One Week Post Op

The days leading up to my surgery were very stressful. My pre op was Friday 3/8. I thought I had done all the labs and gotten everything I needed for this appointment, but I was informed that I was missing a medical letter of clearance from my doctor. I asked why I was not made aware I needed one. The assistant then proceeded to talk to me like I was an idiot and kept explaining that I had to have one. I kept telling her that I had no problem understanding that the letter was needed, I just didn't understand why I was not made aware of the necessity  sooner. She then proceeded to pull out the list showing everything I needed, and it was on there. Only do to a grammatical error on the letter I was lead to believe I didn't need it. I tried to call my doctor, who I haven't been able to get an appointment with because of the clinic being short staffed, to see if she could just fax over a letter. I was told I had to have an appointment to be seen in order to get said letter, and I could leave a message. Being as it was 4:30 on a Friday I had little hope of being called back promptly. So here it is four days before my surgery and once again the office staff has dropped the ball. I went ahead with the pre op appointment hoping that I would be able to get the letter from my doctor on Monday and not have to postpone my surgery. Next thing that we were waiting for was them to submit my info to the insurance to have the surgery approved.  It was a long stressful weekend not being able to do anything to move the surgery forward and not knowing if it would have to be postponed. On Monday morning I decided to get up early and go to the hospital before going to work. I figured that I might be able to make something happen in the letter department by being there in the flesh rather then leaving messages that would probably be ignored. I was able to get an appointment for the next day. Score one for me! My husband also took some action on Monday calling our insurance to explain the situation to them and see if we could have the approval process expedited a little. Only to find out that the surgeons office staff STILL had not sent in the info!!! He then called the surgeons office told the our insurance had said to mark it urgent and get it sent in and they would expedite it. So far so good feeling confident that this surgery is actually going to happen. Tuesday I get a call from the surgeons office saying that my original referral was wrong and they were not even allowed to submit my info until it had been fixed. Once again a lot of frantic phone calls by my husband and I alleviated that situation. Then there was nothing to do but wait for the insurance to approve my surgery. We called them to check the progress and we were informed that it could actually take 3 to 5 days to get the surgery approved. Not what you want to hear the night before a surgery is scheduled. I didn't know what to do. Prepare for surgery like I was supposed to or live with the fact that I may have to postpone it? I decided to hope for the best and prepare, enema and all. I woke up the next day and immediately called the insurance company to find out if my surgery was approved or not. It wasn't. My stomach fell and I again had to decided head to the hospital and pray by some miracle that the surgery would still happen or just give up go to work and postpone it. My husband had already taken leave and so had I so we decided to just go to the hospital. At the hospital after sitting there for a little bit we were called back and told our insurance wasn't approved. We decided to wait a little longer. Called the doctors office to see if they had possibly called the insurance themselves. They told me they were still working on it. We waited another 45 mins and were called back again told that the insurance still hadn't approved. It was looking very bleak. We were asked if we wanted to postpone the surgery and I almost did, but my husband convinced me to call the insurance ourselves one more time. The surgery was APPROVED !!!! I was admitted and put into pre op room. As you can see I had so much stress leading up to my surgery that I really didn't have time to worry about the surgery itself.

The next thing I remember is waking up. Well trying to wake up. You know the groggy anesthesia cloud you have to fight to come out of, mine took 3 days to fully evaporate!! Anyways I woke up in recovery was there for a few hours, and then taken to my room. It is very weird to ride around a hospital half awake in a bed. I wasn't really in much pain, I think my first semi coherent thought was: "What just happened?". I wasn't sure that the surgery actually happened. Then nurses came in introducing themselves, giving me various medicines in my IV. I was asked lots of question to make sure that I hadn't become brain damaged. The person in the room next to me kept screaming for no discernible reason. After a few hours when I was able to keep my eyes open for more then 10 minuets, the nurse came in and took me for a walk. Walking after the surgery is very important. They do it laparoscopically, and to make sure they have room they fill your abdomen up with co2 gas. That's why you have to walk it breaks the gas down so that it can exit your body.
After my walk and asking if they could remove the catheter, I went back to sleep. I had a pretty uneventful hospital stay. I wanted to be able to update everyone and answer my phone messages I was just to groggy. I woke up briefly around 9 pm and was coherent enough to update my Facebook, and send a few messages. Then sleep claimed me again. I got up every few hours to walk, and complain about the catheter. The next day I really wasn't any better. I tried to stay awake it was a losing battle. They gave me some clear liquids to eat/ drink I couldn't stomach much. The nurses kept asking if I had passed gas yet, every time they saw me out walking. Apparently it's very important that you pass gas. I never did. I did when I got home so I guess crisis averted. I thought it was funny and had the thought that I should call the hospital and let them know since they were so curious about it!  This post is long I am going to rush through the rest. I have had a good first week. No pain really, I am finally able to stay awake, I went back to work. Nothing really exciting to report other then the fact that I am on a liquid diet for the next 2 weeks, 3 weeks in total. It is driving me insane. It is hard not to eat when everyone around you is. Also food is literally everywhere. I drive down the street and pass like a million eateries. Watching television I see hundreds of food commercials, and even on the shows I watch people are eating. I can't get away from food and the only thing I am cleared to eat is sugar free jello. I can use baby applesauce to take pills. It sucks. However I have lost nearly 15 lbs in a week so hooray for that!!

