew that if I didn’t stop that shake would be coming back up! So, I dumped the shake and had some more broth…later that night I had some beef broth and went to bed.

Overall at the end of my first day of Optifast I think I’m doing ok, not fantastic, but not terrible either.  I feel a little tired, a little hungry, and have a small headache happening but nothing that isn’t too terrible at this point.  I’ve heard that the first 3-5 days are the hardest and I imagine I am going to have some harder days than day 1 but for now I am just trying to be optimistic and look forward towards my surgical day.

I am a complete and utter blogging failure!  It’s true!  I have had all sorts of good intentions about updating this blog over the last little while but I just have not been able to find the time to do so.  If you know me (as some of you readers do)….You know that life has had it’s fair share of bumps, hurdles, and blunders over the last little while all of which have prevented me from having even a spare moment of time to sit down and spit out updates and information in my blog.  The good new is…..I am BACK with an update at last and we can all return now to our regularly scheduled programming here.

The last blog entry I had spoken about the super cool oh my god I don’t have sleep apnea results I received and in that post I mentioned I had some surprisingly good news to share but failed to come back to share it!  The short of the already short story is that the sleep study specialist I saw was also one of the psychiatrists for the Bariatric Program and Ta-Da! he did my psych assessment on the same day as my sleep study results……thereby saving me nearly a month in the process of waiting for surgery!  The psych assessment was easy breezy and only took about a half hour…the only complicated part of it was that I had my daughter (aged 2 going on 14) with me during the assessment and she was totally enamored with all the little tidbits and knick knacks within the office so I was a little distracted throughout the entire thing!

Bottom line from the appointment you ask?

There are no psychiatric issues currently present in my life that will prevent me from being approved for surgery….Win! I got out of there as fast as I could before he could change his mind! All I had left to do at that point with meet with the Dietician and then bingo bango they would let me know if I would be approved for surgery! Ah how simple it all seems to type it out like that when what has happened since they has not been so simple at all!

Not too long after I had my appointment with the sleep specialist/psychiatrist I met with the Dietician and I have to say (and believe me I have a lot of experiences with dieticians to compare)….that the Dietician Katie who I met with for my nutrition assessment has to be one of the most awesome people I have met who work in this field!  For once in my life it was so easy to talk to her without feeling like she had eyes of judgement upon me….it felt like she actually frickin cared about what I was saying and showed some compassion for the fact that hello this damn weight loss journey has sucked, totally sucked.  I am happy I will get to work with her during the five years of follow-up with the program – I feel like we’re a good a match.  At that appointment we had a discussion about my preference of hospital for surgery and she made note of it in my file and said it shouldn’t be a problem since I was willing to be patient and wait for the opportunity to be at the main hospital in the program (which is closer to my house) -  we spent about 40 minutes talking about my understanding of the surgery and the different stages of eating post-op and also the vitamin regimen that I would have to take for the rest of my life….in the end she felt there wouldn’t be a reason why I would be NOT approved for the surgery!  Awesomeness! I was feeling pretty fantastic when I left there!  It was like being on cloud nine…I didn’t have a care in the world and felt like nothing could knock me down but boy oh boy did that change pretty dramatically!

I plan to talk about some of the hurdles I’ve faced since that appointment in a another blog post because I believe they just warrant their own attention so stay tuned for another update…and real soon I promise!

If you haven’t and you are facing a sleep study in the near future…I will pray for you.  I’d like to say I’m joking but the fact of that matter is that I recently had a sleep study and it was likely the worst sleep I have ever had in my entire life.  Period.  As a part of the process for my referral to weight loss surgery I had to go get a sleep study done – this was being done to rule out sleep apnea which can cause surgical complications related to the anesthetic. I got the call just a few days after my referral to the sleep centre (which was surprising based on the weight times for some sleep clinics in the city) and they asked me to come in the following day for a sleep test.  I was provided with a lot of instructions like to arrive at 830pm, do not bring my own pillow, and refrain from drinking caffeine the day of the study…but none of them prepared me for the night that was about to transpire.

