................Chair Leading Squad...........

Welcome back my friends, I would like to take some time to briefly go over a time that is very important in the lives of Bariatric patients. The time I refer to is what I call the epiphany moment, yes I know that is redundant.
But before we get into that lets take a look at a few taste tests shall we.

             


                                                              and then there is this one

 So there's that. It was very nice of Syntrax to send me all these samples. Some companies have sent me samples and it's definitely a great help in losing so far. Now I know many people have told me that their tastes changed drastically immediately after surgery, I am hoping that doesn't happen to me.

    Now I started to talk about that epiphany moment. The moment when you realize your weight is running your life, and you need help to take back the control.  I asked some of the people over at Bariatricpal.com  about their epiphany moments and here is a small compilation of those moments. I will leave out the names for privacy reasons.

     First I will start off. For me it was in my doctors office. I went in for what i figured was pneumonia , yet again. I will preface that by saying  I get pneumonia a lot, a lot of it is due to a surgery I had for sleep apnea. The surgery is called a UPPP  which stands for Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty . It has to do with cutting out parts of the back of your mouth including removal of the uvula. 
 Well anyway I was in my doctors office, coughing  etc, and i had to stand on the scale to get weighed. Just a routine thing. Well i weighed in at 408 pounds. i stepped off and made them check the scale. It was right. I was stunned, one of the things people say is " how did you get that fat, didn't they know it." Well here is your answer.  No, you do not realize it until its too late. Well this  hurt so bad i started changing, and slowly i got myself down to the 361 starting weight  prior to the this pre-op diet phase. Here now are a few other stories.

Anonymous #1

I cracked a chair at a baby shower I hosted at someones house. I just pretended to stand and "present" for the rest of the shower and visit instead of sitting. Nobody noticed and I never told anyone. I was horrified. I never even told the lady that owned the house. I wonder how and when she found out about the chair and if she thought it was me that did it. She never said anything... but I have to do this surgery. I often dream of the things I could do with my kids. No more hiding. I want to LIVE this life!

Anonymous #2 

I had thought about doing the surgery for quite some time, since my weight seemed to just increase more and more, even though I was doing the diet thing, the gym thing, the OTC diet pill thing, and more. As all this was going on, each time I went to see my PCP, she seemed to discover something new...high blood pressure, arthritis, high cholesterol, and more...I think the final straw for me was when I heard the word DIABETES...I saw how that had affected my family, and how I think it contributed to me losing my mother. I didn't want to abandon my family and have them deal with any suffering, so I think that was my defining moment.  
Now I'm happy to say that I am no longer pre-diabetic, nor do I have any issues with cholesterol or blood pressure...this was truly life-saving for me!


Anonymous #3 

I was at a wedding this past spring that was held outdoors. Folding chairs and the huskier among us do not mesh. I made a fair attempt at doing some sort of shaolin monk partial sit/partial leg squat maneuver over the chair for the whole ceremony so as to not crash through that puppy during the vows. Not sure if anyone noticed, but it was uncomfortable and had me feeling less than proud of myself. Had a "what are you doing with your life" moment at that point. Realized that my previous efforts were coming up short, started looking into the band, and ultimately realized the sleeve was a good option for me. I had always thought that even though I was extremely overweight (BMI >50) I still wasn't weight-loss-surgery-overweight. Not really sure why or how I had convinced myself of that, but the decorative white folding chair respectfully disagreed. Shortly after that I came around as well. 



So as you can see there are many differences in why we all got to the same point. Why am I bringing this up? Well my goal besides the weight loss , is to help other men with information and the facts they need to get over the stigma of weight loss surgery.  The surgery doesn't make the decisions for you, it doesn't lose the weight. You still have to do that yourself, but the surgery will give you a helping hand..or  sleeve in this case.

 Now i think i mentioned this Thursday is the big day when I meet my surgeon again to get that final go ahead underway. My wife Hope, will be coming with me to meet my surgeon and ask any questions she may have. I know i still have a few, some about things like painkillers,  since after the surgery you can only swallow clear liquids, how do you administer any pain meds and nausea meds, ( nausea is common after this type of surgery.) maybe they use a patch or a liquid. Heck  medicinal pot would probably work, although i have no idea how that would affect the newly stitched up sleeve, not that we can even get that yet anyway. 
   So I am hoping that this is a great day. I will be sure to post that night afterward so you all will now where i stand. If the surgeon gives the go ahead, then we just have to file the pre-certification paperwork with my insurance company, and once that comes back, we get our date, unless we get it on Thursday and the do the paperwork after, I am not sure which. I am very very ready to get this going, this process is such a long one. I started this ball rolling in March, and we still do not have a surgery date. Others have had to wait years for this to be finalized. 
  I would like to post a shout out to Laurrie Sostman, I know I have mentioned how much My in-laws mean to me, and Laurrie just had cataract surgery the other day , and from what i hear it was a rough one, with a good amount of pain after the fact. We sent her some soup, (yes you can get soup delivered by mail look it up its a great service.) and we want her back on her feet reading my blog as soon as possible, she is one of my most fervent backers and I love her dearly. 
 Okay I think that is enough of your time for now, thank you for coming and here is the quote for today's post:

Dieting is not a piece of cake. ~Author Unknown