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"Thou Shalt Join Weight Watchers!"

8/22/2015

As I said in my last post, one of the requirements that I need to meet in order to be approved for gastric bypass surgery is to lose 40 pounds prior to surgery day. They ask this because they highly prefer to perform the surgery laparoscopically. In order to be able to get to where they need to get to, the surgeon has to move the liver. I guess when you lose weight, one of the first places you lose fat from is from around your organs. The less fatty the liver, the better the results for surgery.

It's kind of ironic. I wouldn't be pursuing this surgery if losing weight was something I was proficient at.

Needless to say, after years of ups and downs and probably hundreds of different attempts at losing weight, this seems to be a daunting task. I know I can do it but I have spent the last several days in mental disagreement with myself over what approach to take. Should I count calories? Should I just eat clean foods? After thinking about it, I had pretty much had decided I was going to try the South Beach Diet again. I had some success with it in the past but didn't feel it was sustainable for life. But I just wasn't excited about it. My brain wouldn't let me come up with a concrete plan. It just didn't click with me.

I prayed about it. I asked God to just make it clear to me which way would be the most successful. I thanked him for caring about these little details. I asked him to help me to do it.

So tonight I sit down at the computer after I put Micah to bed. My plan was to pin down a grocery list so that tomorrow I could get healthy food in the house and the whole family could get started on this journey together. Within thirty minutes, I still had no list but I had a woman who is a health and wellness ninja ask me what kinds of food we like/don't like and she offered to gather some recipes for me. Five minutes later I asked a friend for a recipe and left the conversation with two recipes AND an offer to pay for 3 months of Weight Watchers to help me along.

Normally it would be hard for me to accept a gift like that, but today I just had to realize that it was an answer to prayer. It wasn't exactly a voice from the clouds, but wow. "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened unto you."

I always feel humbled to know that God really is listening.

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Today's Visit to the Clinic

8/16/2015

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Today I went for two evaluations at OSU's Bariatric Clinic. I thought I would leave the 3 HOUR VISIT with an approximate date for surgery, but alas, that did not happen. Sigh. It's o.k. though. Baby steps, right?

My appointment was for 1:30. If you know me, you'll be proud that I signed in at the front desk at 1:29. A whole minute early. But it wasn't easy - I started off my visit a sweaty mess. It was 90 degrees today and let me say that the walk from the parking garage to the office on the second floor of the medical office building where the clinic is located was ironically long. I mean, you have people who are extremely overweight coming to your office. We aren't good at walking. Can I get some fatty-capped parking or something? Thank goodness for the high quality tri-fold brochures in the office. I had to do some serious fanning.

The nurse called me back at about 1:50 (which was o.k. because I needed the cooling off period anyway). She went over some in-depth medical history of both myself and my family. That part was pretty standard (although the relevance of my siblings menstrual cycles seemed somewhat irrelevant to me). Then I met with a nurse practitioner who asked me a few more questions and then went into depth explaining the pros and cons of both the Gastric Sleeve procedure and the Gastric bypass (which I won't explain here because there are a billion websites that would do a better job than I could). Her opinion was that I should go with the Gastric Bypass because 1. the weight loss is usually greater and longer lasting and 2. my affinity for carbohydrates would be drastically decreased with it as opposed to the sleeve. That's the one we were leaning towards anyway, so I'm thinking that's the current plan.

I then met with a dietitian and we went over my current eating habits, past weight loss attempts, and discussed some goals. But mainly we laughed about our mutual kiwi allergy and how he wouldn't be a good candidate for surgery because he likes Ribeye steaks too much. Again, a little irony - I left the appointment with him quite hungry.

After both of those appointments I was sent down to the lab where they took enough blood to recreate the prom scene from the movie Carrie. Then they had me walk about 39 miles to the cardiology department for an EKG - which, had they actually been open, would have been a disaster because my heart was pumping so hard that when they monitored it, it probably would've looked like the Richter Scale after a major earthquake. But...they were closed. So I walked BACK up to the office and got a hard copy of the EKG order so I could just do it locally. At that point I had abandoned any attempts at masking the sweat from my hairline and I just let it flow. I probably looked like one of the wrestlers from G.L.O.W. (shame on you if you remember that).

Basically, today's appointments were to get me started on the process to evaluate my ability (or inability) to have the surgery and be able to recover afterwards. They are ruling out major health conditions and risk factors. They provided me with a list of stuff to do. Schedule my EKG, schedule a test where they run some sort of scope down your throat to make sure the stomach looks o.k., get cleared by a pulmonologist and a cardiologist for surgery, and then schedule a 4-week class about life after bariatric surgery.

Once ALL of that is complete, they will then submit a request for surgery to my insurance company who will most likely say, "Things look great. We'll approve this once she shows proof that she has been on a doctor supervised weight management program for nine consecutive months." Which I have not. My doctor has been involved in this process with me for years, but we have not met consecutive months. It's been every 2-3 months. Which stinks because they probably won't accept it and I'll be looking at getting scheduled 8-9 months from now.

BUT...I am planning on petitioning God for a fast track. I don't know what is possible and what isn't but rest assured that I will at least be asking the Great Physician to find me a loophole or exception. If it doesn't happen, that's fine. But if it is possible, I am confident He will make it clear. If you have been praying for my journey, that would be a specific request you could go to Him with on my behalf.

Oh. And I need to lose 40 pounds between now and surgery day. That's going to be a challenge. But I'm thinking that if I just keep scheduling appointments at the clinic, surely I can sweat at least 20 of that off.

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Rhonda Is Closed For Remodeling

8/2/2015

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I went to a family reunion yesterday. While there I was weakened, tempted, and overcome. Someone fixed my kryptonite food...Puerto Rican rice and beans. I wish I could say I am sorry, but the results are in, and that would be a lie.

I'm still here though. I've just been in a holding pattern mentally and physically. I'm not gaining, I'm not losing...just kind of maintaining. Waiting for the 2nd meeting in regards to the gastric bypass procedure. That will happen on August 19th and should be the final meeting prior to actual approval and scheduling.

I feel like there are big things coming in the future and I am looking forward to being able to write here and get it all down "in ink" so I'll be able to look back and see how the whole process unfolded. And the more I talk to people, the more I am seeing how deep weight loss issues run in a person's psyche. I really believe that this process is going to open up a whole new door of ministry that seems to be so needed.

So for right now, I am just looking at things like I am preparing myself for the remodel. I'm sorting through some emotional things, trying to put some bad habits away, and just generally going over the blueprints to make sure I'm making the right decisions.

I know this is not the exciting part. It's the wait and wait and wait some more part. I am looking forward to getting the construction started so that I can be one step closer to having a temple that is not on the verge of being deemed unfit for human habitation!

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"Thou Shalt Join Weight Watchers!"﻿﻿

Today's Visit to the Clinic﻿

Rhonda Is Closed For Remodeling﻿

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"Thou Shalt Join Weight Watchers!"

Today's Visit to the Clinic

Rhonda Is Closed For Remodeling