Hello! Communicating this way is new to me, and I'm glad to have stumbled upon this site. Hugs and applause to all of you, wherever you find yourselves on your own journies. My story? How many hours have we got? :-) Let's just say for now that so far I have only gone to one informational session with the University of Michigan bariatric program. Tomorrow I have my first visit with my primary doctor to start off the six months of required monitoring visits - then in the afternoon, I have an hour with the program director / PA and an hour with the dietician. My psych appointment (3 hours) is about a month away. That's pretty darn new to all of this, but from my research so far, the sleeve is my choice of techniques, should I actually have the surgery.
There's a question in my voice because I'm not sure insurance will actually take me, when we get right to that moment. I'm about 5'2", about 240 lbs with BMI about 44. The idea of gaining to 275 to make it to 50 BMI so I can avoid the 6 months of "documented failure" intrigued me, but I decided that would be too sick and wrong for me. My fear is if I actually follow whatever the doctor suggests tomorrow by way of diet and exercise (and what else??) and I DO start losing a little as we go during the next 6 months, when I fall below 218 I will be below 40 BMI - will I disqualify myself for surgery then?? Not sure if I have a greater fear of success or failure ....
I'm also still coming to grips with the commonly accepted view of weight loss surgery as an admission of defeat. I had never considered it in the past, viewing it as a last resort for those who have given up the hope of doing it on their own. But after 35 years of being overweight (since puberty), never knowing myself as a slender adult and having had just a handful of successful, serious, healthy, year-or-longer weight loss efforts at a time, I've changed my opinion of surgery. I now see it as one tool at my disposal ... I am in a hole, trying to dig out - for many years I have scratched and clawed with my fingernails and toes to make it out of the hole, exerting myself for months on end, but always falling back to the soggy dark earth below. This time I don't feel the urge to scratch and claw again - and I look over my shoulder and see there is a ladder called bariatric surgery propped up against the wall of the hole. I feel certain I can make it on my own, if I could only get to level ground. Why not use the tool I have to help me get there?
That's where I am today. I'll write again after all my appointments ... thanks for reading! Take care, all!