I arrived at the sleep centre on time and was quickly introduced to my technician who took me around the centre for the tour.  The Sleep Centre was quite large and could sleep 9 people all in private rooms, each technician responsible for monitoring 3 patients each.  There was a television room, bathrooms, showers, a set-up room, rooms where all of the computers and surveillance took place, and then the bedrooms.  “Jing” the kind technician I was assigned too showed me to my room and I stood in the door just kind of blinking for a minute – we had just toured the entire Sleep Centre and every room had a double or queen sized bed but the room I was in had a single bed – A SINGLE bed…not even a twin bed. I stood there scratching my head for a minute wondering how the hell I was going to smush my morbidly obese self into a bed that wasn’t even as tall as I was…never mind the width.  I guess Jing had no clue what I was thinking because she quickly ushered me to get into my pajamas so that she could get me “all hooked up and ready to go”.  I closed the door as Jing left, got changed, and laid down on the bed for a moment – I could fit width wise but barely – one quick movement in either direction would surely send me tumbling to the floor…but the worst was that my feet hung over the bottom of the bed – EPIC.  I just shook my head and sighed – why had they chosen to put me in this room?  All of the other people at the clinic were barely overweight…nevermind mordibly obese and referred through the Bariatric Centre whom they frequently deal with.  I decided to just make the best of it at that moment and opened to door to let Jing in to do the work she needed to do.  It took about 20 minutes to get me all hooked up with what seemed like a million wires coming from my face, head, and legs – plus the two bands that had to go around my abdomen and chest and then the 2 tubes that had to go around my face and into my nose like oxygen prongs would – I looked at myself horrified in the mirror and couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of me.  Jing asked me what time I thought I’d fall asleep and I felt it would be around 11pm; she left me to read in my room and came back when it was time for “lights out”.  After laying in the bed for an hour I decided I needed to say something about the size of the bed and wondered to Jing how they had made the decision that I would be in this bedroom and she reflected that she didn’t understand it, that the room was usually reserved for smaller patients or teens, and that it is the day time appointment people who decide who goes where – I guess I can’t blame Jing – poor girl…she actually felt bad for me.

It took me a while to fall asleep – about 45 minutes according to the doctor who analyzed my sleep study and through the night I tossed and turned quite horribly and I was sure that I had hardly slept when Jing came to wake me up at 6:45 am like I had asked (I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could).  I filled out the “how do you feel after your sleep” questionnaire and an evaluation of the clinic where I noted and expressed frustration over the size of the bed and then I was out of there as fast as my feet could carry me; they told me it would take about 2-3 days for the doctor’s office to follow up with me.

The doctor’s office just as Jing had told me, called about 3 days later with an appointment (about 2 weeks later) for me to see the doctor.  I suddenly felt nervous!  I didn’t want to be told that I had sleep apnea but about 8 years ago I was told that I did have sleep apnea so I was prepared to hear that I did and stressed about the possibility of sleeping with a CPAP machine again after all of this time without it (I never found it helpful and never felt rested after sleeping with it).  I arrived and met with the doctor and his exact words were “I have great news for you Melissa!  You do not have sleep apnea and will not require treatment”.

BEST

NEWS

I’VE

HEARD

IN

A

LONG

WHILE!!

Apparently I slept for a total of almost 5 hours and it took me 45 minutes to fall asleep.  During the night I was awake at one point for a period of 1 hour which I knew about…it was around 430 in the morning when I needed to go to the bathroom and didn’t want to bother the tech to get me all unhooked – eventually she came in, I relieved my bladder, and I was hooked back up and fell back asleep.  During that night I had a few very short times where I held my breath while sleeping but apparently this is normal and no indicative of Sleep Apnea that requires treatment – my oxygen levels were perfect all night long!  Woohoo! I was really happy to hear this news and as it turns out the doctor provided me with a nice surprise and some good news before I left but that is a whole different blog post!

Yesterday the husband and I were off to the hospital to attend the 2 hour Nutrition Class with the Bariatric Clinic and it was definitely informative but also overwhelming at the same time.  When we arrived there were another 6 or 7 people also waiting to go into the class and I felt grateful for the small class size which would allow the opportunity to ask lots of questions as needed.  We started the appointment by going through the basic alterations that are made during the surgery to your anatomy and talked about how your new stomach will process food differently than your old stomach which led us to a discussion about the ways you’re supposed to eat post-operatively.

