Mattymatt

On Monday, October 23, 2017 I had my first appointment with the team that would be working with me. I met my surgeon and his nurse practitioner but could not meet with the dietitian and psychologist because both were in offsite activities. It seems medical professionals do not always have a great bedside manner and I was deeply disappointed in the nurse practitioner's seeming impatience to get through everything. The surgeon, however, was calm, friendly and very understanding which is all that really mattered anyway. After the appointment and despite feeling drained physically and emotionally, I made the trip to the outpatient lab to get the EKG and blood work done figuring that I could tick that off on my todo list. I was fortunate enough to be able to get the Upper GI and Abdominal Studies scheduled so quickly as they had a cancellation on November 2nd. I was too tired to feel cheery at that. At the time, I was more concerned with getting my A1C down from 14% to less than 8% in the span of time prior to surgery. Things looked bleak ....
On Thursday, October 26, 2017, I got the results from the blood work delivered via Penn's My Penn Medicine patient portal and did a double-take. My A1C is only 10.3%. I looked at it several times in total disbelief thinking surely there must be some error because my last reading was 14%. Yet, Penn Medicine's lab error rate is so low, I have a better chance of getting struck by lightning. This began to cheer me up ever so slightly because a minimum drop of 2.4% looks, at least on paper, much more achievable.
I was bemoaning how long the pre-op phase is going to be but it is actually going by very fast so far - I guess 3 months is a really short period of time after all. I barely have time to get my blood sugar under control. I also lucked out in getting to see my endocrinologist (November 1, 2017) and she said that even if my A1C isn't perfectly under 8%, she told me that she would be willing to let my doc know that I would be safe for surgery. My surgeon called me yesterday to let me know that he was able to count my first visit with him as one nutritional appointment, thereby shortening the time some. On November 2nd, I got the Upper GI contrast and Abdominal ultrasound done plus I was able to get an appointment to see the psychologist on Nov. 15th with many thanks to the person who cancelled.  I have the next medical weight management appointment on Nov. 22nd and the final one on Dec. 27th. If the Abdominal and GI studies come back okay, I can get a surgery date set. YESSSSS!!!!
Dec. 27th - Follow up with the endocrinologist and my hard work paid off. A1C of 7.8%! Safe for surgery.
UPDATE: I am scheduled for surgery on March 12, 2018