Good news! Sort of ..

My first phone call after I left the doctor's office today "Guess what?  I'm fatter than I thought!"

Okay, maybe not fatter.  And normally I would never use 'fatter' and 'good' in the same sentence.  But apparently I am an inch shorter than I thought I was, and that brought my BMI up closer to the BMI that is acceptable for weight loss surgery without having to have additional things like diabetes or sleep apnea.

The doctor did not seem to think I would have a problem being approved which was a relief.  He also seemed to think I would only need to do a 3 month diet as opposed to a 6 month diet which is what I had heard previous.  The sooner the better, I say!  I need to call in a week to make sure the test results they did today are back, to get started on the next steps.  I need to see a pulmonologist, a dietitian, a psychologist, and I can't remember who else.  Whatever.  Let's get this thing going!!!

Very, very pleased.

Tomorrow, the bariatric guy

I have been waiting for tomorrow.  It is when I get to see the bariatric surgeon to decide whether or not I am a candidate for weight loss surgery.  I am nervous.

Yesterday I went downtown with my daughter to go to a wedding expo.  Walking from the car to the building was maybe one city block and I was winded.  Very winded.  We walked a lot but what killed me more was the 10 to 15 minutes we stood in one place.  My back started to ache and I feared I would have to be rude and find a way to back out of the conversation (my daughter and one of her friends) so I could walk around.  I don't do anything physical anymore so some of this is not unexpected but the degree to which I have deteriorated is startling.  And mostly it's not healthy.

So tomorrow I am hoping the doctor agrees with me.  I'm not as worried about convincing my insurance company as much as I am the doctor.  Pretty sure if the doctor says it's a go - the insurance company will follow suit as long as I dot all the i's and cross all the t's and jump through every hoop they require.  But the doctor will be the hands on examination, reading my blood test results, listening to my heart and taking my blood pressure.

NOT ME. Very few pics, remember?

There are very few pictures of me from the last 10 years.  I don't allow people to take pictures and I wonder if one day I will regret that.  But a few months ago when one of my brothers was in town, he managed to get a picture of me sitting on the bed in my mom's nursing home room.  It's funny because I know I'm fat.  I see myself in the mirror every now and again and complain about how hard it is to bend down, to get out of a low car, and many other things - I am always surprised when I see a picture.  It's like part of me denies what has happened while another part of me knows.  It's weird.

So tomorrow is the day.  I'm nervous like I said.  But I'm excited too.  I'm hoping this is the start of something really good in my life.

There's an app for that!

On my main blog I wrote about doing a sleep study soon.  It's required before you can have weight loss surgery and I really do think it's cool.  But since I had to go off Ambien because it heightened my shopping proclivities, ahem, I wake up every day feeling like I haven't slept at all.

So me being me, I had to find out on my own.  There's an app for that!  It's pretty cool, you can set it to start recording right away or a couple of hours after you go to sleep.  It is sound activated so it doesn't just record for hours and hours even when nothing is going on.  I've tried it a couple of times and well ... I have no idea what I'm listening to.

I trained myself as a teenager to breathe through my nose when I'm sleeping.  It had to do with napping with my boyfriend and not wanting to drool on his shoulder or chest.  I'm sure I don't succeed all the time but from the way it sounds - I do - most of the time.  And I snore through my nose.  It sounds like it's hard to breathe, it reminds me of how my mom would breathe when she was having a breathing episode, like someone with emphysema or asthma.  It's a little like a goose quietly honking in his sleep.  Attractive, huh?

But I have no idea whether or not what I'm hearing is normal or not.  Self diagnosis is apparently not my strong suit and God knows I am not rooting for a Cpap machine.  On the other hand if I do have sleep apnea, it would help me be approved for weight loss surgery.  It's not something you can fake and it's not something I can know on my own.

But if I do have sleep apnea, and weight loss surgery helps me get a good night's sleep - BONUS!!!  And a BIG bonus at that.  I would love to know what it feels like to wake up energized or at least - rested.  I guess I'll find out.

Sh-h-h-h .. while nobody is looking ....

It's kind of funny.  I'm not keeping this weight loss surgery thing a secret, but nobody reads this blog so I can talk about it all I want but it will still be a surprise to most!

I went to my seminar tonight.  When you have weight loss surgery you have to do all kinds of things first.  One thing is go to a seminar to learn all about the different kinds of surgeries available.  I did that tonight.  Apparently the hoops you jump through all depends on what insurance you have.  I swear some of them make you miserable ahead of time just to get you to back out.

My lovely insurance requires a 6 month freaking supervised diet with a physician.  Gah!  While another insurance only requires 2 years of medical data from a patient's doc.  Very arbitrary if you ask me.  But - I made a consultation appointment with my chosen surgeon for the end of the month.  In the meantime I have a stack of paperwork to finish!  Weight loss and general health history paperwork.  Yuk!