I have learned so much by being a part of the Obesity Help forums so not a lot of things came as a surprise to me – but despite this I enjoyed myself and felt like the information is starting to really become implanted in my memory.  The biggest thing that stood out to me when we were talking about post-op diet is the importance of eating your protein first.  Protein is necessary for healing, preventing protein malnutrition, encouraging fat loss over muscle loss, and to minimize hair loss – I plan to really make this my focus every day – and get in as much protein as possible.  In the beginning when you are not eating solid foods you can get extra protein through protein supplements like a pure protein powder or a protein shake.  A good portion of the class was spent talking about different ways that you can get your protein in and looking at the labels of protein supplements to learn what would be a good choice vs a not so good choice after surgery – over all I found this particularly helpful.

Next we spent some time talking about why you need to take vitamin and mineral supplements after having your surgery and the reasons for this are because a lot of vitamins (calcium, vitamin D, B12, and Iron) are normally absorbed from food as it passes through your duodenum  and since food will no longer enter this portion of your small intestine it is important to get as much in as possible to maximize your absorption – I know I will have to take these vitamins for the rest of my life and I am quite ok with that.  The basics are that after surgery I will need to take 2 multivitamins and 2 calcium with vitamin D per day and then I can take either a daily chewable, 2 sublingual strips a week, or 1 monthly injection of B12 – I think I am going to start by trying the 2 sublingual strips a week and see how that goes.  In general this is how my vitamin break down will look because the multi vitamin and calcium can’t be taken close together:

Breakfast – 2 chewable multivitamins

Lunch – Calcium with Vitamin D

Dinner or Evening Snack – Calcium with Vitamin D

Vitamin B 12 – at any time.

I think that is a really simple schedule to keep track of and with the help of the alarm on my iPhone I figure I’ll get by ok.

After this we talked a little about the pre and post – op diet and the schedule I will be on to re-introduce foods.  We got an opportunity to sample the optifast shakes that I have to take for 3-4 weeks prior to surgery and I can honestly say they taste like horse poop – there is something in the texture of them that hits my gag reflex in a very bad way so I am going to have to get really creative in making them taste good enough to bear for the duration of the pre-op diet – yuck – thankfully you are allowed to add sugar-free syrups and crystal lite to the shakes to make them taste better and I plan to try using my magic bullet to blend them with water – oh gosh I hope this all helps!  Here is the breakdown of what pre and post op diet will look like….

3-4 Weeks Pre- Op – Optifast Shakes (x4 a Day) plus soup broth and sugar free jello.

1-2 Days Post-Op : Clear Fluids

Weeks 1 & 2 Post-Op:  Liquid Diet that includes high protein milk based products like creamed soups.

Weeks 3 & 4 Post-Op: Puree Diet where everything you eat should be puree.

Weeks 4 to 8 Post-Op:  Soft Diet

Weeks 8 and Onward Post-Op:  Regular Diet

The nutritionist shared some things tha are important to always remember post-op and I felt it important to share them here:

1.  Separate liquids from your meals by 30 minutes.

2. Eat and drink slowly – small bites or sips.

3. Chew your food very thoroughly.

4. Concentrate on eating – avoid distractions.

5.  Pay attention to how full you feel and never eat until you feel stuffed.

6. Don’t go more than 4 hours without eating.

I think that’s a pretty good outline of the things that we talked about – I hope to start practice the above list while I wait for surgery!

I haven’t checked in on the blog for a while because lately I just haven’t had any time to do so.  I have had one of the best summers ever with my family and now as it is coming to a close I know that I will find the time to continue sharing the ups and downs (literally) of my weight loss efforts.  Since the last time that I wrote there has definitely been some progress in my quest to be approved for weight loss surgery.

At the end of July I had my appointment with the Nurse Practitionner over at the hospital and while my nerves were totally upside down I feel the appointment went relatively well.  When I first got to the hospital and checked in I had to wait for a small time but eventually the NP came out and off we went to get weighed.  Getting weighed has never been a good experience for me but this time I felt relatively confident in what my weight was and I was bang on – the number I had in my head matched the number on the scale perfectly.  The nurse and I went to a room and there she did an extensive medical history, listened to my heart, felt my stomach, did my blood pressure, etc.  The entire appointment lasted about 45 minutes and then before I knew it our time was done and I was told that she wanted me to get an abdominal ultrasound but that based on my current symptoms she didn’t feel that I needed to have a sleep study.  Awesome!  I left the appointment knowing my next one would be with the social worker in just a weeks time.

