Yesterday was the Weight Loss Surgery Class, Dietician Class and meeting with the Psychotherapist.

First off, the Weight Loss Surgery Center is really nice and quiet which I like. It’s not all packed with people and crap. That was great. Overall the Mt. Diablo Medical Center is a nice hospital.

Anyway, I got there at 9am, and went to the Admitting Department to register. The woman who admitted me had had the surgery back in November! She’s lost 70 pounds so far. Then I went up to the WLSC and had to be “weighed-in” on one of those big scales that looks like a mini version of a truck stop scale. I can’t gain 5 or more pounds between now and my surgery date. If I do they’ll cancel the surgery. So I don’t think that that should be a problem, ’cause once I know what the exact date of surgery is I’ll be more vigilant about what I’m eating and stuff, and start working out again.

I was the youngest person in the classes. There were three other women there and they were either in their 40s or 50s. So when the subject of pregnancy came up that was targeted at me :) And the answer is that you can’t (er shouldn’t) get pregnant for 2 years after the surgery. After that there isn’t much research on the affect that the surgery would have on a pregnancy. So I guess that’s a bridge I’ll cross when I come to it. Worse comes to worse I’d hire a surrogate to carry MY baby. Ya know, my egg, my guys sperm, so that there’s nothing connecting her to my kid, except the fact that he lived in her for 9 (actually 10) months. But that’s worst case scenario.

Moving on… The first class the WLS class freaked me out a little bit. I was thinking “okay, I don’t have to do this”, but that was just from being overwhelmed with all the information on what you gotta do before & after the surgery. It’s a total life change and it’s hard to process all that and be okay with it in like an hour. The things that freaked me out were, 1) before the surgery they gotta do some tests and most of the time they do an endoscopic procedure that involves them sticking a camera down my throat to check out my stomach, not really looking forward to that. 2.) The new stomach pouch they create can have “leaks”, so after the surgery they make you drink some dye and then they x-ray your stomach to see if there’s any leakage. If it’s a small leakage it’ll heal itself, if it’s a big thing then they have to go back in and fix it, ech. 3.) When they create the new pouch they also create a little hole that attaches to your intestine, and that hole can get really tight, so sometimes they have to go back in an loosen it. yep, fun times people. Although out of the 185 surgeries they’ve done, only like 8 people have had to have it loosened.

Then there was the dietician class, which was cool, and slightly depressing at the same time because you kinda think of all things you gotta do and not eat. It’s not so much giving up fatty and fried foods as it is, thinking about the fact that you have to chew your food for a looong time, make sure you’re getting enough protein and always take your vitamins. None of those things are a “it would be good if you” they’re a “you HAVE to”… which is fine because I don’t want to get sick and I don’t want to vomit and crap like that. So overall I’m fine with all of it. I think it’ll be cool to live off of baby food for the first couple of weeks :)

So after that I had almost two hours to kill before my psychotherapy session. So I got lunch and then came back. The therapist was great. This will probably sound soo completely shallow but I love talking about myself. ha! I think therapists are cool, so that was the funnest part of my day. Her job was to determine if she had any concerns about me having the surgery. If I could psychologically handle it or not. I don’t have substance abuse issues and I’ve never been in a psych. ward so I passed all that without a problem. I don’t smoke either, which is great. I’ve got support from my family and friends, so that’s great. She said I was very “verbal” and that I have good “interpersonal skills”. So she said she thought I would be a great candidate.

Tomorrow morning is my “consultation” with the surgeon. I hope that all goes swimmingly. At this point the only thing that could stop me from having the surgery is a medical issue, and I better not have one. So now, at this appointment with the surgeon I’ll find out what tests I need to take, then take those, get the results then they’ll submit my info to my health plan. Then once they get the approval from the health plan they’ll schedule the surgery. The journey has only just begun.

I feel good about it, I believe that I’m doing the right thing for myself. It’s a big, huge life change that I’m going to have forever and that’s exactly what I want.

Yay! Everyone is gone. Time to goof off for an hour. Yesterday on my way home I had to pass by my soon to be “home” and I timed the drive from there to work. It took 11 minutes!! Yay! Although adding in morning traffic I’d say it’ll end up being 20 minutes. But that’s still a HUGE improvement over my current commute. That will be soo heavenly. Actually what will be better is when I’ll be working from HOME, with my own business! Now that will be more than heavenly, it’ll be orgasmic!

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