Saturday, October 17, 2009

Preop day 7 and 8!

Thu Oct 15 was a miserable day. I awoke feeling very dizzy and unstable. I checked my blood sugar, it was 140. I came on in to work and asked 2 good friends to check in on me periodically. I had a bowl of grits (no butter) for breakfast and a pudding cup and started feeling a little better. By lunchtime I was OK. But when 4:30 pm came around, I was again feeling a bit shaky. I didn’t get enough protein on Wed (no shake at all), I wonder if that was it?

Thu numbers: Calories: 1530 (a bit over the 1200 limit); Carb 220 ; protein 114

Today, Friday, has been a very good day. I had to work late last night till about 3am as I was oncall, but I slept till 7am and then came in to work. My blood sugar was at 67 this morning, so I ate a bowl of grits before I left the house. I brought a “box” of soup for lunch, V8 Corn Vegetable. No shakiness today. But right as I left work and got in my car, the cold sweats started. It is really odd. I stopped on the way home and got an unsweet tea from QT and ate a few sugarfree jellybeans. For dinner I had another V8 soup, Butternut squash. Very good!

Fri 1035 calories; 197 carbs, 24 protein (way too low protein. I need to make sure I get at least one protein shake in each day)

Part 1 of “back material”
As part of this blog, I want to revisit where this whole journey began for me. I turned 50 this year and am “obese”. Way too obese. It is obvious that I cannot or will not do anything about it, though I have tried several diets, exercise regimes and such. Nothing stuck. Except the weight! My father also was overweight, and he had a “lap band” inserted several years ago. He has lost some weight but it seems to be a battle for him to lose, gain, lose. I thought about the lap-band, but when I hit the big five-oh, I decided it was time to do something. Laurie and I talked about it for a long time – months – and I started a conversation with my family doctor, who has been encouraging me for 20 years to take care of this weight problem. I asked if he had a preference here in the Atlanta area – and also one that my health insurance company would work with. He gave me two choices: Atlanta Bariatric (Emory) and Obesity Solutions. Each group had a slick web page, and each offered a “informational seminar”. I decided to go with Obesity Solutions in Gainesville, GA based on that seminar. At the seminar there were about 30 people, along with one of the surgeons and several post-surgery patients. The surgeon, Dr. Richard, spoke to the group and showed a short video outlining what Obesity Solutions offers and briefly describing each of those options – be it lap-band, gastric bypass, or sleeve gastronomy. At this time Sleeve Gastronomy is not an “approved” procedure by most insurance companies and is primarily used for the super-obese as an in-between measure before performing gastric bypass. That ruled out the sleeve procedure for me! A Q&A session followed the video, then Dr. Richard turned over the rest of the session to the post-surgical patients for the group to ask questions of. Pamphlets were available and there were several staff members who were eager to answer any and all questions. A questionnaire was offered for those interested in looking into this procedure further, and I filled on out.

More to follow!

1 comment:

  1. I'm so glad you're documenting your journey. Priceless. I'm proud of you, Steve.

    ReplyDelete