The Beginning

 Welcome back everyone!

In this particular post I am gonna talk about the beginning of my journey with my bariatric surgery journey.  This will also show just how the whole lead up process went.  So let me start from the beginning.

April 2022, I had signed up for a info session for the bariatric surgery center out of Huntley, Illinois.  On the night of April 24th I had attended the info session via a teams meeting link.  After the session the center sent everyone who had attended the session an email with paperwork for everyone to fill out and start the process. 

Skip forward to Middle of March 2023, I had my sleep study done.  That was not a fun experience.  I do not sleep well in places I am not familiar with as is, but to have at least 10+ wires all hooked up to you made it worse.  But I got it done and I could finally send over all the paperwork.  I had a delay in sending the paperwork because I had some other stuff going on and when I called in September 2022 to schedule the sleep study the soonest I could get in for it was March 2023.

I got a call in the middle of May, the weight loss center had received my paperwork and wanted to start getting me on the schedule to get the process going.  This is where the process went quickly!  That day they scheduled me for 3 initial appointments; a phone call with a nurse for general information, the initial appointment/meeting with my surgeon, and a call with a nutritionist.

March 30th, I had my phone call with the nurse.  It was like any other part of a doctor appointment where the nurse just askes you all the in general health questions.  About medications, do you smoke or drink, are you sexually active, information on any health issues, etc.  

June 5th, I had the first appointment with the surgeon.  My surgeon is Dr. Heydari.  He is a widely known surgeon who specializes in bariatric surgery, he has been featured on the show My 600 lb Life, while at the University of Iowa, he trained under Dr. Edward E. Mason, the father of Bariatric Surgery, and has performed 2,000 bariatric surgeries.  We discussed what kind of bariatric procedure I wanted and what would work the best for me.  That day we also got me an appointment with the psychiatrist and got me signed up for the pre op classes.  Once I had the appointment with the psychiatrist they would contact my insurance and go from there,

June 26th in the A.M, I had the appointment with the psychiatrist.  They sent home a questionnaire I had to fill out before going to the appointment, but when I got there I was told I had more to fill out. I was nervous even though I knew I had no reason to be.  I went back to the waiting room and sat down to fill out the other questionnaire.  It was a scan-tron!!! Like full on out of school, make sure you fill in the circle completely!  My mom had joked with me before saying it wasn't a test...you know I texted her and said, 'You said it wasn't a test!' she got a good chuckle out of it.  It all went really well, it was just a discussion about it there are people in my life who support me, and if there aren't people who will support me.  If there was anything in my life that would cause strain within my family, due to traditions or ethnic or religious reasons.  She told me that she was sending over my paperwork to the surgeon team right away this morning and to expect to hear back about it being sent to insurance in about 2 weeks.

June 26th in the P.M, I had gotten an email that same afternoon that they had sent the information to my insurance company to review!  I wasn't expecting that at all!

July 5th, I received a phone call while my brother and I were driving home from visiting family for the 4th of July.  My insurance had approved me to have the surgery and they were calling to get it all scheduled!!  I had to have a pre-op appointment with the surgeon, which was a group appointment with others having their procedures around the same time as mine and then scheduled my EKG and labs and then the surgery.  My surgery date was August 15th!

July 18th, was my pre-op appointment.  They go over all the vitamins that you need to start after surgery and when to start them.  They discuss the whole routine that would happen at the hospital and that you would be staying in the hospital for 1 night.  It was really great to see other people who were going through the same as I was.  It was so encouraging.  That same day I did the lap work and scheduled the EKG for a couple days later. Everything came back as all good and now I just had to wait for my surgery date.  Of course, there was one more thing to do before the surgery.

August 5th, the 10 days before surgery you are required here to do a liver shrinking diet.  This consisted of 3 protein shakes in a day, 5 half servings of fruit(so if I had a banana a whole banana was 2 servings), and 1000 calories a day so between the shakes and the fruit, the rest of the calories could only be filled with vegetables.  That is right, no meat, no cheese, no carbs, no sugar.  Just water, zero sugar gatorade or powerade, crystal light, propel water and protein water was the only liquids.  It was a struggle.  The 3rd night I had called my mom and was telling her, 'screw this diet, I am ordering frickin McDonalds', needless to say I didn't.  But in the time of the liver shrinking diet I lost 12 pounds.

August 15th, the day was finally here.   I had to be at the hospital in Huntley by 6 am, so I had to wake up by 3:30 A.M. to prepare for it.  I had to take a shower the night before and morning of, using Hibiclens to clean my abdomen for surgery.  I arrived at the hospital and sat for about 5 minutes before they called me back to get ready.  Once I was in the gown and all set with IV and everything else I waited for 3 hours before they finally came and grabbed me for surgery.  They wheeled me back and I got moved onto the table.  They started to strap my arms down so that they weren't in the way and that is the last thing I remember.  I soon woke up in recovery with a sore throat and a little sore all over.  

Wait for the next blog post coming tomorrow!  I will be telling you about everything that goes on at the hospital after bariatric surgery!!