The week passed by quickly and before I knew it I was back in the waiting room for my social work appointment – I don’t know why (since I work in the field) but I felt particularly more nervous about this appointment than the previous one and that anxiety was boosted when the social worker I was originally going to meet was replaced with a different one.  As it turns out I found this social worker to be wonderful and the appointment passed by quickly.  A lot of people ask questions about what happens at these appointments and from what I’ve heard they are different for everyone but mine was focused on the kinds of supports I had at home, any opposition I might have been facing in regards to the surgery, the possibility of developing other addictions aside from food, and my own mental health history.  The social worker also asked a lot of questions about the expectations I had for the surgery and whether or not I was education about the procedures – turns out I was very ready and she seemed quite content with my responses. I was really excited at the end of the appointment to learn that I would be able to go out front and get the next round of appointments so off I went and after some fiddling in the computer I was able to get my appointments for the Nutrition Class, Dietician, and Psych Assessment – the only downside is that those appointments are not until October and November….guess my hopes of a November surgery are out the door – bummer – but….

Everything good is worth waiting for – right?

Remember that goal I posted about over a week ago?

GOAL ACCOMPLISHED!

I didn’t blog about it because I didn’t want to feel awful about myself if I wasn’t able to do it but as of today I am now 2 whole weeks without one single drop of diet coke.  Do you know what a big deal this is?  I feel so happy about it that I could scream.  For those of you who know me you all know just how addicted to diet coke I have been and for those who don’t know me let me tell you just how addicted I was.

When I woke up in the morning the first thing I thought about was how quickly I could have a diet coke – I justified this by telling myself that it was sugar-free and people have coffee in the morning which quite frankly isn’t any better than diet coke AND it sometimes has sugar in it!!  So in my mind I was making an even better choice than those people who chose coffee with cream and sugar!  Boo-yah!!  I would drink diet coke continually through the day and on most days I wouldn’t even have a single drop of anything else to drink…that’s where the problem really existed.  I know my body was likely needing the water it so desperately craved to function properly but yet the pull, the need, the craving to have diet coke was just too profound – it always and I mean ALWAYS won out over anything else…on some days I felt I couldn’t function without it.

I know that diet coke is not good for me AND I have given it up before – during each of my pregnancies I gave up diet coke because I felt the aspartame and caffeine wasn’t good for my unborn children…..BUT I could never really do it for me.  Why not?  Am I not important too?  I realize now that I am 2 whole weeks without it that it makes me crave snacky foods – is this some kind of crazy trick by the creators of the drink?  I have no idea really but I do believe that since I have given it up I have found myself feeling hungry less often so I am quite pleased to see it gone from my life.

This is the last time I am giving it up – I simply can not go back to it ever.  After I have the surgery this fall I will not be permitted to drink the coke ever again – this is the mentality that I must adapt for myself because I have heard that several years down the road people are back to their old habits and drinking pop like crazy again – not me!  I am not planning on turning myself into fraken-mama by messing with my insides just to ruin it all with a drink that quite frankly doesn’t taste very good anyway. 

So sianara diet coke – I’m breaking up with you and this time for good!

At my orientation for weight loss surgery I was given a sheet of paper that talked about goal setting and encouraged you to think about the strategies you were going to use to accomplish them… holy hell it’s just like what I do at work with my clients!  (insert laugh at myself here) So I was reviewing some of their suggested goals and these are the ones I’ve decided to work on in preparation for my upcoming surgery:

1.  I will practice chewing my food until it is mushy.

2.  I will begin practicing putting down while eating.

3.  I will keep a journal (blog) of my weight loss journey.  I may include feelings, concerns, questions, body measurements, etc.

4.  I will attend the support group at the hospital.

5.  I will stop drinking diet coke in preparation for the post surgical lifestyle.

6.  I will stop late night snacking.

I think that those six goals are a good place to start!  The first four were goals from their list of goals to choose from and the last two are goals that I came up with for my own self as I feel they are important.  The paperwork from the hospital asks me to answer some questions about each goal so I’m going to do them one at a time here so that I can figure them all out in time for my next appointment.