Cons

I meant to write this blog before I had surgery, but with all the preparations and confusion I never got the chance. I know in my pros post I stated that I had done all I could to lose weight without surgical intervention. I have thought long and hard about this and at the risk of sounding redundant wish to offer more explanation. I stated that I had done all I could, not all that could be done. Have I gotten up at 4 am and run 6 miles? No. Have I done an extreme diet excluding lots of foods? Nope didn't do that either. We all see shows like the Biggest Loser, or magazine articles stating that the cover person is now "half his/her size!!!" with a diet inside and an explanation of how they dropped said weight. I used to look at these things and wonder why not me? Why couldn't I just get up and run my weight away? Have the will power to not eat most of the delicious things I am surrounded by everyday? So I tried the weight lose methods previously mentioned. I can't run my doctor has told me that it would be more detrimental then helpful due to the extreme amount of weight on my joints, so there goes that idea. A diet of exclusion doesn't work all the time, for anyone, it's not lack of will power because I am perfectly capable to deny myself my favorite foods. Just like any human I am flawed however and a few months into only eating certain things will literally drive you insane!! That is why the Weight Watchers program is so great because you can eat whatever you want as long as you count it. Science has proven that exclusion diet is not successful long term and depending on the type of diet can even be dangerous. Also never tried diet pills, not even gonna go into an explanation for that. Phen phen anyone? I am taking the time to further explain these reasons, because I think the most detrimental lies are the ones we tell ourselves. I want everyone who may read this to know that a lot of thought was put into this decision and it was not made lightly. I did my best it didn't work, I looked at all aspects and decided on this one.

Now here are the things that worry me about this surgery:
More surgeries, mainly plastic surgery. I have never been one to seek out plastic surgery. The question "if you could have plastic surgery on anything what would it be?"  has always given me pause. Although I don't have a great body, it is my body and I have always been satisfied with what I have.  Now don't get me wrong I have absolutely no issues with people who have plastic surgery. I am just a big chicken, and don't want the pain if what I have is good enough. I have this plastic surgery fear, because the majority of gastric bypass patients I know have had to have excess skin removal, and boob jobs if they were female. I feel I will fall into this category.  I am not a vain person for the most part, but if I have enough extra skin to give me flying squirrel capabilities and no boobs I will definitely be calling a surgeon!!
Never being able to eat a full meal again. I have taken for granted the ability to eat a whole hamburger, or all of Thanksgiving dinner. I will never be able to do that again. I won't be able to eat ice cream with out having a reaction akin to food poisoning. I will have trouble eating many foods I use to love. I can never chew gum or drink soda again. I can't even drink out of a straw! I am okay with this out come because I definitely understand that this surgery is a giant lifestyle change, it's just nice to have the option to be a glutton if I want to. I guess in time I will get used to it. It is definitely going to take some time.
Death. Obviously with any surgery that is a concern. Any number of things can go wrong. ( Obviously since I am writing this nearly a week after my surgery I survived.)

I don't have very many concerns about the surgery, lifestyle adjustments will be multiple and hard. I am committed to making them I know it is for the best in the long run. No matter how hard!

