Friday, December 5, 2014

Surgery Clearance

For some reason I've been reluctant to post lately. I guess I've been trying to work out how much information/detail I wanted to give on a blog that's published on the Internet. In the end, I've decided that this is mainly for me anyway and there's no point in doing it if I'm not being totally honest, so I'm going to go for it.

I've attended a few appointments in the last few weeks, in the lead up to being cleared for surgery.
As part of the surgeon's requirements, I had to attend a seminar with a dietician, see a psychologist and see a physician.

I saw the psychologist first. She was great. I had to answer a whole bunch of questions about my weight and my history. It was a whole lot more emotional than I was expecting. I guess a lot of my weight issue is tied up with emotions. I know I eat when I'm emotional, but it can be any emotion, I can be happy, sad, bored, stressed or whatever, and I'll eat to feel better.
I've suffered from anxiety and depression in the past, and had a pretty bad relationship that did not help. She also offered to see me again in the future, if things are getting hard. I might just take her up on that.

The dietician's seminar was a great information source about the surgery and clearing up any misinformation we might have been given or read somewhere. I ended up buying a set of books from her with information that should be useful post-surgery. I'm even feeling better about having to do an Optifast (very low calorie shake/bar/dessert) diet for 3 weeks before surgery. I've tried the shakes before and I think they are awful, but 3 weeks is not the end of the world. I can do it.

The last one was the physician. I have suffered from sleep apnoea for the last 7 or so years, and use a CPAP machine to help keep my airways open while I sleep. When I initially went for a sleep study all those years ago, I was told I had severe sleep apnoea. This basically means that the number of times I stop breathing during an hour of sleep is enough to be considered severe. What I didn't know is that anything over 30 events per hour is classed as severe. Mine was 156!
I was able to take a machine home with me that logs data to make sure my settings on my CPAP are correct. Luckily they are all fine, so no extra tests needed. Yay!

I also had to go for an ultrasound of my heart as my physician detected a murmur. This was the thing that freaked me out the most, however it is all fine. They've decided that it is not due to any blockages, so I'm all good to go for my surgery.

Now I'm just waiting for the date I start Optifast to arrive (January 16) and my pre-surgery appointment with the surgeon (January 28) and I should be ready. 8 weeks and counting!