In the Beginning

This is the beginning of a journey that I have been waiting for, for a long time. I am writing this down to share with myself and anyone who is interested. I am about to have gastric bypass surgery. I have been overweight by over 100 pounds for most of my adult life. I now weigh in at 366 pounds and I am 5'6" tall. I have been un-insurable for years due to my weight and complications of being overweight. I was self employed for years , but due to health issues decided to get a regular job so I could join a group and be accepted with insurance.

I was referred by my Primary Care Physician to a surgeon . I went for my first time a few
week ago to Dr. Smiths office. I participated in a class that helped me decide which surgery was
best for me and I decided on Gastric Bypass Surgery and decided to have Dr. Sherman Smith as my surgeon.

I expected to have a long wait to get approved for the insurance. It took me such a long time to get to the place where I was at this crossroads in my life. My understanding was that I would have to go through many hoops for approval from my insurance company. Much to my surprise
it only took a couple of weeks for me to get a call from the Dr.'s office to tell me to plan on having
surgery on November 11, 2009.

I was in shock. I didn't think I'd get an answer until at least January of the following year. I immediately had about four anxiety attacks. Not about what would happen after the surgery just about the surgery itself. After a few days I got over the anxiety of having surgery. I know I am much better off going into surgery prepared, then being at this weight and having to have emergency surgery for something else that I wasn't mentally or physically prepared for.

Since that time I went in for an exam and another class. I was told I needed to be on a thousand calorie diet for two weeks before my surgery. According to what I know the diet is supposed to help the liver get smaller making it easier for the doctor to see what he was doing during laproscopy (the type of surgery they can now do on gastric bypass surgery).

I had to go in also and have a test done on my esophagus, and a gall bladder ultrasound. In theory the doctor wanted to be sure the gall bladder wasn't diseased, if it was it would be taken out during the bypass surgery. The gall bladder it seems gives a lot of patients trouble after
surgery and they end up having to take it out of many patients. The surgeon I am using felt
it was better to get it out at the same time if it wasn't in good shape, therefore avoiding a second
surgery. The esophagal test I took on the 28 of Oct. They made me drink a lot of different liqueds. One was like milk of magnesia, the other looked like milk of magnesia and was much much thicker. The technicians had me stand up on this platform that moved side to side and eventually would take me from a standing position to one lying down. I was asked to drink the diferent liqueds on que from the technicians. It was unpleasant but not as bad as I thought it
could be because it went pretty quickley. I found out from the tech that I had a-symptomatic
reflux, and a hernia. I asked what the hernia was and he said that a small part of my stomach was out of my diaphram. I will have to ask my doctor what that's all about and how it effects my surgery. I found the hardest part to be when I had to lay down once all the liqueds were done and the second part of the test which was just regular x-rays were taken in, that part seemed to take a long time.
I was supposed to get the gall bladder test right after the first test. When the lab tech took me
to the ultrasound dept the tech there said I couldn't have the ultrasound done because the
goop I had to drink from the other test had to be out of my system, so I needed to come back
in 24 hours. So my first whoopsi! The admitting people got the tests backwards, I should have had the gall bladder first. I ended up rescheduling and going back that thursday for the gall bladder test. As far as I know the gall bladder test was fine.

From here on out I am going to let you know what I'm eating what I'm thinking and what is happening to me step by step. I will also fill you in on more of the reasons that I am going
on this journey that may alter my life as I know it. As time goes on I may be able to add to the
blog things that may be of interest to you personally on your weight odyssey.

I am not writing this to promote surgery of any kind or any one weight loss program. I am just
letting you in on my experience.