Setbacks

So I have been meaning to post for awhile now about the negatives or cons, but I have had somethings happen to delay me. This post will not be about my negative or fears I am postponing that one. In this post I will explain a little about what has been going on in this process! It's been a dozy of a week to say the least. First and foremost my surgery date is on March 13th. I scheduled it in February. I was supposed to have my pre-op appointment March 1rst. I knew I had to do labs and visit with a psychologist and nutritionist prior to my surgery date, and I assumed that the labs were to be done during the pre-op visit. I was never told or informed otherwise. I had even asked previously while dropping off some paperwork if I could have a list of things expected of me. I never received one. So imagine my surprise when I get a call on the morning of the 1rst asking me why I haven't done my labs! I explained that I had been having a problem with the office being very unclear on what I needed to do, and asked them to please fax me the list of labs. After I got the fax the doctors office called again to tell me that there was a problem with my medically supervised diet paperwork. The requirements for bariatric surgery to be covered under my insurance state that I have to have followed a medically supervised diet for at least 2 months. There are other requirements as well this is just the only one that the doctors office was having a problem with. Anyways she said that the records I had provided her would not be valid because they were from 2008. I had been concerned about this very matter so I had been sure to ask my insurance company if there was a time frame that would render the records invalid, I was told that there was not. I explained this to the lady and she stated that she had spoken with a nurse that worked for my insurance, and they had stated that the records had to be within 2 years. This prompted a lot of panic on my part thinking that my surgery is not going to happen. After I got off of work I headed to the hospital to get as many of my labs done as possible, or at least try to have them ordered since for the past month it has been nearly impossible to get an appointment with my primary care doctor.

Here is a list of labs I need done: blood work, urine sample, stool sample (ick), chest x-ray, ekg, and an ultrasound of my gall bladder. In order to keep my surgery date of March 13th I have to have all these things done by March 8th. I found out about all these requirements March 1rst. That is a pretty tall order to get completed in a week. I got off of work at 2pm March 1rst headed strait to my hospital to get some of these things figured out. I first went to the lab and since my blood work was to supposed to be done while fasting I  was told to come back Monday morning, they did however give me a parting gift. It was a tiny collection tube for my stool sample (again eww why would they need a stool sample??). I guess the absolute confusion
as to how I am supposed to actually get the poo into said tiny tube was clearly written on my face, as the lab tech asked if I would like an insert to put in my toilet to "collect" the sample. I stated that I would appreciate that. They then went on the explain that there was a spoon attached to the lid to make inserting the sample into the tube easier, and to put the sample in my fridge for up to 3 days after collection. Did I mention yet how completely disgusting this whole thing is to me?? After receiving my goodies from the lab, I then headed to the diagnostic imaging department to attempt getting my x-rays done. I was able to get my chest x-ray and ekg done that day! I was told they had no appointments for the ultrasound until March 17th, but I explained my tale of woe and they talk to someone who said they would fit me in March 6th. I then went to the tri-care offices located in my hospital to try and get an answer to the all important time limit question. They told me to call the district office itself, I did that and still could not get a direct answer after explaining the situation. I finally did manage to get an answer after calling tri-care repeatedly, and talking to different people. There is no time limit and the gentleman that finally answered the question for me even told me the order I could refer my doctor too if there was anymore confusion  Okay labs done, x-rays done, tri-care figured out, now what about the appointments for the psychologist and nutritionist? I was told by the doctor's office that they would be contacting me to set up appointments. I did not hear from anyone on Monday so I called the doctors office just to make sure I was not supposed to be calling them on my own. I was told again that I would be contacted. I waited until I got off work Tuesday and still had not heard a peep from either psychologist or nutritionist. So I called the doctors office again, because remember this all has to be done by Friday in order to have my surgery March 13th. I was again reassured that the appropriate offices would contact me. I finally got a call from the psychologist early Wednesday morning. She expressed disbelief that I had scheduled my surgery weeks ago, and had just now been referred to her offices. I commiserated with her told her of some of the other issues I had been having with the doctors office, and we managed to get an appointment set for Thursday. I also got a call from the nutritionist, and also secured another Thursday appointment. Talk about cutting it close!!

Recap: after much running around and stress my surgery is still set for March 13th. My husband and I are currently very frustrated with the office staff at the surgeons office. My husband almost wanted me to find a new surgeon, I told him that I trust the surgeon. I am very glad however that his staff is not preforming the surgery!! I am thinking positive thoughts that the rest of this process goes off without a hitch. That my insurance will approve the procedure, and that I will have my surgery on time. I had to do a stool sample I will be extremely angry if I don't get to have my surgery!! Sorry this post was so long and a little gross, I am just trying to accurately explain everything that goes into this procedure.