Goal One

Identify what you want.

After surgery I will not be permitted to drink carbonated beverages and right now I drink a lot of diet coke every single day and often go through an entire day without a single glass of water. I know that water is necessary to keep my body hydrated after surgery and for the rest of my life but the struggle is that diet coke is loaded with caffeine which is high addictive so it is going to take a good amount of effort to be able to refrain from drinking it.

What is my goal?

My goal is to eliminate diet pop completely from my life.

What would be the evidence that I am making progress towards my goal?

I would not crave a diet coke first thing in the morning.

I would be drinking more water than diet coke.

I will eventually be drinking ZERO diet coke.

Identify challenges and strategies linked to the goal.

CHALLENGES:

caffeine addiction, withdrawal symptoms, other people around me drinking pop, not used to drinking anything else.

STRATEGIES:

increase water intake, go to bed earlier in the night to get more rest (when possible), use pain killers to get through headaches.

What can I tell myself to help me achieve me goal?

If I don’t quit the diet coke then I cannot have surgery.

Diet coke makes me crave snacks and snacks make me gain weight – I do not want to gain weight.

By quitting diet coke and elimination pop from the house I am being a good example to my children whom I do not wish to have pop.

What are my internal supports to help me achieve my goal?

Positive self talk, push myself drink water first before diet coke, remember the fact that I’ve quit diet coke in both of my pregnancies.

What are my external supports to help me achieve my goal?

Mike has agreed not to bring any more pop into the house, my colleagues are all aware of the surgery and willing to support me at work, I plan to attend the weight loss surgery support group at the hospital.

The day finally arrived!  Yesterday the hubby and I were of to the hospital for my the second step in my quest for weight loss surgery (the first step having been the actual referral to the Bariatric Registry).  I had heard that the hospital was working on sending out orientation letters for January referrals but there was a postal strike so I thought I`d likely have to wait a while before I actually attended an orientation – but nope they called and off I went to get the process started…finally.  YES!

I was happy that my husband was able to get the time off work to come with me and when the day finally arrived I thought I’d be nervous but I was actually more excited than anything else!  We got there about 10 minutes early and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had chairs (with arm rests I might add) that were meant for overweight people and for the first time in god knows how long I didn’t have to squeeze my giant arse into a way too small chair – thank you to the respectful thoughtful people who made sure those were present at the orientation session!  I super puffy heart love you.  We were one of the first people to arrive and it was interesting to watch as the people all arrived and took their seats – much to my surprise I was definitely and obviously one of the youngest people in the room – if I had to guess I’d say about 3 or 4 of the attendees were in my age group and the rest were all much older but it’s hard to tell – being obese can sometimes make you look older than you truly are.  It wasn’t long before the session started and we were all handed out these great big packages full of questionnaires to fill out before our next appointments and copies of the things that would be shown in the power point presentation….when we had all finished filling out our contact information sheet the orientation began.

I’ve got to say that there was not a lot of information that I learned at the orientation session that I had not already learned on my own through research but it was still so exciting just to be here.  I felt sad for some of the question a few of the people were asking because it was so obvious they needed this surgery as badly as me but some of their thoughts about having to give up some of their favourite foods was just disheartening – as for me…I’m ready to give up whatever I have to in order to be able to get outside of this trap of a body I’m in…this process couldn’t possibly move any faster for me!  The one thing I did learn that was quite a relief is that the hospital which I am going through has not had a single death in their program related to the surgery!  Great news in my opinion!

When the orientation was over I received my next two appointments – one to see the nurse practitioner and the second to see the social worker!  I have to call and try to rebook the first appointment because it’s scheduled for a time when we are hopefully going to be out of country but I am willing to stay home from vacation if I am unable to change it for a sooner date!  I am so tired of waiting for this process but thankful that it is providing me with the opportunity to really know what I’m getting myself into here!  I have pages and pages of questionnaires to fill out for my psychosocial assessment and some of the questions make me crack up but I do realize that if the question exists then there must be some people out there that have those struggles and it makes me feel kind of sad that some people have to live with those thoughts in their head!

So I’ve got to get that homework done, set some goals for myself, and rebook my nurses appointment!

And………………………  GO!!