How Did We Get Here - The Process

There were obviously many buffets involved. 

All joking aside, I didn’t mean our weight.  I meant our choice to look into and proceed with Weight Loss Surgery (WLS).

I’ve known about WLS options for most of my life. Not that they were always my options – I really wasn’t always this severely obese.  A man in my hometown that I knew of had Gastric Bypass when I was young, so I don’t know that I have any idea what his story is/was.  But, what I took away from it was that he lost a lot of weight, and subsequently, gained it all back likely with a bit extra. 

What this taught me is that even with such drastic measures to “take the easy way out” you can just as easily as with any other diet, go right back to where you were before.

There are so many horror stories about any kind of surgery, you don’t have to go far to find a reason to not have surgery.   In fact, when I mentioned this on another site a dear friend had commented that “This should always be a last resort.”  Thankfully, she understands that I’m at MY last resort.  I’m sure everyone has their own lines they’ve drawn in the sand against whatever issues they deal with personally.  This has always been my line.  I had been asked by four different medical professionals just last year, if I had considered or would ever consider Gastric Bypass.  I always said “No.  I know the things I need to do.  I just need to do them.”

Well, “doing them” never happened.

Over the last year, as I stated in my intro entry, I have found out that I am now a Person With Diabetes , Type 2.  One would think that would be enough to get me motivated to do the things I know I need to do – and of course it was motivating… for about a month.  I’m not sure why it is that motivation always fades so fast.  I think – and to be honest, hope – that it’s because you can’t see the benefit that quickly.  As easy as it has always been for me to gain weight, it’s impossible to lose.

Out of My Rambling Mind… and on to Today’s Topic:

The Process

When John brought up Gastric Bypass at the end of September, I was really upset.  I felt like he wanted the easy way out.  I was scared because of how much my life would have to change.  I hadn’t really put a name to this anxiety I was feeling yet, but I knew that the way I lived my life was really going to have to change, drastically.  I truly love eating. 

Sometimes I feel like I make out with my food.  I know that I don’t, but sometimes I really think I do.  Orgasm by cake?  Yeah, it may have happened in this house.  While that’s a touch graphic, it’s so sadly true.  Food has been there for every emotion I’ve ever had.  It’s been the one thing I could always count on to make me feel soo much better, subsequently guilty, and then allow me to bury that feeling as well.  Such a vicious cycle.

I think I may have yelled at him a couple of times during this conversation in the car – but I can’t remember the majority of the words.  It ended, mostly, with him stating “I don’t want you to die.”

Oh.

Well.

Guess I kind of have to look into this, then.

So I did.
I jumped in with both feet because if I was going to make this crazy decision, I was going to know everything I possibly could, about it.  I looked at Park Nicollet’s site regarding their Bariatric Surgery Center and found that we would need to attend an informational session.  Sounds fine to me, I need the information!  Give me the information!  I sent messages to friends and acquaintances on Facebook that I knew had had some form of WLS.  I messaged and had a fabulous phone call with a wonderful “internet friend” of mine who is a nurse.  We talked to both sets of our parents who were all supportive of this decision.  I was surprised by my parents as a couple of years ago, they may not have been so supportive.  Their support was indicative of two things.  1)  We know more people who have been very successful.  2)  They are that worried about my health/our health.

We signed up for the first available evening session that worked with our schedules and somewhat nervously waited for the session to start.  We had our Power Point slide handouts, notebooks with pre-session questions, and pens to write down anything else we needed to remember/ask about.

We were introduced to one of the Nurse Clinicians – who was a Bariatric patient – she really looked like she’d never been overweight a day in her life.  She gave a wonderful presentation that answered so many of my questions, and hardly raised a new one.

Afterwards, we got packets that needed to be filled out for both of us.  Around 20-25 pages of data for this process.  Once those were sent to the Center, they called and set up our first round of appointments.

I’m going to stop here as this is long enough for me, so I would assume it’s long enough for you.  I’ll continue the “process” sometime in the next week to catch up to where John and I are currently.

Thanks for reading!