This journey started the day I decided to go to the Sparrow Weight Management information session (5/6/14). The bariatric physician stood up and talked about how being obese, or morbidly obese, as in my case, isn't just about eating too much food. He spoke of how over the last 10 years, the medical community have started to realize over 150 things can go wrong and impact a person's normal system. My past experiences with doctors were about them blaming me for a lack of control and will power. But it never matter how much i ate or didn't eat... how much I exercised or didn't... I always put on the weight, an average of 10 lbs a year. I tried so hard, and nothing seemed to work, and I gave up. Now I'm about 200 lbs overweight, and that's when I decided to go to that information session. I about cried to hear this.

They gave us a packet, told us to contact our insurance to ask the questions needed to see what is covered, and if we were interested, give the weight management office a call to set up our first consultation. I have over 200 of sick leave that I could use if needed, now was the time for me to move on this. I called my insurance office during break the next morning and got all of the answers to the questionnaire. I then called the weight management office to get my appointment with them. Ugh, I had to wait until May 30th for the initial consultation. So, I decided to set up an appointment with my primary care doc to just let them know I'm moving forward with this.

May 30th rolls around. In addition to meeting with the doctor, I spoke with the surgical coordinator, the person who helped set up all of my appointments and tests.

1. Chest x-ray
   
2. Lab work, where they took 10-11 viles from me
   
3. EKG
   
4. Sleep test
   
5. Appt with my hemo specialist
   
6. Outside psych eval
   
7. Exercise readiness
   
8. dietitian consultation
   

... just to name a few...

I guess it could be worse... I mean, its not like I have tons of ailments with more specialists who have to sign off on this procedure.

My insurance approved my moving forward with the surgery over a month ago, but the weight management office has their process. I've received sign off from everyone except the dietitian as of today. I see her a little later this morning, and I go talk to my hemo specialist to get the blood clot prevention strategy in place, since have a genetic blood disorder, increasing my chances of getting a blood clot (which was discovered a few years ago after my knee surgery and I was admitted to the ICU with massive clotting post-surgery).

I spoke with the behaviorist yesterday... and asked her what happens once I get final sign-off from the dietitian. She said that's when I go to stage 2 of hoop jumping... yeah! I switch to the liquid diet for 2-4 weeks, meet with the dietitian, behaviorist, exercise specialist weekly, go to pre-op educational classes, and do the surgical consultation. She said I will also get my surgery date at that time.

I am approaching 6 weeks of this process beginning with my initial consultation. The summer if flying by. The first part, waiting for the initial consultation felt like I was climbing the first hill of a roller coaster. I've been averaging 2-3 appointments/tests a week and it feels like the pedal is to the metal. Based on what I was told, the earliest I can go in for surgery is the last week of July (and my educational sessions would be condensed into 2-4 hours for the next couple weeks). However, the way appointments seem to be happening, It will more likely be mid-August. Unfortunately, this makes it really difficult for me to plan my schedule at work for the rest of the summer.

I am excited about how quickly things are going, but it also feels like the unspecified surgery in the near future is forever away.